November Highlights

• We made 5 pies for a local shelter for Thanksgiving. That's a lot of pie. Yummy, yummy pie. Chaos in the kitchen. (Later on we experimented with the leftover mashed sweet potatoes and some of the remaining hot peppers from our garden and made some fritters which are definitely worth trying again sometime.)
• Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special - we finally have enough of a local "crowd" to be able to invite people over! Couldn't find any jelly babies, however :(
• Lots of knitting. Trying to finish up projects before Christmas, as well as before the Lady Gaga/Muppets holiday special. Wrists are unhappy - will take a break from knitting while home for the holidays.
• Got some locals hooked on Dominion. Muahahahaha! At last!
• Started working at the Northwood Community Center. This is a great way to get out of the house and meet neighbors and plan activities, which complements the contract work from home. Also, great commute. And a manager who hums the original BSG theme.
• Guest minister performing bilingual rendition of Blowin' in the Wind. English and Bulgarian. Very cool :)
• Thanksgiving potluck that included sushi and tostones - score another one for Northwood multiculturalism! (Sadly, we didn't bring pie because everyone signed up for desserts and they needed sides instead, but then turns out almost no one actually brought desserts so oops, there was no apple pie and Arthur was very pouty to have spent the day baking pies and not have any applie pie for himself.)
• Josh's annual post-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. For which we made two more pies (we were originally going to bring one, but see above re: Arthur upset not to have apple pie). And I discovered that running out of  corn syrup (which I never use except for pecan pie) and using half corn syrup/half agave syrup makes the pecan pie even better. Also, I accidentally watched college football for the first time.
• Discovery of Frita Batidos. We're now part of a monthly burger crawl to help us find the best burger in Ann Arbor+ before we leave. This month was Frita Batidos, which Arthur had been refusing to go to and whining that it was all beef (it's not). But then we get there and he's changed his tune completely. He's absolutely in love with the loaded plantains - nachos, but with maduros instead of tortilla chips. If he had to choose between me and the loaded plantains, I'm not sure I'd win.

A taste of what we've been up to

We've been here long enough to have a semblance of a life now, and the biggest obstacle is Arthur having too much homework to be sociable. But! for those curious at home, here's a sampling of our current lives.

• We went to the local food festival again. We didn't get any auction items this time, but we did run into a variety of Northwood folks, and that was fun. Very different from last year when we knew NO ONE. Arthur was sampling the raw garlics. So I know he's not a vampire.
  
• The garden continues. The lettuce and peas are in their second plantings. The cucumbers up and died during a dry spell, which is very sad. The chillies continue to outpace me, but! tonight I wandered outside and started handing them out to neighbors, and conveniently one of them had just been given a bunch of tomatillos by a neighbor and was on his way to the store to buy hot peppers. WELL, I thought. I can take care of that! So I went to the garden and picked him a whole bunch more. Now maybe the peppers are possibly manageable. Maybe. In the meantime, I enjoy these little Northwood moments. I really wish there was some sort of semi-formal garden produce swap. I have too many jalapeños, you have too many tomatillos... well, let's share and wind up with a mountain of salsa verde!
  
• Checking out local parks. Most of them are along the river. One of them even has *gasp* "bluffs" that can almost be seen as real bluffs! It was wonderful. We've been slowly working through the parks that are a quick drive away and have a range of walking path lengths, so Arthur still has time for homework.
  
• Lots of volunteering. Habitat for Humanity (they really like Arthur who comes all pre-packaged with l33t skillz), Alpha House, trail maintenance, social media, bookstore table, rovering, and much more. If money weren't a problem, I could really enjoy volunteering all the time. I really need to win the lottery.
  
• Potlucks, potlucks, potlucks. I generally like potlucks. Potluck culture is a good thing. But sometimes three in a week is a bit overwhelming for my kitchen...
  
• Gaming! We've finally found a couple of outlets for gaming once or twice a month. (Arthur has even found fellow students who game, at last.) Trying not to buy any new games... And I'm playing bridge again.
  
• Assorted random things, like Art Fair (really that big!), the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival, Dancing in the Streets, Happy Hour (it's a *very* Happy Hour sort of town), Meetups, etc.
  

Of course, not everything's been fun and games. We're dealing with the disaster that is the health insurance market (it is not yet January 2014). And the car troubles. And other stuff.

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So we're finding stuff to do, and sometimes even people to go with. Often the biggest impediment is cashflow. Now we're really feeling like students!

We are overrun by chillies

Tonight was the welcome social at NW IV. And what a difference from last year, when we were brand new! This year we really enjoyed ourselves.

Salsas 3 and 4

One of the differences is that instead of just being an ice cream social, there was also a potluck. So we used it as an opportunity to harvest More Endless Hot Peppers from the garden. We made a salsa verde and an ancho chili sauce (both from The Well-Filled Tortilla Cookbook) and made Christmas-colored enchiladas.



We liked the salsa verde, although I'm not sure how often we'll make it given the tomatillos (not great quality at Kroger) and effort. But we really liked having a non-tomato salsa. Pity there wasn't any leftover (it all went onto the enchiladas); it works really well with chips.

The ancho sauce was, unsurprisingly, MUCH hotter. It's a great way to use up garden ingredients, and I'll make it again, but only for specific dishes where the heat can be countered or baked mellower.

The social aspect

Last year we didn't know anyone, and appeared to be two of only a handful of attendees without kids. This year, there were several people without kids, and we all gravitated towards each other. AND most of them belonged to SNRE or public policy, so even more of a win - they're our nonprofitty-type people :) At least one is even a sci-fi fan, so you know I was relieved to find kin.

So we had a much better time. The circle we were in kept growing. We kept meeting new people. We were social. There was even sorbet, so I could enjoy the ice cream part of the event.


It's definitely interesting how one change in the dynamic completely changes our experience. It is really difficult to insert ourselves into a group of parents who all know each other and are hanging out while their kids play. It's much easier when there are other people with the same obstacle, so we all wind up together instead.

