Archive for the 'Travel' Category

Dark forces are arrayed against me to prevent me from travel

Published at May 21, 2011 in Health, Misbegotten health care and Travel. 2 Comments

In the past year and a half, I have had to cancel/postpone/reschedule three trips that were purely for pleasure:

1. I was scheduled to go to Barcelona in March 2010, but my uncle passed away;

2. I was scheduled to go to Amsterdam in May 2010, but the volcano happened; and

3. I was scheduled to be in New York right now, but my body betrayed me.

Work, family and jobhunting-related trips?  I can take those, fine.  It’s the pleasure trips that elude me.

More on the body betrayal: I didn’t actually bork my liver by getting dehydrated.  Instead, it turns out I have a stone lodged in my common bile duct, and the dehydration pushed it from being happily asymptomatic to being symptomatic.  And once these things become symptomatic, they can back everything up and you’re looking at jaundice, liver shutdown, and life-threatening infections.  Fortunately, my doctor caught me before I left, or I might have been at the ER in Bellevue.

I’m scheduled for a procedure to have the thing removed on Monday.  It’s a pretty non-invasive procedure, in which a scope is inserted via a tube down your throat to peek up your bile duct where it empties into the esophagus.  If they can grab it there, they will; or they’ll cut a small hole in your small intestine and let it drop out there.  There’s a small chance it won’t work and they’ll have to open me up, but chances are good it won’t be an issue.  The biggest complication is pancreatitis, which is extremely painful and sucks very much.  In fact, that’s what Sugarplum had when she stopped eating and her liver went toxic.

I’ve already had my gallbladder out, 24 years ago, due to stones (I got to keep them after the surgery; they were HUGE).  I’m one of the lucky 10% whose bodies just love making stones even after removal of the gallbladder, and when there’s nowhere like the gallbladder for them to collect, they hang around in the bile duct once they get too big to pass through.  So I’ll have to be careful of this in the future (though maybe it’ll be another 24 years before I have to worry about it again, and by then I’ll (hopefully, if it’s still around) be on Medicare).

In the meantime, I’m waiting for my procedure and watching for signs of becoming bright yellow and having shaking chills. Woohoo!

And once again, I’m very glad that this is all coming to a head when I actually have health insurance.  I don’t know what I would have done had I still been uninsured; probably take antacids and hope for the best.  Then turn yellow and die, probably.

It’s that time of year again

Published at January 2, 2011 in Domesticity, Health, Home improvement, Money, Library stuff, Sports, Clotheshorsery, Vanity, Frivolity, Food, work work work and Travel. 5 Comments

Time for resolutions I won’t keep!

I’m going to try something different this year and set some concrete goals that will be easier to reach than something vague like “Eat better.”  Many of these goals are craft-related, since I inherited my mother’s propensity for starting projects and not finishing them.

1. Speaking of Mom and projects she never finished, finish the sweater she started knitting for me, oh, ten years ago (she died just over eight years ago).  Finishing this sweater was the reason I took knitting lessons in the first place, but I kept putting the bag with the unfinished sweater aside, or in a closet.  Part of that was due to it being kind of painful to look at the thing after she died, part of it was that I gained a lot of weight after she died and wasn’t going to fit in the sweater even if I did finish it.  But now I can look at the thing without getting teary, and I’ve lost enough weight over the years that I can wear it.  Plus, it’s motherfucking cold in my apartment and I NEED a big fuzzy sweater.  I’ve now got the skills to do it, too.

2.  Quilting projects: I’m making a quilt for my sister, and I also want to finish a quilt that my great-grandmother pieced and never finished, both because it would be a great way to honor Babushka and also because of the aforementioned state of motherfucking cold.

3. Home decorating: I need to locate my stud finder, so I can hang the pictures I already have, and then I need to go out and get my other pictures framed and hung.  I have a desk to paint, chairs to paint and re-cover, and at some point I should get a few more chairs and a vase or two.  Plus mirrors.  I also need a filing cabinet, badly.  This may not be a year in which I do anything with my bedroom, but I’m okay with that for now since I don’t really have a vision for it like I do with the rest of the place.

