The Goodbye Week

I walked into Voxx coffee in Eastlake on Tuesday afternoon.  It looked just the same as it looked in July, before all of this started, when I was just getting an inkling that maybe I might possibly have the strength to make the right choice for me.  That maybe I might have the strength to quit the program.  My colleague Samer sat at just the same table, with his laptop and dissertation materials spread out just the same as in July.  It was almost as if nothing had changed, but these last few months have been momentous for both of us.  He's had a hit show go up and tour in Israel, he's scheduled his dissertation defense, he's preparing for a conference in Australia.  I've quit my program and have started carving out a new path for myself.  I'm moving across the country in a few days.  Luckily, our paths crossed just long enough to say hello and goodbye.

This whole week has been full of goodbyes.  On Thursday I said goodbye to Liz.  We met at Smith, where we first had cocktails and corn fritters before the start of classes in 2011, when I was new to Seattle and didn't know anyone, and where since there have been many nights of cocktails and gossip.  It was hard saying goodbye to Liz, but I know deep down we'll see each other again soon.  Then last night I went to Peets with Katie for coffee, our usual place.  We had lattes and cookies and talked about writing and teaching and PhDs and the future.  I'm going to miss having Katie and Dan as next door neighbors more than I can say, but again, I'm hopeful that we'll be back to visit them and we won't lose touch.  Thank goodness for the internet.

Tonight is our final game night with Sarah and Cass.  This, too, will not be the easiest of goodbyes.  I know I will keep up with them and their lives, but it's not the same as having them just a short drive away with a house full of good food and Game of Thrones episodes and Munchkin. Tomorrow my mom arrives, I'm due for a few more farewells to some dear friends, the movers come on Monday, and then it's goodbye Seattle.  

A Week from Today

A week from today the moving truck arrives to collect our bedroom set, our TV and the TV stand that Zan put together when he was visiting a year ago, our kitchen supplies, and our desks.  Then begins the drive back.  It's a cold, rainy Seattle day and I'm happily existing inside with homemade lemon muffins and beef stew and two warm kitties curled up next to me on the quilt we've spread on the floor where the couch used to be.  Later I'll need to make a Target run to get those said kitties carriers for the drive home.  In one week, I'll be leaving this apartment forever.  Hard to believe.

Last night, Zan and I got to see Megan's boyfriend, Chris!  This was the first time I've gotten to really hang out with him, though I met him briefly about a year and a half ago.  He's delightful!  He was visiting Seattle for a conference-- perfect timing, since we're leaving so soon!  We picked him up in Capital Hill when his conference was over and the three of us had dinner and drinks at Smith, then stopped in at a coffee shop in Belltown called Bedlam.  The place had a plethora of board games, and we picked the Titanic one because it looked so awful and irreverent.  We didn't actually play it, more just gawked at it and read the spaces ("Lose Your Life Vest," "Ask A Steward Why the Ship Stopped, Pay $50," "Left Family at Bridge, Lose a Turn").  Very terrible.  The point of the game was to gossip/buy your way into first class and onto a life boat before the ship sank.  The worst that could happen was ending up in steerage.  We're assuming this game didn't sell very well.  (There are pictures: when I get them I'll post them.)

Then we had such a wonderful talk about academia and theater.  It was really nice and it made me feel more excited about finishing up my applications (really, trying to write personal statements is the worst).  At around 9:45 we bid Chris adieu at the Cinemascope and he gave us a lovely bar of olive oil/lemongrass soap. I hope I get to see him and Megan again very soon!

And in just a week... everything ends so that everything can begin.

The 5th Annual Halloweentown Party

Last night I hosted the 5th Annual Halloweentown Party.  A different cast of characters showed up to witness this spectacular event, but in general it was much like last year's Halloweentown Party.  We gathered with a bowl of popcorn, a chocolate-caramel pecan pie (made by Zan), chips and dips, wine, pumpkin ale, and spiked apple cider for the best-worst movie of the season!

It was a fitting send-off for our couch, which went the way of a Craigslist buyer this morning.  We have so little furniture left in the main room now-- the couch and endtables, chair, and both bookcases have been sold and taken away.  Our books and DVD cases are boxed up in the office.

So the 5th Annual Halloweentown party served as the last gathering in our little apartment which has been so full of memories.  And this was such a happy gathering!  Last night brought home how much I will miss my friends here in Seattle.  How odd that in only a week and a half I'll be driving back to Virginia to start a new chapter of my life.  But, I'm excited to begin that chapter.  I hope I'm back in time to start it with brightly colored leaves on Duke of Gloucester Street and apple cider and gingerbread under the bluest of autumn skies. 

Kitty Troubles

Felix the cat is ill again.  He's had to spend the last two nights at the vet.  I'm really worried about him-- and about my financial ability to care for him.  If he makes it through this he'll have tons of medicine that I have to pay for, and he has to go on a special diet pretty much for forever, which will get expensive.  Then if he has a re-blockage... that won't be cheap.  And if he needs surgery for this, I'm not sure I can afford it-- especially after last month's Emergency Vet bill.  But he's the sweetest most wonderful cat in all the world and I don't even want to think about horrid possibilities.  The vet should call later this morning to let me know how he fared through the night, and I'm a little nervous about it all.  Has anyone else had kitty troubles?  What did you do about them?

