1. send out thoughtful, handwritten Christmas cards to all 60 people on my list
2. not be too sad I am away from my immediate family for the holidays for the first time ever (umm, already too late?) 
3. ship a bunch of presents to my nieces and nephew, and try and make them all extra super special with cool wrapping jobs to make up for the fact that I’m not there to give them a hug!
4. think of a fantastic thank-you present to give my aunt and uncle who so generously let us crash with them while we apartment-hunted in San Francisco
5. hang out with all of my Bay-area friends.  This includes Amy, Rune, Jon, (those three already accomplished), Yassi, Ron, Don, Pat, and my two cousins who live out here.
6. make at least one new friend out here (umm, Ivy? ) heehee
7. start lobbying people from home and NYC to come visit! Plan some spring visits.
8. keep running!  Bump up my mileage.  I did 5 miles in Golden Gate Park yesterday and am starting to feel good.  Also included in this goal are to be consistent and do daily stretching.
9. Get ready for my classes to start in January!  Make sure I am all set with registration, have the books, etc.  Get new binders/notebooks and be mentally ready to rock.
10. Pick out a midnight mass to go to Christmas Eve.  Plan something special with Earl for Christmas Eve.
11. Keep an ear to the ground for something fun to do on New Years.  We might just lay low this year seeing as we just got here (for example, we didn’t get season passes anywhere for skiing, because we wanted to recoup from the move/trip/vacation and sort of get to know the area), but I wouldn’t be opposed to something lowkey and fun.
12. Plan out what races I am doing this spring.  Right now I am thinking Napa Marathon, then Quicksilver 50, and maybe (maybe?!?!?) Headlands 100 in the summer.
13. Have fun with Linus and take him to the corgi faire next weekend and also the San Francisco-based corgi club meetup.  Work on our therapy dog application/vet referral.  Get that squared away so we can start volunteering together at hospitals.
14. Get my freaking computer fixed (argh argh argh).  Get my blog working properly again.  Get completely unpacked.  Get this apartment in a livable condition.  (Everything annoying that I don’t feel like dealing with is lumped into this one goal.)
15. To counteract above annoying goals, a fun one:  Finish up Earl’s super-special secret hopefully turning out wonderful christmas present!!!!
16. Even though we just got here and are barely unpacked, put up some Christmas decorations and try to make this place as home-y, cheery and holiday-spirit-y as possible.  I want mistletoe on the doorframes and hints of cinnomon wafting through the air.  And a tree!! Only a live one will do.  And it shall be STUPENDOUS!!!  No more fiber-optic fake plastic tree NYC bullshit.  Although, that is a lie, because I think I am going to keep the silly fiber-optic tree and put it out on our little mini patio (credenza?  I don’t know what you call that thing)  here   After all, we did ship it all the way across the country!
17. I know I won’t accomplish this one, so I don’t even know why I am writing it here, but it would be nice to bake some cookies for all of our new neighbors and give them in little wrapped up packages by way of introduction.
18. Earl’s singular goal for December is to “buy a couch ASAP because my butt hurts from sitting on this godd*mn floor.” grumble grumble, heh (see below pic from previous post).
19. Start learning more about this city and the surrounding areas.  Make a list of cool places to go, things to eat, etc.  Plan out some fun things to do!
20. Christmas music, nonstop.  Naturally.  This isn’t even a goal, it’s a FACT.  I would LOVE to find somewhere to go caroling out here, although like the cookies, I doubt that’s in the cards for me, at least this year.

It’s been a long weekend (week) but we are getting there.  This place is about livable, however we have no seating!

It cost roughly $4000 to ship our stuff cross-country while we traveled, and looking back on it now, this seems crazy expensive considering it feels like we barely brought anything!

Furniture we don’t have/didn’t bring, and need to get:

• desk for Earl.  He is being all picky about it and complaining he is “too tall” for the regular (cute) desks I am eyeballing and needs an extra special (ugly) one to accommodate those long limbs.
• desk for me, I don’t care I will take whatever. Mine is going in the bedroom so it doesn’t really matter what that one looks like anyways… Earl’s office will be right when you walk in in the hall/foyer area, so I’d like it to be at least kind of nice (r).
• couch!  I’d like to find an actual decent one this time, considering the debacle of a couch I had previously from La-Z Boy.  It was comfortable at first but “died” within a year when all the cushions suddenly went completely soft and floppy.  Was super comfy for naps, but that’s about it!
• chair?  may not be needed if we get a chaise sectional, but who knows
• kitchen table… again, we have nowhere to sit!
• chairs for kitchen table
• bedframe, as for now, the mattress and boxspring are on the floor
• TV… this is probably the least important item on the list because I doubt we will be getting cable.  Although DSL is included in our rent, so I don’t even know, does that have cable/TV in it?  lol, I am so out of the loop on that kind of stuff. It would be nice to have a TV to watch movies on something other than our laptops, I guess.
• while I am making a list of things we need to buy, we also need to get screens/scat pads/contraptions for the windows so that Lucy doesn’t plummet to her death.  We have these gorgeous, huge bay windows that open all over the apartment but they have no screens on them.  Queen Bitchy is already trying to jump up and sit on the windowsills, and she even escaped once and Earl found her on the fire escape.  It’s been a bit of an item of contention for a past two days, particularly when it’s been SO HOT while we’ve been moving stuff around/unpacking and I am dying for a cool breeze..lol.  I am like “let the freaking cat jump out, I don’t care anymore!”  Hopefully screens will be the VERY FIRST item we purchase of this list!!!

