We Moved From Evil Del Mar to Benevolent Poway. We Flew From Sunny SoCal to Rainy NorOr.

So as not to spoil the little one, Karin and I have moved from our 22,000 square foot, ocean-view, Del Mar property. As I intimated earlier, we have long aspired to live in Poway. So we really have accomplished a lot by moving.

The move itself was relatively uneventful. Of course it was tedious, difficult, and unpleasant, but, compared to our last move, it was a full-on cake-walk. The entire process took 5 hours - as opposed to 15 grueling hours last time. And I won't have to sue anyone this time!

Almost immediately following the move, we flew to Portland, where Karin is attending a leadership training for Medical Directors of Nonprofits. At this moment she is sitting 5 feet away from me, on a special pregnancy-specific, coccyx-respecting, cushion, reading about cash-flow and solvency tests.

While we have only been in Portland for less than a day, we already have a pretty good idea of what the major industries are here: A. Windshield wipers, B. Umbrellas, C. Antidepressants. The forecast for this entire week is rain rain rain with periods of heavy rain and an outlook for more rain followed by precipitation, heavy at times.

And I should mention a couple of important things that happened this week... On Friday, Alex had a piece published in the New York Times! And, just moments later, Zack announced that Catherine is pregnant! Clearly both Zack and Alex will go to great lengths to divert attention from Karin.

Second Trimester Report

We finally signed a lease. We are officially moving to Poway. We chose Poway primarily for its glamor and cachet. It is oft referred to as the Monte Carlo of Southern California. I have a lot of other funny things to say about Poway but I'll just leave it at that.

Karin is much more pregnant than she was previously. People in her office are actually noticing. I think Karin is relieved about that. She was quite concerned that she would get to 9 months and no one would mention anything. Of course, it's always a risk for a lay-person to ask a woman if she's pregnant. I'm always very careful about that. Although once I did ask a woman if she was with child... and she was not. That was a real conversation-stopper I'll have you know.

Karin is still experiencing some nausea. I think it has diminished some but she does continue to munch crackers in bed in the middle of the night. I understand now that being pregnant is essentially a license to do anything, anytime. I'm surprised there was never a Seinfeld episode about that.

We are trying to figure out a trip that we can still take, in anticipation of not being able to travel for the next 18 years. We of course would like to go to Asia. However, Karin insists on going somewhere with a decent medical system. That rules out Africa and the USA (jab jab). Japan is a possibility. We also have invitations to Hawaii and Morocco. We really can't do anything too ambitious at this point. The ambitious-travel-window-of-opportunity is closing with astonishing speed.

The good news is that there is often a very small window of opportunity on the other side... as in traveling with an infant can be essentially like carrying a purse (a very large and complex living purse that requires bringing along another large bag of leather-cleaning tools) unless of course we have a purse that cries a lot. Good luck deciphering that sentence construction.

Ultrasound September 13, 2007 (Nail-In-Tire-Day)

Ultrasound, Part II: The Thumb Sucking

Yesterday was Karin's second ultrasound. It was scheduled for 9:45 AM. I cleared my schedule and squeezed in viewing a rental property prior to the appointment. Due to a technical issue that has to do with the MLS system, we thought that our access was not going to pan out. In the end, we got the MLS to cooperate but we did not get out of our house until almost 9:00 AM. We rushed over to the rental, only to find that I had left a crucial code at home and access would be impossible. Karin let me know that she was not very happy about it. I also let myself know that I was not very happy about it. Everyone was ganging up on me.

We headed back to our cars (separate cars as I was seeing clients after the appointment - not just because we live in California). Things were, unfortunately, tense. As I passed Karin's car, I noticed her front left tire was low. I looked more carefully. Her front left tire was low and had a massive nail in it!

So... It was 9:15 AM. Karin's car was obviously not going to be going to the appointment. And I had to see clients at 11:00 AM. Maybe this was punishment for not clearing Rosh Hashana for more spiritual purposes? (Mind you, what could be more spiritual than gawking at images of the magnum opus that has taken up residence inside Karin?)

We drove to a nearby gas station to get some air into the tire and to try to get a car person to tell us what we were facing. I filled the tire and found a car person. He told me what we were facing: a nail in the tire. Just as I had suspected!

We quickly decided that one of us should go to the ultrasound appointment and the other should deal with Karin's car. Since Karin is pregnant, we chose her to go to the ultrasound appointment. Since I am manly, we chose me to deal with the manly nail in Karin's manly tire.

Karin headed to her appointment, where she was treated to a much more pleasant version of ultrasound - via the tummy! According to the proud mum, she witnessed her passenger kicking, flailing, and ultimately sticking his or her thumb into his or her mouth.

We have since researched thumb-sucking and find that it is perfectly normal and healthy and that we have the option of waiting until after the birth to let him or her know that eventually it will have to stop.

Meanwhile, back in Karin's car, I was making my way to a tire center. The mechanic at the first one I visited told me it would be 2 hours until they would even look at the car. The mechanic at the second one I visited told me that I should go to the third one because the third one would patch it up for free. I have nothing against free so I headed to Discount Tire.

Somehow free turned into almost $500 and now Karin has 4 brand-spanking-new Pirelli tires and we are probably not going to Hawaii. Seems like a pretty good trade.

I will get to a scanner and will post pics of our little thumb-sucker shortly.

Apologies

I have not posted in weeks. That is primarily due to the fact that Karin and I have been consumed by the ongoing conflict with our landlord. I won't get too into it but he did threaten legal action and we did hire an attorney. We subsequently signed an offer (in the form of a lease) for a place in Del Mar near the water. It was quite ideal for us in a number of ways. Unfortunately, the owner is now not quite ready to enter into a lease. Apparently the current tenants are going through a divorce and one of them may remain in the unit. It's still listed on the MLS but the owner is not willing to commit at this point.

We have seen about 15 rentals since then. We are about to negotiate with a few of them and should have something signed withing a few days. We then will have to pack up, move, and get settled. Of course, we cannot predict what our landlord is going to do. He may choose to file in court today, in which case, I will be writing about that exclusively for a while.

Once all of that happens, I intend on writing... glowingly about Karin's growing tummy, ad nauseam about her nausea, and passionately about her every joy, surprise and discomfort.