Another thing we've been here long enough to go to again

This year we were at Dancing In The Streets with a couple of other people, and that made a big difference. (It also helped that there were attendees this year, and that they were dancing.) So Arthur got to dance for a while, and he was also a volunteer. He's now a member of the community, rather than a newcomer peering in.

One year

We pulled into town and picked up our keys one year ago. We're not at all where we expected to be. And in some ways that's good, and others not so much.

With Arthur adding the second Master's degree to his time here, it almost feels like we're starting over. Last year, we began a two-year stint. The clock has stalled - with the SNRE year, we're still facing two years ahead of us. It's a strange feeling. Partially starting over. Partially settled in. A whole lot of shifting ground.

Places to study (with side rant on municipal segregation)

Between research for professors and research for fellow Fellows, neither of which have set hours or an office to go to, this summer I've had to make my own routine, including choosing and alternating places to work. The work isn't too different from class projects, so I think of it as study time.
One of my first finds was just downhill from the Duderstadt library, which is a good place to study during the year, but too lifeless in the summer.

I'd never seen them turn on the fountains before!

An old standard from during the year is the Traverwood Branch of the Ann Arbor District Library. It's rather impressively lavish. When I think about how expensive it must have been to preserve and use tree trunks from the site as load-bearing elements, inlay the wood patterns on the floor, dig the underground parking, install and program the automatic window shades, and design the automated book checkout system, I stop being skeptical that Ann Arbor actually is the richest city in Michigan.

My favorite tables, although these are usually full in summer. Image copyright AADL, CC BY-NC.

So long as I set aside the moral implications of a library system having that much money to spend, in complete isolation from so many municipal needs just East of here, the Traverwood Branch is a great place to study. In May and June, I went there for a large part of the day, most days of the week. And I went for some nice walks over lunch.

The view from a mini-forest ("Nature Area", to the parks dept.) over the golf course, 1/4 mi from library

There's always the desk in my study, which has shuffled a little to the right from where it was last Fall. It's okay for lazily checking off the simple tasks. When it's not too windy, the picnic table outside our back door is a great way to get going on a big project.

And when I'm feeling wacky or need a new perspective, I continue my tradition from freshman year: find a sculpture and sit on top of it.

Sculpture by Clement Meadmore, on my route to campus.

Sometimes I still have a sense of smell despite my allergies

We stopped by the Ypsilanti Co-op last week on our way to a social gathering, and I loved it. They're fairly small and didn't have what I was looking for, but they smelled the way a co-op should. The Ann Arbor co-op is like a small Whole Foods. And even Harvest has expanded so much that it doesn't feel or smell the way I remember a true community co-op smelling. But this one... was just right. (And someone at dinner, who originally hales from Vermont, knew exactly what I meant.)


I've also noticed that summer is smelling more like summer should. I love Boston, but summer rarely smelled like "summer" to me. Then again, it's on the ocean. The air is actually different. But Arthur and I were walking around campus the other morning, and it smelled like summer, the way I remember it. And it felt like summers on a campus, too. We may live on campus, but we're in graduate family apartments. It feels like suburbia. And the parts of North Campus I most often walk through do feel like a campus, but never struck a chord with me like the areas that we walked through this time. It reminds me of the summers visiting my grandfather at the university, or working on the Amherst campus in the summers. We were walking by some of the actual dorm areas, and behind the music building. It felt very different from the wide-open engineering area of the North Campus quad. It felt like a campus should.


Of course, one of those familiar sights was construction. Ah yes, summer campus construction. What's nostalgic on campus is a headache everywhere else. I wound up with a headache and a quarter tank of gas this weekend because everywhere I went required detours. Which made the hunt for soygurt even more ridiculous. (Whole Soy is currently out of production, and I'm having trouble finding Silk brand (I prefer their milk but don't care for their yogurt, but it's better than nothing). And the places I used to be able to get the quart containers aren't carrying even the individual cups at all. And so I wound up at Whole Paycheck to get a pint of coconut milk yogurt, because while it's incredibly expensive, it's the best I could do.) By the time I got home, the "ah, construction" feeling had definitely turned into "ah! construction!" with a rude gesture. But what would a college town be without nonstop summer construction?

There may have been a wee bit of rain

Yup, another garden post. Today was one of those perfect weather days, and there was plenty to pick in the garden.

There was a massive amount of rain a few days ago, which of course was good in that gardens need rain, but made it difficult to pick the salad we intended to have for dinner. And rain just encourages weeds, too. Really, what doesn't encourage weeds? Sometimes evolution needs to back off.

One thing we like about all these storms is that they often do break the humidity. I remember that in D.C., storms just made it worse. Here, it'll be a torrential downpour and lightning everywhere and then... sunshine and a beautiful evening with low humidity. Granted, I'm still terrified of the whole tornado aspect. Everyone here takes it so casually, because it's what they grew up with. But it's still new to me. And SCARY.

But all the rain made the peas finally appear :) One day, no pods. Rain rain rain and voila - two days later, it's pods everywhere!

Everything is thriving, and now we even have beautiful purple beans. We're only waiting for the cucumbers at this point, but they were a late replacement, so it'll be a while. (And we've completely given up on the spinach.)

We're about to be overwhelmed by chili peppers. I welcome my chili pepper overlords :) We have some generic "garden salsa" plants, as well a poblano, a jalapeno, and an I-can't-remember-right-now red chili as well. And the bell peppers look soooo cute as babies!

We only got a single plot this year, so we're mostly growing things that either both of us eat, or that we eat a lot of. One of our neighbors has a double plot, however, and their broccoli patch is making me think that next year we should go for a double plot. The peas need more space, and I'd like to add in some onions and broccoli.

The basil is looking spectacular. We're planning to make some [manchego] pesto this week. And it's time to start experimenting with the Thai basil leaves as well. We have some coconut milk, so I suspect that the day after the pesto dinner will be a curry dinner.

