Emuzines

Internet is finally up and running for us  Comcast wasnt much help other than being sure to charge us $75 for a monkey to screw is a few cables, plug things in, and turn it on.  I could have done that myself for free.  Ive got lots of cable orgazization to do.  Im always picky about them being bundled and neat.  The neighbors were lucky enough in my laziness to recieve free wireless temporarily until this morning when I secured it.  Im considering being nice and just leaving it open in spite of comcast.  In any case if anyone asked me to use it I probably would allow them.  We also have TV now which I never really watch but without a couch does it matter anyway?  Couches are still backed up and we are unsure when we will be receiving them.  Telephone is 100% go as well with unlimited long distance and local calls I think.  It connects through then cable modem and the internet so im guessing its VoIP and is a flat rate for any type of calls.

The dog is still spoiled and now that I think about it she might have snuck on the bed to sleep.  Katie doesnt allow her on the bed anymore and JoJo is so sad about it.  Lets get picture evidence of how happy she is.

“‘Mommy Im so tireds, Puhlease can i sleep on your pillow while you are at work and school?’”

She is now sadly sleeping in her own bed in the office.  Gonna have to do some hair removal to hide the evidence so JoJo and I dont get in trouble.  She is still having her ear infection problems but the vet up here is taking it very serious and thinks the original one has never been completely eliminated.  JoJo is getting her treatment with follow up visits until the infection is gone.  Hopefully this will be the last of it, unless she goes swimming!

Its Bachelor party this weekend.  There are eleven of us going camping and I expect it to be a great time.  I havent been camping in years.  Last time must have been when I was a Boyscout.  More on that upon my return sunday.

We finally have internet!!  What a PAIN it was to have to trek to the apartment’s office everyday to use their slow and always-breaking wireless.  Although there were some problems with getting the internet up and running (which I’m sure Nik will post about after he’s down from his initial high of Spore-playing), it’s working now and it’s great!  So convenient…

Today was a pretty busy day.  There were those internet issues and then we went to check out Wag Hotel (waghotels.com), which is where we’re going to leave poor Jo a couple of times in November.  It’s a very, very fancy…hotel…with a great big swimming pool, a chef, blueberry facials, paw pad massages, web cams, etc.  It’s a little over-the-top but the poor little girl deserves it.  My only regret will be that I won’t be there to see her swim, something I’ve always wanted to do with her.  And you know me…I didn’t order her a blueberry facial…the restraint…

Anyway, I have to mention how awesome my “cohort” at school is.  We’ve all quickly bonded into a great group, and actually choose to spend time together in boring rooms, for example, than go home separately.  Here they are!  Here, we were faced with 2 or 3 free hours since our first class lasted 15 minutes (5 minutes of which were joke-telling about horse poop).  We took a picture and then hung around and chatted.  More about them as time progresses…

I’m off to read some more.  It never stops, although I’m pretty far ahead and proud of myself for that.  My mom comes up to visit this weekend (yay!), so I want to be even farther ahead so that I don’t have to read while she’s here.  Dinnertime soon, too.  We’re becoming good cooks!

A quick post to share my excitement for fall.  My wonderful mom sent me a fall care package yesterday, chock full of fall decorations, including pumpkin-scented candles and an autumn cookbook (and tons more).  I’m so excited.  I went to the grocery store to pick up all the ingredients to make pumpkin soup tomorrow night, and Nik’s even agreed to taste it!  (He has backup hot dogs, just in case).

We attempted fondue for the first time last night, and are extremely proud of ourselves.  Our cheese fondue was perfect and tasted just like Melting Pot’s cheddar one.  It was incredible.  The main course broth was modeled after Melting Pot’s mojo broth.  It was tasty and very flavorful but a little too spicy for me.  We had Italian-marinated chicken and veggies to dip.  It was verrrrrry good.

Not too much else is going on.  We had a lazy morning today.  We made pancakes and I studied in my pajamas for awhile, then we went shopping.  We can’t stop shopping!  Hope everyone back home is doing well.

