So far, so good!

We like it here! I had my first day of work orientation at the hospital, and Matt made some contact with the DC Public Schools. Afterward we met up at the mall near where I work and got new cell phones--so far we are really impressed with T-Mobile. After that we wandered around looking for a grocery store (the promised Harris Teeter "just across the street" that was a major reason we chose our current apartment has actually yet to be built). After phoning directory assistance (also known as my brother, who works at a computer all day) we found the Safeway about 6 blocks from where we live. Prices are definitely higher here, but we made out OK and came home for grilled cheese, tomato, and pesto sandwiches--yum. And now for what is still the most challenging part of my day: falling asleep at a decent hour. I had a surprising amount of energy today, thanks to taking an Ambien around 9:45 last night so that I could be well-rested by 6, but one day I hope to be able to actually sleep during the nighttime unaided. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, we're really happy here and feeling excited to continue our explorations!

The day's work

We also walked for half an hour trying to find a place to buy milk for breakfast, ate in for lunch, and for dinner, managed to get lost trying to pick up a pizza before realizing when we finally got there that we'd ordered it from a different Pizza Hut--one at the complete opposite side of town. So we did what any sensible person would--left the other guys hanging and ordered one from the Pizza Hut we ended up at, killing time while it was baking by furtively throwing our moving boxes in their dumpster. We are really on a roll. Tomorrow: I start work at an ungodly hour of the morning, and Matt ties up loose ends on starting his employment with the DC public schools.

Here at last!

This is going to be quick. I'm exhausted and have a major headache, possibly from trying to figure out how we're ever going to fit everything in our apartment! We headed out yesterday around 7:30am after getting to bed around 2 following our going-away party.

The cats did much better than we thought they would in the truck, although we were all a little antsy (OK, and some of us tearfully exhausted) by the time we spent 18 hours driving (mostly through torrential downpours; on a brighter note, we saw a double rainbow!) and finally arrived around 3:30am. Then we slept for a few hours, and got up and unpacked the truck. We dropped our moving truck off and then walked around the Capitol Hill neighborhood, which we're getting very excited to become a part of. We had dinner at the Banana Cafe [warning: loud salsa music on the homepage] which was very good and then we came home and took a nap, sleeping as soundly as I can remember doing for a long time.

So...we're making an appreciable dent in the boxes, Matt has gotten most of the furniture together, and our kitchen cabinets are already almost full...with several boxes left to unpack, as well as no real food in there yet to speak of. The apartment is even smaller than we remembered, but I think we'll learn valuable lessons about how much (in terms of both space and things) we really need. We've already come across so many things we're interested in doing and seeing, and I think it will be a really exciting chapter in our lives. I still get a little teary talking to my parents, or going through the wonderful cards and gifts from the co-workers who threw me such a superb going-away party on Thursday, but on the whole, we're feeling very optimistic.

Today was a busy, stressful day...we kicked it off with a visit to the vet's office to catch Patches and Scratches up on their vaccinations. This is something I'm not always right on top of since they're strictly indoor cats who only have contact with each other, and thus I feel like the chances of a vaccine reaction are probably statistically more likely (especially after having a full set of vaccinations when they were kittens, which some say is wholly sufficient) than the chance that they'll contract a major illness. However, I worried that our landlords or the city of Washington might be strict about such things, and so we relented and took them in. Scratches, our lovely, sensitive, 5-year-old gray cat, ended up having a vaccine reaction and had to stay at the vet's office on Benadryl and steroids all afternoon. We were heartbroken at the thought of losing him, but his full recovery has reminded us of all that we really do have to be thankful for in the midst of what seems like a stressful time.

In lighter news, my sister came over for dinner tonight. The Wedge was one of the last stops on our must-eat-before-leaving list (also including the amazing Thai Spice, India Cafe, the Atlas, and more), and then we topped it off with a little back-to-school shopping. I think a good time was had by all, and it helped ease my anxiety about the transition to a life in which my clothing is not mandated, provided and laundered for me by my employer; not all the same color and style; not fully reversible; and when it's not considered acceptable to wear the exact same thing every single day. It's going to be a real bummer...but life is full of compromises, I guess.

