Winterness

I've been musing about winter lately. Understandable, as San Diego's seems the antithesis of Minnesota's, something for which I'm told daily I should thank my lucky snowshoes. Sure, I'm a Minnesotan who has grown tired of the long winters, it seems, the older I get. It was less about snow days and holidays and more about slipping on ice, gaining weight and long-night burnout. And the cold got to me, made me a little grouchier at the Target clerk or the driver ahead of me. But, these should not be the things of native-deep sentiment, right?
I found some parallels in these musings, strangely enough (strange as in the way thoughts come to you just before going to sleep or waking up), in some syntactical characteristics of the Quechua language. (Bear with me, it will be beautiful.) Quechua is one of three official indigenous languages spoken in Bolivia, in addition to Spanish, and is spoken throughout the Andean region of South America. Nate took a keen interest in the study of Quechua, something he's still pursuing in his graduate studies, from its influence on the Spanish we learned while living in Bolivia. In Quechua, when a word appears singularly, its definition, as I assume it is in most languages, is simply that of its own meaning: nina = fire, for example. If the word appears twice, it doesn't mean its plural but almost the quintessence of the singular definition; the essence of the thing. Again: nina nina = fiery. Or firey. Very fire, if we could.
So it was a deep nostalgia that a poem by Cristina Rosetti stirred up in me, written as a Christmas poem. It is also the basis for one of my favorite books of Natalie's, one from which I will momentarily borrow. The poem is called In the Bleak Midwinter. My favorite passage follows:

"In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago."

For San Diegans this would conjure up images of a gulag labor camp. But for me, Minnesotan as winter wheat, and with a shred of knowledge of a language spoken in a different celestial hemisphere that yields a moment of poetic license, it made me miss winterness. Not so much the snow, but the snow on snow, snow on snow. What big flakes, shovelling and weather reports all mean together. The essence of winter, cultivated from a lifetime of seeking comfort from the bleakness and the stone-hard winter blues. What winter tires, rosy cheeks and wearing boots to church mean. The heaviness of the clothes on clothes, blankets on blankets. I miss the collective, cultural descent from the high heat of the summer with its mad rush to get a year's worth of outsideness done in three months, through the gradual slowing of time and changing of leaves, to the viscous pace of the winter. It was rhythmic and dependable. It was living the paradox of being rooted yet in perpetual expectation, because it never lasted forever.
For now, I'm happy to do without the street-side parking chaos for plowing, bluer office lights and atmospheric treachery lurking in the darkness. I won't be quick, though, to mindlessly forget it simply because I live in sunny California. They were the things of winter that made me more glad to always be going home home.

Rellies

When Mom and Dad moved east some 35 years ago they probably didn't see how difficult. getting family to traverse that same distance would be. Whether it was climate, cost or time it was simply a tough journey to make, either direction. Nate and I have had the experience of being close to the family in Minnesota, but not the extended France family or immediate Olson/Batstone family in Cali. So it is with new geographic privilege that we are a phone call away from drop-in visitors. At the increasingly pleasant prospect of seeing extended family on collective vacation days or simply during a visit while attending a function we also face the challenge of being stretched thin. Not a terrible conundrum to be in, but challenging in its resolution.
Natalie and I have had the chance to visit with my cousins at the zoo and wild animal park, stay a couple of nights with her cousins in Compton, get visits from parents/grandparents and feel a closer presence to all the rest.
It brings a measure of repose to have that as we draw closer to the holidays, the first without Dad. I don't think any of us relish any of the newness that his absence will mean in these coming days, regardless of where we will find ourselves. Change and comfort are rarely great bedfellows but I think the effort to insert newness, such as, for us, California during Christmas, is a dramatic but relevant occasion that may help to assist us through these especially difficult times. Dad wouldn't have sacrificed the Holiday season in Minnesota for one in California just to tip the scale of familial duty but would have traveled to the ends of the earth if it meant being with family. It seems strange,though, that the place he so dearly loved, the home, the snow, the fireplace and everything that meant contentment to him will sit empty this Christmas while the rest of us scratch our heads at how to deal.
I guess like the visits with extended family that bring the newness of the interim since the previous visit, our immediate family will bring new holiday experiences to our next gathering. Dad will stay in our memories of holidays old, but no doubt anxious to hear the new stories. He always loved a good story.

Not to be confused with a grisly scene from at least two movies Ethan was happy to compare, this was Natalie Saturday night after dinner. Beets, they are. Since she's started solid food we've prepared it all at home. It's the cheapest monetarily but a very time-consuming venture. It requires baking/steaming and then pureeing, then freezing said puree in the ice cube trays. Natalie is slowly learning to eat more textured foods and enjoys eating several things on her own but she's definitely got an issue with some textures. I thought, egregiously, that this night I would try and curb some time and effort by simply putting the beets through the food mill instead of the blender. Well, haste makes waste. Her unwillingness to 'chew' certain food is strangely absent of defiance. She simply spits it out, looks at it, then promptly rubs her eyes. Ethan was visiting and thought it an outstanding opportunity (check his Facebook page). I think we're on our way to one-meal preparation for the three of us as we see Natalie point to our plates, or climb on us as we eat our breakfast while sitting on the floor, a habit we want to change (not eating at the table, that is).

