What's Been Going on around Here...

• I joined Facebook - well, actually, apparently I'd already joined long enough ago that I don't clearly remember doing it, so I "re-activated"my account.  I don't really understand a lot of it and can't figure out what others can see of me on it.  I'm old and crotchety and, as of yet, still very unimpressed by it all.

• We've learned that when people say, "Pets Allowed" in rental listings, what they really mean is "Dogs Only".   I'm coining a new term based on this prejudice - "petism".  I think I should start a campaign to give cats a better reputation, because the one they apparently have is completely undeserved.

• The very day we decided we might buy instead of rent, after all, our top pick for purchasing was inexplicably pulled from the market.

• The one house we found that would take both of our pets was rented out to someone else about 12 hours before we submitted our application.

• The past three bullet points have caused a few breakdowns involving copious amounts of tears on my part.  Our small living space seems to be giving me a bit of tunnel vision, a bit of a fatalistic mindset, and leaves me feeling a little stranded when I can't reach anyone by phone just to chat out my nervousness and anxiety, which happens more often than not.  We've got less than a month left in temporary housing (on the company's dime) and I'm starting to feel the pressure to get us the hell outta here!

• We finally locked the dog in her kennel for a good part of the day, with as little guilt as possible, and headed to D.C. Saturday.  We drove to the closest metro stop, a little over an hour away, parked the car and took "the train" into the city - Gideon's first train.  Despite seeming fearful at first, he loved it once we were on and he was a very serious commuter.  We didn't do much, just walked around the mall, dusty from the lack of grass and major winds whipping through, hiked up to Washington Monument and ate lunch at the Old Post Office Pavilion.  Most important lesson learned for future trips:  toting a pocket knife is not a good idea. 

Our first metro ride

It's been shocking to realize how just how sheltered, pampered, protected, settled, complacent I was prior to this move - I sometimes just feel so completely overwhelmed by this tasking of choosing a new home!  But whenever I find myself getting really wound up about the house hunt - which happens about every 15 minutes right now - I try to take a deep breath, focus on what Gideon is doing at the time (watching him push cars or watch TV or jump in the swimming pool really relaxes me and takes me outside of my spinning brain), tell myself just how fortunate we still are, really, and remind myself that every person I pass in the grocery store, in the hotel lobby, on the highway is facing their own challenges, their own disappointments, their own complications.  

I am not alone in my unsettledness.  This is life.  It demands to be embraced in all of its messiness; there's no halfway here.