Moving in together

Ever since our first date, Meaghan and I have barely spent a moment apart.  We would make the drive up and down the freeway between Portland and Eugene a couple of times a week to see each other on the weekend and sometimes for just a night mid-week and then spend hours talking on the phone on the nights in between.  At the start of November we decided that we wanted to live together and began making the necessary preparations.  We figured it would take about a month to get everything moved and sorted and that the Thanksgiving weekend would be a perfect time for the final move-in date.  Meaghan gave notice on her job at the school district in Eugene and we started to transport carloads of stuff each time we made the drive to see each other.  For the most part, everything went pretty smoothly.  The Thanksgiving weekend came around and only a very few things were left in Eugene.  An air mattress, two cats, a few days worth of clothes, and some essential food items and cookware.  The only wrinkle in the plan came in the fact that it took us a little longer to drive back from Klamath Falls on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We arrived in Eugene at about 2:30pm that afternoon and still had a couple of hours work ahead of us to complete the move.  Fortunately, everything went pretty well, and we were soon on our way up to Portland, kitties and all.  Meaghan took the cats in her car, along with the last of the household items, while I loaded my Mazda up with the last of the packed boxes.  We turned in the keys to her apartment, finished up the last of the paperwork and got back on the road.  It was about 6:00pm when we started the journey up to Portland.  The only job we had left was to buy a new litter tray for the cats.  I had become somewhat enamored with the self-scooping super trays that do 95% of the work for you, partially from an ease of use perspective, but also from a fascination with the engineering.  Enter the ScoopFree Automatic Cat Litter Box.

This litter box works great!  The litter tray itself is filled with crystals that clump very quickly and give off virtually no odor.  An automatic rake scrapes the clump into a hidden compartment at the end of the tray after twenty minutes of inactivity (optical sensors know when a cat steps inside).  When it is time to change the tray, you throw away the whole cardboard tray, crystals and all, and replace with a refill tray.  The refills aren’t cheap, running just under $15 a piece, but the litter box itself works like a charm.  Peaches and Ebony are two aging cats (14 years a piece) and adapted to using the new litter tray right away.  We also got the cats a filtered water fountain so that they always have fresh, running, filtered water, and I was compelled to get them a snuggly house for under the bathroom sink.  The downstairs bathroom has become the cats room, housing litter box, the under-the-sink hideaway area, water fountain, and their food dishes.  They come and go as they please and seem quite content.

Meaghan and I have been living together now for about three weeks and everything is going wonderfully.  Most of the chaos of integrating two lives into one living space has been boxed, shuffled, sorted, tidied, and stored.  Meaghan has been great, sorting through things during the day while I’m at work.  At nights we’ve worked together to go through pretty much every single thing we own.  No box, tub, or storage shelf has been left untouched as we got everything out, put it all into piles, donated a large portion, stored another portion, and arranged the remainders into their designated spots in our new place.

Thanksgiving in Klamath Falls Part III

Friday morning came early….very early!  One Thanksgiving tradition I had previously heard of but never partaken in was that of the post-Thanksgiving sales in the wee hours of Friday morning…as in 5:00am or earlier!  Typically, 5am has two uses for me…it is either the best sign that you’ve stayed up too late playing video games and its time to turn off the computer and head to bed, or you’re getting up to make an early flight and need to get the to airport.  This was certainly a new use for the hour that shall not be named.  The shopping train  (driven by Jenny) was leaving at 4:45am to give time enough to pick up Mandy and Chris.  Meaghan and I firmly missed that deadline but were able to meet up with everyone at around 5:15am as they were just leaving Gottschalks.  We had already missed an entire sale and the sun had not yet even begun to stir.  Managing to take part in the action at WalMart, Fred Meyer, and several other doorbuster-vertising venues, we actually had a fairly good time.  There were crowds in most places but they weren’t anything like the insane socially-retarded mongrel gatherings that line the aisles nearer Christmas…these people, whilst numerous, were actually in fairly good spirits and had not yet abandoned all social grace.  Meaghan and I didn’t purchase anything of note per se, but we had a lot of fun looking at household items, continuing the quest for the perfect set of purple towels, and admiring all manner of shiny things at jewelry counters.  We returned from our adventure at around 8:30 to find that breakfast and another round of inviting mochas all ready to go.  I could get used to this!

