sbukophile

Wanderlust

My husband and I are cursed with wanderlust. It's one of the things that we had in common when we first met, and it's one of the things that we still of course share. But it's weird when you start doing all the getting-settled kinds of things, and not to mention it's not always great on the resume. I always get the question "you seem to have moved around a lot in recent years..." and I have to explain that my husband was an officer in the Royal Navy so blah, blah, blah...

I think 2 years is about where our itching point is usually reached. We need some kind of major upheaval or something at least every 2 years, though perhaps it happens even more frequently than that, I've never really analyzed it.

The funny thing is, I hate moving. I hate packing whether to move or even just for a trip. I hate unpacking too. I like choices. I like having all kinds of choices available to me. I love potluck parties or buffet brunches because of all the possibilities. So, I'm terrible at packing, unpacking and moving, which is ironic in one sense because I love to see new things and places, but really if you think about it, makes sense.

Why do I hate these things--because if I don't bring that certain pair of shoes, it means that I will inevitably end up wishing I had brought them. So, I usually pack too much, and end up wearing one tiny fraction of it for the entire trip. But, I spent the trip with the peace of mind knowing I had the options if I needed them.

Moving in to a new home is also stressful for me. I want to figure out where everything is going to go before I do unpack any of it, but I'm so indecisive about it, it doesn't happen. Until my husband. It's one of those things where we complement each other. He will just dive right in and start putting things away ANYWHERE so that at least they are out of the boxes, and it doesn't look cluttered. And then what happens is, I can rearrange to put things where I really want them, in my own time.

Recently, we had a conversation about this with a friend of ours. He and his partner were having a similar problem--they had just moved in to a new house and months later, still didn't want us to come see it, and every weekend when we tried to make plans with them, they were still working on the house so couldn't even make plans to go out to dinner. What was happening was, the partner was procrastinating getting his study/the spare bedroom sorted out, and they didn't want anyone to see the place a mess. And they would consequently be unavailable all weekend because while he was supposed to be working on it, he wasn't, so it wasn't getting done. We told our friend he should do what Andy does with me--he just puts things on the shelves, and I get upset and think it's the end of the world because it's not where I would want it put, but then I get over it, realizing he actually took a huge weight off my mind and it really is a favor to me, and then I'm secretly grateful, no matter how much I've cried and yelled.

Of course, now I'm more grown up and realize from the outset that it really is better to just have it all away somewhere, so I don't get upset with him anymore. We told our friend, just do it and in the end, your partner really will be grateful. He did it, and his partner got upset, but in the end it was all happy.

Before my husband was in the picture, I would be living out of boxes for months before I'd get it all taken care of.

He's such a great husband! And today we have been legally married for 5 years! (I say legally because we had to do a civil ceremony first--the legal marriage--which we did just for the official paperwork so  I could deal with changing my name, getting immigration clearance, and then move to England to be with him a few months before he was shipped off to sea for a few months. We then did a "blessing" which was like the full-on wedding and reception with friends and family back in Santa Barbara a few months later (right before he went off to sea) as we had been planning for all along).

Back to the wanderlust thing. So now we are thinking about moving again. For careers it might not be the wisest choice. But socially, or for wanderlust, we are thinking about it again. It wouldn't happen for at least another year (we wouldn't want to sell our house now--oh no, we bought at the top of the market, of course, and we might lose money if we sell now).

We had such wonderful time in Seattle. We have thought about Portland too, but neither of us has ever been there. San Francisco is always mentioned in the top 3 possibilities too. I love Chicago as well but being land-locked is kinda scary for both of us. I think I just want to live closer to a big city (not LA or San Diego though!). Maybe not necessarily right in it, but near enough. I don't know what it is about it, the arts, the culture, the feeling... being around people in our age group... options of things to do even if I don't necessarily take advantage of them... (as I said, I love having options)...

I know that for those of you who have never lived in Santa Barbara, or it's been too long for you to really remember, you think I'm crazy. Of course it's stunningly beautiful here and a great place to visit. We have the beaches, the surf, the mountains, the wine, the beautiful city. But the downsides are: it's soul-less and people in our age group don't stay here forever--Santa Barbara used to be known as the place for the "nearly wed and the nearly dead" because of the  UCSB students and the high proportion of older people. Of course that doesn't work as well any more because I would not say that very many college students these days are "nearly wed".

I first moved to Santa Barbara almost 10 years ago. I have loved it and I have hated it. One thing that always strikes me about it is that the culture is so bland. I don't feel like there is a cultural or artistic or musical soul. Also, talk about lack of ethnic diversity! It's a tale of 2 cities here--white or hispanic. The monetary and cultural divide between the two is epic.