Look to my right and I see the Hollywood sign

Grauman's Chinese Theater and the Walk of Fame.  Ice cream and vanilla cokes at the Disney Soda Fountain on Hollywood Blvd.  Finishing Lys's ice cream cone.  Seeing the inspiration for "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror."  Going past Sunset.  Going past Mulholland Drive.  Seeing the CBS Backlot across from Jinky's Studio City Cafe.  The Hollywood sign.  Griffith Observatory and the Tesla Coil.  Seeing all of Los Angeles spread out before us stretching to the ocean.

Thank you Lys and Zach for a wonderful L.A. holiday!

*all photos by me, Zan, Lys Petersson, or Zach Laliberte.  Please do not use without credit.

Here I am for the first time

I've never been to L.A. before.  You can't see the Hollywood sign from LAX.  In fact, I still haven't seen the Hollywood sign and I've been here since Sunday.  But it's been quite fun, nevertheless-- and productive!  On Sunday, Zan and I spent most of the afternoon catching up on sleep, then we went over to Lys and Zach's friend's house for dinner.  It was a lovely little party with kale salad and grilled cheese.  The next day, we didn't do too much during the day, since Zan and Lys were prepping for the GRE and a music video shoot.  But in the evening we went into Hollywood (no, I didn't see the sign-- see above) for writer's group-- a screenwriting group that Lys and Zach belong to.  Then, yesterday, I stayed home in the apartment all day working on grad school apps (and watching Last Holiday. What, I discovered it was on Netflix instant and it's sooo feel-good) while everyone else went off to film a music video.  Today Lys had her GRE (and thus, the car) so Zan and I walked around for awhile and had lunch at a nice little cafe.

So, it's been a low-key trip, but really quite nice.  Getting to know Lys and Zach better has been really great.  I've gotten my top three grad apps underway!  And the best part is that L.A. looks just like L.A. should look-- I can't quite explain it, but it just looks like "old Hollywood."  Or maybe it looks just like Disney's Hollywood Studios Theme Park.   The architectural styles, the palm trees.  And film studios and backlots everywhere!  It's very exciting to be here, I must admit.  I keep hoping I'll be spotted as "talent" (as if).

Tomorrow Zan has his GRE (and I'll probably continue working on applications), and then Friday we get to do tourist-y things!  Huzzah!

Late Nights in Seattle...

The countdown to moving back East may have started, but I'm still on the West Coast and living it up!  The past weekend was a whirlwind!  On Saturday, Zan and I went to a concert by The xx at the Paramount in Seattle.  The xx are a fantastic British band that I discovered a couple of years back when BBC Radio 1 had Billie Piper playing her top favorite songs-- "Crystalised" was played and I fell in love.  So for my birthday a couple months back, Zan got me concert tickets!

We started the evening at Pies and Pints with a couple of pints, but no pies.  We opted for Welsh pretzels and fish 'n chips instead.  We arrived at the venue just as the doors opened and it was gorgeous.  The Paramount is really a Broadway-style theater, just lovely-- and completely sold out.  There was kind of a weak opening act at 8:00, followed by the amazing-ness that was The xx.  Lights, fog, lasers, their outstanding music!  Really spectacular.  A perfect birthday present.  And that would have been all-- a great night at a concert, heading home, sleeping... except that after our late night at the concert we had to wake up at 3:45 AM to drive to the airport for a 6:00 AM flight to Los Angeles!

Originally we decided to stay up all night, but that failed so we "took a nap."  I got about two and a half hours of sleep.  Then it was up at 3:45, dressing, throwing last minute toiletries into the suitcase, and at 4:00 AM our wonderful neighbor Dan arrived to drive us to the airport!!!  We were there so early that even the Seattle's Best Coffee in our terminal was still closed... uggghhh.  But right on schedule we were on a flight to LAX... for a week in L.A. with Zan's sister and her fiance! 

To be continued... :)

London Memories: Book Maze

Southwark Centre, just down the Thames from Shakespeare's Globe, the Tate Modern, and Borough Market, had a very interesting art installation this summer.  aMAZE Me!  A Book Maze.  Like a classic English hedge maze, except indoors and made from 250,000 books-- novels, manifestos, fiction, non-fiction, plays, children's books, romance novels, good books, bad books, cookbooks, gardening books, everything.  You can read the books, too, the ones on the top layer of the maze, as long as you put them back when you're done.  You walk through the books, rising higher and higher on all sides of you until you reach the center, and you're completely surrounded by books piled so high you can't see over them.  It's an awed feeling-- all that people have written, all that people have read, all that knowledge and all those stories and you standing in the middle of it all.

Even Joss Whedon is represented!  Yay, Angel novelization! ;)

*All photos by me; please do not repost without credit.

October has arrived

October is my favorite month.  Somehow, all the colors seem more saturated.  The sky seems bluer.  The leaves turn brilliantly red and gold.  It's that final burst of life before everything becomes brown and gray until Spring.  And the October traditions!  I love Halloween-- I love watching Halloween movies like Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  I love when Travel Channel and its kin play Haunted Travels, Haunted Hotels, and specials on witches, vampires, and the history of Halloween.  I love dressing up and planning my costume.  I love drinking mulled apple cider-- sometimes spiked with a little whiskey or rum-- and eating spicy sweet gingerbread.  I love putting on a sweater and curling up with a mug of tea and a book.  I love soups, stews, and crusty breads which seem so seasonally appropriate after months of warm weather and light fare. 

This October promises to be exciting.  It holds a trip to L.A., a Halloweentown Party, and most importantly, at the very end, a very big move.  This October begins the countdown to the end of my life in Seattle and the beginning of a new chapter back in more familiar haunts.  It's scary and stressful and thrilling, too, like most everything in my life these days.