Missing Mom Friends

I just got an email from one of the mom's groups here saying that my application to join was declined. She said it's because she wants to keep the group "small" at over 70 people. In fact, I believe it is because I questioned the group guidelines.

"I've read the guidelines, and am comfortable with almost everything. My only question is: do you not offer "maybe" as an option for attending? The reason I ask is because my son isn't consistent with either a wake-up time or nap time. It has happened, in our other meet-up group, that I've missed a play date through the meet-up because of his needs. I'm not one to RSVP and bail out, but with a toddler, some flexibility is wanted and needed.

As far as providing meals to a new mom, hosting an event, or set-up/clean-up during the year, I'm totally on board with that. I want to contribute!"

Her response stated that the don't offer "Maybe" as an option. I didn't respond back. I just didn't feel right about a group that broadcasts all the way you can get kicked out before you even meet them.

I miss my Oakland area mom friends: Angie, Liz, Melissa, Sara, Kathy, Vicki, Rhonda, Laurie, and Kelly. I haven't met a single mom that I jive with here. It's feeling a little lonely here right now.

My Work Space

Since we arrived in Bend I've been falling asleep early, with Tristan. I still have my client work, so I've been getting up early, or staying up late to meet my responsibilities with them. This day, August 24, and today I woke up and logged into my computer before 4am.

I love having my own space downstairs, away from the sleeping quarters, where I can work and my music, fingers tapping on the keyboard, printer noise, and light don't disturb D&T. That's not all I love. I love having plenty of room for my stuff. I love having a door I can close to my space. I love that I can paint it any color and make it really feel like mine.

Local eggs are bountiful, being offered by several farms. I bought these at the local health food store. We can also get them from the farms or buy through the CSA. Aren't these beautiful?! Notice the blue eggs in the back. We were eating these as other people were swearing off eggs because of the recall. We haven't made it to the farm(s) yet. Tristan and I tried, unsuccessfully to find them last week. He's excited to see the chickens.

This milk is local and pasteurized, not homogenized, at the farm. It's the old fashioned milk that you have to shake because cream collects at the top. Another thing I love about the CSA here: they re-use a lot of things that people throw away. You can bring egg cartons, strawberry cartons, paper bags, and your milk bottles back for re-use by the farmers. It cuts down on their costs and our landfill waste. Such a great feeling to be part of that synergy.
Shown here: Chard, beets, red leaf lettuce, kale, and yellow squash (hidden). This was all picked the day before we received it.
Also from our first CSA pick-up: crook neck squash, potatoes, cucumber, and potatoes.
Strawberries from our CSA: the most delicious I've ever had. Tristan ate almost all of them the first night.
Chard in process.

Our first Bend CSA meal. Shrimp, quinoa, and chard. Delicious!!

I'm Actually Beginning to Really Like It Here

From an email I sent a friend today...

I'm actually beginning to really like it here. Of course, I miss you and my other friends and family. But this place is so much more in line with my personality. I realized that yesterday when I was invited by the second farmer in two weeks to go and visit his farm. You can go and dig up your own potatoes if you like. (Fun for the kids.) When I left the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) pick-up point yesterday I had a bounty of veggies (kale, summer squash, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, onions) and fruit (strawberries and apples) plus local honey and pastured meat (pork & beef) and pastured eggs and fresh, locally produced and pasturized (not homogenized) milk in glass jugs. I LOVE this part of Bend. We can drive 4 miles to a farm here, while still enjoying the convenience of suburbia. Of course, MOMA and The Academy of Sciences and the Zoo are hours away. But for day-to-day living, it's nice to be somewhere where people are so damn friendly to each other.

I really want(ed) to post photos of the local goods, but I just got the photos loaded and now Tristan is awake. Soon friends. Soon.

I wrote this several days ago. I held off on publishing because I had intended to post photos with the verbiage. I still haven't had a chance to load the pictures to my computer, so I'll have to add them later...

Before my sister left, she reminded me that this house is a blessing. I had been feeling so overwhelmed and fearful that it was hard for me to see the positive in this situation. It was hard to focus past the broken sink, the useless shower in the master bath, etc. I was stuck thinking about the cost of the move, and the cost of establishing ourselves in this new place. It all lead me to feeling stuck - far from "home" - unable to leave.