4. Sports: I haven’t lifted weights since last July, when I fell on the sidewalk and injured my shoulder, and then re-injured it in September.  I’ve decided to go a slightly different direction, doing a combination of yoga, running, and eventually some scaled-back weightlifting.  Running has gone very well; unlike in years past, I seem to have resolved some of the issues with my knees so that I’m not wearing my patella in some strange place after only a few weeks of the C25K plan.  I’m on Week 7 now (actually for the second time — I’d reached it in September, right before my second fall, which also rolled my ankle) and so far, so good.  My knee’s a little tender, but the exercise is actually doing it good.  I’d like to do a half-marathon and marathon this year, using the Jeff Galloway run/walk program.  Brooklyn Half-Marathon is in May, with the particular day yet to be announced, and I’ve signed up for the lottery for the NYC Marathon.  I’m also planning on doing the Bay to Breakers 12K in San Francisco in May, which will probably be the week before the Brooklyn Half.  If I don’t get into the NYC Marathon, I’m going to try for Chicago or Marine Corps.  All of these will be not only goals in and of themselves, but also opportunities for travel to places where friends and/or family are.

5. Food: I’m back to being mostly vegan, which is pretty easy since it’s a little hard for me to eat out much here if I have to walk everywhere I go; I also work in a place where the lunch options are very very limited.  I’ve got access to a really great food co-op and live around the corner from a grocery store, so I can easily get good, fresh ingredients and do a lot of cooking.  I’ve got a freezer packed full of individually-portioned meals I can just grab and go, and I’m working hard on using my cookbooks for more than just the old standbys.  My big goal this year is to stop eating mindlessly and to pay attention to and enjoy what I eat.  I’ve also made a special effort to clean off the dining room table, now that I have a dining room, and to have dinner AT my table with napkins and placemat and candles.  Bonus: the dining room is the only room that really gets heat.

6. Appearance: I managed to weed a lot of crap out of my wardrobe just before I moved, so I do wear a lot of what I have.  But I’m not wearing all of it, so I need to figure out why not and make any necessary adjustments.  For example, if I’m not wearing something because it doesn’t fit, I can make it fit or get rid of it; if I’m not wearing something because I don’t really like it after all, it has to go.  It *is* pretty nice having a lot of closet space free.  I also want to figure out this year what my style is, so that I can have some kind of consistent look.

7. Financial: I’ve started using Mint to track my money, and my new job has TIAA-CREF, so I’ve gotten started on a retirement plan (matching doesn’t happen until I’ve been employed a year).  I’ve identified several areas where I spend disproportionate amounts of money, so I can work on cutting that back. I’m also saving for a car; I plan on spending less than $2500 for a mid-90s Honda or similar that will run for a while.   Just like with the eating out, living here has curtailed my spending because I’m not passing stores and places to spend money all the time.  I’m also not reading like I used to, so my book habit is not being fed. My book habit really is shameful; I’m a librarian, after all, and I should be borrowing books rather than buying them.  And I should be selling off what I have; I see Amazon keeps asking me if I’d like to sell some of the books I’ve bought through them, so I may just take them up on that.

8. Personal: I’m still not into the idea of dating, but I want to make some friends here outside of work.  The yoga studio I attend seems to be a good place to meet people, especially since you’re asked to introduce yourself to the people on adjoining mats before class starts.  I’m also a member of the food co-op, and that seems like a good way to meet people as well; working there is optional, so I plan on signing up soon.  There are also extension classes to take and the local running shop organizes group runs every week, which will help with my half/marathon training and get me out a bit.  I’m also planning on taking advantage of the first paid time off I’ve had in about 10 years to do some travel, including a horsepacking trip through backcountry out here as part of the extension classes.

9. Professional: I’ll start teaching legal skills in the fall, which will give me some great experience.  I’ve also committed to writing a couple of articles, I’m involved with some committees and caucuses in my professional association, and I also have opportunities to do some outside work for pay and recognition.  I’m doing all this partly because I’m positioning myself for a return to New York or a move to another big city for my next job, and partly because I really do like my new career.  I made a good choice.

Almost there

Published at September 29, 2010 in Kitties, Life with pets, Vanity and Travel. 4 Comments

Just 185 miles to go until we reach my new hometown.   Won’t be able to get into my new apartment until Friday morning, so we’ll be waiting at the current hotel until nearly checkout time, then taking our time to reach the new town and checking in to another hotel.  I’ve picked one that will allow me to get on and off the highway easily, and won’t require me to take very many local streets to get to the apartment (which is pretty close to the highway).

Zuzu has a moment every day when she suddenly realizes she’s in a cage and starts trying to get out, meowing loudly the whole time.  I call it her “Cattica! Cattica!” moment.  And then she goes to sleep.

Travels with Junebug and Zuzu

Published at September 26, 2010 in Kitties, Life with pets, Travel, Junebug and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I’m a little more than a third of the way done with my cross-country trip.  I’m driving a 14-foot U-Haul; I was originally going to get the smaller truck since I’d gotten rid of so much furniture, but I took a look at my boxes, then at the five-foot-wide, not-very-high truck, and decided against taking my chances.