Otherwise, we spent a lot of time packing and consolidating boxes so that my mom and brother can come help us load our truck tomorrow before the Katie Party, which I'm doing my best not to accept as the last time I see my co-workers but which may, in fact, be the last time (for awhile, at least) that I will see the artists formerly known as my co-workers.

Lady of the Night...No More

I'm writing this in the early hours of the morning after my last night at work. It's incredibly hard for me to imagine that after
spending 40-60 hours a week here for the past year and a half, I'll walk out the door this morning and just not come back. Yesterday morning when I got after work, I was struck with such an agonizing sadness about it--about leaving the wonderful people I've made friends with, and also leaving the role that, in spite of myself, I've grown comfortable with. I told Matt yesterday that I applied to law school back when things were unfamiliar, stressful, and difficult--and that somewhere in between applying to school and actually leaving, I somehow got comfortable here. I never saw it coming. Older nurses would tell me that the first year would be hell, but then it would get better. I couldn't believe them; I was convinced that I was in entirely the wrong profession, that I would never develop the physical skills or the intellectual capacities that the job demanded. I'm still a novice by all means, but I think I can say that I was wrong. I can't say exactly when it happened--when I stopped tasting panic when I was assigned a labor patient, or when my mind first did something besides simply go blank when an emergency arose--but perhaps because the idea that this career wasn't forever took the pressure off, I found my stride. And loved it. And looking back, I'm glad I applied to law school and decided to go when I did--because if I'd felt then about nursing the way I do now, I'm not sure I could have done it.

From this experience, I've learned I've learned so much that I hope will smooth the transition back to square one--starting over, and in a profession I have even less initiation to than I did into nursing. I've learned that I was never hopeless, only inexperienced; I've learned to listen to the voices of experience when they tell me that ease comes with time. I've learned how to both trust myself and rely on others in an emergency. I've learned that I can both think on my feet and admit when I'm wrong.

I'm also comforted by the memory of how brokenhearted I was to leave geriatric nursing--but that I've never regretted it. I remember people I trusted telling me, "We're sorry to see you go, but this has to be the next step for you. You'll be glad you did." Those people were right, and I hear them saying the same things again. I'm so excited for this next adventure, but being glad to go doesn't dampen my sorrow at leaving. It also doesn't completely offset the loss I feel at giving up what has been such a huge part of my identity--my place in the night nurse culture. I feel like in a way, I don't know who I am if I actually sleep during the day. And maybe I don't. And I'm realizing that that's OK.

Monday Cooking Fest.

Well, yesterday ended up being a busier day than we had envisioned. Katie got up in the afternoon (I let her sleep in as long as possible since she worked last night) and then we went right out and got a few ingredients. I saw that bulk basil was on sale at the Coop so we went there and got just over half a pound. With this we made one of our favorite recipes: PESTO! Here is our pesto recipe below that is a combination of many different pesto recipes combined:




1/2 LB fresh Basil with big stems removed.
1/2 Cup Walnuts
1/2 Cup Pinenuts
1 3/4 Cups Romano Cheese
1 3/4 Cups Parmesan Cheese
1 1/2 Cups Olive Oil
14 Cloves Garlic
14 Cranks Black Pepper
Salt to taste

You need to split the thing between two Cuisiants or blenders
1. Add oil, garlic and nuts and chop a little
2. Add basil and cheese and blend until desired texture
3. Eat some to see about the salt and pepper. Add some and eat some more.
4. Do a dance and make some pasta damnit!