Today as I stood in the kitchen, putting away our fresh produce from the CSA, and listening to Tristan and Dustin laughing in the back yard, I could appreciate where we are. Here are my lists; a work in progress, in no particular order:

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT BEND

1. Community Supported Agriculture "Agricultural Connections" - amazing strawberries, farm fresh eggs, pasteurized (not homogenized) milk, herbs de provence cheese, reasonable prices
2. People - super friendly & helpful & welcoming, almost without exception
3. Weather - warmer and sunnier than Oakland, at least for now. Hot isn't muggy. It's nice.
4. Desert - dishes & towels air dry. (Not always the case in the Bay Area.)
5. Renewable energy option - we have the option to pay 10% more for our electricity from a renewable source
6. Quiet - a dog barking might wake you up, but that's the only thing that will. There are no crazy ghetto fights or sirens to disturb the peace (this includes internal peace, who knew?)
7. The sky - it's gigantic here. Yesterday, as we drove home from dinner, I was completely transported back to Burning Man for a moment. The sun setting behind the mountains in the east, the moon rising, in the west, the clouds punctuating the great big open that is desert sky. It's just beautiful.
8. The stars - you can see them! There are no street lights on our street. If a house doesn't have the front lights on, it fades from view. At first, this was disconcerting. Now I appreciate this urban plan as a feature. It reduces the glow around Bend so you can be in civilization, while still enjoying the incredible night sky in all its glory.
9. The parks & recreation department - really? Yes! Not only are the parks here immaculate, (they were actually painting the bathroom building when Tristan and I were at Juniper Park yesterday), but they are immense and well appointed. Juniper Park boasts an Olympic sized pool, a modern gym, a class schedule for everything from toddler swimming with parents to cross country skiing/snowboarding fitness prep with weight vests, 5k training class where you run a specific 5k with your class at the end, master swim classes, pilates, etc., all subsidized by local property taxes. In addition to this great roster, they offer childcare for $2.50 - $3.50/hour, max 2 hours. (If you buy 10 sessions, it's cheaper than buying as-needed.)
10. The parks & recreation department again! - there are weekly community events that are family focused. This includes a phenomenal micro-brew tasting festival that is so popular that people travel from out-of-state to attend, movies in the park (in the summer), music festivals, etc. All these activities are either free or very low cost.
11. My skin is clearing up! - I don't know if it's that I'm drinking more water since we're living in a desert, if the air and water are less polluted here, if the dry air is helping, or what the combination of factors is, but my skin looks great. D's noticing his skin is looking better too. Woo-hoo! That's a nice bonus!
12. Food - CSA aside, there are a lot of restaurants here, many with great food. I'll give a report on these as we conduct our culinary tour.
13. Beer - I haven't been drinking much since we've been here, but beer has to be including when compiling a list of Bend's attributes. If you like beer, you'll like Bend.

We're Here

It's been a long road separating my last post from this one.

Thursday: Jason, Phil, Gavin, Maria, and Ben arrived to start loading the truck at 10:30am. Our sweet neighbor Jihee helped clean the blinds and the bathroom with her infant Joan on her back. Sandy came in as fresh horses at 7:30pm. Somewhere between 9:00 - 9:30pm we got on the road in a caravan headed for Redding. When you drive north to visit (wink wink), the GAIA HOTEL IN ANDERSON is a little less than half way from San Francisco to Bend. The rates are low (see the deals tab here) and hotel is new and somewhat chic with comfortable rooms and a good breakfast buffet (again, at a great price = $7.00 for 2 people.)

Friday: We all (Dustin, Jason, Gavin, Maria, Ben, Tristan, and me) met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant at about 9:00. The guys drove off early while Maria, Tristan, and I took a more leisurely pace. We stopped for lunch in Klamath Falls. (Don't go past Klamath if you are driving north and need food or gas. This is the last major outpost before Bend.) As the sun was setting the guys finished unloading the truck and Maria, Tristan, and I arrived with groceries.

I can't explain exactly how I felt as we walked up and down the aisles of Safeway looking for food to stock the shelves in our new home. I'm not usually a Safeway shopper anyhow. (I prefer Whole Foods, Costco, the Farmer's Market, etc.) Strolling Bend's Safeway felt surreal. The people seemed like characters in a dream. I felt like I was drifting aimlessly around, ineffective and somewhat confused. I couldn't believe that this is my life.

When we arrived to the house, I showed Tristan around. We've lived in a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment for his entire life. Our downstairs now dwarfs that former living space. The best part was taking him out into the back yard. He toddled off the deck onto the grass and peered at the neighbors play structure and pool through the slats of the fence. "Open the park," he requested.