Everyone was pretty worn out from the morning’s excursion and many declared that it was naptime.  Being generally unable to nap during the day, I sat in the kitchen, finished off my second mocha and took the chance for a good conversation with Meaghan’s parents Greg and Jenny.  I’d been hoping for an opportunity to get to know them both better without the hubbub of a larger social group.  They are both really great people and we ended up talking for several hours.  Meaghan and I took another walk around the neighborhood before getting ready for the evening of carolling.  I had requested that we run through the carols at least once before joining the Chorale.  Not only was I feeling a little rusty, but I have found that several of the American versions of the Christmas carols I grew up with have a different melody and in some cases slightly varied lyrics.  I can still sight-read music pretty well, especially for bass parts that occupy only the first, third, fifth, and sixth notes on either minims or crotchets.  However, when singing something intrinsically familiar that has only a few subtle changes it is really, really easy to make mistakes by going purely from memory and instinct instead of reading the dots.  Fortunately the selection of music was fairly easy to sight-read and, while some of the arrangements were a little obscure, we were able to pound through most of them on the first try.  I miss singing carols at Christmas because its something I used to do every year with my family, so it was really nice to get the chance to play through some of them on piano and sing the harmony parts to Meaghan singing the melody.  The chorale performance was fun, although we ducked out about thirty minutes early because it was getting quite chilly.  The crowds enjoyed listening to the the carols and I ended up having a lot of fun.  So ended another great day.

Saturday involved shopping, another walk around the neighborhood and a general relaxation from the busy days that preceded it.  Jenny had bought tickets for a local theatre performance that evening and Mandy had invited us all over for dinner beforehand.  Meaghan and I spent the afternoon looking at photo albums and trading stories from our youth.  It was nice to just sit around for a day.  Mandy did a fantastic job of entertaining (her first hosted party) and served a great dinner of a roast, vegetables, potatoes, and applesauce side, followed by a chocolate mousse dessert.  Accompanied by a Cabernet, candlelight, and a jovial atmosphere, it was yet another great evening dinner in a line that followed the theme of “I could get used to this.”  The play, Apocalyptic Butterflies, was in a small theatre and told the story of a couple who needed to learn appreciation for each other and see the love they had despite the woes of their current situation.  It was a story about not taking people for granted and seeing truly how much they bring to you.  Fairly well acted (although the lead sometimes lost his meter), it was a great way to end the weekend.  It has been a while since I had seen a local performance and it reminded me that Meaghan and I should make more time for this sort of thing.  We were all pretty worn out from the excitement, dining, and partying of the weekend and it wasn’t long before everyone headed to bed.

Sunday!  The journey home.  It snowed only two days in November this year.  The first day was during our journey down on Wednesday.  The second was in preparation for our journey back.  We awoke to see thick snowflakes both falling and settling on the road outside our window on Sunday morning.  Meaghan arose to the sound of Stu uttering “Buggerin ‘ell, of all the days to snow again!”  We were still in great spirits and were laughing about it as much as we were mad.  Nonetheless….come on….both days?!?  After a brief but very welcome breakfast, we hit the road shortly after 10:00am.  It was light enough outside to make the road a lot more visible than on the way down and we still had a fair amount of work to do in Eugene.  Meaghan and I had decided that we wanted to move in together in early November and had planned to make the final trip and move on the way back from Thanksgiving.  That meant that the stop in Eugene would be more than a pedestrian appearance to say hi to the kitties.  The kitties were coming with us along with the last of her stuff!  More about the move later.  For now, let me share two photographs of the return journey.  The first is a view from inside the car as we were driving up route 97 (roughly here), ostensibly the easier of the two parts of our journey as it was primarily flat.  Fortunately, the snow was fairly well packed and we didn’t need to put the chains back on.  The only tricky parts came because we were driving in the tracks melted by the big trucks that lined the highway.  Every so often we would find a popular point for the trucks to pull off and take a break or check their tires.  This left large snow berms in the road that we had to push our way over.  Inevitably the car would end up drifting and sliding to the right and the tires wanted to follow the tracks left by the exiting trucks.  Fortunately, once we reached route 58 (the pass over the mountains; ~5,000ft) the weather improved significantly and we even saw some sun.  ODOT had done a fairly good job of dropping dirt and sand on the road too, which mean that a lot of the snow had melted off.  The second photo was taken while we were driving across the pass (roughly here), looking back down the road we had just driven.

A great Thanksgiving drew to a close and we entered Eugene around 2:30pm, ready to begin the final parts of the move-out process.  More about that later.  For now, enjoy this evidence that it does indeed snow in Oregon.  I sure missed having my Jeep on that trip!