I have made some great life-long friends while living here--and then they have all moved away. Nobody in our age-group can really afford to buy a house here, and you just don't feel a family friendly vibe around town. I now say to people when I really hit it off with them and it's obvious we're becoming friends that this means they are going to be moving away soon. Sure enough, that's just happened to me again recently.

When I go to other cities these days, I am hyperconscious of the fact that there are all kinds of people around me all of a sudden. Different ethnicities, different age groups... and it's weird to notice those things now, because when I was growing up in a diverse city near Boston, I did not notice those things.

I'm bored here. I want options. I want diversity. I want culture. I want to have options for places to hear live jazz music or other live music. But it would be nice to be able to come back to Santa Barbara every once in a while to unwind.

I want my cake and to eat it too.

Seattle and Niobe

Ok, I stopped posting for a really long time! I've basically been avoiding the blogosphere completely for a few months. Here's a short synopsis:

• I'm doing pretty well these days, compared to a few months ago (except for Niobe--see below)
• I'm working again--50% time, new position, enjoying it so far
• We're in Seattle right now for a quick little vacation trip--really like it! But tough being away from kitties (our first trip away and see below for additional reason why)
• Niobe is sick with an almost always fatal illness, FIP--we're very sad about this, don't know if we have days, weeks, or months left with her--she's not even 8 months old yet
• Jack is getting huge! He's already 10 lbs and he's only just under 7 months old

Some photos before Niobe was sick, then our trip to Seattle:

I Hate LA

This weekend the Ruggedly Handsome Husband did the LA Triathlon. He finished well into the top half of his age group which is quite an accomplishment. You can see full details of his stats including a video of his finish here if you know his name.

Here he is, second row, the pole of the banner looks like it's pointing into his shoulder (oh, and he's wearing a red cap):

We saw Steve Carell in our hotel as well, dressed as one of the triathletes, but didn't see his name in the stats.  Either we were wrong about it being him, or he ran under a pseudonym.

Meanwhile, I had to deal with driving and parking all weekend just to be the good "Triathlete's Wife".  It sucked.  LA drivers are obnoxious.  I mean, this from a girl who learned to drive on the streets of Boston... LA drivers are worse I think!

Recently someone was telling me that there is a newer term for the type of driving seen--it's not aggressive driving, it's "competitive".  I would have to say that is so true, especially in LA.  Makes sense when you think about the fact that LA is full of all the people who are in the "business" so always trying to one-up someone else.  I've been in driving situations where even though you have nowhere else to go, and you are legitimately merging onto the freeway, cars would NOT let us in!  They just could NOT let one single car get ahead of them!

So on the way back up to beautiful Santa Barbara on a gorgeous afternoon driving up the PCH through Malibu, we decide to have lunch at the Paradise Cove Cafe and pull into a very full parking lot with many cars circling.  We spot a family getting into their minivan.  They are taking their time, brushing sand off the kids etc, but yes, they look like they are leaving not arriving. Score!  So we sit and wait, and suddenly there is this guy standing there in front of the minivan holding his cell phone.  After a couple minutes, he tells us "They are not leaving." Ruggedly Handsome Husband is suspicious and as I slowly start to drive away he's saying to me that the guy is lying. I pause, as the father of the family is clearly getting into the driver's seat to go, this other random guy just standing there.  So I back up to reclaim my waiting spot for the parking spot.

This time the random guy tells me "They are saving this spot for me".  I am quite perturbed and hungry after a very early morning of being the Triathlete's Wife so doesn't take much to irritate me at this point.  I say, "You said they were leaving!"

And he says, "They are saving the spot for me."

I say, "You can't do that!"

He says, "They're family!"

I say, "So what?! Why did you say they were leaving you f@$#%*ing @$#&hole! What the f#$@#$@%?! It's a PARKING lot! You piece of sh@#$!%#!"

Ruggedly Handsome Husband from the passenger seat is also swearing at the guy as well.  Of course we are making quite a scene at this point, with families with their children in the parking lot unloading from their minivans. I had a bit of tunnel vision so don't know what their real reactions were, but I'd like to think that they were on my side, looking on to support me.  Although with my potty mouth, it's likely they were probably thinking more about the bad words their children were hearing than that I was in the right!  I mean, it was a real Curb Your Enthusiasm moment--we were in the right, regardless!

So, then we do a few more laps around and are seething of course, wondering if this is the type of person who would then key our car.  (We do have a unique "England" sticker on the back corner window of the car, which might have helped to ID it).  We find a spot finally, and I'm confident that there are too many people around and it's in full view of the restaurant and outside tables that nobody would dare key the car.

