Countdown

Well…I have twelve days left here. Twelve days to make sure that my projects are wrapped up and passed on in a responsible manner so that I’m not leaving anyone in a lurch. I’ve been here for 1,033 days (give or take a few), and now I have twelve left.

That’s just so weird.

I’ve been feeling a change coming on for a while now, and I do feel like this is a direction that makes sense for me (even though it means I have to commute to Virginia every day…bleah). I’m very contradictory in that I crave change on a regular basis, but it also makes me nervous. Maybe it’s that adrenaline rush that I identify as “nerves” that I crave – who knows? It’s debatable as to whether or not bungee jumping might be a simpler way to get that adrenaline rush than changing jobs. (Simpler? Yes – there are no tax forms to fill out, most likely just a simple liability waiver. Definitely in bungee jumping’s favor. Safer? Well – that’s definitely debatable. Lasting consequences? Could happen with either one, to be honest.) There are many people who have suggested that K and I look into moving to Virginia, since we’ll both be working there. As someone who was raised in Maryland, my knee-jerk response to that is hell, no. While I won’t rule it out 100% since the commute does increase our environmental footprint and expenses, which I don’t take lightly, I’d have to say that the odds are very, very slim that we’ll give that option serious consideration.

Unless, of course, our landlords decide to jack up our rent this year, in which case we really need to look at all of our options, I suppose.

I’m really excited to be taking a week off in between jobs, but knowing me I’ll probably schedule stuff for every day that week. Although, as long as I get to sleep in every day and go swimming a few times, I think I’m fine with that.

I think that I’m displaying one of many signs of getting a little older – I am really looking forward to warmer weather. Not so I can hit the beach with friends (although that could be fun), not so I can sit on the roof deck of Lauriol Plaza sipping margaritas (it’s overrated anyway), but I’m looking forward to warmer weather so I can get a garden started again.

*sigh*

The C’s have been talking to Special K and I about chucking all this big city (or big suburb) life and going to run a vineyard/B&B somewhere. I have to admit, there’s something very appealing about the thought of it, although I know I have an overly romanticized version of what it would be like in my head. (As does K, since he keeps talking about being the vineyard’s “quality control officer”. He also wants to brew beer and be the quality control officer for that. I’ve told him that he’s reaching.) But the one thing that I keep insisting on, although no one is arguing with me about it, so “insisting” may be a misleading term, is a large greenhouse and garden so that we can grow stuff to eat. And much as that would be a lot of fun, and would really play to Mrs. C’s and my strengths in many ways, I still want the garden and the greenhouse even if the B&B never materializes.

But as long as I can just keep those farking raccoons off my tomatoes this year, I’ll consider that to be progress.

And Finally...

Well, I got my good news – a formal offer of employment! It’s a very good thing, and I think it will be a good move for me. I’m normally a very open person and I don’t have a “work” persona and a “life” persona – it’s all the same person – I attribute this partially to laziness and partially to…well, to laziness, too. So while I don’t run down the hallways of my office yelling “BOOBIES!”, I don’t usually have to spend a lot of time making sure I don’t say something, as I did when going through the interviewing and waiting process (which felt like an eternity). So it’s a relief to have everything finalized so that we can all be on the same page around here – I like and respect my co-workers, so I’m glad that it’s all in the open now.

I actually had several interviews in rapid succession, it just turned out that this one came through the fastest (and in the grand scheme, probably has the best offer). It’s weird to be searching for something new when you’re not so much feeling like you’re unhappy at your current place, but more like it’s just not the right fit for you anymore. I’m ready for something different and I think it’s a good time in my life to try to do it, much as I will miss my co-workers. It will be hard to leave, in that sense. I’ve been here for a while, people know me, know my work, and in some ways it’s comfortable. But in other ways, I do know that it’s time to move on. Indulging that need for change, if you will.

This appears to be the second March in a row that has marked a big transition for me. K and I marked the occasion of our first wedding anniversary this past weekend with what turned into a long weekend-long extravaganza of sorts. Friday night my parents gave us a night at a swanky hotel as a gift, which we happily accepted and complemented with a very swanky dinner at Ceiba. Mmm…Ceiba – just a few blocks from our hotel, as it happens. I started our evening there with a somewhat ill-advised Lemon Drop – one of my “chick-tinis” of choice. It was tasty and refreshing, but a tad strong, which only became an issue after the bottle of wine we split for dinner.

Oh well.

Dinner was…oh. My. Goodness. We started by splitting a chili relleno stuffed with shredded duck and three cheeses, with tomatillo salsa and black bean and corn relish. I am normally not a fan of the chili relleno genre, but this wasn’t greasy or heavy, it was lightly fried. The shredded duck lightened up the cheese filling (odd, since duck is a very rich-tasting meat), and the lightness of the salsa and relish was…well, if we could have licked the plate, we probably would have. But we were trying to be classy.