Thanksgiving in Klamath Falls Part II: Thursday

After the excitement of the journey down from Portland, we were both pretty frazzled.  We had barely had the chance to get our bags through the door and meet the dogs (Sophie and Libby- pictured below) before having cheese, biscuits, and a glass of wine presented alongside a warm comfortable seat and a chance to relax.  It was exactly what we needed and was the nicest way to begin the weekend.  Meaghan’s parents were extremely welcoming and very soon the thoughts of the journey were replaced with excitement of the weekend to come.  We were, however, quite tired and so after brief introductions and a short but pleasant conversation, Meaghan and I headed to bed to get a good night’s sleep.

Here are Sophie and Libby respectively, showing that we had indeed arrived late and that it was certainly time for bed:

The following morning we arose to the sweet smell of freshly brewed mochas filling the air.  Greg (Meaghan’s dad) had already prepared a small breakfast as well as two large mugs of chocolately coffee goodness.  Sweet!  No sooner has the morning coffee and biscuits been consumed than we noticed that preparations were already well underway for the day ahead.  The dinner table was set, bustling was aplenty, and all manner of dishes were entering and leaving ovens.  Meaghan and I decided the best place for us to be was out of the way on a walk around the neighborhood.  Fortunately the weather had improved significantly now that we were no longer on the road, which made for a nice Thursday morning stroll.  There was still some snow on the ground and the wind was cold, but it presented a delightfully relaxing prelude to the day ahead.

We returned to find that people would soon be arriving so we disappeared to get changed into our dinner outfits and then found places where we could help out with last minute preparations.  Mandy (Meaghan’s sister) lit the candles, Meaghan arranged chocolate liqours, while I assisted with beer consumption by drinking and removing some of the excess bottles that were just cluttering the drinks tray. :)  Soon, it was starting to look like we were ready for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Meaghan and her family participate with the Klamath Chorale in an annual recital of Christmas carols on the eve of the day after Thanksgiving and had kindly extended to me an invitation to join them.  All of the people on the guest list were also part of the performance and soon the room was filled with partial recitals of favorite carols from the coming medley.  Conversations were both plentiful and enjoyable and I was soon feeling like a part of the group; although I realized I needed to brush up on my carolling a little.

Here, Chris (Mandy’s husband, Meaghan’s brother in law) was talking to Charles (caroller and local theatre seat sponsor) about the medical imaging course he is attending at the Oregon Institute of Technology.  Meanwhile, Greg was applying the finishing touches to the turkey.  Jenny (Meaghan’s mom) displayed an adeptness for camera avoidance and I realized upon review that she had managed to appear in none of my pictures.  I shall have to correct this at Christmas.

Soon we all sat down and enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  The turkey was superb and was served with a variety of fantastic sides and treats.  I overate and indulged myself to my heart’s content and after a couple of hours of dining bliss felt completely satisfied and happy.  Everyone was very warm and welcoming and I was feeling like a part of the group and not at all like I was just “Meaghan’s boyfriend”.  It was really nice to get the chance to meet everyone and to feel so included in everything that was happening.

Having eaten and partied on all manner of turkey, stuffing, desserts, wines, and chocolates, everyone was soon falling into the familiar post-Thanksgiving food coma and soon enough the evening wound to a close.  After most people had left, Meaghan and I sat and talked with Mandy, Chris, Greg, and Jenny before deciding to call it a night ourselves.  A very successful Thursday was had by all!  I’ll post more about Friday and some pictures from the journey home in a later post.

SoftSource Christmas Party 2006

Meaghan and I attended the third annual SoftSource Consulting Christmas party on Friday.  The party was hosted at Blue Hour (L’Heure Bleue) on the corner of 13th and Everett, right around the corner from the Rogue Ales Pub and one of my favorite restaurants: Le Bouchon.  I’d never been to Blue Hour but it was easy enough to find and the valet parking made it painless to get in.  The private dinner hall in which the party was being held has a separate entrance a little further down Everett from the main restaurant door.  Having obtained directions from the concierge, we ascended the stairs, deposited our pair of white elephant gifts (thanks to Meaghan for the beautiful wrapping job) and began to mingle with the crowd.  There were four wines available, a domestic and Spanish red, and two white wines.  Having obtained a glass of the Spanish red, we began introductions.  I was proud to introduce Meaghan to all of my coworkers and to meet many of their significant others for the first time.  The first glass of wine was good.  Just at the point I was about to set my glass down I heard “Refill sir?”  Yes please!  The night was off to a good start.