I’ve written a lot of posts in my head, both during my week home and since we’ve been back here in Davis.  When I was home, I was too busy with fun to want to sit down and post, and in Davis, I don’t have internet except for the time I want to spend in the apartment Club House using their slow and oft-breaking wireless (in which case, I’m frustrated trying to send out work- and school-related e-mails, looking into LCSW licensure, trying to save web pages I need to print onto my desktop so I can come home and print them later…).  In other words, life without internet is sort of a pain.  Now, I’ve organized a free afternoon, and am using the time before our dining table gets delivered to write a post in Word, and I’ll somehow post it later.

As I usually say, things here are good.  They really are.  I haven’t started school yet, but I’ve been to some orientation activities (optional, how great is that?…hence my free afternoon…), had some TB testing, physical stuff at the UC Davis Medical Center (Employee Health Services, which makes me feel special), and yesterday I went to meet with my mentor at the MIND.  She introduced me around to everybody, showed me my office (!), and told me a bit about what I’ll be doing, or what my options are.  I talked to her about gaining hours to get my LCSW (clinical license as a social worker), and she’s really excited about making it happen for me.  She has no doubt it’ll work there.  So basically, I’m an employee at the MIND, getting paid to work there, getting my LCSW hours, getting course credit, earning my Ph.D., working on projects and papers and chapters (I can’t wait until I’m published) with some incredible people, and looooooooving it there.  I am so honored and so excited.  They do such great work and have really positive far-reaching impact on the autism field.  I love, love, love it.

School is there in my mind, too, but almost as a backdrop.  I’ll only be taking two courses this quarter and getting the rest of my credits through research at the MIND.  I begin classes next Thursday, late-night classes.  Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been going to some orientation activities, the ones that I think would be helpful for me.  They really have been, for the most part.  And on the first day, I found myself lost in a building on campus, trying to navigate its twists and turns to find the correct lecture hall.  I saw another lost person out of the corner of my eye, turned around, and realized it was one of the two girls I already know.  Since this week of orientation is for all graduate students, masters and Ph.D., in all fields, to find her right away was pretty lucky.  She’s been my buddy all this week and that feels nice.

Last night Nik and I headed to downtown Sacramento to go to dinner at the Melting Pot.  We had tons of food in the fridge at home, because we haven’t quite figured out yet how to shop and cook for just the two of us.  Anyway, we still went, and it was delicious as always.  We missed our Melting Pot double date partners, though!

Something else that is still on my mind is my week of fun back in LA.  My aunt Sharon came to visit and we took her to Santa Monica and Pasadena…where we got stuck, literally, in the middle of a fight between an Apple Store security guard/police officer and a thief.  It was a long struggle and eventually a failed arrest (unless they caught his getaway car later), but we were really stuck in the middle of it.  We actually had to flee down the sidewalk, being at most 5 feet from the struggle, and run into another store to avoid getting held as hostage or shot or stabbed.  We decided to watch the fight play out from the store windows, risking the gun thing, when the police officer threw the assailant against the window right into our faces!  It was quite entertaining but pretty scary.  This all came right after Sharon was talking about how, despite its reputation, she didn’t really think LA was too crime-ridden.

Also last week, Mandi had a lot of really fun birthday celebrations.  I had sooo much fun at them and I hope she did, too.  Happy birthday! 

Time to wrap it up.  Just a side note to praise JoJo, who is being quite exceptional in good behavior in her new home.  I don’t know what to make of it.  She’s being so good.  She’s learned all the new rules (stay OFF the bed, stay OUT of the kitchen when Mommy and Daddy are in it, potty on the leash, be QUIET when Mommy and/or Daddy leave, NO trash, etc.).  She’s calm and she listens and she hangs out or plays quietly.  Maybe she’s growing up, or maybe all the walks every day are good for her.  In any case, I’m so proud of her.  Such a good girl.

