Curtis is 35 and Wub & Violet are friends.

Well Happy Birthday to Curtis; he's 35 today. We went to The Oasis for dinner, which is an Austin restaurant that has several balconies and they all overlook Lake Travis, which is beautiful.



Steven and Michele went with us, and we had a great time. Fun times and painful abs always abound when the four of us are together; we're so glad they're in Austin.






I want to mention my kids now.... it is of particular note for those of you who know Molly, Violet, or Plymouth, or all three. Molly has finally decided that Violet is trustworthy. This seems to have happened sometime over the summer when they were away from each other. I asked Molly repeatedly if she missed Violet, and every time she mustered, "oh a little bit, I guess." Well when they got back together they were fairly blase, but now things have changed. Molly at some point realized that even though Violet is 5 times her size and weight, Violet wouldn't hurt her if her life depended on it. And that's true. One of the things that always impressed me about Violet was how maternal she was to both Molly and her boyfriend Farq. Molly now finds time at least daily, but often more often, to go to Violet and whack Violet in the face with her tiny paws and say "Play with me! Right NOW!!" Violet always feigns annoyance, but she's quickly persuaded. Most often I see them on the couch with Violet wrestling with Molly's spritzes of neck hair, and Molly chewing on the underside of Violet's chin (where Violet has a big wart that Molly apparently loves to grab onto.) Why Violet doesn't fuss about that is beyond me, but I like to think that it's just because Molly is just as careful with Violet as Violet is with her. They've gone from the love-hate sister thing to just a love-play sister thing. They aren't tightly bonded, and if one is without the other they don't really care, but when they're together they're much more comfortable now. I'm thankful that Molly finally feels like she can let her guard down.

Plymouth, on the other hand, views both of the dogs as moving toys. It's his favorite game to sit somewhere high-up and lay in wait, and when the dogs walk by under him he jumps out and grabs them. He's now 8lbs, so about half of the time Molly "schools" him and screams and chases him away, and the other half she runs away herself. Then she turns around and starts following him curiously. Violet mostly looks at him the same way she looked at the puppies Farq and Molly who were tumbling all over her: "oh Lord. There's the young kid again. Boy he's annoying. Maybe if I just close my eyes and wait it will pass." She has a great attitude about his behavior. I love watching the thoughts behind her eyes.

R.I.P. Bowl

Mom and Dad got Curtis and I a beautiful, hand-thrown pottery bowl for Christmas last year. They bought it from an artisan at Applefest. Cream, with brown vines and tiny red berries... so cute!

And now, thanks to Plymouth, it is in about 78 pieces on my cement kitchen floor. R.I.P., pretty bowl.

And now, a job!!

Oh, friends... life is coming together. I feel happier today than I have in seemingly forever. My new employer called this morning and told me that I got the job. I had applied at the Cat Hospital of Austin (cathospitalofaustin.com) and I've been nursing that relationship for well over a week. I sent a resume first, then went in for an interview, then went in for a second "working" interview. The working interview, I think, was designed to weed out the faint at heart. I arrived for my shift and she said "ok, we're doing a neuter and declaw on a cat." I won't go in the gory details, but she didn't give me any room to be faint-hearted. I watched that whole double-surgery, which (by the way) was completed in less than 10 minutes. This was last Tuesday, the 16th. At the end of my shift she thanked me and said that she was doing working interviews every day that week, so she'd let me know at the "first of the week." Eeegad... more waiting. So on Monday they arrived bright and early to a message on their answering machine from me, saying that I am looking forward to hearing from them and that I'd really like to work for them. On Tuesday I got a call from Dr. Percival (KIM Percival, ironically) to tell me that she's just getting a hold of my references, but she'll be in contact with me soon. She called me this morning to tell me that she wanted to offer me a job. She said that she had gotten a good feeling about me from the beginning, and so had her partner, and then when she talked to Wagville, Julie's words were "I'll pay you to send Kim back to California." God Bless Julie Shine. She is pretty much the entire reason I got the job. So to work I go tomorrow, to discuss specifics, and to start my first day at Cat Hospital of Austin. Yay. I'm uber-excited.