Mingling continued unabated, introductions occured, name soup ensued.  It might require meeting on a few more occasions before I am able to solidify the name->face correlations of everyone we met that night within my cerebral cortex, so apologies to anyone whose name I temporarily misplace.  Shortly thereafter, the announcement came that we were to take our places for dinner.  The menu informed us that dinner would consist of a mixed greens salad appetizer followed by a selection from one of four entrees topped off with chocolate soufle.  Discarding the vegetarian option on the entree list, we chose the New York Steak over the Snapper and Pork offerings, although we were later informed by both Ellen and Brian (sitting to our left) that they were both quite delicious.  The steak was accompanied by a fantastic potato side that consisted of mixed layers of smashed potatoes and cheese.  We’re still trying to identify the cheeses and figure out how to emulate the recipe.

As the crowd finished chasing chocolate soufle around their plates, Shaun announced that it was time to begin the white elephant gift exchange (the link explains the typical rules – note that SoftSource consider a gift to be frozen after it has been stolen twice).  Meaghan and I made the fatal error of placing our gifts on the floor next to the somewhat crowded gift table (see first picture below), a mistake that resulted in them being two of the final gifts to be taken.  Despite that fact they later proved to be quite popular, being stolen a couple of times each, so it all worked out OK.  Laura took the dubious honor of choosing the most popular gifts of the night, resulting in her making multiple visits back to the gift table as each of them was stolen respectively.

The pictues below show (from left to right):
(1) Laura opening her first gift (a grill I stole later)  (2) Me holding my stolen prize.  (3) The full dinner hall as we sat to eat.
(4) John with his new bedpan.  (5) Leslie opening her wine (the last time she’d see it).  (6) Shaun reading out the first employee gift.

The white elephant giveaway was going well.  John had received a new bedpan, leslie unwrapped her bottle of wine, and I had successfully stolen the grill from Annie who had already stolen it from Laura, thereby freezing the prize and making it mine.  W00t!  Interwoven with the white elephant prize selection, Shaun and Cheryl were running a second “employee only” prize handout.  The white elephant gift action would pause periodically whilst an employee was called up to select a black envelope containing a mystery prize.  I received two Regal Cinema movie tickets, which at current cinema ticket prices equates to about a $20 prize.  Nice!  Other gifts included certificates to Best Buy and Starbucks.

The second round of prize-swapping involved Leslie’s bottle of wine, which was stolen by Cheryl and then in turn by Brian.  Cheryl appeared quite reluctant to part with it at first but the victory shots below depict the action fairly well, including Brian looking smug and Cheryl inspecting her new gift.  The last two (bottom middle, bottom right) are of Leslie opening one of the bags we brought and Mark opening his first gift, disappointed that it wasn’t a second head scratcher.  He later hunted down and stole the original head scratcher.

Nathan (picture 6 below) was lucky enough to receive a movie night in a box, consisting of a large sausage and a brand new copy of Brokeback Mountain.  He was seen sneaking out shortly thereafter, presumably to avoid having his prize stolen.

The final collection of pictures show (from left to right):
(1) Shaun giving his speech.  (2) Laura showing off her head massager.  (3) Mark displaying the same head massager after stealing it.
(4) Kyle opening a bag of chocolates.  (5) Amod admiring the stolen chocolates.  (6) Nathan proudly displaying his copy of Brokeback Mountain.

All in all the party was a great success.  The food was great, the wine was very enjoyable (and in plentiful supply), and the company was outstanding.  It was a really nice way to celebrate my first partial year with SoftSource as well as a great opportunity to get to know more about the people I work with and meet their significant others.

Thanksgiving in Klamath Falls Part I: The Journey Down

We spent Thanksgiving in Klamath Falls visiting Meaghan’s family.  My journey began on Wednesday November 22nd (I know…a timely post this is!) at around 12:15pm.  Leaving work early to beat the Thanksgiving traffic (ha!) I began the trip down I5 towards Eugene to meet Meaghan after work.  Thinking we’d be able to hit the road across the pass and be on our way to Southern Oregon by early afternoon, the impending bad weather scheduled for that evening was of little concern.  After sitting in traffic on I5 pretty much all the way down to Salem, I was an hour and a half into my journey with barely forty miles done of the hundred and ten needed just to get to Eugene.  At around 2:00pm, I called Meaghan to let her know I might be running a tad late as, even though the traffic had thinned, I was only just passing Albany.  Fortunately, a few minutes later, an idiot from the hard shoulder decided to add some excitement to my day by pulling straight into the right-hand lane and then straight in front of me in the faster of the two lanes while I was doing 65mph.  I managed to slow to just above the 20mph he was doing when I bumped the back of his car!.  I had slammed on the brakes so urgently that my ABS kicked in and I ended up chugging along in 5th at 20mph with four diagnostic lights on the dashboard.  I carefully edged off to the hard shoulder, slowed to a stop and took a moment to breathe.  The manual indicated that I should turn off the engine, get out and check everything was OK (it was – a slight ding in the license plate) and then turn the car back on.  Sure enough, the diagnostic lights flared for a second and were gone.  Fucking stupid idiot asshole goddamn piece of shit other drivers!.  Hulk mad!.  OK, I’m done.  That’s pretty much how it sounded at the time too.