So…Nik and I spent the past few days moving in.  The drive up wasn’t bad…actually, it was sort of fun.  I played games with myself such as, “How many miles can I go without having to alter my cruise control?” and “Can Nik and I match our cruise controls EXACTLY, leaving neither of us having to brake?”  I found some good radio stations, I watched tomatoes fall off of tomato trucks, I saw some baby cows, and I talked to Mark and my mom with my Jawbone.  We made a few stops, which helped the body aches immensely, and we arrived happily.  We stayed in my favorite Davis hotel the first night, and got up early the next day to get our keys.

The apartment is really cute.  Certain rooms are a lot bigger than I remembered.  The bathroom has a double sink and is huge, and the living room is going to allow us to get a gigantic 3-piece sectional.  The bedrooms aren’t quite so huge, and we are splitting up the Pottery Barn furniture throughout the apartment in order to get it all.  We’re hoping to move into a bigger place (a house?) after this year, so we’ve been buying with that mindset.  Make it work this year, so we have it for the future.  Speaking of buying, we’re nearly done with purchasing all of the furniture.  We just have to get the nightstands and find some bookshelves.  Like Nik said, our couch won’t be delivered for awhile, but we really love it!  We have done a ton of work on the place (especially Nik), and it’s looking good.  He has been very busy putting furniture together and his hands are covered in blisters.  He got a bit of reprieve when Sarah and Foti came up to help (our first visitors and huge helpers, thank you!!).  I tried to help a bit but I’m better at…washing the dishes…and…coordinating colors in the bathroom towels…than using a screwdriver.  Oh!  And then he bought an electric one, which made his day.

We spent the evenings going out to eat and watching Sex and the City.  It’s been quite fun.  We are now back in L.A. for the week.  My fun Aunt Sharon is coming into town tomorrow, and we have a lot of plans.  I have been cuddling with Logan a lot and he’s such a LoveBug.  And today is my sister’s birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MANDI!), so we’re doing a few fun celebrations.  I’m so excited for my plans.  We leave again on Saturday with JoJo.  Hopefully we JoJo-proofed the place (i.e. picked up spare screws and nails from building desks) enough so that her initial exploration of the place goes well. 

Oh, please send me letters at my new place!  They would make me so happy

Katie and I just got back into L.A. tonight.  Without internet up there im terribly bored and since comcast wont be coming out till the end of September the boredom might last another two weeks.  The majority of our move is complete and we now return home to tie up lose ends and pick up the dog.  All the furniture is purchased and we are only waiting on its delivery which may not be until the end of October for the couch.  Had I known they would take so long id have made that purchase much further in advance.  We are leaving again on Saturday morning for our final trip.  Further posts if I do any will be made from my iPhone and later edited since i cant type a damn on this thing.  Once the we are up and running with Internet on our computers expect many more posts to flood in.

Melissa wrote me a letter (thank you!).  In it, she noted that I handle stress and change serenely, and that if she was doing what I am doing right now, she’d have written lots of “oh my gosh I’m so stressed out” blogs.  I thought, huh, maybe I’m not honest enough in my blogs.  I do, as explained earlier, try to actively ignore the negativities of my move.  But I have had moments of sheer terror (ok, fear…intense fear), I walked into Nik’s room last week, burst into tears, stamped my foot like a 4-year-old denied chocolate (or me as a 25-year-old denied chocolate), and cried, “I don’t wanna move!,” and I have had a pretty consistent stomach ache.  Whew.  There it is.

However, I DO feel pretty serene right now and I’m ready to begin my studies.  And I am happy that my perfect school ended up being in California.  I remember considering such places as Baton Rouge and Albany and other northern New York cities I can’t even remember now, and THAT was pretty scary.  Then I walked into the MIND Institute and met with my future mentor.  It just clicked into place.  She is an icon in the autism field, brilliant, friendly, available, and wonderful.  She is enthusiastic about autism and research and even about ME.  She had all these great ideas for me and planned out my involvement and, heck, she brings her dog into work on the weekends.  As I was leaving she said that she hoped to meet my mom one day, and offered me a job.  I left, stunned, and said to my mom in the car, “I think I have a grad school, a mentor, and a job.  At THIS PLACE!” (it’s gorgeous and, risking further bragging, reputable).  It was just perfect.

