Road Trip: Blogged

Putting SF in the rear view.

After nearly five years in San Francisco, Tiffany and I are headed back across the country to the coast where we met, fell in love and became the couple consisting of a girl who studies chemistry and a girl who writes while that other girl studies chemistry (which you can read about in a four-part series starting here. 

We're moving to New York, and we're driving there. So I'm going to blog about it. What else am I going to do in the car for 10 hours a day? I mean, besides reading out loud to Tiffany and her dad (who is joining us for half the journey), playing 20 Questions and eating junk food.

In theory, there should be nine blog posts. We started today and plan to arrive in NY on August 27. But don't hold me to that number. There could be 10 or 11 posts. That's because Tiffany batted her eyes at the U-Haul woman and got us some extra time with the trailer just in case we need it.

   

Happy trails! And happy reading.

PS: Don't count this post. I would never try to take credit for an explanatory blog post.

Snap, Crackle...CHOCO!

I'm sorry for my long absence from the blog, but, with only ten days left before our big move to New York, Tiffany and I thought it would be a perfect time to spend five days out of the country on vacation. We left all our stuff in the taped-off, U-Haul trailer-sized space we had marked off on our living room floor, and, picture-holes still unspackled, went on an all-inclusive vacation to Puerto Vallarta. All we needed was a beach and some warm sun, and we got that, so the vacation was a success. But we learned we're not really all-inclusive people.

There isn't really much benefit for us. First of all, I don't drink. Second of all, Tiffany drinks so little as to hardly merit the "drinker" description. Most importantly, the food that's included in all-inclusive packages isn't really our style anymore. I know, I know, I've chronicled here how I can't pass up a free muffin, but maybe I've outgrown that phase of my life. I mean, Tiffany and I haven't bought boxed food in nearly two years. We're food snobs.

It's true that on our vacation we didn't go to any of the restaurants on our resort that had a dress code requiring actual shoes or dresses. Maybe at those restaurants they were serving only locally sourced whole food products. But still, at one of our first dinners, we realized what we were in for.

"Oh my gosh," Tiffany said, "this rice tastes like..."

I stole a bite from her plate, chewing slowly. But she beat me to the memory.

"Rice-A-Roni!" she whispered. "We're eating Rice-A-Roni!"

At the breakfast buffet the next morning, underneath a spotlight, the restaurant staff had placed a platter full of Hostess Ho Hos and Cupcakes, split neatly in half (the better to display the cream-filling, I'm sure).

But rather than resort to fasting for a week, Tiffany and I embraced our all-inclusive interlude. We delighted in the bottomless mini-bar in our hotel room, requesting extra bottled waters, Coronitas and Cokes. And we ordered room service every night.

On the menu our final evening?

Choco Krispis. Poured straight from the tiny box into a white china bowl.

Hoop Dreams

Remember hula hoops?

No? Come on out to San Francisco; they're all the rage among the pot-smokers and dread-heads.

I was never much of a hula-hooper. I wasn't very good at it, for one, and I also didn't see much point in standing in one place swiveling my hips to keep a plastic ring in motion. Of course, some of the hoopers out here are way more talented than that. They hoop over their heads and their arms and step in and out of their spinning orbs. When you've got the spare time to practice all day in the park, anything's possible, right?

Anyway, Tiffany and I came upon a street fair a few days ago, and there were hula hoops just lying around for anyone to use. I have to admit, I was tempted. So tempted, in fact, that I picked one up and stepped into it. As soon as I began gyrating, I felt bad for all the times I'd made fun of the pot-smoking and dread-headed hula hoopers. It really is fun. And kind of relaxing.

Tiffany was mortified.

"Oh my god, let's go!" she said, as people passed by pushing their children in strollers and licking ice cream cones. "Everyone's staring at you!"

"Come on! It's fun!"

"No way," she said. "I'm not hula hooping!"

I kept swiveling. It was surprising how good I was.

"Babe, no one is looking at me. Everyone's looking at her!"

Still gyrating, I pointed to a woman with wild bushy hair in a purple sweatsuit. She looked like she'd been hula hooping for several hours... or years.

I could have hooped a lot longer. But, in an amazing demonstration of support for my new-found talent, Tiffany started walking away from me. My choice was clear: her or hula.

"How about some ice cream?" I cried, stepping out of my hoop to chase after her.

Help.

Despite what Tiffany may believe, I'm very organized. I really shine in prepping for a move.

Yes, we're moving. To New York. I know there should be a dramatic post about the decision, but I'll save the drama for my memoir that, once someone agrees to publish, you all agreed to buy and promote by clicking on this link. As you know, this blog is more a place to chronicle coupledom minutiae.

Anyway, we get a lot of magazines (one reason I can't manage to finish the Sunday paper on Sunday). So, as soon as we established a moving date for next month, I stacked up all our most recent issues, listed them on a piece of paper in a tattered spiral notebook and began calling various 800 numbers to explain our situation. After the endless discussions Tiffany and I had about the move with our family and friends and each other, I was relieved that the subscription robots are perfunctory people-like things. They just need the answer to when.

The process was working like a charm. I had the satisfaction of putting bold check marks next to periodical after periodical until Tiffany decided to get involved.