I finally pulled into Eugene at around 3:30.  After a short stop at Meaghan’s apartment to collect the last few things we needed, we were on the road again and headed towards the pass on route 58.  From about the point we left Eugene the weather was just ugly.  It was raining and the wind seemed to want to shift every time we turned such that it always pointed directly into the windshield.  Horizontal rain on already waterlogged roads with trucks flying by at twenty over the speed-limit because they want to get home for Thanksgiving and are too tired to pay attention- AWESOME!  We were making fairly reasonable progress and started the climb up towards the ski resort in that area at around 4:30pm.  Just in time, it began to snow!.  Yay, snow!.  *head sags*.  Fortunately, earlier that day Travis had written to me:
[quoted text]:
“If you don’t have tire chains or studs on your car, stop at the store and get some locally before you head down.  You can’t get through to K-Falls without them (they’re stopping people on the road and turning them around).  Saw it on the news this morning.  The snow/ice is ridiculous.  Drive safe, and if you have any doubts or if the snow is coming down too hard, please just turn around.  I’d hate to see you on the news having to be pulled out of your car by the Jaws of Life or some crap.”

A uniquely worded sentiment as always, but very appreciated because I had actually stopped to buy chains on my way down to Eugene after hearing from him about the weather report.  Thanks Travis!  We were little more than 2,000ft up when suddenly my tachometer informed me that stocks in grip (SYM: GRIP) were plummeting and a portfolio change would be advisable.  My tires followed the market trend shortly thereafter and started selling shares in grip at an alarming rate.  Not wanting to get caught as the last remaining shareholder, I pulled off to the side of the road to apply the newly purchased chains.  Riiiiggghhhtt!  The instructions seemed simple enough.  The illustrated example showed Grandma lifting the car with one hand whilst deftly applying the chains with the other.  I stood there with several pieces of interesting if oversized tire jewelry in my hand with a look in my eyes like a cow staring down an oncoming train.  I’ve never put chains on a car before, it was dark, the cold I’d been cultivating for two days was in full force now, and I was starting to feel a little out of my comfort zone.  Meaghan was an absolute lifesaver.  She grabbed the masses of twisted metal from my hands and with a quick glance at the instructions began weaving them around the front wheels like a pro.  I was able to lend a helping hand with the pulling and grunting parts towards the end of the process where various snaps needed to be pulled tight, but I couldn’t thank her enough for knowing what the hell she was doing.  Ten minutes later and a lot colder, we were on our way again at the world-ending speed of 25mph.  It was now 5:45pm, we had over a hundred miles to go and we were barrelling along at a thundering 25mph.  We should be there by morning!  With chains on the tires, it was much easier to hold the road though and we actually started to make quite a bit of progress.  Once over the top of the pass the snow seemed quite a bit lighter and the rest of the trip would be either downhill or mostly level.  We once again pulled off to the side of the road, this time to remove the chains and stuff them back into the Les Schwab bag.  Fingers now quite cold!

By 6:30pm we joined route 97 and although the weather was giving little to no respite, it was nice to know that we were on the last leg of the journey.  With a brief stop in Chemult (yes, we were in the middle of nowhere) for a toilet break and a chance to scrape ice from the windshield and stretch the legs, we were ready for the last hour of driving.  It was 7:15pm (about seven hours after I’d originally left Portland) and as we were pulling out of the gas station we watched the town’s tow truck pull out and head off down the road in the direction we had just come from.  I can only imagine it was quite the busy night for them.

Meaghan had called her folks from Chemult to let them know where we were and inform them of our new estimated arrival time.  Her dad let us know that the weather in Klamath Falls was pretty light with no snow, just a little light rain.  Hah!.  As we passed the “Welcome to Klamath Falls” sign at the city limits, we were greeted by a half inch of settled snow and ice with a fairly heavy rate of snowfall and freezing rain.  With wipers going full blast and the front and rear heaters on maximum, we ground our way through the last few roads and pulled into the driveway of Meaghan’s parent’s house.  Phew.  All in all, it wasn’t an unenjoyable journey, it was just longer and more full of excitement that I’m used to.  It was nice to have the company with me on the drive…and the way those chains went on was extracurriculariffic!.  I’ll post more about Thanksgiving as well as some photos soon.