The move-out had some issues.  First, I showed up at the U-Haul facility shortly after 8 am.  Movers were coming at 9:30 to load me up, so I should have had plenty of time.  There was nobody there, however.  Except a guy who was also trying to rent a truck.  Several calls to Regional later, I had a new truck at a nearby facility where the staffers actually showed up to work on time, and was late to meet my movers.

Make that “mover.” Only Hector had shown up on time; the other mover (whom I started calling Skippy because he was so white-college-boy, and never told me his name) was over two hours late.  But Hector got started right away, moving boxes and one-person items down the stairs.  He told me he got paid from the time he showed up, but I wouldn’t start getting charged until the whole crew checked in.  Plus, Hector got Skippy’s pay as well for that two hours.  So it all worked out well for both me and Hector, at least in terms of money.  In terms of time, U-Haul and Skippy put me behind schedule.

To get out of Brooklyn, I had to take the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to the West Side Highway and then the Holland Tunnel to the Garden State Parkway (Rte. 78).  On the map, and on all my directions, it sure as hell looked like you could get in the left lane at the Holland Tunnel and then take an immediate left to access 78.  Except for the part where you first have to, if you are driving a commercial vehicle such as a 14-foot moving van, go the long way around to the special checkpoint entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery and show your rental agreement and license (after messing up and having to have the Port Authority cop who just sent you around and is surprised to see you in the same place he just sent you away from move the traffic cones and stop traffic to let you into the right lane) and then, at the Holland Tunnel, get out of the van and open up the back for the cop, who is not very happy to be there, and is certainly not happy your dog is barking at him.  Oh, and except for the part where they’ve closed that left-hand turn and now, even though you’re in the extreme left lane, in order to get 78, you have to be five lanes over to the right really fast.  In a 14-foot truck which you’ve been driving for less than an hour.  In heavy, heavy traffic.

So I got lost for a while in Jersey City.  In parts of Jersey City I don’t know at all.  In parts of Jersey City with hills and narrow streets and no signs telling you which direction 78 might be in.  I drove over the curb in a few spots, even, since I had no sense of where the end of the truck was.  I finally stopped for gas and asked for directions (but the guy was no help), and then got the maps feature on my iPhone to cooperate.  I found 78, then found my way to Pennsylvania.  I’d hoped to get to Pittsburgh before I stopped for the night, because I had to be in Lafayette, IN the next day, but I’d gotten such a late start that I got no further than Carlisle, PA before I had to call it a night because I just couldn’t see.

The next day was a long drive followed by meeting Lauren and an unfortunate incident with Junebug and a waitress who had picked up the bag of food she’d just brought out and set down to make sure we had our whole order.  No skin was broken.

Junebug has not been an easy traveling companion.  Tolltakers are out to get her.  So are the Port Authority cops and the poor waitress.  I’ve gotten her a harness which can be strapped down by the seatbelt.  I thought this might be a good way to keep her restrained when I got out of the truck, but the first time I left her belted in while I pumped gas, she chewed partway through the seatbelt.  She’s also put a small hole in the vinyl seat, though that could have been me, too.  Good thing I took out the super-duper damage policy.  After the first day, when she was terribly, terribly anxious about driving, I have given her tranquilizers, which make her a little dopey and slit-eyed like a stoner After the drugs, she’s been pretty content to spend most of the ride with her head in my lap, though she has chosen some inconvenient moments to start nudging her head under my elbow to get me to pet her.  Like construction zones.

Zuzu’s been tranquilized the whole way.  And while she had a few scary moments the first day — it is NEVER a good thing when a cat pants open-mouthed — that could have been due to having a high anxiety level from the whole move experience.  Also, it was hot.  But she’s been better since then; she’ll have a few minutes of meowing and trying to climb out of the crate about an hour after we get underway, but she settles right down and naps.

I’ve gotten much more comfortable with the truck as well, which I find kind of amusing since I haven’t owned a car in 17 years, and I don’t really drive at all.  I’ve figured out the mirrors, which make lane changes much easier, and I rather like being up high.  Tractor-trailers bother me less when I’m looking over at the cab doors rather than at the tires as they go by.  They do cause me some problems when they come alongside me, since their air currents push my back end.  The truck’s a little light since I don’t have all that much stuff back there, so it does some fishtailing.  But it’s not awful.  And I’ve even gotten fairly comfortable with it at gas stations and on local roads — as long as I don’t have to back up or do much in the way of lane changing.  And somehow, it’s not wearing on me to drive eight hours a day, as long as I break it up.