Life in Austin has been fun as well. Tonight I do a gig with Mandy Lauderdale (mandylauderdale.com) who is a terrific cabaret performer, and our dear friend. We do Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy together and we have a great time with it. It's been years since I've really sung; actually it's been since the summer of 2003. I'm out of shape and out of practice, and my ear isn't as good as it used to be, but it feels great to be back on stage again, if only for one song.

Steven and Michele are here in Austin. Some of you know that Steven was our musical director at Lincoln Amphitheatre for two of the seasons that we were there, and it has been our absolute pleasure to get to know his wife Michele better. I think she's something like a wood sprite. She's little and cute with big brown eyes that could entice you into doing anything, and on top of that, she's a gem of a human being. We are so blessed to know them both! Michele is teaching grade school now (I think grade 3?) and is getting rave reviews from her supervisors. I can only imagine the outstanding memories her classroom children are going to have of her.

Okay, so I must go now. My dear husband is taking me to Joe's Crab Shack for lunch for DUNGENESS CRAB, my favorite! We're celebrating my new job, and his new potential jobs. He has a bar full of people downtown pulling for him, because he's been hanging out with him and of course they think he's a great guy. I'll update that as things become available.

Yay, Universe!

Ahhh... a home.

Well, things are very much looking up. I feel better than I have in a year and a half. Curtis and I found a delightful, earthy little apartment that we like very much. We chose carefully, and got an apartment with beautifully color-stained cement floors, so the kids are enjoying their rubber balls bouncing high in the air when I throw them. Though much of it is still in boxes, everything I own is finally in the same apartment in which I live (rather than in storage) and I'm unpacking it bit by bit. Curtis sometimes doesn't really grasp why having my things makes such a big difference, and he jokes, "so you're defined by what you own?" I thought about that, and yes. Maybe it's selfish, or maybe it's shallow, but yes. I'm defined by what I own. I'm defined by the things that I enjoy having around me. And I'm okay with that.

The job search continues. I did a second interview (which was a "working interview") for the Cat Hospital of Austin the other day for a position as a vet tech, and I enjoyed myself tremendously. I got to assist in three neuter/declaw surgeries, and watch a lot of other things. I'm looking forward to getting the job. Curtis has applied at just about every bar in town, and he's waiting patiently for them to call.

Our dear friend Bob got a good report on his dog Keady recently, so that's good news, too. Yay good friends and good vets. :)

Catching up from then until now.

If you're reading this, you're wondering. You're wondering what in the hell has been going on in my life, and I'm happy to catch you up.

Life has been hell. I've always considered myself to be an optimistic person, but here we are, having been basically homeless since April of 2007. I've just recently begun to believe in purgatory. We've had a roof over our head, it's true. And I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that I didn't have to pitch a tent on Skid Row in downtown L.A. so that I could find shelter from the elements.

We moved out of our beautiful loft (which we were lucky enough to find while prices were still low) because of a fight we had with our landlord, who had previously been our good friend. We still wonder what percentage of the equation was the landlord's OCD and his need for things to be in specific "compartments" and what part of it was his desire for someone who would pay him higher rent. This was our first and biggest lesson about friendships in L.A. He consistently reminded us that though he was evicting us, this was "just business." It had no effect on our friendship. Curtis has since forgiven him, and he still spends time with him. I, being severely protective of my husband, have forgiven the landlord, but he has lost my trust.

So we spent time in Canada that summer, and some time in Pennsylvania with our parents. We returned to L.A. in the fall with certainty that we just had to look to find an apartment. Our friends offered us a tiny little place in the back of their house that had a bedroom and a small kitchen and bathroom and there we stayed, with a very solid roof overhead. It was very kind of them and we're very thankful, but it was very difficult to go from a 1400 sq. foot earthy loft to a 300 sq. foot studio in which our best hope at alone time was turning away from each other so that we were facing opposite walls. Most of you know that I'm an only child, and I grew up with my own room. We didn't have a family room while I was growing up... well, we had one, but no one ever used it. I came home from school and mom and dad came home from work; Dad did his thing, mom went to her sewing room and I went to my bedroom. I grew up with a healthy amount of alone time, and I like it that way. I'm realizing now that I need it that way.