It's been really good for Arthur to pick dinner each night. He spends most of the day working from home (or the library; but not in an office with colleagues) for his internship, and evening time in the garden helps provide a clear break between home-and-working and home-and-relaxing. He's enjoying the rhythm enough that he's even making fresh salad dressing every few days.

Oh! And we had a very Northwood experience the other day. Many of the families here are from overseas, and in the summer many relatives visit. And one evening I was weeding while Arthur was thinning the out-of-control lettuce, when one of the foreign parents came by (with her very adorable grandson) and was practicing her English (trying to identify each plant by the English word). And she saw what Arthur was doing, and offered to show him a better way. The next thing I know, there's a charming baby in my arms and Arthur has help in the lettuce patch. And this baby was very sweet. (Dear Neecy: he smiled. No crying. You need to up your game!)

Six months already?

Getting Around

We've been here six months now, and I'm finally starting to make sense of my surroundings. I've been thrown by the so-called grid system; I'm used to grids having some sort of naming pattern. Here, there are a handful of streets downtown that are numbered, but otherwise there isn't any way to know which streets go which way. That I've found, anyway. Plus, the river cutting through things and making a mess of any grid doesn't really help.

But now I've started to learn the major roads, and which ones are N-S and which ones are E-W. Which ones go all the way across; which ones merge into something else; which ones access the highways. (The latter being key to ending my confusion.)

I've become fond of the logic of some naming schemes. What runs past Northwood as Plymouth Road becomes Plymouth-Ann Arbor Road when it leaves town. And then when it gets to Plymouth, it becomes just Ann Arbor Road. Realizing this has really helped local geography fall into place in my head. It's eminently logical! And so much easier when there aren't 5 different Washington Streets in the same metro area.

I've also finally learned the difference between Washington and Washtenaw. I had trouble keeping them straight for a while when people were giving verbal directions. That caused no end of disasters!

Weather

It's actually been nicer here than back home, so I hear. Which is my way of saying we've barely kept any snow on the ground. A pleasant surprise.

However, being this far west in the time zone is still throwing me for a loop. It doesn't get light out until really late. Which makes it difficult to get up in the morning. I'm working from home, so I don't have a regular routine that pushes me out the door at the same time every morning.

Which is bad for me in the long run. It's cold and dark out, and so I hole up in the house. I really need some warm springtime soon, with the return of daylight.

The worst part is how deserted it feels in Northwood. In the warmer months, there were kids running around laughing and playing. As soon as it got cold, it's like a ghost town outside. None of the kids play outside, and even the adults are scarce. It's dead quiet. Empty. Instead of feeling like a thriving community like it used to, it reflects the barrenness of winter. (OTOH, there has been one loud party in all the months we've lived here. That's worlds better than J.P.)

Settling In

We've adapted to the apartment. With the storage space in the basement, there's plenty of room for two people. (I still can't figure out where people fit several children in here, though.) And we've even managed to make the kitchen work most of the time. (No room for large-scale cookie projects, however.) We've joined Costco, and have shelves in the basement now to use as a pantry. (And the chest freezer we got for Christmas makes a huge difference.)

I'm missing rugs a little bit. It's senseless to buy one for such temporary housing (plus my allergist would be decidedly unhappy), but in a complex where each unit is identical and we can't paint, or put things on the walls, a splash of color from a rug makes a difference. Helps a room feel warmer.


But the one thing that really drives me crazy is the bathroom. I really, really, really miss having a window in the bathroom. I miss the light, and I miss the fresh air. The mold stains were here when we arrived, and we can never tell what's new mold to be killed, and what we can't control - because it's permanently stained.

I also miss a larger tub. And the lovely tiling, and multiple towel bars, and all the useful things that made our last bathroom sunny, spacious, and clean. There are shelves in the cubby, but the bathroom is so damp and humid all the time that we're limited in what we can keep there.

It's clear we were spoiled with a way-above-average bathroom at the last apartment, and are doomed to perpetual disappointment everywhere we go.

However, we're slowly going to move the rest of our stuff out of storage and into the basement here when we can. There's space in the basement to tuck things away. I wish we'd known that last summer - we would have just had everything on the moving truck and not worried about the storage unit or trying to transport things after the fact. But the goal will be to have everything in one place for next time. (And I'll have my books back. No complaints there :)

Overall

It's cold and dark and lonely; Arthur is out all day for school, and I'm working at home on the couch. But we're slowly meeting people and finding places we like and it's starting to feel homey.

So close, yet so far away

Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All

It's been eerie reading about the hurricane while living inland. I didn't really think we'd have to worry about hurricanes anymore. Tornados, yes - they terrify me. My heart races and I count the number of blasts in a panic whenever the siren sounds, relieved that it is just a test. Tornados - like earthquakes and scary critters (scorpions, tarantulas, and serious snakes; a rattle around every corner!) - are just foreign to a lifelong New Englander. Unknown. And we fear the unknown, do we not?

But being 800 miles away from the coast should buy us a reprieve from hurricanes. Seriously.

Now, we were never in any serious danger. While the coast was ravaged in places, and many of you are out of power, we just got a massive windstorm (and light rain). Sure, it's not pleasant outside and I'm happy to be hunkering down under these here blankets. And Ann Arbor is not next to one of the Lakes, so we did not need to worry about the exceptional waves flooding downtown.

But therein lies the rub. We're 800 miles away - even further if calculated from where Sandy made landfall - and we still experienced a windstorm that howled all night. That's how awesome and far-reaching a hurricane can be. We're barely even in the same time zone as those of you back home; there are no mountains in sight; no ocean within driving distance... yet the same storm that is knocking down your trees and flooding your subways is simultaneously battering my doors and windows and bringing a chill that the thermostat just can't compensate for.

It's not how I expected to still feel closer to home, but I'll take it. With significantly less destruction next time, please.

