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By Mariana, 2013 May 3

The genies never came to pack our boxes at the old house, nor to unpack them at the new one. We were living in Boxlandia for several weeks, but now the new place is really shaping up. Not enough to take interior pictures, mind you, but shaping up.

Waiting to sign the lease

The new place isn’t as charming as the old place, but all the appliances work and the house is unlikely to crash down in an earthquake. We can run the microwave and the toaster at the same time! Plus, now when I’m washing dishes, I look out at a cute patio instead of at a wall.

Someday, we're going to hike that.

From home to downtown takes 10 minutes on bike (the return trip takes me 15; it’s uphill & both my bike and my body are heavy) or 30 minutes on foot. Either way, I cruise past lovely Victorians. Best of all, the downtown is humming with activity and restaurants (even one that stays open until 2 am!).

Even better, our first in-town adventure led me to baby goats! My head did not explode as Derek feared it might from the volume of unbearable cuteness, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I not only tasted yummy cheese, I held a baby goat. And I told the woman leading the tour, “You’d better just get another goat, because I’m not letting this one go.” I held it until it was time to go. Mama Goat was none too pleased.

Camera couldn't focus on goat because my smile was too bright.

Cyn says: "The only kids we're gonna have."

Never say, "No, I'm not going to hold a goat." Because this is what happens.

My drive to the gym takes me past sheep and goats, and if I go even a few miles to the north or south on the freeway, or west on country roads, I see cows. It makes me happy to drive by cows. I’m simple like that.

We don’t have trees or chickens or a pool of our own just yet, but the rolling wine country hills are pretty awesome, and I know a month is kind of early for such declarations…but I think I love Petaluma.

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By Mariana, 2013 March 6

We’re moving. Our landlord has decided to sell the house we’re in. Moving is a drag, but it will give us a chance to test-live Petaluma before plunking life’s savings into a house.

To keep the packing and moving crankies in check, I’ve taken to calling out the things I will not miss about this house.

"Charming vintage cottage"

So very cute from the street. But don’t get too close. If you do, you’ll see:

• The peeling paint

Painting is hard!

• The garage that my brother-in-law dubbed “The Hobo Shack”

Picking paint colors is harder!

• The long driveway. I have to back down it, then parallel-park against the house. The long driveway ends in bricks that are even more ramshackle than the Shack.

It was only a matter of time before I got a flat.

• The sloping floors

• The crooked windows

• The leaks in said crooked windows

• The leak in the roof

• The clawfoot tub and the magnets needed to hold the shower curtain in place

• The creepy Harry Potter’s closet

• The dishwasher and fridge

And I most certainly will not miss the squatters in the shack:

The close-up

Step a bit farther back, and you get the full story

Last night, Derek walked up the garage stairs to the attic to get moving boxes. He asked me to shine the flashlight up there. I did. He asked me to get closer. In the dark with just a keychain flashlight, I came face to face with a rat. I screamed. After I realized he was dead, I was mad at Derek for not noticing and thus protecting me from the rat. But all that is mitigated, I guess, by the fact that today I climbed back up there to take photos of a dead rat. I tried to get the lighting right, until I started hearing – or imagining – noises. Then I scurried down faster than, well, a rat.

What WILL I miss about this house? Only a few things:

• The proximity to friends

• The fact that we spent our first years of marriage here

• The fruitful plum tree and the resulting plum wine

• The calla lilies

A bit of beauty. Too bad we'll be gone before Easter.

• The horsie-door at the front of the house. It’s cute! Even if it is, as one friend called it, a one-kick door. And even if we never had the key to the front door and always had to enter or leave through the back.

I know there will be things to love and hate about the new place. But I’m excited for our new adventure. Now, if only I could get the genies to come and magically pack all our boxes…

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By Mariana, 2013 February 13

Really, more like why-the-hell? I know what this stuff is; the question is why do I save it?

Case in point: traveler’s patches. I unearthed them recently when refinishing an old piece of furniture. I bought them as a wandering exchange student. I remember seeing backpacks covered with patches, thinking how cool those people must have been. I wanted a future of never-ending travels, of patch-covered backpacks.

Truth is, I never sewed them onto any backpack. That summer I didn’t own one,  and I’ve long-since graduated to a wheelie suitcase. They never decorated any form of luggage, but I’ve saved them for decades, moving them from apartment to apartment. They’re small and shoved in a box, and every time I see them I think, “Maybe someday I’ll do something with them.”

That someday is today, and that something is to hurl them into the donation pile. I thought I’d take a picture to commemorate them. As I took photos, I realized a couple of things: one, though I lived in Spain for a year, I never got a patch of Spain; and two, the photo felt like so much braggadocio. “Look at me! Look at all the places I’ve been! I must be cool!” I think that’s why they never made it onto any of my luggage.

This photo instead: patches indistinguishable, since they’re soon to be gone. Passport in focus, with plenty of blank pages to represent adventures yet to come.

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By Mariana, 2013 February 4

It’s Monday morning. If that weren’t bad enough, the skies are so gray I fear the sun has abandoned us. But I know it hasn’t, know that today calls only for some non-caloric blues-busters.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Calvin & Hobbes. Impossible to read more than a few pages without laughing out loud.
• Happy, some may say cheezy, music. Don’t judge me because I can’t resist singing along with Sammy Davis Jr. whenever I hear “The Candy Man.” (It may be on my iPod in case of emergency.)
• Dancing to said music. Yes, I dance around my house, and I’m that crazy woman rockin’ out in my car while I wait at stop lights. The dancing and music loving are inherited/learned traits. My parents bust out into song all the time, and there were many impromptu dances in our kitchen.
• Baby animals. Just thinking about zooborns.com floods me with endorphins. Looking at a baby echidna, how can you be sad? Seriously, this site makes me squeal with joy. I save it for when I really need a boost. It has never failed me. Derek also knows to email me articles about animals if I’m cranky. (Recent winner here.)
• Though not always possible, get-togethers are the best. Better still if they include age-defying silliness such as sock-skating hardwood floors or building pyramids.