In the meantime, I am thinking maybe of just going to Pier 1 or something and getting a bunch of big pillows to sit on.  Once we lay down the rugs it won’t be so bad, either.

Here is the current state of our dining room.  You can see me in the reflection of the mirror, snapping the shot. Look, we are almost done, just a few more boxes! The boxes in the lower foreground on the right are going to Goodwill. I am happy we shipped those items all the way across the country to be donated. :-/

almost there!

And Earl, getting some work done in his new “home office”… for the time being:

not looking comfy

We are off to my cousin’s house in Los Gatos for some turkey.   Look who has already got some:

Linus with a squeaky turkey!

Everything in my life electronic/tech related decided to crash on me all at once.

Right now:

• My (new as of October!) laptop stopped powering on and just “whirrs” when it powers on.  Fortunately it’s still under  two-year warranty and has been brought to the HP Support store here in Pleasanton.  However, it won’t be fixed and ready for up to five business days, which with the holiday break kicks it out until the end of next week.   Of course we are moving into our SF apartment tomorrow, so this will mean a trip back out here next week. 
• Cell phone developed issue where it randomly powers down, in the middle of conversations, while just sitting there, or in my purse.  This is annoying but not completely urgent other than the fact that I use the phone for an alarm-clock as well, which means I have no dependable alarm clock until I bring the phone in and exchange it.  Should be under warranty as well but haven’t had a chance to bring it into a Verizon store to look at it.
• This blog has been having problems with our hosting company because there is a broken plugin which loops and takes up too much CPU % (or something).  So please bear with us while we get that fixed. 
• Meanwhile while my computer is broken I would normally just use Earl’s personal laptop this week, however his laptop is broken too!  Earl’s diagnosis at this point of the problem has only been “it’s a Dell and it’s crap.” 

Normally we’d have more time to look into and fix all of these things, but being in the middle of a cross country move and Earl commuting on BART every day from here in the burbs, moving to the new place etc has made our lives a bit of a whirlwind. 

 me:  any other technical difficulties in our life ?
my phone
my computer
my blog
YOUR computer
 Earl:  well, my mac works great
NO TOUCHING IT — I don’t want any of your technical problems to rub off onto it
 Sent at 11:47 AM on Monday
 me:  haha

Meanwhile here I am thinking “what is the point of dating a nerd if I can’t even have my freaking blog and laptop fixed?!”   In the meantime, despite being completely swamped in new job and long commute, he has been wonderful by spending lots of time giving tech-support to my aunt, uncle, cousins and even my mother long-distance in New Hampshire, so I guess at least my family has been benefiting!!  Aww, poor Earl. 

Hopefully everything will be fixed and up and running again soon.

I try and keep tabs on Tri-State Corgi Rescue, where we got Linus. Debbie, our wonderful rescue-coordinator has been so nice and helpful and remains an excellent resource whenever we have dog-related questions. Every couple of weeks I go on Petfinder and peruse all of their available and recent adoptions.

I’ve show some very fat corgis on this website before. Well, those pudge-sters don’t come anywhere close to the heft of this lady.
Meet Princess, who was lucky to find her way into the caring home of corgi foster care:

Princess, the 75-lb corgi

Looking at Princess (a corgi! barely recognizable as one- she looks more like a harbor seal!) brings on an mix of anger, frustration, and of course sadness. How can people let their dogs get like this? Can’t they tell that the dog isn’t as active anymore, or can’t navigate stairs as well, or is having other related issues?

Having fought the battle of the bulge on my own, I don’t feel much anger towards overweight HUMANS. It’s the libertarian side of me. If they want to be huge, so what. If they want to lose weight, they can. It’s as simple as cutting cals and exercising. But a DOG can’t make those distinctions. A DOG doesn’t know it’s obese, and can’t make the choice to go on a diet. Stewardship left to its master to make those judgement calls on how much food to dole out. A dog needs to be let outside, brought for exercise and have access to toys and places to run around. Seeing these irresponsible owners and what results infuriates me. A 75lb female corgi!??! WTF is WRONG with these people?!?!

Amazingly, Princess doesn’t have many health issues other than the extra weight. She is being fostered until she sheds some pounds. TSCR is putting her on a weight loss regimen of water aerobics (Deb informed me that she loooves the water although isn’t crazy about running on the treadmill) and a diet of lots of veggies. She apparently loves people and wags her tail at everyone and carries her stuffed sheepie around everywhere (aww- feel those heartstrings being plucked?).