Or "Stormy" for short

I'm looking forward to Halloween tomorrow. Because we're living in our own little family housing community that has its own trick-or-treat, I feel like I can make cookies for dispersal rather than just buying candy. I'll include a slip of paper laying out major allergens and my contact info. But it feels like we live in a bubble where parents aren't going to freak out at something homemade, or an apple, or any of the things that people don't give out any more because of fear of razor blades and whatnot.

Because our complex has a lot of international families, there are periodic emails/flyers explaining terms such as "tailgate party" and "trick-or-treat". I really enjoy sitting back for a moment and thinking huh, how do you explain some of our wacky traditions to foreigners? It's a great opportunity to step outside of the box.

So I've been roasting pumpkins, refrigerating several types of cookie dough, so that I can both bake cookies tomorrow in time for trick-or-treat, as well as have a supply handy for when we go to a potluck, or Arthur finishes a paper and we need to pop in a tray or two of cookies to celebrate. 'Tis the season when cookies are on call.

Facilities... giveth!

What makes this possible is the shiny new oven (!) we received last week. Over the past month, as it's been cool enough to bake, we discovered that the oven heated waaaaaaaaaay too hot. Cookies burned, because it was impossible to get a temperature between 300 and 450. Bread was out of the question!

And since we're making Thanksgiving dinner, it would be great if we had the oven fixed before then. I would like my poultry edible, TYVM.

So Arthur opened a ticket with facilities. Now, we've had a mixed experience with them. While they do fix things, they never communicate. Unless we're at home when they arrive, we have no way of knowing that they have been here - they don't leave a note, they don't send an email (we're supposed to file all issues online, so it should be easy enough for them to send a note when the ticket is closed), they don't tell us ahead of time that they'll be stopping by.

Our first day here, we discovered a leaky pipe in the kitchen sink. We promptly called it in. We never heard from them. So each day we tried turning on the faucet, and one day the cabinet didn't flood. So yay - working sink - but boo - why couldn't they have left a note? How long were we supposed to continue without a sink because they couldn't leave a note saying they'd fixed it?

I've been home a couple of times when they've come by (in response to the move-in status report we're all required to fill out), and I've learned that they only come by when we're not here or when I'm home, but not wearing pants. Obviously, I chose to go pantsless last week in hopes that someone would come by to fix the oven in time for trick-or-treat baking. (My new Pantsless Doctrine.)

It worked. In fact, both of us were at home (so I did not have to run upstairs to put on pants before opening the door this time). Except it was one person coming by to ask us if someone had brought us a new oven the previous week; um, not that we know of, but then again, YOU NEVER COMMUNICATE. (Granted, we would have noticed a new oven, if for no other reason than the stove looking startlingly clean ;) She then said someone would come by with a new one later that afternoon.

Which is great and all, but left us wondering - did anyone come by to try to fix it first? If so, we saw neither hide nor hair of them. When the guys came by with the new oven that afternoon, they did in fact ask about just that, and I'm like WTF, I have no clue. You all need to learn how to COMMUNICATE. For all I know, someone spent three hours sprawled in my kitchen trying to fix the oven. Or maybe no one came by at all.

It's a strange hybrid of campus housing and apartment. If this were a real apartment, a landlord couldn't enter without permission. A landlord would have to tell us when a plumber or electrician was going to be present. But this is campus housing, so they just show up without warning. If we had been out that afternoon, we would have come home and found a new oven, with no note, no phone call, no email - just "hey, this looks too clean to be our stove! I guess we have a new oven."

It's really disconcerting.

OTOH, the upshot of all this is NEW OVEN YAY! It works. I'm happy - mostly; I feel uncomfortable with this trend of gas ovens not having knobs and needing electricity to turn on and off. I like to use the oven (baking potatoes, or brownies, etc.) for heat during power outages. I can't do that anymore. It feels silly to me - why does it need electricity to turn on and off?!? - but I'll get used to it. In the meantime, I have a working oven! And a hundred trick-or-treaters to bake for! Eep!


Okay, I need to  run to the bank and other unexciting tasks. Ciao!

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way

Recently JP suggested I write about what I'm doing to relax amidst all the change and associated stress.

Short answer: lots of telly :)


Less embarrassing answer:

• I'm actually doing some contract work for my former employer. This may not sound relaxing on the surface, but it actually relieves stress in two ways. First, having a chunk of time that is set aside for familiar tasks is useful. It's been my routine for 5 1/2 years, so it helps to still have some continuity despite being somewhere very new.
  
  Second, it certainly relieves financial pressure and permits me to take my time looking for work. It was a rough year after the layoffs last fall, and having a bit of income means I can spend time relaxing and recuperating rather than rushing into a new job I'm too drained for without a real break. This has helped immensely - I am finally starting to feel like I've recovered enough to look with zeal.
  
  
• One of the first projects we embarked upon was restocking the freezer. We used to have a freezer full of homemade soups and stews, and while we started to eat a lot of it down before moving, we still had to leave the remainder behind. So we arrived here with an empty freezer. Bulk cooking time!
  
  Cooking is a admittedly less relaxing than I'm used to, primarily because the kitchen is smaller and adapting to a new space after 9 years in the same kitchen can be frustrating. Also, my sous chef is rarely available these days, and it takes an already partially-relaxed mood to get into the zen of large cooking projects on my own.
  
  But! Cooking large quantities of freezable nourishment = achievement unlocked. So far we've covered most of our favorite standbys (the ones it feels strange not to have kicking around buried under a bag of frozen peas somewhere). Chicken barley soup, potato leek soup, lasagna, vegetarian chili, quiche, lentil soup, split pea soup, mondo pile o' refried beans, and an Indian chicken stew. Next up is the Tuscan bean soup from Still Life with Menu that we love (we were struggling to find cannellini beans around here).
  
  Sadly, this freezer is smaller (and without a shelf) than the last one we had, so fitting everything is a challenge. But with an appetite like Arthur's, it's necessary to be able to pull out a meal ready to microwave.
  
