Over the valley and through the woods

CAUTION: This one contains some colorful language...

Today was our last major driving day before three relaxing days in the mountains. The day started with Baja barking and waking us all up, after a tough night with Nikko, who ended up sleeping in bed with us instead of his new love, the pack n’ play with lambskin blanket/cover-thing-a-majig. The dogs were taken out while Lucas fed Nikko and got ready to go to the hotel sponsored breakfast. Before that, we checked our emails to find an unsettling email from our house’s property manager, but that was settled (so we thought at the time) with a quick response clearing up the tenant’s move out date. So off we went to enjoy waffles, English muffins and fruit, first putting Beau in the bathroom since we forgot to bring his kennel up. Our breakfast was enjoyable and Nikko, as always, stole the show. This set of elderly folk swooned over him, followed by the hotel staff, then another elderly couple. We finished breakfast in about 40 minutes and went back to the room to pack up and head out. As we walked down the hall we heard this horrid shrieking, like a kid screaming, a fire alarm blaring and police car sirens going off. It occurred to me that the tonality and rhythm was not so mechanical, but rather purely biological. Indeed, it was the shrieking of a basenji. Beau had finally found his voice! Lucas rushed to the door and freed him from his quarantine, only to find the infamous pissed off Basenji marking … poop and torn up “anything”. So, the next 20 minutes were spent with me cleaning up after Beau, both on the bathroom floor and, to my surprise, the bathtub! Scrub scrub scrub. I found out too that Pantene shampoo makes an excellent room deodorizer.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of our experience with crap today. As I sat feeding Nikko, and as he drifted off into sleepyland, Lucas got a phone call from the property manager. We’ll call him Bob. The story from Lucas is that the minute he answered the phone, Bob was yelling at him, asking what more Lucas expected him to do with that piece of shit property of ours. Can we say overreaction?! Every time Lucas tried to get an answer from Bob about when the tenants will be out of the house and when we can do the final inspection, Bob went off. Lucas got annoyed at the incessant interruptions and mumbled “asshole” under his breath, but Bob heard it and went off again, but this time cursing his pants off! I would imagine it went something like “F you you F-ing F and you piece of S property that I’ve been working my A off to handle. F you you B!“ >click<  Then Lucas calls back, asks what that was all about and it starts off again. Mind you, this guy went apeshit on me in my 8^th month of pregnancy and Lucas took over handling issues with this guy from that point on. So now it was my turn, I call the guy about 8-10 times and not only do I not get an answer, I get directed immediately to voicemail. So, I leave a message telling him that the reality is that we’re going to have to speak with one another to deal with this. I get a text message saying that ‘due to [our] lack of respect he’ll only be responding by email”. Ok, fine with me, but dude, YOU were the one who was not only disrespectful, but also unbelievably unprofessional! Lucas hops on the computer, sees another email from the guy and does a line item response. No email response, instead, another text message sent to me. I have to pay 25 cents for each sent/received message so now this cowardice was annoying me. What did Bob say? That the tenant will be out by 3pm tomorrow and will meet with US then to hand over the keys! (I wrote back telling Bob to send this info to Lucas, that he can expect to receive a move out report from us including claims for damages if there are any, and that he should stop send me text messages.) WHAT THE FREAK!??!?! We hire and pay a guy to manage a property and be the middle man to deal with the tenants and he totally bows out like a complete sissy! This is where my expletives come in…That’s pretty much the end of the Bob story, for now and forever, we hope.

After packing the car and changing Nikko out of his post-banana explosion, we made our way to our destination, Big Bear. I reserved a cabin a couple of weeks ago that is the same one we got engaged in (Oct 14 2006). The drive was pretty uneventful, thankfully, and even Nikko slept most of the way, until we got to Upland. That’s when the cranky hissy fitting started. We stopped a couple of times and then he finally fell asleep, in mid-whine, as I drove the winding road up to Big Bear. We arrived at our destination, opened the cabin door and voila, rose petals greeting us on a short path to the bedroom and petals in the shape of a big heart on the bed. J Of course, the dogs were the first to see it, and trample all over the ones on the floor, but it was so nice to be somewhere where we felt at home. I wish there were a research station here in Big Bear …. Or something that I could do that would bring home more than just bacon. I just absolutely love the mountains and the woods. Maybe I’ll move to Montana…

And for now, that’s it! We’ve had a great time during our trip from WA to CA, despite the baby tantrums and the adult issues. We loved visiting friends in Napa (yes, I have neglected to write about that weekend, but it will happen!) and loved seeing and tasting wine country (maybe we’ll move to SF and I can work at Genentech…. maybe). Our explorations are not yet over, but we’ve overcome the major obstacles. Now we just have to make sure Lucas gets that job. Fingers crossed ♥

Scary times on I-5 in California.