Also?  The iTrip is the best thing ever.

I’ve got four more full days on the road, and four more nights in hotels, before I reach my final destination.  Right now I’m in Iowa at a hotel which provides free wi-fi.   I’ve downloaded the first three seasons of Mad Men and plan on watching a couple episodes before I crash.

Never try to collect on a bet until the game’s over

Published at September 11, 2010 in work work work, Vanity and Travel. 2 Comments

I was out on a househunting trip this week to my new town — found a gorgeous, huge vintage place with three exposures, a garage, laundry, fireplace (working!), wood floors, formal dining room, built-in china cabinet and linen cabinet, etc., etc., etc., all in a really great neighborhood about two miles from work for almost $500 less than I pay for my studio in the worst part of a good neighborhood in Brooklyn, cut off by the expressway and a real haul from the subway.

I also visited the library and shot the shit with my new coworkers.  Apparently, they’ve had a betting pool on whether I’d break down and get a car.  When I mentioned I was considering it, the guy who’d bet that I would started acting like he’d won.

Except the car’s not bought yet, and after driving around town for a couple of days, I’m not entirely sure I really do need one.  I have laundry right in my apartment, and there’s a big Safeway two blocks away; I walk farther to the grocery store now.  There are bike lanes all over, and most of the nightlife is about 12 blocks right down the street from where I’ll be living, so very easy to walk (and reasonably safe as well).  There are car rental places right downtown, and lots of bike and motorcycle/scooter parking areas.  Even the rain isn’t that bad; it rained while I was there, and my boss* said it was fairly typical of the winter rain — cold, but not very hard.  And then it doesn’t rain all summer.

To be honest, what I probably have been balking at is having a car loan, rather than having a car.  If I don’t buy one and save my money, I could get a good used car — and it’s dry in the west, so rust won’t be as big a factor in a used car as it is in the Northeast — and pay cash for it.

____

* I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but I just love my new boss.  It certainly helps that he was recruiting me hard and has moved mountains to get my needs accommodated.  But everyone I spoke to during my interview volunteered that he was a great guy.  Even the people who were acting as my references told me so after speaking with him, and they’d never met him.  And I certainly saw that during this trip — he took me out to dinner and then drove me around trying to see if there were any houses for rent in his neighborhood, which is adorable.  I also love that when I met up with him for dinner, he had me meet him at a gay bar and introduced me to his friends.

Too tired to sleep

Published at August 14, 2010 in Library stuff, work work work and Travel. 2 Comments

It’s noon, I just got back from the Left Coast, where I had a job interview at a very nice law school with seductive weather, and even though I’ve been up for 30 hours, I’m not at all sleepy.

Gah.

I’d really love to be able to sleep on planes.  I keep meaning to get a small prescription for Valium or something before I fly, which might help knock me out (or maybe just make me not care that I can’t sleep).   Not a damn wink on the red eye.

This was my first full second-round interview with the Dreaded Presentation.  Which I sort of winged on format, because I haven’t been able to get much of an answer from anyone about what a DP should consist of.  But I was able to fill my time completely, keep the interest of my audience, and answer questions.   I also did well during the panel interview portion, where I was interviewed by separate panels of the librarians and the technical services staff — and I sucked up shamelessly to the latter.  I’ve certainly figured out that it doesn’t help to direct someone to a source if it’s not there because tech services doesn’t have the resources to get it back on the shelf or update it.

It helped, too, that the director of the law library has been pretty open about the fact that he really wants me to succeed.  So I didn’t feel that there was much skepticism to overcome.  I should know soon, but I’m also interviewing with other schools that probably won’t schedule their second-round interviews until early September.

I was not expecting the odor

Published at October 16, 2009 in Aging gracefully or not, Health, Vanity, Travel and Uncategorized. 13 Comments

I just got back, as I said in the last post, from Montreal. The primary reason I went there was to get Lasik (Canada has more advanced technology than the US, and even when the FDA approves certain equipment, such as the particular laser I was treated with, the earlier approval means that Canadian eye surgeons have more experience with the equipment than their American counterparts. Plus, it’s cheaper. And it’s Montreal). I was tired of being extremely nearsighted, and what with the onset of reading glasses* and all, it was looking like I’d be in very expensive and unworkable progressive lenses before too long. Why not get the nearsightedness fixed, and then worry about the aging-related reading glasses as a single prescription?

So I biffed off up North, where the many public wi-fi networks refused to speak to my netbook. And after a few days of sightseeing and wonderful meals and lovely chocolat chaud, I went to the clinic for my surgery. The pre-op and post-op is being done locally, but I went to Montreal for the actual surgery.

