2010: A Big Year in Gautreaux

The last three years, to me, feel like they've flown by. A lot has happened since Jeffrey and I moved to Tucson for him to begin law school. Now that he is set to graduate in May, it seems amazing!

2010 is going to be a big year for us!

• Jeffrey graduates from law school in May.
• Then he takes the bar exam.
• Then we'll be moving to the Phoenix area at the end of July for Jeffrey to start his judicial clerkship.

I feel like law school happened to both of us. I guess it sort of did. I've also been grinding away at my own jobs (I've had four different positions while in Tucson -- three with the same company) and those transitions haven't always been easy. Hopefully my position at Wheatmark won't change too much when we move to Phoenix. I'll be working remotely from home. Nice that I won't have to look for a new job when I move!

Some fun events on the horizon are my mom coming to visit, tickets to see Legally Blond the musical, my friend Lena is coming to visit, and Jeffrey's graduation will bring lots of family into town for the event and I'm looking forward to it!

In the interim, I'm slowly gathering moving boxes as book shipments come into Wheatmark and gearing up for the next phase of our life adventure.

I'm going to miss Tucson. However, I'm looking forward to August and being in Phoenix. There's a lot to do there and it will be really nice not having Jeffrey in school-mode!

Tucked in

For my birthday I asked Jeffrey to get me a car cover for the MX-5.

Here she is all tucked in for the next couple of days:

When did Halloween start to suck?

Last year we had about 6 kids trick or treat our house. This year? 3. From the same family. At 5 p.m. before they went to a Halloween party at church.

WTF?

Growing up, a group of us would traipse around the neighborhood with PILLOW CASES, with sight-interfering costumes and flashlights, hitting every house with a porch light on. We'd come home, dump our now-heavy bags of loot on the floor and would sort the different candies into piles. I remember the families that had a lot of kids had BOXES of old costumes to pick through.

It was unthinkable to go to the mall. Only total losers with insane parents would go to the mall.

Now the kids go to the mall without question or, (this hurts me) church Halloween parties, instead of going door-to-door.

What happened?

Paperless billing: Low on postage, high on anxiety

If you've met Jeffrey, my husband, you are then fully aware that he can get a little, er, tense.

For example, the Arizona Bar Exam, many many months away, is already giving him nightmares. Many would say, "Hey, that's understandable, it's a really big test."

Yes. Yes it is.

However, most students probably are worried about it, have some anxiety about it, and can move on. In fact, many students should have this level of anxiety about it as they are about as smart as our poodle but have thumbs and lucked out and filled in the right bubbles on the Scantron sheet.

Jeffrey, despite his demonstrated exceptional intelligence, continues to grimly prepare me for my potential future living in a cardboard box. (I just tell him we'll try to raid the Lowe's recycling area for a Sub Zero box so he'll fit. I'm very supportive.)

So today when I opened our cell phone bill and it was erroneously reporting that we owed the carrier one bajillion dollars, my panic wasn't that we actually owed one bajillion dollars (we don't), it was that I needed to hide it before Jeffrey got home. Or maybe more adult-like, call customer service and get it squared away. Before. The. Freakout.

It isn't enough to Big Lebowski him with a hearty Walter "Nothing is fucked here," but I knew that if I didn't call immediately, he'd spend the rest of the evening worrying that not only did we owe the money, but that checking the bank balance would show the money had been deducted. (Of course not evidence of payment, but that they had our money and they didn't know it and we couldn't prove it thus pitching us into some kind of e-billing black hole of despair.)

Where does this anxiety stem from! Paperless billing? Something even my mom got a handle on several years ago? Still freaks the shit out of him.

Point out that this is as unscientific as his father's fear of ATMs taking his card and never giving it back (and thus he will not use the ever-so-reliable-been-used-for-years-so-calm-the-hell-down machines or his defiance in using seat belts and allowing the warning bing to slowly drive everyone in the car to the brink of insanity).

Going electronic was supposed to alleviate the worry of having to remember to pay stuff. It was supposed to save us a stamp and reduce the anxiety of the monthly bill pay. Instead, it's just one more thing that can potentially go wrong and take us one step closer to our corrugated cardboard home.

At home with the me

*waves*

Hi there! I suck. I know. I haven't been blogging and I never got the photos up from my trip and I've caught a lot of shit for it and, well, maybe now that I'm not blogging daily for my job I'll have a little free mental space for this blog.

Lord knows I write enough every day on Twitter and Facebook to fill the space up.

So, I'm sorry, I'll try to be better.