"It's not a park. It's a back yard." I tried to explain in a couple of ways that this was his back yard. That was their back yard. But neither is a park. It took a couple of days, but I think he understands now.

Saturday: After breakfast, the caravan reconvened. Dustin and Ben made stops to pick up the remnants of my father's belongings from his old house, a mere two blocks from where we now live. Then they headed over to the storage space that I employed to hold more of his stuff, and things that I wanted to keep.

Meanwhile, the rest of us went to check out the Habitat for Humanity store to see if they had a good deal on a washer and dryer. They did not. So the caravan continued on to Lowe's in search of major appliances.

Ben, Maria, Gavin, and Jason kept Tristan occupied as Dustin and I searched for and purchased our new washer/dryer. I haven't lived with a washer/dryer in my house for more than 10 years. San Francisco isn't known for such luxuries in rental situations. Now we have a great front loader washer and fancy dryer 20 feet from where I'm sitting. I've been washing our comforters and pillows in addition to our laundry and linens. I'm sure I'll soon fall into the, "How did I ever live without this convenience" that is prevalent in suburban America.

Our needs from Lowe's are great. There are MANY things that need to be seen to in this house. We took long enough that we had to say goodbye to Ben in the store because his flight time was getting close and we weren't done shopping for immediate necessities yet. There was so much going on it was a pretty brief goodbye. No tears. More of a, "Ok. See you later."

That night we went to McMenamins for dinner. This hotel used to be a Catholic School. The classrooms are guest rooms. The chapel is a movie theater. The Turkish soaking pool now inhabits the space where an alter once stood. The chain of hotels and pubs brews beer and distills spirits. If you're in Bend, or any other city that boasts a McMenamins: GO.

Sunday: We said goodbye to Gavin in the morning. He drove back to Sacramento alone. Then Maria, Jason, Dustin, Tristan, and I had brunch at the Victorian Cafe. This place has GREAT food. It's mostly local and sustainably raised. And it's TASTY. When you come to visit, it's likely we'll take you there. It's been our favorite place here since the first visit to Bend.

After brunch, we went to Drake Park. Jason and Dustin fed ducks with Tristan and took him for a walk. Maria and I sprawled on a blanket and fell asleep in the shade. It was 91F. Between the hard work from the days before, the good meal in our bellies, and the warmth of the day, it was a perfect time for a snooze.

That evening we took Jason to the airport. We had a teary goodbye. Tristan kept saying, "Bye Pops. See you soon." It's probably best that he doesn't really understand how far away everyone is going, or how long it might be until we see them again. Dustin and I were both pretty shaken by saying goodbye to Jason. We've had dinner with him almost every Wednesday for the past three years. It's going to be a big adjustment not having him over each week. It's sad to think about the gaps in time between visits. It's hard to think of how much Tristan will grow without seeing his extended family and how much less everyone will see his development. Again, it makes me sad.

Tristan's awake now and demanding Thomas while trying to drive trucks and cars on my laptop. More later...

Tomorrow

It's 10:37pm. My baby has been asleep for about an hour and a half, though he woke once with tummy pains. After a long fart he fell back to sleep.

I've now packed the lamp on my desk. Never has my desk been so bare while still in working order. I work in paper. Stacks of it. Boxes of it. It litters everything, despite my best efforts to shred, recycle, and file it. I envy people, like my husband, who can work with a spartan efficiency. I cannot.

Today I said goodbye to my therapist. I gave her a photo for her office. For the first time, we talked about her, instead of me. She's pregnant, due in December. I only figured this out two weeks ago as I spied another therapist patting her tummy just before I rang the buzzer to be admitted to the office. She's having a boy. He's a lucky baby.

Tonight I said the teariest goodbye yet. We had dinner with Jason, Angie, James, & Maya. I'm heartsick to be moving so far away from A&M. Ange and I met at a time when we were both new to the Lake Merritt area of Oakland. She had her newborn. I was still pregnant. In the months and years that passed, we, and our children, got to be the best of friends. It feels like I'm leaving part of myself behind as I walk away from them. I have tears in my eyes now even writing about it.

I'm actually grateful that my sadness has finally found its way to the surface. I'm happy that I love enough to have tears. I believe it's true that you realize what you have in someone when they are no longer in close proximity. I am blessed to have such love in my life. Even from afar.

Tomorrow begins a new adventure. Tomorrow begins what's next. Today is the end of an era. Today is the last day that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. For now, at least. Believe me. I may come home to stay.