Officially official

I thought for awhile about a blog that would delve into the costly consequences of having to depend on the services of someone who does not like their job. Maybe they like it, but are indifferent to their work which, I believe, is more insidious. Then I thought that could lead into another blog about how that's made me work even harder to earn institutional services that we have found available, thus negating the stereotype of public service recipients being lazy, tax-sucking slobs. As much as I love to preach and fly in the face of convention, I got tired just having that whole conversation in my head.
Suffice it to say, I finally received my Cal driver's license. I applied for it the first week of September. Make no mistake, though. My gripe, well, bafflement is better said, is not with the DMV. I followed their exact instructions, honored their request for more information regarding my seizure history (a delay I expected), and found the clerk I spoke to very professional and courteous. What happened was that the DMV sent it to my p.o. box and it wasn't delivered but sent back to the DMV. Why would the post office do this? Because some min-wage high-school lackey looked at our change of address form, filled out in Lanesboro (so we're talking mid-August), and decided one of our last names would be sufficient instead of both. As a result, we were getting mom's mail and some of ours. She was still getting some of our mail back in Lanesboro. I called the post office and they told me to fill out new change of address forms, but one for each member of the household and that mom should do the same, including one for Dad. (Insert rhetorical question here.) We did. The license must have been caught in that transition, therefore not delivered to "Weaver". I didn't understand this until my temporary license was a week from expiring. I called the DMV and they told me simply that it was returned. I asked if I could go pick it up, just to be safe, and I was told No, the local DMV doesn't distribute the hard copies and that I'll have to have my name put on a list for the hard copy to be re-sent. Then she said, "We'll send you a temporary one in the mean time." (Insert rhetorical question here.) I thought she was joking. She wasn't. Having not received anything after a week I called again and a different clerk said she didn't see any record that the license was sent, not even a temporary one and I should go to the DMV, wait in line to get a number, and apply for another temporary one. Well, there's a happy ending to all of this: on Wednesday I received a handwritten, temporary license good for 60 days, which was a relief since my present temporary license was to expire yesterday. Lo and behold, the hard copy arrived yesterday, just in time. But I love the irony: I suddenly was licensed in triplicate, if only for one day.

Dancing Queen

Oh, there you are.

Mama Mia!

There is no dearth of opportunity to connect with others parents, be it outside our apartment door or in the greater San Diego area. I never tried too terribly hard while living in Lanesboro, so I feel a bit amazed. A local, free magazine lists kid-friendly events and there are plenty that are free. We're signed up for two groups on meetup.com and an online network for UCSD graduate parents. We try to get to the Mesa parks at the times when most parents and kids are out, we go to library time when it doesn't land during nap time (and play at yet another park) and have been introduced to the church nursery. So, we show up. We talk. We play. We hope for connections that will last.

Go Cal!

The word on the UC information highway is that Cal should be used for all UC schools and Berkeley should be ashamed of themselves for assuming it only refers to them. I say Berkeley should be The Cal (because let's all admit that's what it is), just like the interstates, and everyone else can be Cal. I will refer to all things Californian as Cal because it's easier to type.

I love that Cal taxpayers fund interstate signs that say "Drive the speed limit. It saves fuel and lives." Thank you! Don't complain about high gas prices if you drive like you have money to burn!

I also appreciate that most Cal public green spaces are watered with recycled water. Sure, you shouldn't let your kids play there, should disinfect your hands if you come into contact with anything and should not steal the water to make your coffee (wait a minute....), but it's a smart idea for a wasteful practice.

Cafe Sabotage

The Weaver family cup of coffee has had a long evolution. It would make the most conservative coffee creationist believe in the 'missing drink', as it were. What we drink now looks, tastes, or acts like nothing we drank way back when. I've had myriad cups of gas station swill, family restaurant chasers with breakfast and even Uncle Bud's hazlenut-flavored water. But since arriving in California the origin of the coffee species has been written out of the cafe chalkboards. I will concede that the Evil Empire will produce a caffeinated iced coffee to send you into convulsions, thus forgetting the well-done BBQ hack job they call roasting, but I have yet to find anywhere else where paying for coffee merits enjoyment return on that hard-earned buck. Sorry, guys. Maybe it's something in the water.

Definitely!

I asked someone why Californians use a definite article in front of interstate names (THE 5, THE 805) and she answered that they deserve it because they are entities unto themselves. They indefinitely stand introduced into every conversation. Getting directions from Ethan today, THE was strangely absent from the indication to take 52 east. All interstate hubris aside, we at least don't have to figure out that 35W goes north and south or how to go east out of downtown Minneapolis.