  We've been trying to behave and stick to a student budget in general, so we're also making Pad Thai out of a box, and baking our own pies (and of course cookies), to save money. Those projects don't freeze well, though.
  
  
• I've also been knitting. It's a way of keeping busy and productive even while doing something mindless like watching t.v. I took a lace shawl class, and have just finished that project. Which means it's time to switch back to the sweater for Neffie that's almost done. (It requires way too much seaming, so I've been procrastinating.) And after that it's on to cute baby things, because y'all keep insisting on having cute babies :) (Thank you for so kindly keeping me occupied through my unemployment. I know you were only thinking of me.)
  
  
• One of the best means of ignoring stress is exploring my new environs. Finding the library, meandering through the paths here in the housing complex, taking pictures of everything for Neffie (it definitely cheers me up to see something and think "I have to send a picture!"), rare dinners out together, walking around the train station to figure out where the best place to pick up arriving relatives is, trying to imprint a mental map so that I can start driving places without relying on a fresh custom printout from Google maps every time... all just focusing on making this somewhere real, and fun. Regaining my independence so I feel like it's my home, too, even though I'm not a student here.
  
  
• Okay, this one was unexpected. And still rather unsettling - it's not how we think of ourselves. But we've started attending the local UU church (Unitarian Universalist), and it's exactly what we were looking for. Great community that shares our values, and wonderful opportunities to volunteer or otherwise make a difference.
  
  And it's worth including in this post. A few weeks ago, one of the ministers was expressing that the purpose of services is to a) touch your heart, b) make you think, and c) help you feel more centered. That particular service even included meditation. And after decades of feeling that "church" was anything but relaxing or even positive, it really has turned in to a regular opportunity to a) touch my heart, b) make me think, and c) help me feel more centered. It's a great cure for stress.
  
  
• Oh, and the foliage here does wonders. It's still too flat and I'm homesick, but the trees in their full autumnal glory makes everything a lot less alien here. Just walking around taking pictures of them, or reading under the trees, is very relaxing and smile-worthy.
  
  
• This blog helps, too. It's a way to keep in touch with people far away, and feel like we're still sharing life with folks. Facebook is useful, don't get me wrong, but this has more depth to it.

So that's a lot of what I do to relax. In addition, there's plenty here to keep me busy - settling in to a new house, opening new accounts with local institutions, being a good housewife (although I find it's quite refreshing to be able to do laundry whenever I want - laundry is definitely less of a chore now!), meeting new people... and let's not forget everyone's favorite: job seeking.

And the telly watching. Blame it on the Sunday night lineup. Once Upon a Time, Revenge, and The Good Wife, all on one night?!?

Our suburban life

The community we live in is much more suburban than we're used to. It's great in many ways - children happily zipping along on scooters, deer grazing at the side of the road, turkeys wandering around the parking lots wondering if they have the right color permit - but the one big adjustment right now is navigating what's walkable and what needs a car.

I've been lucky for the past 5 years to have an employer who subsidizes T passes. So my public transit has been free. And living in J.P., I could walk so many places.

Here, there is stuff to walk to. But it's all strip-mall flavored. Many of the shops are still local, small businesses, but the strip mall arrangement emphasizes the suburban feel.

In Boston, we usually used the car for grocery shopping, crossing the river, or visiting the niecephews. The latter two are easily doable on public transit, but driving is significantly faster.

So I think of driving as saving time. If it's 45 minutes on the train, or 20 minutes in a car, then take the car. (I generally don't mind taking the train to a destination, but having to also make the return trip - and waiting forever late at night at Downtown Crossing - always changed my mind.)

But that's city thinking. 20 minutes gets me from J.P. to Central Square in Cambridge. It feels sooooo far away sometimes, because there's so much I can do right near home, or a quick trip downtown on the T. It's not that far. But it takes twice as long as anything else, and I found myself going to Cambridge less and less.

And now we're living in car country. I look at the map and I'm like ugh, why would I go to a yarn shop 20 miles away? (There is one a short distance from where we live, but I don't like their selection of washable wools.) But the reality is that it's a straight shot on the highway and it takes 20 minutes to get there. 20 minutes! That's not that far! That's the time it took me to get to work on the train every morning!

But it feels so much further because it takes 20 minutes driving just to cross the few miles over the Charles, right? So going several towns north just to find a yarn shop is ridiculous!

I'm definitely needing to recalibrate. Here, 20 miles really is only 20 minutes (mostly), if it's outside the city. I can hop in the car, drive up to the yarn shop, browse for 20 minutes, then drive back home and that's the equivalent of a lunch hour. That's it. Heck, it's 20 minutes to the UU church (okay, it took us 30 because we kept hitting traffic lights).

Then again, that sort of demonstrates the issue. At home, we could walk to the UU church in 20 minutes. Here, it requires a car. It's in the middle of nowhere. 20 minutes via highway. Highway! Quite discombobulating. And it's normal for things to be this spread out.

I think I need to spend the next few days sticking to errands that are walkable, or on the student shuttle. I need to feel a sense of place beyond the car.

For instance, there's a pie shop across the main road. Coincidentally, we think it's the same pie company we use online to ship pies to Lisa. (Most people get cookies. Lisa gets pie.) That's a small world moment ;)

There are bookshops in town (Josh introduced us to them last fall), which are walkable from the shuttle. I've been avoiding them because, well, unemployed.

Tomorrow's a community potluck. I'm looking forward to it. That should also help me feel centered.

But, to remind myself of the great things that are within walking distance (even if it still feels like suburbia):

• Yarn shop
• Indian restaurant & spice shop
• Grocery store
• Panera (i.e. chocolate brownie fix)
• Several bakeries/cafes
• Credit union
• Town library (I *think* the branch is walkable; I will test it out tomorrow)
• Pie
• Hair salon
• A few chain restaurants
• A couple of local restaurants
• Middle Eastern restaurant/shop

Getting out and meeting the neighbors at the potluck will be good. I will buy their love with COOKIES!