I was on the phone with the robot woman from Everyday Food, a gift subscription from someone who found out I find cooking (okay, mostly baking), slightly therapeutic. The robot woman asked for my account number. But when I reached toward the stack on the right side of the shelf where I'd put all the magazines I still need to deal with, Everyday Food was not there. I checked the left stack where I'd put all the magazines I'd finished with, thinking maybe I'd made a mistake (Ha!). No. Nor was it in the bathroom magazine container or in the recycling bin.

The robot woman insisted I provide my account number. She sounded testy.

"Tell her to wait!" I screamed from the kitchen. "Tell her to wait one second! I can't find Everyday Food!"

"Oh, that one?" Tiffany asked casually, as the robot woman began to ask if I needed additional time. "I threw that one out. I thought you were done with it."

"If you need more time to make your selection..."

"Yes!" I screamed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. If you need more time..."

I sprinted into the living room and dove across the carpet to better reach the mouth piece of my smartphone. I hadn't heard what word choices the robot woman had given me, so I pulled a desperate try from my vocabulary:

"Help!" I screamed.

There was a pause.

And then...

"Okay," the robot woman said. "Let me get someone to help you."

I swear I heard her chuckle. But it was hard to hear over Tiffany's outright laughter.

Moonshine

A few nights ago, there was a full moon, and, because our shades weren't drawn tightly, it was shining right through our window, directly onto Tiffany's face. I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and Tiffany rolled over, turning away from the light:

"It's blinding me," she groaned. "Can you close the shades?"

"Sure," I whispered.

But then I looked out the window. The moon was so beautiful. It was so bright, way up high, right between our apartment building and the apartment building next to us that we can practically touch. Instead of closing the shades, I padded over to get my phone.

"What are you doing?" Tiffany mumbled.

"Closing the shades," I whispered.

But I was lying. Instead, I opened the shades wider and took a picture of the moon. With my flash. The room lit up.

"Are you kidding me!" Tiffany yelled. "I have to be up at the *ss crack of dawn!"

"But it's beautiful!" I said, "how can you not want to look at it?"

"Oh my god, shut the shades!" she hissed, rolling over and burying her head under the comforter.

I felt self-satisfied, knowing I had the picture as proof of what she'd missed. But when we remembered the picture I'd taken the next night at dinner, Tiffany got the last laugh. It turns out the moon isn't very photogenic. At least not with an iPhone. It looks about as spectacular as the flash from my camera.

Saturday's Sunday Paper

I know Tiffany loves me because she lets me leave the Sunday New York Times stacked all around the apartment until the next Sunday paper comes. Maybe a better person can read the Sunday paper in one sitting, but it takes me a good seven days to read the two we subscribe to. Actually, it would take me longer than seven days, but Tiffany only loves me enough to let the paper be stacked all around the apartment for one week. After that she loves me a little bit less and a little bit less with each passing minute.

I know it's been a week when I hear:

"Rebecca! The paper! I can't take it anymore!"

I'm sure I have my strategy all wrong. Here's what I do: I read the parts I like least--all the hard news and business news that makes me feel a little bit panicked inside--before I let myself read the parts I like most, like Modern Love and the profiles of people and the reviews of shows I'd love to see and the advice columns and the magazine. Yes, I know this is self-deprivation, but, what do you expect? Haven't you read my profile? I wash my dinner dishes before I eat dinner.

Anyway, in between the parts I like least and the parts I like most I'm distracted by life: trips to the farmers' market and the grocery store and work and making meals and reading the magazines I subscribe to and the books I check out at the library and trying to make sure all of those tasks and reading materials don't stack up like the Sunday paper. A girl can only have so many stacks.

But what happens is that I end up almost not being able to read the parts of the Sunday paper I like most because I leave them until there are just hours remaining until the next Sunday paper arrives. When I hear:

"Rebecca! The paper! I can't take it anymore!"

I grab the good parts and immediately sit down on the couch and read furiously.

The Amazing Floating Bagels

Tiffany and I made bagels last weekend. I posted pictures on Facebook to impress our friends and then pretended making bagels was nothing to be impressed about. But really even we were impressed. Not because it's hard. We were impressed at how easy it was and at the awe-inspiring power of having bagel-making capacity in our very-own kitchen. Dangerous.

When you're as panicky a cook as me, you begin to expect a certain level of mediocrity. I like cooking, so mediocrity is a fair trade off (for me at least--if Tiffany ever starts a blog to tell her side of the story, maybe we'll hear it's not such a fair trade off). I love making bread, but my dough never rises the way my recipes say it should rise. I'm okay with that. It tastes good.

Anyway, when Tiffany and I read that our bagels were supposed to float in the pot of boiling water we put them into before baking them, we rolled our eyes at each other and pulled out our tongs, prepared to rescue the sunken pseudo-circles of dough from the deep-end.

But you know what?

Maybe a watched pot doesn't boil, but bagels in a watched pot of boiling water really do float. Not at first. No, at first they sunk straight to the bottom while we hovered nervously with the tongs. But then... one by one, they popped up to the top, bouncing like little rafts in a wave pool.

"Look!" we screamed at each other. "They're floating!"

It was a major triumph in our kitchen. The tastier triumph? Eating the amazing floating bagels.