Firsts

This goes without saying. New state, new home, new-to-parenthood (when DOESN'T it feel like that?), new people and places. The first first to top the list: surviving Natalie's first real illness. What makes it real? The debate about when and where to take her in for treatment. New felt like a serious detriment to this process. We made some calls, sweated some insurance details, and made our way to a clinic. Not the clinic across the street from us or one of the stellar university and/or Scripps clinics. No, one about 15 miles away (is it only us that sees something wrong with that?). This time, the NP was able to identify the issue immediately, with adding some sweet information (Natalie was also getting her first tooth) to the bitter (it's a virus, she'll sweat it out for the next several days). Things are much better.
We also hosted our first get-together at our apartment. We invited Nate's CILAS colleagues over for Weaver Olson-style burritos. The commiseration on the application process, class registration and the sharing of what brought everyone to the program was great. Ethan joined us, a voice of local knowledge and general good company.
Natalie exhibited her more demonstrative side at the playground by promptly retrieving the ping-pong ball from the grip of the other baby after it was given to the poor kid.
Nate officially began classes. As he keeps meeting professors and classmates some interesting opportunities and relationships are beginning to materialize. So is the exponentially growing amount of reading he has to do, which seems to have a inverse relationship to the amount of time he has to do it.
I'm continuing to slog through the DMV and MediCal/Healthy Families applications. I do have an I.D. from California with my name on it: a library card. (The crowd goes wild!) I'm also still looking for part-time employment, trying to exploit opportunities through UCSD and their medical centers (including Scripps) first, via my Nursing Assistant certification (still pending for California). Pickings are surprisingly slim. Maybe Starbucks wouldn't be so bad.

Days

We haven't put gas in our car in almost two weeks. That mostly means we drive shorter distances, but also much less than the 60 miles/day we did living in Lanesboro. I've found La Jolla drivers to drive as bossy as their luxury cars look, but for the most part people are respectful. Nate is really getting going at school, having started his research assistant job early. He's attending workshops offered by the Office of Graduate Studies and is feeling like he actually has something to be excited about! He's met some classmates, has registered for class and usually bikes to school, utilizing the bus when he doesn't bike. Natalie and I try to take care of daily tasks, find a new place to walk to each day, go to the playground and swing, and try to meet other kids her age. I (Kimberly) have applied for two jobs at UCSD, a bit reluctant to consider going back to work. I will go tomorrow to get fingerprinted for the second time since arriving in CA (the first to get the still absent driver's license) in order to complete the transfer of my nursing assistant license from Minnesota. We haven't decided to purchase Internet connectivity at our apartment yet, so many evenings find me walking ten minutes each way to the Mesa apartment cafe for free wireless. It's chilly in the evenings, even for a Minnesotan. Living near the coast provides a blessed breeze throughout the day and good sleeping weather at night. Now, to do something about those dastardly fighter jet sonic booms and the fire engine sirens....This past weekend we got a visit from Nate's parents and had a great time. It won't be said too much how pleasing it is to be so close to them. Natalie turned 9 months old today and gains skills every day. My favorite right now, which makes it more bearable, is her mimicking the sirens as they pass. That was how I knew she was awake from a nap the other day.

Strange how history has a way of repeating itself ... sort of. Thirty-six years ago, Kimberly's parents, Bob and Ann, packed up all of their belongings in a Uhaul truck, and moved with their nine-month-old baby to Minnesota where Bob was to begin graduate school. Two weeks ago Kimberly and I traveled full circle when we rented a Penske truck and moved with our eight-month-old baby to California where I (Nathan) will begin grad school at UCSD. Bob and Ann's journey was epic: they ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere; witnessed their Uhaul tip over on it's side while stopped on the soft shoulder of the interstate (none of the packed belongings moved, Bob was proud to say); found themselves comforting the youngest daughter of the couple traveling with them when they lost track of her parents, traveling with the truck, for days; and ended up on a fruitless search for the couple's new apartment at Iowa State. They never did find apartment 2Br.

Our five-day journey, although arduous, was less eventful. Our truck never rolled over (and had only 5,000 miles on it when we picked it up); we never ran out of gas; were able to reconnect with our friend Dain in New Mexico, who volunteered to drive the truck, after we parted company with him in Colorado; and had no trouble finding our own two-bedroom apartment in La Jolla. During our travels we stayed with friends who opened their homes to us each night, fed us dinner and breakfast, and sent us off with garden produce to keep up our strength along the way. I guess we're off to a good start. Feel free to follow the link we have posted to Shutterfly to see some of the photos from our journey.

The Golden State

In the spirit of I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson this blog will be a collection of stories and anecdotes surrounding our move to this new and bizarre place called California, our new life here, and the myriad ways that this culture differs from the one we are familiar with back home in Minnesota. Luckily for us, times have changed since the migrations of the Okies, and although California border agents did confiscate our apples and pears at the border, they did not look into the contents of our bank account. California, a garden of Eden? ... We'll find out soon enough.