Identity Crisis

I can’t imagine not working. Not just because I need the income, but because I’d be too bored. I want to be out there making a difference. Even if I were independently wealthy, I could only mostly be a dilettante (although I’d be a good dilettante) – I’d still operate my own foundation or something. I need to work, at least part time.

Since I’ve arrived in the Midwest, though, there have been continual challenges to this assumption. It started at the credit union; when we were setting up the accounts, the bank staff asked me for my occupation. And instead of writing either “online communications,” “webmaster”, or “unemployed”, she insisted on categorizing me as “homemaker.” I’ve followed my husband so he can get his graduate degree, and I don’t have a job. So I must be a homemaker.

This was really unsettling. But it continues. Pretty much everyone out here – including women with jobs – assumes that I won’t be working, that I’m just the stay-at-home wife. Is this a Midwestern thing, or a University wife situation? I haven't figured it out yet.

However, it’s not in the cards because at the very least, this isn’t a science degree which would pay Arthur for attending – this is us paying the equivalent of a year’s income for the privilege. So yes, we have savings and family assistance towards tuition, but there’s still these nagging bills like rent and food (and oh boy does the boy eat!).

Yet I keep meeting people surprised that I am looking for work. And then I think well, what was the first room I unpacked – before the movers had even finished unloading the truck? The kitchen. Who had all the yarn and fabric shipped on the moving truck? Me.

Gah! It’s a brief moment of identity crisis. Am I a homemaker? I don’t have a job, I’m working on bulk cooking projects, knitting a sweater for Neffie (said moniker will never be the same after Dinosaurs on a Spaceship!) , managing the laundry, researching and scheduling weekend activities, joining a church bridge group… Maybe there's more to this than I first thought.

But I’m already starting to get antsy. I’m not quite eager to work yet – I could really use some decompression time after the past year post-layoffs – but I’m definitely looking forward to the next opportunity to come along. (Ideally I would start working the beginning of October, but more importantly, would know I have something lined up so that I can truly relax and enjoy the rest of September as a staycation. Not working for a month isn’t restorative if I spend the whole time anxious about not having a job in sight.)

I want the challenge and intellectual stimulation of a new job, and the chance to meet new people and learn new things.

But all of this reflection has made me wonder whether in the future, if we’re living somewhere that’s not Boston or other expensive city, that maybe I should try to work part-time. Take a couple of years where I’m working part-time and volunteering or taking classes part-time. Shake things up for a little while. I enjoy projects. I enjoy volunteering. I enjoy children. It might be nice to dedicate one day a week to volunteering in child care or a family shelter. But still work enough hours to maintain momentum and engagement.

But I think I’ve established that, despite what my file says, I am not yet a homemaker or dilettante. I still want to work. I’m not ready to do more than slow down slightly, and don’t expect to be for a long time.

STEP IN TO THE LIGHT

One of the strangest things we're adjusting to is the difference in light. Both in the quantity - we need sunglasses all the time - and the hours.

It feels so much brighter because there are rarely any clouds. Where are the clouds? There ought to be clouds!

It's great during the day, because the apartment is flooded with natural light. It definitely helps with the transition to live in a bright sunny space.

We are having trouble remembering our sunglasses, however. But sometimes even the walk to the grocery store is too bright for regular lenses. This is quite strange. Plus, I'm more likely to tan or burn than I'm used to. Very confusing!

The other big change is the time zone. We're still in Eastern Time, but barely. (In fact, part of the Upper Peninsula is in Central.) So we'll think it's 6:30 p.m. given the light outside, and it actually turns out to be 8:00. Oops. (We've been late making dinner a couple of times as a result!)

This is lovely in the evenings - we definitely have more energy. I'm hoping this will help in the winter - it's such a difference coming home when there's light versus in the dark. But the flip side is the mornings. I find myself sleeping in later than I intend because the sun is rising later. It feels like 5:00 a.m.; why should I get out of bed? Next thing you know, it's 9:00... So I'm also dreading the winters. I worry about being able to get up in the morning.

---

The other light-related comment is that due to our proximity to the parking lot, it never feels truly dark at night. When I get up to use the bathroom or re-up the antihistamines in the middle of the night, I don't even need to turn on a light to use the stairs safely. It's not bright and bothersome, mostly, but it does lend a slight twilight feel to things some days.

It's also pure luck that I chose the side of the bed that I did, because I'm away from the window. If I'd wound up next to the window? My insomnia would have thrown a party.

It's the little things like this that we're getting used to. Back home, the front room was bright and sunny, and the back bedroom was dim and cozy and we really learned how to optimize those features. Now it's a matter of reprogramming ourselves to think of each room differently and figure out what's best when.

$6 for a sack of flour?!?

One of the things that is really getting to us is the cost of living. Most things are on par with Boston prices. Yet I can tell you from my job search that salaries are NOT in the same ballpark as Boston.

A nice, mid-range dinner out costs the same. A haircut costs the same. Furniture costs the same. Clothing costs the same. Rent is only slightly cheaper. Grocery items cost even more (there’s been a drought here) – I’m not kidding about the $6 for a 5-lb sack of flour. (Or $1.29/lb bulk. How does THAT math work?!?)

Yet I’m finding web and social media job postings that list $12-15/hr as the going rate. I’ve only seen one listing (granted, many places don’t list the salary range up front, so there could be better pay there) in the online communications field that broke $15/hr – and that, barely.

But there’s money here. A quick web search has shown that while most of Michigan has a median income $20-30,000 less than Massachusetts median incomes, Washtenaw County (where Ann Arbor is located) is only $5K behind Suffolk and Essex Counties. Arthur suspects it’s primarily due to professors and doctors (the medical center at the university is huge). But what about all the students making minimum wage? What about all of us schmucks making $15/hr?

Realizing that Ann Arbor is only about $5K behind Boston in median income makes the cost of everything make sense. But how do I find myself one of these jobs closer to the median? We both worked at nonprofits in Boston, yet still somehow made more than anything I’ve seen here. And then, we didn’t have tuition to pay for as well.