9-26-2009

We set out this morning from Yreka, smuggling one of the dogs out of the room so as not to have to pay the additional overnight pet fee, which I was overcharged for anyway with the other dog. On our merry way we went, Nikko falling asleep shortly after we filled up the cars and we were making good time. We were about one hour away from Vacaville, the next stop on our journey, when Nikko started stirring, wanting food. So we pulled into a very nice rest area and set up lunch. Peanut butter and jelly on oat-nut bread, soup (-in-hand), hard-boiled (baked, actually) eggs, apples and some cool, fresh water. Nikko loved being under the tree, seeing and hearing new things. The dogs finally had some time to wander, drink water and beg for food. Of course, since they'd rejected their food for the last two days, I handed over two eggs to each of them and they gobbled them up effortlessly. At one point, I had heard a bird, which in and of itself is not unusual, but it was the call itself that struck me. And there, on the barbed wire fence separating a grove of fruit trees from the rest area was a cockatiel! Lucas, on my request, went to offer it the apple core, which it was not up for, and a piece of the bread which it chowed down on rather quickly. I was stunned that someone would just let a bird free like that at a rest stop or that they might have lost it during their trip. I wondered how it would survive, undoubtedly having little to no natural survival instinct left and likely clipped wings. Would a cat or predatory bird take it? What was life like with no one of your kind around? No sooner had I shared my thoughts about this that it came swooping over to us, with its long white wings, and perched itself in the tree that provided us shade in the 107 degree heat. And there it sat, not begging, and looking very healthy, clean, young, and content. I tossed up another piece of bread, or rather bits of a whole piece, then went back to our table, ready to make our way to our next and final stop for the day. On our way to the cars, another group of travelers sat at another table under a tree. They had discovered their own exotic bird in that tree! Amazing! It was a treat indeed. And off we went, knowing that just 70 miles away lay our destination ... just 1h.

As we drove down I-5, Nikko snoozing happily (which makes the chauffeur very happy), I pulled out from behind a big rig to pass him on the left. Suddenly, as though from out of nowhere, is a Toyota 4 Runner going what seemed, and likely was, just 35mph! Outrageous! I luckily had already gotten sufficiently ahead of the big rig to pull in to the right lane, and the Ram250 conversion van behind me lucked out similarly. Unfortunately, Lucas was not nearly as lucky, being pinned in behind this nutcase of a driver, cars behind him and the big rig next to him. His only outlet was the gravel median to his left. But at 80mph this is not the best route. I was in the shoulder by then, watching in horror as his Jeep skidded and fishtailed on the sloped median. His car came close to hitting the nearly 10ft high weeds that separated the northbound from the southbound highway. Thankfully, he managed to avoid a totally disastrous accident, one that would likely have been fatal for the dogs. As he attempted to merge back in to the left lane (he still had decent forward motion), the driver of the 4 Runner stared blankly at him as though he were crazy. Lucas stopped and I had him on the walkie talkie, asking if he were ok. Thank heavens, everything was alright. After a couple of minutes to collect ourselves (mostly myself), we headed on. About a half mile down, there was the woman, pulled over on the left, hunched over the steering wheel. I did call 911 after the initial event and then after seeing that to inform them to send out medical services. I think that the big rig managed to get her to pull over, since, before passing me as I sat on the shoulder, he had witnessed what happened to Lucas and was honking his horn at the woman. Who knows what happened to her in the end. But, Nikko was now thoroughly agitated, and thus began the 10min trips.

Around 2pm everyday, Nikko has his moments. These moments consist of extreme fussiness if his demands (play, food, nap) are not met. Something about going more than 20-30mph and driving on a freeway sets off his "get me the hell out of here" instinct and so the hysteria begins. I tell Lucas over the walkie talkie that I need to take the next exit, not so easy since it's a good 10-15mi between exits in this neck of the woods. Nikko meanwhile takes no consolation in me telling him that we're almost there. Once we get there, the bottle and toys come out and all is quite. This kid makes me look like a loon, insisting that he's crying only to pull over and have him be full of smiles. But the tears on his eyelashes give him away. We calm him down and return to the freeway .... but it happens again. And again, and again. By the time we'd made it the 70mi to the hotel, it'd been three hours since our lovely impromptu picnic. And, of course, by that time, Nikko was asleep in the car. Go figure.

But the night was not awash. Nikko got to play on the jumbo king bed for a couple of hours, we had our dinner and now Nikko is asleep on his lambskin inside the pack n play. What a life. Tomorrow is a day off for us but we'll get to visit with friends!

Our descent into the Southwest begins...

Day 1. The movers are a no show. We are upset.

Day 2. The movers are late. The movers take over 6h to load (note: not pack, as we did all that already) our stuff because only 2 men were sent, instead of 4 as the contract stated. And, we had to pay more than an extra $1000 for the move. We are upset.

However, it was a relief to be able to give the herbs to parish members. We took care of those plants and were really sad to think they'd end up in the trash. Thankfully, they found a good home.

We headed out for Corvallis at 9pm. But, we stopped for dinner (breakfast, actually, since neither of has eaten a thing all day) just north Puyallup. About 3 minutes in to eating our dinner on the hood of my car (classy, I know), Nikko goes completely and totally ballistic! We decide that, since we would still have at least 3h to drive, we were exhausted and there was a Motel 6 just across the street, that we'd take the hit for cancelling the hotel in Corvallis and pay for a night at the Motel 6. And that's where our night ended, paying for two hotel rooms but only using one. Well, strike three against the movers. It worked out well, since Nikko got some much needed rest and so did we.
Day 3: We awoke, took our time, constitutionalized (walked) the dogs and headed out on our ultra-long trip to Yreka, going all the way through Oregon. I was bummed about this because, on our trip up to Seattle in December, I really liked how Oregon looked and had wanted to spend more than 6-8h driving through it. In particular, I'd wanted to check out a wolf refuge, but I guess that will just have to happen on one of our next trips. Since it is late, I'll just sum up the trip as follows: it was going to be long, but it was made so much longer and more painful by Nikko's inability to sleep through the driving. I can't hold this against him, as he's only 6 months old. We'd planned this trip very carefully, not wanting to go more than 4h of driving on any day, with the expectation that with stops and such, the entire trip length would be about 4-8h total. But 12h is just too much to ask. Who do we blame for this failure? You got it .... the movers. Strike 4 ... that's 4 too many.