I also mentioned to Katie that I wanted to surprise her with bringing in a carrot cake for her last days of work but since we live together a baking surprise would have proven too difficult to come up with. Thus, I told her and we eventually decided together that a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. The frosting was sort of runny in the end because it had honey in it so it was more of a glaze type thing. It tasted awesome though. One probably could have put the frosting on a horse apple and eaten it. I brought it into her work and it went over well. Next we wanted to try some different bulk flour with our normal bread recipe. This loaf ended up looking and feeling like a horse apple so I do not think that we will use the flour again. The next two recipes were for the purposes of using up the famed "flour of death." Back when I worked at the Coop in Stevens Point, I decided to learn how to bake. Many years later, I still had a big bucket with a version of flour in it that I am pretty sure is the entire wheat grass all ground up. It has its own odor that permeates everything you make with it. Thus, to use up the last 8 cups of it we made cinnamon squares and cookies. Finally, the crap is gone.

I think that it is starting to get to us a little that we are leaving. As it hits us that we are seeing our families for one of the last times for a while, a bit of melancholy starts to surround us. It is a good feeling to know we are a great team and can rely on each other. This is what will help us to get through this.

One last note. It looks like I am going to be teaching elementary band and music for two of Washington DC's elementary schools. I am so excited for this. I am still in the preliminary stages of the hiring process and things move very slowly out there. One of the schools is primarily Hispanic while the other is almost completely African American. More on this all to come but at least I have some steady form of employment in store.

A few of our favorite things

I spent the afternoon in the throes of what I believe to have been my first official migraine, and thus my posting ambitions are a little low right now. So I'll start with what comes easily: talking about food. The picture to the right is of Matt and a dish of puerco pibil, also known as conchinita pibil, the one and only meat dish we ever cook and the reason Matt claims he couldn't ever be fully vegetarian again. We first discovered it as a bonus feature on the DVD "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," after which we painstakingly recreated and loved it, and were thrilled to find it was an option for our rehearsal dinner (in Mexico). We were even more delighted to discover that our homemade version was surprisingly authentic in comparison. It's a little labor-intensive but well worth the effort; to find and grind the individual spices, to blend the marinade, to slow-cook for four hours, to scrub the remnants off the bottom of your oven if you forgot to put down a drip pan. It's shown here with a side of fried plaintains and homemade corn tortillas.

Something else we tried recently that was a singular success was cold-brewing coffee. We already use a French press for making hot coffee (because we love the flavor, the speed, and the savings of not having to buy coffee filters), and this was even easier: we just ground the beans, dumped them in with some cold water, let them sit overnight, and pressed them down in the morning. The ultimate make-ahead, instant (after 8-12 hours, anyway) coffee beverage! Coffee is supposedly much lower in acid and higher in caffeine when prepared this way (tailor-made for night nurses with ulcers!), and we found that it had a much smoother, almost chocolatey-sweet taste when combined with a generous amount of milk.

Another of our household adventures which actually has very little to do with food relates to a recent shift in how we think about cleaning supplies. I think the combination of getting a little older (and thus thinking about the kind of impact we'd like to ultimately have on our bodies and the planet) and each of us marrying somebody whose hippie idealism serves as a catalyst to our own has nudged us both into making a series of small but sustainable changes in the way we live our daily lives. Matt has switched almost exclusively to biking where he needs to go; I've been experimenting with eradicating unnecessary chemicals from our household. It's amazing how much you really don't need substances like bleach in the kitchen when you a) rarely cook meat; b) clean up messes as soon as they happen; c) use plenty of hot water; and d) where that fails, employ a generous amount of baking soda and a rag. We've really cut down on the amount of money we used to spend on kitchen and bathroom cleansers, paper towels, and other cleaning supplies when we switched to simpler ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, and rags we made ourselves (anything from boxer shorts to t-shirts works, although we seem to like old thermal shirts the best). It's empowering to find ways to save money that are also beneficial to us and the environment; it's gratifying to live with someone who responds enthusiastically even to your more outside-the-box suggestions. Are tampons and toilet paper the next industrialized products to go the way of the dinosaur? Only time will tell.