Hello, Credit Card

The credit card statement started some panic. Granted, it’s unusual – the moving bill plus 6 months of health insurance are all on it – but it’s equal to half the amount of money I transferred into my new credit union account. One half, gone in the first month.

I was thinking we had more breathing room than this. After all, all of our utilities and other bills are included as part of our rent (for which we already have money set aside). So it’s just food, gas, and yarnquality of life expenses from now on, right? But when things are costing the same – or even more, in the case of food – that’s going to have a greater impact than we originally budgeted.

We knew we’d have to change our habits. After all, we’ll be down to one income (assuming I find a job) and one negative income (hello tuition!). Time to start eating like students again and forget our happy traveler and foodie lifestyle for a while. But we were also expecting things to be cheaper here because of the economy and student budgets.

It's Expensive to Be a Hippie

The other really upsetting financial discovery is that the food co-op is wicked, wicked expensive. It makes Whole Foods look affordable.

Which, to me, defeats the entire purpose of being a co-op. A proper co-op model keeps prices down – the goal isn’t profit; the goal is affordable food for members.

We went ahead and joined anyway, because we want to support food co-ops on principle. But unless I get a better paying job than what I’ve seen out there so far, we won’t be shopping there very often. (I really do need to find somewhere else with quart-sized plain soygurt first.) I may have had my issues with the Harvest Co-op (primarily their produce shelves), but it was usually competitive and it was also conveniently located within walking distance of home.

Ah, and the latest surprise was the swimming pool. The rec center – including the pool – is free for Arthur as a student. However, unlike gyms at home, there are no unlocked lockers where you put your own lock onto while there; every locker is pre-locked and costs $2. So for a facility that is supposedly free for students – it’s part of what tuition buys, after all – isn’t. While that sounds like small money, if Arthur wants to swim 3x/week, that’s $6/week in cash (a sack of flour!) he needs to keep with him. That's not "free".

Facilities giveth and facilities taketh away

There wasn't a picnic table in our patio area when we got here last week.

Then yesterday afternoon, one magically appeared!

This morning, it's gone again.

Geeking out (digital technology edition)

So we get here, and what's the first thing we do? File trouble tickets.  I gotta say, UM Housing maintenance needs a better ticketing system.  Their email confirming your case number doesn't include the area, subject or description of the problem. No email when tickets are closed.  No way to see your open tickets.  So for now, I'm focussing on writing a ticket I'd like to see: describe symptoms, not a diagnosis; provide steps to reproduce whenever possible; ... what have I become?

After expecting to place out of the intro to GIS (Geographic Information Systems), I was told I still need to take UP 406.  This could be a good excuse to learn multiple mapping systems and solid ways to document and script my work.  (For example, TIG: I'll be learning a fair bit of Python.  Rejoice or despair as you will.)  Unfortunately, by the time I worked this all out, UP 406 was quite full.  I'll know within a week or so if I can sqqeeze in.

There are three-prong outlets _everywhere_! *happy dance* The lights don't even flicker when the laser printer spins up.

We're in Northwood, a University-owned housing development.  This year they migrated from phone/DSL to cable for everything ("triple-play").  Our landline comes out of the back of the cable modem.  I am happy to report that voice-over-cableTV technology works, with the exception that the bedroom extension is now disconnected from anything.

I'm less happy with the signal strength of the HDTV channels though.  Both TiVo and the TV intermittently report "searching for signal", and the TiVo frequently records artifacts/jaggies.  Anyone have an idea on how to isolate this type of problem?  I checked all the connections I could find downstairs (the splitter for our apartment and for the apartment downstairs) and they looked secure...

There are 25 wireless networks within earshot.  We're all getting our bandwidth from ITS.  There's got to be a better way.  (I've been meaning to see how they're allocated across channels in the hopes of avoiding once-a-week signal dropout, but that's probably a lost cause.)

Still working out how/how much to use laptops for note-taking in class.  I took a MacBook Air with me from work "as is" because it was overheating and discharging its battery quickly.  I had hoped it wouldn't take much more than compressed air and software fixes to set it right, but no such luck...it's started refusing to charge sometimes. (Resetting SMC hasn't helped.)  In any case, I figure I'll probably end up with digital notes for most classes, and paper notebooks for the more graphically-oriented ones.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

We intentionally chose campus family housing. And it was the right call. We’re surrounded by families instead of frat houses.

There are kids zipping by on bikes. There are little mud figures (since there is no snow yet for snowmen) lining up next to the sandbox. A stroll through our “neighborhood” is full of laughing kids, playgrounds, and some lovely wooded paths (on our first drive in to pick up our keys, there was a deer snacking at the side of the road!). (Unfortunately this means that we can't grow vegetables in the yard. There is a community garden area though; need to see about getting a plot next year.)

The community center is around the corner. The (free?) campus shuttle stops within sight of our unit. Arthur can walk or bike to the rec center when he needs a swim.

(All utilities are included, btw. w00t! Also, the community center has dolleys and vacuums and sewing machines available for lending for free. This means that we might not buy the Roomba like we were planning; we can get a Swiffer and just borrow a vacuum for the staircase when needed. That’s some significant savings – we can put off the Roomba purchase until next time we move.)

For a while we were afraid we were the only couple without children. We were feeling slightly guilty about that; are we unintentionally taking housing away from a family with kids? But we went to the neighborhood ice cream social last night, and there are, in fact, other couples without kids so we are far from the only ones.

It’s quite diverse here. But very different from home. Because this is grad student family housing, there are a lot of foreign families. While we’re in the minority because we’re white, there are even fewer black families (that we’ve seen so far). There’s a huge range of Middle Eastern and Indian and Asian families. Not so many hispanics yet that I’ve run into?

Mostly it’s great. It’s exactly the environment we were looking for. There are restaurants, a grocery store, yarn shop, credit union and gym facilities all within easy walking distance (there’s a collection of grocery carts at the shuttle stop near us). Plenty of nearby parks to explore.