I’ve mostly given up on my obsessive fear of forgetting something I’ll desperately need the moment I arrive.  I am armed with toilet paper, Clorox wipes, detergent, and soap.  I am less stressed and finally get Nik’s point that…Katie, we can buy it when we’re there.  I *am* a little nervous about the drive, not breaking down or anything, but about the sheer boredom of it.  I have not done that drive without being a sleeping passenger.  I don’t even GET how I can drive so far as to use up my whole tank of gas and more.  That’s a lot of minutes sitting in the car, awake.  So everyone, please feel free to call me tomorrow afternoon.  I would desperately appreciate the distraction.  And Mom, I’ll call you when I get there.  You can call me after your classes, too, or at lunch.

I took a great picture of JoJo frolicking through our packed stuff tonight (she used Nik’s pile of clothes and brand new suit as a springboard to jump onto the couch).  But, alas, I have packed my camera cord, and I can’t post it.  Lots of pictures to come of moving and settling in.

…is a big one!  We’re moving on Thursday.  I have been slowly getting ready (physically and emotionally, I guess) for awhile, so I’m pretty prepared.  Although…I have to admit I’m still half in denial, and half excited.  I think I listed random things that I’m excited about in another post…it’s the little things that get me happy.  I am also pretty hopeful about fall being a pretty season up there, and Nik said that he’d instruct JoJo to bring Mommy some pretty fall leaves home from her walks.  I want to do lots of fall-y things, not only because the fall scrapbook supplies are so cute (…), but because I loooove all things fall.  I already picked my pumpkin soup recipe.  So…I’m excited about a lot of things.  I’m actively ignoring the things I am scared about…and focusing on happy things and on planning things to look forward to.  We’ve arranged the move so that I get to come and see my Aunt Sharon next week, before out second trip up to Davis.  She’s always a ton of fun (i.e. human pyramids, rolling on pool tables, Scooby Snacks, and Twister) and will be in LA for just a little while for her friend’s wedding.  Hopefully, I’ll also be able to fit in some more birthday celebrations for Mandi (Disneyland!) and as much more fun as possible.

So here’s our adorable new front door.  I don’t know what it is that I like so much about it.  Maybe the turquoise frame (which sounds terribly tacky until you see it).  The apartment complex is beautiful and in a great area, and…it has a washer and dryer in unit–my greatest selling point which Nik was pretty neutral about.  I like to wash one shirt at a time…they’re delicate…  We’re within walking distance of downtown Davis and lots of restaurants, but far enough away that it’s very quiet and secluded.  We’re also a short jump on the freeway away from downtown Sacramento, where I’ll be working and which I fell in love with on my first trip up there.  It’s a really cool downtown.

Speaking of which, with all of the preoccupation regarding the move, I’ve barely thought about or prepared for what this is all about…getting my Ph.D.  When I think about that I am extremely excited, especially about where I’ll be researching, at the MIND Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders–http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/MINDInstitute/).  This place is the reason that I chose UC Davis.  It is the top-notch research institute for autism in the world, and I can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to work there from day one!  My Memere says that they’re lucky to have ME…but seriously, this place is incredible.  I can’t wait to start there and to find a cure for autism.  That is what this is all about…

Katie suggested we take JoJo on a walk today and for whatever unknown reason, I’m usually against the idea and resist with all my efforts.  Today I lost the battle and gave in knowing that I will have to get into the habit anyway with our new move to Davis, CA.  As usual, JoJo’s excitement is overwhelming at just the sight of her harness and leash.  It takes some effort and we finally get her ready to go.  She tugs quite a bit at first but after some restraint and about half the block, she settles into a more manageable pace.  She does make the oddball attempt at stepping in front of me and this usually ends with me stepping on one of her four little feet.  She picks up that it’s a bad idea really quickly.  We also had brought along her new portable water bowl and bottle to see if she would drink out of it…she failed.  I’m a bit concerned with having to drive her up with us.  I plan to make frequent potty breaks and hopefully she gets thirsty enough to drink.  This picture was taken after her walk and she is clearly exhausted laying next to Katie.  I must admit her behavior does improve after even the shortest of walks.