We go in and the place is packed!  45-60 minute wait for a table.  We're hungry, we're pissed off, this is not fun. We leave. LA sucks.*

Oh, and randomly, in other weird animal and man news... see this.

*Apologies to my friends who live in LA.  I love you, and you are not the obnoxious ones I'm talking about!  It's everyone else in LA I hate!

Trying to be an enigma

Right, so forget trying to be an enigma.  Here's the deal... it's so hard these days to come up with a good blog/website/email username--a lot of the good ones are all taken--so I had to try something that was fun and meaningful.  I'm really jealous of my friend ashbloem as she has a really cool one.  I also should give credit to her, since really she's the only real person I know with a blog (that I know of), and well, I really like her blog!  She's one of the reasons I've started this blog.

Ok, I digress... so the reason I came up with sbukophile is that I live in Santa Barbara and have a thing for England and people/things English.  Well, mostly the people.  I can't say that I've always been this way about England.  In fact, after my second (and third) trip to England (in my late 20's), I was convinced I never needed to go back, and would certainly never have seen myself living there.

Lo and behold though, I had already dated an Englishman, had English friends, and really connected with English people and the sense of humo(u)r.  I guess that could be attributed to the fact that my parents had lived in England while my dad was in seminary at Oxford, and my brother was even born there.  I guess my dad's grandparents were also English born and raised, but moved to the states (in fact he can point out where his grandmother lived in Santa Barbara--and no, I did not grow up in Santa Barbara--I grew up in the Boston area--but both my parents are from SoCal originally).  I have always connected with the English sense of humor.  I guess growing up in New England also accounts for that sensibility too.

Perhaps on that second trip to England, I was possibly depressed and had a strange experience with an Irishman I was sort of seeing (and had met on my first trip ever to England)... and the third trip to England I had a really strange encounter with same Irishman--EVEN THOUGH I SAID I WOULDN'T TRY TO CONTACT HIM WHILE THERE!

Funny story to digress into--it really was a strange thing that happened--I was consciously making sure I did not contact him because it had been so weird the last time, and I was on one of the last trains one night with a group of friends (including ashbloem) where we'd been to a nice little pub in the suburbs, heading back into central London to our hotel, and I look up outside the train window as it had stopped, and there's The Irishman standing on the platform right outside the train!  I jump up from my seat and almost jump onto the platform, but he tells me "No! No--that guy in that seat has a postcard--get the postcard from that guy!" So, I run over to where some random guy was sitting (now, keep in mind, the group of friends I am with have NO idea what is going on at this point, and just see me frantically running around the train).  I go up to this stranger and I say, "Do you know [The Irishman]?"  The guy is just staring at me at this point.  I repeat myself, adding, "he said that you had a postcard for me!"  The guy is looking at me like I'm completely nuts and says, "I don't know who the fuck [The Irishman] is, but here, I found this on the seat when I sat down.  Here, you can have it!"

At this point I'm shaking. I sit down and try to explain to my friends what had happened.  The  postcard of something about Shakespeare just listed a mobile phone number (The Irishman at the time was a tour director, so would have been at some touristy spot recently).  When we got off the train just a couple stops later, I could hardly walk as my knees were all wobbly.  Everyone agreed that this had to be the strangest coincidence ever, considering my oath before and during the trip that I wouldn't contact him!

At our hotel, I call the number, to find the Irishman staying at a hotel nearby with a tour group.  We agree he should immediately take a taxi over to my hotel since this was so weird.  So of course I now have to scramble--to show you that I wasn't planning on seeing him--I had NOT shaved my legs.  It was winter and I was able to get away with it, but you see, I have very hairy legs--dark and all--I have a great full head of hair, but the curse is that it's not the only place I have a lot of hair!  Well, I guess since my relationship with The Irishman had never been anything more meaningful than shagging (and not very good at that), I guess I was kind of expecting it--although really saying to myself that I wasn't going to... but yet still knowing it was a possibility...

Of course, it didn't turn out as smooth as I had hoped (the encounter, not my legs).  You see, with my legs that unshaven, it was taking a really long time to shave them--believe me, that's longer than you think for those of you who aren't as hairy as I am--you really have no idea what I go through!).  The Irishman was knocking on my hotel room door as I was getting out of the shower.  So, instead of at least playing coy at first, I end up meeting him at the door, while I'm wearing a towel and still dripping wet!  No subtlety there--at least not in his mind!

I do manage to throw on my pajamas so he doesn't think we're just going to get right into it.  And we do talk for a while about the coincidence, etc, and how I had decided I wasn't going to contact him, and in fact didn't even know if he was in England at the time--he could've been in Ireland, on tour, travelling, etc....