The little studio was only ever supposed to be very temporary while we searched for other housing. Unfortunately, affordable housing was more difficult to find than we imagined. We ended up being in that little studio for over 2 months, and about half way through that it was clear that we had worn out our welcome. We were also storing Curtis' old 1966 Bonneville in their driveway, so we were inconveniencing them in a multitude of ways. It was incredibly kind of them that they didn't get fed up sooner than they did. Finally, we were able to find a still-too-expensive rental just a few blocks away on Marengo Avenue and we moved into it on December 1st, 2007. It felt good to get just a few things out of storage, though we didn't get much.

Before long, we decided that since this was a 3-bedroom apartment, it would be much smarter to move all of our things out of storage and put them in our third bedroom so that we could save the storage unit rental $. We did that, so all of our things were now in our apartment with us. Unfortunately they were separated from us by cardboard and some rather strategically-placed strapping tape. In the end, when it was time to move out, it seemed as if we had taken exactly one thing out of every box in the room. Matching the apartment stuff with the similarly-sized holes in the boxes proved to be tedious. Packing felt impossible to me.

During our time in the Marengo apartment I did have a few little gifts from the universe. My dear friend Ken, who is the entire reason I began to work at Wagville (which ultimately changed my life for the better in many, many ways) was in need of a place to live. We had a 3-bedroom apartment now after all, so we offered for him to live with us. As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the nicest gifts the universe could have given me. He rode to work with me, and he was always there in the evenings when Curtis was tending bar. He helped me with the dogs (he knows a TON about dogs) and he loves to do dishes. We weren't able to get our dishwasher out of storage and the dishes are the only chore that has ever threatened to end Curtis' and my relationship, so in exchange for our third bedroom, Ken did the dishes ever day. We joked that he was our Cabana Boy. Also during the time that we were at Marengo I was blessed with one of the most amazing additions I could ask for: a little French Bulldog named Ultra-Violet. This dog won my heart the first day I began working at Wagville, and she held on tight. Her parents informed my boss that with their new baby, and an impending move, and since they were moving from a good-sized house to a one-bedroom studio, Violet wasn't getting the attention or exercise she deserved. She was depressed, and they just didn't have the right life for her anymore. So they were hoping to find a good home for her through Wagville. Through a serendipitous moment, my boss typed up a memo saying that Violet was in need of a new home. Those things which my boss typed from her office came out of the printer behind our front desk. My receptionist's assistant saw it as it was printing out and (knowing that Violet had always been my favorite) called me immediately, before it was seen by anyone else. The rest is history. On January 10, 2008 our little Ultra-Violet came home to live with us. Mollywobbles was rather annoyed, but quickly got accustomed to the idea of no longer being an only child once she realized that she was the boss, and Violet listened to anything Molly told her to do. Summary: the Marengo apartment had two really wonderful moments. They were Ken and Violet.

Our lease expired June 1st, but we were able to stay later. On July 16th I took Ken to the airport for his flight to Melbourne, and off he went on a one-way trip to Australia. I miss him dearly, but I know that Australia is a good place for him to be at this time in his life. He needed to get out and away from his security blankets (me, his mom, and his brother) and stretch those wings of his that have so needed real-world experience. On July 20th we left Los Angeles and headed east for our yearly trip to the lake in Ontario, this time via Austin. There we dropped off our moving truck full of nearly all of our worldly posessions, and headed on to our next "via point", Pennsylania. We had a car full of summer stuff and 3 animals: The Princess Mollywobbles, the fabulous Miss Ultra-Violet, and Mr. Plymouth K. Car, who is the crankiest kitten I've ever known. Curtis found him in a junkyard car back in April when Plymouth was only 3 weeks old. His eyes had only opened a day or two before. Violet wanted desperately to make him lunch. Transporting the three of them together in a car packed full of stuff was a challenge. Thank God for crates and car harnesses and seatbelts. If you look closely, you can see the edge of Plymouth's crate behind the seat on Violet's right, on your left.