Wow. Just writing this made the sun come out – both literally and figuratively. Time for a celebratory dance break!

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By Mariana, 2013 January 30

Clearing out old paperwork, I found a file entitled “Ideas.” Filled with parts of poems, pieces of essays, a screenplay tidbit, even drafts of personal ads (for me and for friends), it’s mostly dreck and drivel from younger days, but I can’t quite throw it away.

And, for laughs, here is something I wrote more than half my life ago while working my first job out of college. With apologies to Roberta Flack…

I heard it was a good job
I heard it had a plan
And so I came to work here
And advance when I can.
And here here it is this new job,
A strange new place to be
Killing me softly with this work
Killing me softly with this job

I feel all flushed with fever
Embarrassed by my plight
How can I tell co-workers
I cry each, every night
I pray the work will finish
But computers drone right on
Killing me softly with this work
Killing me softly is this job
Ruining a young life.

PS – There was another poem I wrote about that workplace. I think it was called “The Cesspool.” English major post-college angst at its finest!

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By Mariana, 2013 January 22

Cast aside

2013 started with a surgical improvement. Once again, I am amazed by modern medicine. With three tiny incisions, my surgeon was able to insert a camera and tools into my knee to fix a torn meniscus that’s been nagging me for years. Within days, I was up and walking.

If only it were all so easy. Three scars and cut out my overeating tendencies? Sign me up! Three more to implant a habit of regular exercise? Yes! Just three more for a procrastinationectomy? Please!

Alas, there’s no magic trio of scars to trade for my flaws. Or is there? Hard work, diligence, patience – not literal scars, but they’ll certainly leave their marks. Just as my knee surgery wasn’t really magic (I need to do ~ 6 weeks of physical therapy), changing habits won’t happen while I sleep. That’s fine. I want to be awake and moving forward as steadily as this scarred vehicle will endure.

In addition to exercise, eating, and procrastination (quite a trinity), I’ m aiming to read better in 2013. For the past two years, I’ve kept a list of every book I’ve read. Seems like a natural item for a blog post, right? No. The preponderance of chick-lit vampire stories is a little embarrassing. This year, I want to read at least 30 books, and have my guilty pleasure reading better balanced with well-written, maybe even literary, books. If I want to be a better writer, I need to be a better reader.

So lucky 2013, welcome. Bring it on!

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By Mariana, 2012 November 2

Thankfully, I’ve Got Flowers!

I’ve resolved to buy flowers more regularly, especially during the fall/winter when gray skies can leave me feeling gloomy. Today’s actually sunny, but I still decided to bring sunshine inside. I know some people argue that cut flowers are a waste a money, “because they just die.” I could not disagree more. Flowers are an inexpensive way to bring beauty into your home. (Beauty that I could not manage to adequately photograph, though I tried.)

And in the time it took to write this minuscule post, take pictures, and post them, the weather has returned to glum. Yay for yellow!

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By Mariana, 2012 October 5

I’m giving up swearing for the month of October. I know, it’s not even Lent.

A former coworker named Michael once said, “Profanity is the refuge of the inarticulate.” He was referring to a ranting customer, but the quote has stuck with me through the ensuing thirteen years. I’m a writer, and I spend inordinate amounts of time trying to find just the right word or turn of phrase. Anyone who knows me knows I am a word nerd. I admire people who are well-spoken. I sometimes mock those who use “like” all the time. For example, “You know, it’s like we went like to the the store and it was like so crowded.” I had a boss who spoke this way, and it made her seem young and hesitant.

Could others react to my swearing the way I react to their likes? Does my frequent f-bomb dropping irritate people or make them tune me out? Can I stop? (To clarify, I do have a filter, thanks to many public-facing jobs. Nobody wants a teacher or fundraiser swearing at her audience.) October is an experiment to find out.

When do I fail in my experiment? While driving! I swear at crazy motorists around me, but with the windows up nobody hears (it’s just like a tree falling in the forest). I swear when I drop things, and I’m a klutz. But only once since I started have I sworn in conversation. I might start keeping score. Yesterday, -5. Today, zero.

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By Mariana, 2012 September 20

My name’s not that hard — especially not when I spell it for you. Yet somehow, this is what was handed to me this afternoon. I guess I should be thankful they didn’t call it out.

"Moron! Large iced latte for Moron!"

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By Mariana, 2012 September 12

I forgot the unread book that’s been on my shelf the longest.

I’ve read pieces and parts. Sometimes I’m curious about how I would react to it as a whole, though to date that curiosity hasn’t been strong enough to compel me to action.

The Bible falls in the category of “books bought for class,” the class being sixth grade religion. I don’t remember much of what we learned in that class, other than how to locate passages by chapter and verse and the names of the books in the Pentateuch. I probably thought I was cool because I knew the word Pentateuch. (I wasn’t cool.)

If I don’t remember my Bible studies, what I do remember from sixth grade? A nun who screamed at students when she was frustrated, and used phrases like “You exasperate me,” “Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” and “Do you have an auditory deficiency?”

But when she wasn’t screaming, she taught us about art and culture from other countries, showing us photos of the Taj Mahal and a miniature Pietà. I can still hear her saying, “Michelangelo would roll over in his grave if he saw this plastic replica of his masterpiece.” She made me dream of traveling. I don’t sanctify or edify her, but when I saw Michelangelo’s David, I said a little thank you to her memory. I’ll do the same should I ever make it to India.