But it does feel slightly too suburban for Arthur. I think it’ll work out – the majority of his classes are here on North Campus, so he can walk in good weather – but it’s certainly a change from being right in Jamaica Plain.

And because I’m inherently not a schmoozer, without a kid along to break the ice, I’m struggling to meet the neighbors. Language is sometimes an issue. I feel adrift, unsure how to meet people when I’m terrible at introducing myself. (We did meet a Sox fan at the ice cream social ☺ And there was a couple we haven’t actually met yet but who totally look like they could be Peeps.)

I’ll work it out. I keep hoping that there’s a listserv or something for the Northwood community – there are certainly enough people here. It would be a great way to arrange things and spread the word. Right now, as far as we can tell, everything’s done the old-fashioned way: by posting a flyer next to the parking lot. (Including learning who our RA is.)

Communication in general here is a challenge; we never hear back whether something has been fixed. So we spent several days not using our sink because we didn’t know whether it was safe (pipes under the kitchen sink were leaking significantly). Arthur went ahead and fixed a couple of things himself even though we’re not supposed to, because he was tired of waiting for something to maybe be fixed. (Why have an online ticketing system if you don’t send automatic notifications to the customer when the ticket is closed?) The only proof we’ve had so far that maintenance does exist is that they showed up suddenly to fix the catch on the bathroom door (choosing, of course, when I had no pants on). Certainly a lower priority than the lack of security bar or tub not draining.

I keep thinking there has to be a better way of communicating. Since wifi is included in all units, there really is no reason not to have an email list. Or maybe there is one, and they haven’t communicated that, either. We really need to find this out.

Anyway, I’d love to do something like post “games night this Friday!” to a Northwoodlistserv, were there one. That’s the way I meet people. Not wandering around the playground introducing myself to strangers. Terrifying!

I’m also feeling… old. Most of Arthur’s classmates are 10 years younger than he is (just finished undergrad) – which makes them much younger than I am. This is another reason that being in family housing helps.

Anyway, it’s pretty nifty here. I just need to get over myself and meet people. But finding a job is more important. Need to work on that first!



ETA: It appears that there is a Northwood community website. And a mailing list, although it's unidirectional. It should not take close to a month to notify us of this. We've missed several events (including "geek tour"!) because we had no idea this website or mailing list existed.

It’s like a TARDIS!

We knew we’d have a lot less space in the new place. It’s why we put a lot into storage and donated or threw out a whole lot more.

There’s the strange moment when you first see an empty space that it feels even smaller than you imagined. Your heart drops and you have no idea how on earth anything is going to fit.

Each little part of the apartment seems dreadful, because it’s not what you had. You start picking apart its flaws because it’s the only way to cope. The American Dream says that each new home should be bigger and nicer than the last one! Why, then, are you moving backwards?


Like most things, It Got Better. Once our furniture was actually unpacked, there was still plenty of room to move. Perspective becomes key – the main room is only a couple of feet shorter than envisioned, but the bigger issue is that what we thought was a wall is a large sliding door and we can’t put our t.v. or couch in front of it. There’s a couple feet less between the kitchen table and the couch area – not enough space left to do anything practical with (originally the sewing machine was supposed to go there), but just enough to feel wasted if we’re not using it.

There are no towel racks or hooks, and no toilet paper holder. There are some things we expected to buy, but a portable TP rack was not one of them. Why can't they mount a TP holder like every other place? (So yes, these are the things that feel annoyingly overwhelming the first day. Still no idea where to put the towels two weeks later.) And we're not used to having a staircase take up so much space.

But the reality remains that once a room has furniture in it, it looks so much bigger than when it’s empty – magical! It turns out that there’s tons of space in the basement (if it weren’t for winter temps, it would be tempting to turn a corner of the basement into a study or crafts area), and while the kitchen is tiny and cramped compared to what we’re used to, it actually has a fair amount of storage space to absorb our stuff. (Counter space, OTOH, remains a challenge.)

The only room that feels too small is the second bedroom/study. Whereas every other room grew larger when we unpacked into it (like a TARDIS!), the study seems to have shrunk in on itself. It’s a really good thing we only brought one desk and not both of ours. There wouldn’t be anywhere to put a second desk.


Because it’s just the two of us, it works. We’ve adapted to the new space. And while there are still things that annoy me because they’re inefficient uses of space (for instance, the area near the basement door has to remain dead space which is SUCH a waste), at the end of the day we have a livable apartment that's more than adequate for our needs, with plenty of storage in the basement. I’ve made the kitchen work for me. We have plenty of space, including the ability for me to watch tv or go to sleep while Arthur can be working in his study undisturbed.

It really is incredible how something feels so small and then just everything still fits. Amazing.

But what’s getting to me is that this is “family housing”. Where on earth do the tenants with kids – who is most everyone else – fit things? That’s where the unnecessary dead spaces become problematic. Because by definition, at least one of the occupants of each unit is a student. And needs study space. You could fit a kid in here, but you’d have to sacrifice the study space.

There are tons of wonderful play areas steps away from each unit. So in the warmer weather, kids can play outside. But in the winter, how do you squeeze in your kids, play space for them, and a study area? If it’s warm enough, you could slap a rug down in the basement and make it a playroom.

I guess we’re spoiled. Used to lots of space. Plenty of families cram into much less all the time. And, as Arthur points out, many of the students in this complex are coming from overseas so they’re not bringing much. We, OTOH, brought a large chunk of our possessions. Because there’s not an ocean in the way and this way it feels like home.


(The first thing I started unpacking was the kitchen so that we could move in and out of it despite the boxes - it was 80% done within two hours of the movers leaving. The movers were, again, wonderful and professional and efficient. Arthur's only complaint is that there are a couple of boxes in the basement with the labels facing the wrong way. He figures if that's the only imperfection, we're darned lucky :)


Tonight we sleep in our own bed, in our own magically large bedroom :)