Meeting with Steve

There are sometimes moments in my life that I want to hold on to. Sometimes, I hold on to them because they scare me. Other times, I hold on to them because they were very important times. I have also chosen to dwell on some that just make me smile or laugh. I think that each of these emotions and moments are equally important. This one I hold on to for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it hurts to move away from what I am remembering.

I sat with Steve today for a few hours, talking to him at his house. I have met with him many prior times and talked about many similar things. We talked about my moving to New York, about my track to be a professor, about mutual friends, and about the state of things. We talked, just the two of us, for a long while until it was becoming hard for him to breathe. And so the realities of our situation decided for both of us that, for tonight, we should end our conversation. The difference was that this time, both of us were wondering when we would sit down together again.

On the drive to Steve's, which takes about 40 minutes, I was thinking about what I would say when we got to this part of the conversation. I did not want to highlight anything that would make him feel down. But I also did not want to miss the chance to say some things that were important to me. We both said those things. We decided a good way to keep in touch would be for me to send back some footage I shot around New York since he missed seeing the city, and I mentioned that I hope to fly back for the triathlon next year. He told me to be safe and wished me luck; I told him I would see him next time. Those were our closing words as I stepped out of the door.

Walking to the car, the clouds overhead thundered. I drove home thinking about the change that had just occurred and vowing to stay in touch. On the radio, Natalie Walker was ironically singing that "this is not the end," and though in a very different place than that song, I agreed. It rained as I finished heading home.

There was no happy way I knew to make this transition. But it was one that had to be made, and I understand that. The shape that our friendship takes will depend on how we both craft it. What it will become will not be the same as what it was before, but that does not mean it will be any worse or less valuable. The change still hurts.

When Steve and I talked, we remarked that the things that change our lives the most are usually the things that we cannot see coming. And so I decided to share this moment. Because neither you nor I can say whether I will have the chance to do so tomorrow.

General update

Hanneke has done the last few updates, so it's time for me to catch up. Lately I've been mostly focusing on setting up all the account-related transfers for the move and a few things at work. As Hanneke mentioned a few days ago I smashed my knee into a door handle (it's a semi-long story) a week or so ago and managed to bang it up a good bit. But I iced and wrapped and elevated and it's mostly fine now. I was in seeing the doctor about a temporary hearing problem so I had him look at the knee. He ordered two x-rays but felt confident they'd probably be negative. I suspect he's right.

Around the homesitting-home, things have been pretty pleasant. Hanneke has done a lot of the dog care lately, almost all of it, since I wasn't walking much the first few days after the knee-meets-door incident. The ferrets have had some fun here but we look forward to getting them their own room again.

Not much else to tell. We spent most of Friday night painting with our prior landlady at our old place. It was kind of fun. Maybe we'll paint the new place if the landlord allows it. Then again, it's going to be a long year of budget-watching. So maybe that's a bad idea.

No word yet on my classes schedule, I hope I ended up getting those I sought. There were more than a few that I would not be surprised (but would be disappointed) to have not won in the bidding process.

More updates to come probably, though we'll soon go radio-silent for the move.

More pics and a yard sale story

Here are a few more pictures of the place we are staying right now. It has been a very nice space for us. The dogs are fun (although they do take work), and we have especially been enjoying the ice/water dispenser in the fridge door.

These are my favorite flowers here. They are right by the entryway. They bloom every morning, and by noon they have usually fallen off (from the heat, I suppose). But they reappear every morning, and they are so bright and cheery.

Last weekend, we had a yard sale (our last one here, thank goodness). Now that we have some experience with yard sales in Tallahassee, I felt like I had most things figured out. I know that if you say 7am on the sign, someone will be there at 6am. (In fact, there is a good chance someone will stop by the day before to get an early look.) There will be some negotiating in terms of prices, and electrical items will need to be plugged in so it is clear that they work. But one thing happened at the yard sale last Saturday that I did not expect. Brian thought it was a pretty funny story, so I thought I'd share it here.

Our yard sale was set to start at 7am, so I wanted to have everything set up by 6:30 at the latest. I got everything out in the yard and organized. I hauled out a chair and the radio and prepared to greet customers. The first person came around 6:30. She was a younger-looking lady (like me), and spent a little time looking at the stuff we had spread out on the driveway. Finally, she decided that the nail polish collection would be a good gift for her young daugther. I asked for $10 (there were over 20 different colors of polish in there), and she counter-offered with $5. We agreed on $5 (I really wanted to get rid of stuff at the sale), and she gave me a $10 bill. So I headed inside to get some change. I only had one $1 bill (this was our first customer), so I came back with 5 dollar coins. Dollar coins are relatively common, so I was taken aback when this lady looked at the coins and returned them to me. "That's not real money!" she declared with certainty. I explained to her that dollar coins had been around for a long time and were real money, but she refused them, grabbed her $10 back, and left in a huff. Now I'm not really a super morning person, so I realise that I was a little out of it still. But it did set a bad tone for the start of the sale, although after selling a few items, I did get over it. I was just so blown away that this lady had never seen a dollar coin before and accused me of trying to swindle her.

Some pics

To go along with the news only posts from the last weeks, here are some pictures of this summer's happenings.

We moves from here:
To here:

We also went to a very nice going away party for Brian given by his work. There are several people who are leaving at some point this summer, so it was a joint party. There was a lovely chocolate cake for the occasion:

Along with many friends from the court, and plenty of Mexican food:

We have also been spending a lot of time with animals, both dogs and ferrets. Here you can see Eve, showing off her climbing skills by scaling the laundry.

Keeping busy

Well, this month is moving along quickly for us, as we try to finish stuff up before moving northward. I am spending long days in the lab to make sure I can finish everything. We have our apartment choices narrowed down to a top three, and we hope to have a friend check them out in person next weekend. We had our last yard sale today (I hope it will be a long time before I need to plan one of these again), and all the leftovers went to charity already, so they are out of the house. The yard sale was a little more tiring than I expected, since Brian hurt his kneee quite badly yesterday, so he has been staying off his leg as much as possible. That is good for his knee, but that meant that I had to handle setting up for the sale myself, and I sat in the yard selling stuff for most of the morning while Brian took care of his knee in bed with Tylenol and ice packs. Luckily. now he says it is feeling a bit better. I need to go, to help pack ice on the knee again now. Wish Brian a speedy recovery!

Good news from NSF

I heard from the archaeology program director at NSF today. He is going to recommend that my project proposal gets funding, based on several positive reviews. This is great news!