If you would like to donate to help Princess and those who volunteer their time and homes to help her, you can doso by sending a check to sent to Cheat Lake Animal Hospital, 286 Fairchance Rd, Morgantown, WV 26508, attn: Dr. Stephanie Shepherd, for the account WV Corgi Rescue, or on paypal here. Even just $30 will help pay for her to have one session at the vet on the treadmill. Princess vows to send out thank-you cards for each donation, and hopefully will be slimmed down and ready for a forever home very very soon!

Here is Linus’ BLUE Buffalo Trading card. 

Linus BLUE card

We feed him BLUE buffalo food (we get him chicken and brown rice for seniors because it has small “morsel” bites which are better for his lacking teeth!) and the other day when I was pouring the food out of the GIANT package into his smaller container, a trading card fell out. It was for a very cute dog from Cape Cod. We went online and saw we could make our own cards, and did it. If anyone buys BLUE Buff food and you see the above card come out, let me know!

Yesterday we signed the lease on our new place. It’s official, we are San Franciscans. We shall need to start wearing flowers in our hair.

Moving in on December 1st. Agggh, coming up so fast (like this entire move)! I am sure, however, that my aunt and uncle will be glad to be rid of us. They have been amazing and very gracious hosts. We’ve had so much fun staying with them, but it will be nice to finally have more than three outfits and stop living out of a suitcase.

The new place is 1 block north of the Haight/Ashbury, on Buena Vista Park. The park was a big reason I liked it, to have a place to play/run with Linus during the mornings. Buena Vista Park is off leash, can you believe it! That’s nuts… and would never fly in NYC. The Haight/Ashbury has tons of restaurants and cafes and whatnot, so it should be fun checking all of them out.

The neighborhood seemed to be a good compromise location-wise for our respective commutes. I’ll have a 10 minute walk to UCSF School of Medicine and Earl has a 20-minute muni ride to his office. We both, however, have to walk up/down two blocks of ENORMOUSLY STEEP HILL!!! Guess the name “Buena Vista” is valid. We do have a really nice view of both the park and the city from our windows, however, so I guess that hike will be worth it. Not to mention the toning! My friend Don recently informed us that Buena Vista Park “is like a truck stop for gays” (which the wiki entry verifies), so perhaps Earl will reap more attention from a toned toochis than I.

Here are some photos of our new pad. Once we’re moved in and unpacked, I’ll take some more. It’s a 1br with an office. We had been *maybe* hoping/looking for a 2br, however this place was adorable and within our budget, so we took it. Alas, all of you visitors will have to stay on the couch. But at least you’ll have the fireplace to warm you up!

Living Room with working (!!!) fireplace

There are lots of old, antique-y details such as original molding from 1910 and all of the original door-handles, etc. It was the only place I looked at that had loads of character, felt sort of “grown up” and home-y at the same time. I spent two days seeing apartment after apartment, and I felt like lots of them either were these swank luxury co-op types or just really basic dorm-rooms. This was the only apartment I walked into and it felt like a “home.” Something about big, planned buildings (you know the type- with the gym and the common areas, long long hallways, etc) makes me recoil. I liked how this building only has 6 units, and everyone seems friendly (and has dogs!). Something about a smaller building… a bit of a warmer essence.

Dining Room

The building has garage parking included and also a large backyard with a koy pond, BBQ and garden. Those are some perks you don’t get in Manhattan!

Building

I am so, so excited to move in. To be honest, with all this traveling, I am craving feeling settled. I think it will be good for the animals, too. It can’t be healthy for Linus to have been waking up in a different hotel room every day for three and a half weeks. For a while there I wondered if he thought we just lived in the Jeep permanently, and his new life consisted of being inside the kennel for long drives!

“First you stuff me in a box for 12 hours on a very long plane ride, and NOW THIS?!?”

lucy bath

fluff and dry cycle

i am such a jerk for laughing… but, ha ha ha.

Luces, welcome to California!
Silly cat.

I’m letting Linus in the bed with me while he is flying back to NYC to get our cat.

heeheehee.

huggled

But, I’m allowed to break the rules today, because I’m really sick.

snuggled

I’ve been out of commission all day. This nasty cold/sinus infection with lots of snuffy, headaches, nose blowing and lethargy. Most likely a product of too much running around, throwing nutrition out the window during the roadtrip ( !! ), lots of changing climates as we drove around the USA, and things having been pretty hectic since we’ve arrived here in Cali. So, I know I did this to myself.
Oh well, a day in bed to recoup. Poor Earl flew out at 6:30am to pick up the cat and is flying back right now with her. His flight’s already been delayed twice so he should get in around 2:30 or 3am! Aye!

Hi hi

Sorry for the lack of posts but we had a few days hiking and traveling through the mountains of CO and Utah and I didn’t really have internet. Also we had a few LONG travel days thrown in there so when it came to bedtime all I wanted to do was just snuggle up and pass out.

I’ll be putting up the rest of the trip starting tomorrow and then over the next week. We had an amazing time, and I am so happy to be here in San Francisco but also sad it’s over. Living out out a suitcase is something I won’t be missing.

California time is cool change- despite being exhausted last night I woke up this morning in Lake Tahoe at 7:30am completely well-rested and ready for a nice run.

Will be updating with photos and write ups of the rest of the trip tomorrow!