For our entrees, we decided to go with seafood after asking our waiter for his recommendations, the majority of which were seafood dishes. Special K had the “yellowfin tuna and crab-stuffed aji amarillo with asparagus slaw, purple potatoes, and a sweet rocoto soy reduction” – whatever that is. If you were to ask me in my own words, I would have told you that it was a little spicy, the slaw was tangy, and overall it was really freaking good.

I had seared scallops "Ala Plancha", with fresh hearts of palm puree, citrus brown butter, capers, golden raisins. Also really freaking good, even though I don’t know what “ala plancha” means. To me, it means “yummy”. We then split a tres leches coconut cake for dessert that was served with skewered grilled pineapple and a very light coconut sorbet. The host was lovely, our waiter was awesome, and in general, it was a delightful experience, proving that my first experience there wasn’t a fluke. Hurrah for that!

This, in addition to the bottle of wine that we split with dinner, made for a very good, and very filling, evening. We waddled back to the hotel (well, I probably stumbled a time or two, since that chicktini and the wine caught up with me), changed into our swimsuits, and headed down to the pool for a little swimming and some relaxing in the whirlpool. We were greeted by some really pissed off-looking employees who informed us that the pool was closed because someone had had an “accident”, which immediately explained the pissed-offness. I wouldn’t have been happy to have to clean that up at 10 pm on a Friday, either. We decided to try again in the morning.

The next morning we lazed around, ordered some room service (mmm…frittata…grilled French toast…fruit cup), and went back down to the pool. The pool was still closed for cleaning (upon closer inspection, it appeared that they were in the process of draining it so that it could be thoroughly scrubbed out. Preferably with bleach.), but the whirlpool was open, so we spent a good bit of time there, wishing that we had one in our house.

We eventually dragged ourselves out of the whirlpool and back up to our room where we took our time getting cleaned up, watching some TV (and realizing that we’re not missing anything by not having cable, since there were only 2 things on that we wanted to watch, despite a generous selection of available channels), and getting ready to head out.

From there we went straight out to Haymarket to get a washer and dryer from K’s parents. “Quoi?” you may be thinking. Well, they just bought a home and are replacing the appliances. The ones that they’re replacing, however, are SO MUCH BETTER than the PsOS in our house that we gladly jumped at the chance to take them. GLADLY. Our old dryer had two heat settings, “fluff/air dry” and “scorch”. This new one has a few more options, which have made us, and our clothes happy. We didn’t anticipate this turning into an all-day event, but thanks to a non-functioning trailer that we attempted to rent (or rather, it was the brake lights and turn signals that didn’t function), we ended up putting one appliance each in his parents’ two SUVs and hauling them back to our place, then heading back out to their place to drop the vehicles back off, pick up my car, and finally head home around…11ish. But his parents, after being generous enough to give us these appliances in the first place (homeownership may be nowhere in sight, but we’ve got our own appliances!) also treated us to a very tasty dinner that night (luuuurve steak fajitas).

Sunday was the big day, the big first anniversary, and honestly – it was a little anti-climactic. Mostly because we had to be up at the crack of dawn to work at church that morning. It wasn’t a bad day, it just didn’t feel like it was all that special, which was actually fine, because Friday had more than compensated. We went to a friends’ party after church, which was also a lot of fun, and we ended up staying for games and dinner with the always gracious Ls. We hadn’t really planned on it, and really didn’t want to be those people who never freaking leave, but it was fun. We capped the night off with keeping Mrs. C company at Dr. C’s hockey game. We mostly huddled for warmth on the benches as we yelled “Go Wildcats!” every so often.

We had decided to take Monday off, because…well, because we wanted to. After we got up, we ended up puttering around the house, at which point I commented to K that I felt like we’d been eating for three straight days. He didn’t disagree. We ended up making a trip out to Lowe’s because the plug for the dryer in our house is…well, old. And new dryers don’t work with it, so we would either have to wire in a new plug for the dryer or install a new outlet. After some attempts at the former, we concluded that the latter was the better way to go. We also stopped at Whole Foods for some delicious steaks that we were going to grill up as a nice dinner for ourselves, using a recipe from the cookbook I got K for Christmas.

Dinner consisted of some perfectly medium-rare filet mignon topped with a little fresh goat cheese and an ancho chile-roasted red pepper salsa (made from scratch by one Special K) and a black bean, tomato, and quinoa salad with a lime-spiked dressing made by yours truly. It was all just…so freaking good. My husband is a genius.

Except for the part where he bought the wrong nuts for the dryer, so back out to Home Depot we went at 9 pm, in search of the correct pieces. (And really – I probably would have made the same mistake, so I don’t want to give him too much crap about it.) Finally, at around 10 pm, we heard the dulcet tones of our new dryer quietly rumbling away in the basement. Ah…

So…given that March 2007 saw me get married, and March 2008 saw me get a new job (and new appliances), any guesses as to what March 2009 will hold?

The mind reels.

(And the first person who says babies or pregnancy will get a stern talking-to. That’s not in the plans just yet.)