And here is some dialogue from Gross Pointe Blank to fill your void of joy:

Marty: Oatman? Don't hang up. Listen, I didn't kill anyone - except some guy tried to kill me, so if I see that guy again, I'm definitely gonna kill him, but I'm not going to kill anybody else. I'm on my way to the reunion now with Debi, but I'm just a little nervous, and I'd like to do a phoner.
Dr. Oatman: O.K., repeat after me. "I am at home with the me. I am rooted in the me who is on this adventure."
Marty: I am at home with the me, I am rooted in the me who is on this adventure.
Dr. Oatman: Good. Now take a deep breath, and realize that this is me breathing.
Marty: Wait, I'm confused. Do you want me to say it or do you want me to realize it?
Dr. Oatman: What?
Marty: About the breathing.
Dr. Oatman: Say it.
Marty: This is me breathing.
Dr. Oatman: Good, now keep doing that for about twenty minutes.
Marty: Listen, I got to go.
Dr. Oatman: O.K. Keep it up. Don't kill anybody.
Marty: Right!
[Hangs up]

And a video clip from "In the Loop" that is horrendously vulgar and is possibly my new favorite bunch of sound bites. This is NSFS (Not Safe for Shirley).

Jet lag is easy if you don't have to be anywhere...

View from the Tower of London Bridge

Hanging out in the drawing room of The Dukes

St. Paul's Cathedral

A little skyline. The pointy bullet building is the Gherkin

The back of Buckingham Palace from the garden

Today we got started a bit late. Neither one of us woke up until around noon, so by the time we had finished our tour of the Buckingham Palace state rooms, we had only a little bit of time before the stores closed.

Edith has become obsessed with the Liberty signature soaps, so we had to go back and snag a few more bars of it. I don't know how we're getting it home considering that on the way here her bags were already prohibitively over the weight allowance. Going to have to get some more luggage I guess.

We had wanted to do a river tour on the Thames, but by the time we got to the dock area, they had shuttered for the night. Instead, our cab driver took us around and showed us some important buildings--the building they call the gherkin due to it's pickle shape, a government office they call the glass testicle, the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abby, Parliament, and a few others. This was excellent, one we didn't have to walk and two I didn't have to pretend I actually cared and could just admire the window boxes (like the ones that have little topiary bushes the best. Geranium plantings a close second).

I think it's time to head out. The staff at the hotel have started asking us what our room number is with an intonation that suggests they are putting a black mark next to it on some "spit in their tea" ledger.

Oh! And speaking of tea, we had afternoon tea/coffee/ice cream in the hotel drawing room and a group of ladies with southern accents were gabbing in one of the alcoves. They were snapping pictures and I offered to take on of their group. When I asked them where they were from, they said Lubbock. The story continues in a really boring way so the gist of it is that not only did Edith live in Lubbock, but apparently Edith and the ladies all knew the same people and we're all going on the same trip. Only Edith and I can travel all the way to London and not meet anyone British.

The real point of the trip, the cruise, will start tomorrow. We leave for Southampton in a hired car at 11 a.m. and it apparently takes about two hours to get there. I'm not sure what the wi-fi situation will be on the boat, so if you don't see any more posts from me, it means the situation is expensive!

What time is it?

Dukes Hotel

The London Eye or "The Big Wheel" as the cabbie called it.

Big Ben as seen from the London Eye

No. 6 Chester Street revisited.

I have no idea what time it is here or anywhere else. Generally, this isn't a problem except, well, Edith keeps asking me what time it is.

So ... Live from London! It's us!

Here's the tally for the trip so far:
1. American Airlines employees abused- 2
2. Seats that were supposed to be empty on the flight that were instead filled by a lady who decided she wanted to sit there instead of her booked seat and totally bummed me out (who also happened to look like a mole or some other dark dwelling, fairly sightless creature - 1
3. Number of Ambien pills taken to ignore mole-like lady's elbows - 1/2
4. Number of times I lost Edith in Harrod's-2
5. Bars of soap purchased for Edith Compadres that she is now not giving to them because the soap is too good for them-6
6. Amount of English speakers in London Eye capsule-2
7. Times I've asked an 85-year-old woman if she has her teeth (can I just say that there is something very amusing to me about a glass of teeth soaking on a gorgeous marble vanity?)- so far, only had to check twice

So far, so good. The Dukes is a lovely hotel nestled secretively in the Picadilly area of London (we've walked right by it twice. It's really hidden and none of the local shop girls know where it is, even if they are working right across the street). Edith's walking tolerance is limited so we've taken a lot of cabs today and one guy swung us by the millions-of-dollar townhouse I stayed in when I was younger with my mom and aunt years ago.

The weather has been wonderful today and I was able to wear semi-fall clothes, which considering the first time I'll get to even come close to that in Tucson is November, I was pretty excited.

My favorite place in London is now Liberty of London on Regent. They wouldn't let me take pictures inside, but seriously, Shaleah, Anthro has nothing on Liberty.

Tomorrow we do Buckingham Palace and possibly a Thames sight-seeing cruise. Also might need to go back to Liberty...

Monday we get on the ship!