While we were out of touch

During my hiatus from regular blogging a few memorable things did occur. One of them was me getting to meet Harrison Ford in person. It was at a gala for Conservation International which I attended with several colleagues, one of whom was bold enough to march the group of us up to Harrison and ask that he take a photo with us.

This is where I would like to insert a photo of me with the Harrison Ford (well, Indiana Jones) life-size cardboard cutout that we had in our dorm suite sophomore year of college. Perhaps I will find it in my continued garage clean out effort.

Sign of things to come

The Andrew Show

My brother Andrew, who has so dramatically surpassed my knowledge of global geo-econo-politics that I try to avoid all related topics when they come up in conversation with him, is writing a blog as he bumps around South America. Check it out. It's pretty awesome. If I read it all I might actually be able to have a conversation with him about something smart when he gets back.

Fun times in Florida

We did just a few non-househunting things while in our future home state of Florida recently. We definitely should have done more but we also had to do a lot of feeling trapped whispering on the hotel balcony while Emerson napped in our room (hotel room bathroom not big enough to fit crib!) and a decent amount of trying to eat picnic-style meals in our hotel room with one plastic spoon and half a plastic knife (the cutting half, luckily). Something about house-hunting made us not want to spend any unnecessary money on anything.

But I was going to tell you about all the fun we had. One morning we walked down the block from our hotel to the Glazer Children's Museum where Emerson was happy to frolic in a tub of balls and play with any other balls he could get his hands on. The child:adult ratio at the museum was approximately 200:1 and I think Eric and I were each technically assigned to chaperone an entire third grade class. It was CHAOS in there. We decided to join since, you know, we'll be back there pretty soon and it seems like a good place to play without worrying about a sunburn.

We also took Emerson swimming one evening once the sun was low enough in the sky that we were reasonably sure his flesh wouldn't spontaneously combust. He wore his new red swim diaper and seemed to love floating around the pool, winking at young women in bikinis as he passed.

Our major fun event of the trip was to go see my family in Orlando. After seeing one last house Friday midday we hit the freeway and arrived at Brett and Dianna's for an early happy hour. It just happened to be Brett's 30th birthday and we were happy to join in the celebration which included joining the whole crew - my aunt and uncle Bill and Mary Lou, my cousin Katie and her dude Matt, and my cousin Brett, his wife Dianna and their almost-one year old Lucy - at the country club for swimming for the babies and a delicious poolside meal. Eric finally got the Florida thunderstorm he had been asking for all week; luckily most of us had finished eating before the downpour began.

After dinner we all went back to Brett and Dianna's for some cake and presents and then a babysitter showed up to stay home with the babies so we adults could all head out to a local bar. I tried not to visibly cringe when I heard Dianna say she thought we would probably be back by midnight when all I really wanted to do was crawl into bed (it being about 8:30pm) but I summoned up my bar-going enthusiasm and decided I would just think about staying up late as a jump-start to getting back on Pacific time. Of course it ended up being great fun to be out and the bar had thick-sliced house-made pickles to munch as needed. Thank you, pickle gods.

I'm excited that we will be nearer to my Orlando relatives. Seeing them on this trip reminded me of how much fun they are and I look forward to spending more time with them.

How (not) to buy a house

A few weeks ago, Eric, Emerson and I went to Tampa to check it out and see if we could buy a house before we get there on July 31.

Here's how we came up with our list of houses to look at:

We started with houses in South Tampa. This is an area that is near the University (short commute for Eric) and has the best public schools (we heart education).

Then we filtered by minimum number of bedrooms (3), minimum square footage (1,500) and maximum price (use your imagination). The minimum price should have removed all of the tear-downs but where it didn't, we took those off ourselves.

Then we cross referenced this list against the city flood zones and crossed off all the ones with any significant flooding risk.

Then we removed houses with asbestos or other known toxicity issues.

Then we took off the ones on major streets or within noise pollution distance of the highway.

Then Eric secretly took off all of the houses with decorative wood paneling.

We were left with 8 houses to look at, with a ninth that came on the market the last day we were there.

And to be honest, they were all dogs.

We really, really tried to make ourselves love them but it just didn't quite happen. And though we put in an offer on one of them, I think we (or maybe just I) may have been secretly relieved when it didn't work out.

Our new plan is to rent when we get there for a little while and keep house shopping. While on the one hand living in limbo for a while sounds excruciating, on the other hand we won't have committed to a home we don't at least like a whole lot if not love.

Even further off-piste (seriously)

I should have known when, during the massive Gulf oil spill last spring, I declared to Eric, in no uncertain terms, that I would never, ever, ever, in my life, no matter how long I live, swim in the Gulf of Mexico again*.

We are now moving to Tampa, Florida. In August.

Further proof that the word "never" in fact means "guaranteed to happen." I may have to eat my words.

Eric has accepted a job at the University of Tampa as an Assistant Professor and is really, really excited. I am really excited, and I feel like I will only have one ‘really’ until we get there and it isn't horrible.

I think this move is going to be great for our family and for me personally. It will mean I will actually have feeling in my extremities all year round (San Francisco’s constant chill keeps my hands and feet at a temperature that I think technically counts as cryogenically frozen) and we will be able to sit outside in the evening and drink a beer without wearing parkas, which is an important criteria in my definition of “the good life.”*

And if nothing else, it will force me to give up my big city San Francisco snobbery and my belief that living in a not-so-urban setting is the equivalent of soul death. That sounds like character building to me!

And so, I careen further off-piste toward, um, Florida. To say that this was not remotely on my radar would be a severe understatement and yet I am upbeat about this big change to come and am excited to embrace this wild, sweaty, alligatory new life that awaits.


*I am reasonably sure I have swum in it at least once but don't ask me exactly when that was.
**I have a feeling I might have to add an insect caveat to this at some point.

Mother's Day

Eric and Emerson have made Mother's Day very special for me. After a delicious breakfast, I got these flowers and this beautiful Tiffany vase, with a sweet handmade card. Thanks Emerson (and Eric)!