I knew there would be Clockwork Orange eyelid clamps. I probably should have guessed that, yes, everyone makes the same Clockwork Orange joke when the clamps are put in. I knew there would be some “pressure,” though I hadn’t really been clear on what it was for (apparently, to make you go temporarily blind so you don’t see the blade that’s cutting the flap in your cornea) or how much it would hurt when my orbital bone was pushed on.

I did not, however, know that there was going to be an odor — specifically, the odor of burning hair. It was apparently just the laser burning some carbon in the air, not my eyeball getting vaporized. But disconcerting, nonetheless.

It was over in minutes. The first half-hour afterwards was just fine, if things were blurry and I had the world’s goofiest-looking eye shields on my face. Then the anaesthetic wore off, and the burning and itching and feeling of sand-in-the-eyes started. That lasted four hours or so, during which time I was instructed to rest but not sleep — as if I could fall asleep with my eyes burning like that — and to blink at least every five minutes to keep things lubricated. I got very familiar with the limitations of my hotel room, which featured not a separate bathroom, but a sink, shower stall and toilet closet right in the room. As a concept, not terribly objectionable — until you realize that the legroom in the toilet nook leaves a little something to be desired, and it’s not possible to both take the wide stance necessary to position yourself correctly AND pull your pants down. Others before me had similar issues, or at least that’s how I interpret the fact that the seat was forever popping out of place.

After four hours or so, things started feeling much better, but I had to leave the shields on nonetheless until the following morning. Whereupon I removed them and went back to the clinic for my first-day checkup. My vision was 20/15, which is right about where it should be, since they overcorrect due to the fact that as the eyes heal, they naturally settle out a little, so I should end up with 20/20. I had a little inflammation in one eye, so they had me use the antibiotic drops more frequently for the first two days; I also have dryness, which is normal, so I have drops for that as well.

I’m quite pleased.  Things are kind of foggy, I’ll need to use reading glasses for a few weeks until the overcorrection settles out, I have haloes at night, and my eyes are dry, but that’s all normal and should go away within a few days or weeks.   But for the first time since fourth grade, I can fucking SEE without glasses or contacts.  Yay!

____

* About those expensive progressive lenses that optometrist tried to push on me:  turns out I NEVER ACTUALLY NEEDED THEM AT ALL.  The doctor who did my pre-op for surgery figured that my contacts were overcorrecting my vision, which made reading a little difficult.  So he put me into weaker contacts, and that solved the reading problem while still enabling me to see distances.  Boy, am I glad I pushed back on those instead of spending almost $500 to solve a problem I didn’t even have.

Opportunities

Published at March 31, 2009 in Library stuff and Travel. 0 Comments

This library thing could be very, very interesting.

There was a guest lecturer in my class last night who’s in the publishing industry and who started a library in Tanzania with his wife while they were there with Habitat for Humanity.  They need volunteers who can help with the library stuff, since a) they’re not librarians themselves; and b) Tanzania doesn’t really have a library culture.  In particular, they need someone who can talk to the women of the village about health issues, and maybe collect some women’s health materials in Swahili.

I’m seriously considering going for a week or so when they go in August.  I won’t have classes at that point, and I shouldn’t have a problem getting time off work.  And I can spend a few days in Europe on the way back as well.

Hmmmm….

Published at February 27, 2008 in Life with pets, Vanity and Travel. 17 Comments

It looks like I will be in contract on my apartment soon, with an offer comfortably over the asking price.  And it’s going to close in mid-to-late May.

Which got me thinking: my current assignment will probably have wrapped up, or will be wrapping up, by then.  And yet I don’t have the kind of cash (or, frankly, credit rating) that will allow me to jump right into a new rental without asking my aunt for a short-term loan (or, god forbid, ask her to co-sign a lease), and I really don’t want to do that.

But I’m gonna need a place to live, which is complicated by the fact that I also need a place to park my pets.

And it hit me: why not get a summer sublet somewhere like Halifax or Montreal?  Halifax is essentially a college town, which means there are plenty of sublets available, plus summer’s a great time of year to be there.  And Montreal is, well, it’s Montreal.  Both places have low housing costs, and Montreal has good public transit.  Each is a relatively reasonable drive from New York, and I could probably Shanghai a friend into making the trip with a bribe of furniture or electronics.

I could sure use some planned time off, versus “Oh, shit, now I’m out of work; what the hell am I gonna do?” time off.

Thoughts?

Sigh.

Published at July 16, 2007 in Travel. 10 Comments

So pretty.

Vancouver. So pretty.

(photo: Bonny Makarewicz for The New York Times)