After dropping Plymouth off with my Mom and Dad (if anyone could fix him they could), and after dropping Violet off with my best friend Erin (who I knew would take care of Violet exactly as I would take care of her; she's a bit of a freaky naturalist like I am) we headed with little Mollywobbles to the lake. The lake is a beautiful place, and I enjoy it for a few days, but I get restless very quickly. I spent a lot of time driving into town to get internet access so as to get some work done for the dog website I work for, which is DogExplorer.com. I spent more time on the road than at camp, I think. I spent yet another birthday at the lake.

At the end of the summer we came home to spend a week and a half between our parents' house. In between Carlisle and Franklin we went to Homer City, PA to attend the funeral of our friend Kevin's father Sam, who we both loved very much, and who passed suddenly of a massive heart attack. The autopsy revealed that he had a severely enlarged heart. It was twice the size that it was supposed to be, and it just quit. Sam was one of the best people that either of us knew, and his daughter said to us that it was comforting to know that Sam died "because he had too big a heart." Sam really did have a huge heart; he was everyone's friend. He'd do anything for anyone. It was a terrible blow to both Curtis and I. We wanted to be there to support Kevin and his family, but Sam was very dear to both of us as well.

We arrived in Austin very early on the morning of September 5th. As it was 2am we went straight to bed, but we awoke in the morning to a feeling of something that I couldn't quite identify. It's comforting that we've finally arrived in our new city, but there's a fear that we have no idea what in the hell is in store for us. I don't think Curtis is as worried as I am. I freak if I don't have a plan.

In the few days we've been here we've discovered that Violet no longer wants to kill Plymouth, who is almost 8lbs now, and can quite nicely fend for himself. Mom and Dad fixed him while he lived with them, and Curtis, who was adamently against keeping him can now be overheard saying things like "you'd better quit making me love you so much" to the cat.

We have had a few neat experiences since arriving in town. Curtis and I found a wonderful vegetarian Indian restaurant with a large Indian grocery store beside it, and Violet and I found a good dog park. I helped break up a dog fight at said dog park and ended up meeting one of the dogs' mother, a real-estate agent who just moved here from Venice, which is south of L.A. The next evening we were invited to Steven and Michele's apartment, who are two of the huge reasons we moved to Austin. They're great people to be around, and they've helped us tremendously. It's going to be quite excellent to live in their city. They are life-friends... you know, the kind that you can not see for 25 years and then when you see one another again it's as if no time passed? Though we hated it, we always assumed that was just the way our relationship would always be. It's a gift to now be here, in their city.

Though we've had some wonderful things along the way, the feeling of purgatory still exists for me. I thought that if we could just get here I'd feel better. But I almost feel worse than I did before. We're here, but we're not here yet, you know? We have no place to call home still... life in the Motel 6 is already getting crampy after only 4 days. We have begun looking for a home to buy. That's one of the primary reason we moved here: good friends, neat city, affordable housing. I know that I need to be patient, but my need to "nest" is growing to be overwhelming. Thank you Larry for helping me understand that I'm not alone in that feeling. Your explanation of how women get to a certain point and they just need to "nest" is the most accurate thing I've heard anyone say. I want a counter for my Kitchen Aide mixer. I want a place to put my good dishes that people bought us for our wedding. I so crave a place to call my own. But it just still feels like it's a million miles away.

I've put in several emails to prospective employers and haven't heard a thing back from a single one of them. I think I'd prefer "you look stupid and we're not even considering you" to completely being ignored. Michele tells me that this is a town where the internet doesn't work, and I have to meet people face-to-face. I hope she's right. I'm sure she is; she did it herself three years ago when they moved here, but she had no friends here, and had to figure it out on her own. Tomorrow morning I'll put on some nice clothes and go paper Austin with my resumes. I really found my niche with the Cage-Free Doggie Daycare/Boarding. There are several here, so that's where I'll start.

Please forgive me if I haven't written, or if I've seemed like I don't care. I do care, but Curtis and I have both been so depressed during the last year that we've lost touch with several people that we care about. Please feel free to drop us a line and check in. We love you even if you haven't heard from us. I'll update as things progress for us.