What had transpired with the postcard in the train--he was really baked while he was on the train-- he had been in the SAME train car as me and my friends.  Because he was so baked, he didn't trust himself to say anything in front of my friends--he thought they'd think he was some freak and not understand what was going on.  I did not notice him at all until he had exited and was waving outside on the platform.  (In hindsight, this is a very weird explanation, but I suppose if he was that baked, he would not have been thinking rationally).

But what are the chances?  Of being on the same train in the same car in the same city at the same time, when neither of us lives or works in London?  And after I had vowed not to see him?

Thinking like that,  you have to imagine, I thought this must mean something BIG!  This just didn't happen.  Well, after our initial reacquaintance we were talking and talking, and I kept asking why this had happened.  His answers were all very relationship-avoidance type ones, and I was getting slightly hysterical thinking this had to be a sign.  I know I ended up in tears, with him hugging me and telling me everything was ok, and I was confessing that more than anything I wanted to be married with children, etc. etc.  I know that at this point we both understood that it was not with him.

However, the next day, or maybe a couple days later, I still couldn't believe the weirdness of it all, and was still trying to decipher what this sign from the universe was supposed to mean.  I wish I could tell you that I figured it out in the remaining days of my trip, but in reality what happened was very anticlimactic.  I ended up travelling on my own to Bath for a few days, and then also spending some time with some other friends who were stopping over in London and never talking to him again, not for lack of trying.  I think I tried to call him about a million times (to my embarrassment, I was staying in another friend's hotel room, and she had been helping me by saying "don't call him, it's not worth it, etc. etc" and I knew this was true, but just kept calling and calling.  The embarrassing part was she got the phone bill for the room, and I didn't know that local calls had a charge, so there was this list of 2 pages worth of phonecalls to the same number in 24 hours.)  I think at one point I did talk to him while I was in Bath, and he said something like, "What? You think this is all supposed to mean something, like we're supposed to get married or something?!"  I said no, but I still wanted to know why it happened.  He obviously didn't have the answer either.

It wasn't until maybe months later when I'd returned to Santa Barbara, that I think I realized that it was just meant to be my closure with him.  That he was not "the one" for me, and that it was because we hadn't had closure before that, and to see what an ass he really was (the whole pot-smoking thing always bothered me--he smoked multiple times per day).  But still, it wasn't like I had ever even considered him my "boyfriend" or anything like that!  When we were in the same country, we saw each other, and barely communicated in between those times.

I don't know if that satisfies me as to the whole reason for this serendipitous event--believe me, I'm 100% certain that he's not the one for me--in fact I believe I met my husband, who IS my soulmate (and I knew it almost instantly), only a few months after this happened.  No, I'm positive that it's not because I will ever want to be with The Irishman again, but writing about this story, does make me wonder, what the fuck was that all supposed to be about?  What kind of joke was the universe playing that day?  Just fucking with my mind I think--because it REALLY did!

Ok, end of digression now.  So I really had some fucked up experiences in England that kind of depressed me.  So, to meet my future husband here in Santa Barbara, and that he is a Brit--well, it was definitely ironic!  Although of course it was no surprise to all my friends around the world that it wasn't an American.  I had not dated an American in at least 10 years at that point (and never again of course, since I've married the wonderful man).

And then we even ended up living in England after we were married--again adding to the irony that I thought I'd never want to live there!  Ruggedly Handsome Husband was on his way to joining the military when we first met.  Throughout our relationship and subsequent engagement he was an officer in the Royal Navy.  After we got married, the plan was for me to move over there, and we'd live there for about 3 years while he did the minimum time.  As I mentioned, I had never planned on living in England, but figured I could handle 3 years (I had been back to England on subsequent visits to see the Future Ruggedly Handsome Husband and of course had enjoyed those trips much more than the first visits to England).

So by the time the day arrived that we were to move back to California as scheduled, it was ME who didn't want to leave England!  I had fallen in love with the country!  The current Iraq War had only just started, and I had no desire to be around anyone who seemed to support it, and I just wasn't ready!  I had gotten used to England, I had finally made English friends (not just other displaced American expats) and I loved the football and the pubs and the long country walks...

But we've been back in Santa Barbara for a few  years now.  It's great of course in a different way, but my husband and I both miss England a lot.  We make it back about once a year.  Whenever I'm asked what I miss about it, it's always the pubs and that culture, the sense of humor, the football, the people, the more realistic understated down-to-earthness of the people.

So, the ideal would be for us to make enough money so we could own homes in both Santa Barbara and England (and other places too of course), and so we could split our time.  Problem solved!