Hi! :)

I think I read once that happy people don’t write. That saying should be rephrased that super-happy, really-busy people don’t write. I’ve started a couple of entries, but haven’t had a chance to finish them. Why?

1) I started a new project at work last Monday. Getting my head wrapped around a bunch of technologies that are either new to me or I haven’t used in years always drains me mentally (sometimes physically too).

2) After the wedding in July, I kept eating as if everyday were a wedding feast with the all the dancing and commotion that usually keeps the feast from sticking to the hips. But…uh…the new job and all the other changes in my life kept me from dancing, and bicycling, and hiking, and everything else that usually keeps me on the slimmer side of the average American adult woman. So now my jeans are a bit tight. While my weight is still perfectly healthy and not-at-all-fat on the BMI scale, I don’t feel like putting on jeans in the morning and I’m afraid that my mini-skirts have become a bit more mini with the added baggage on the behind. Soooo….I’ve kicked it up a gear and have been making a conscious effort to resume my active lifestyle: e.g., bike to work, weights at the gym several times a week, long walks with the dogs after work, etc., etc. This adjustment doesn’t leave much energy for lounging on the sofa writing freestyle. Lounging on the sofa tends to turn into passing out on the sofa and regaining consciousness at 5:30 a.m. to do it all over again.

3) The Ukrainian and I have been having lots of fun together. We’ve been to Mt. Diablo, a party in East Palo Alto, late lunch in Little Italy, jeans shopping (to have something comfortable to wear while I work on reducing my rear load). These have all been bloggable adventures with pictures (well maybe not the rearview of the jeans trying-on expedition), but I’m usually too tired from it all to want to record it.

4) Lastly, of course, the Obama victory. Every dog with a blog has been writing their joy over this. I too was happy. I literally cried tears of happiness. The Ukrainian had a slightly different reaction. This difference gave me a huge pause for thought. I started to write about it, but then #s 1 -3 got in the way. I promise, promise once the SF winter rain begins again, I will become all melancholic and complete the entry.

Now, for what it’s worth, I am no longer homesick for the midwest. Sure, I miss my family and certain friends. And I miss being around the most honest, salt-of-the-earth people that surely walk the face of this earth. But every single person I know there seems to be complaining about a broken furnace. And they’re cold. Meanwhile, I am going to go ride my bike to work in the (relatively) warm California sun

Toodles y’all!

Hulu laughs

I am lying on the sofa, working. The east coast office had called an early-morning meeting that made my work-day start at 6 a.m. It is now a quarter after 10. My day is 1/2 over before many west coasters have even started theirs. I don’t think I will go into the office. In the next room — in our kitchen that isn’t really a kitchen — the Ukrainian is watching Tina Fey play the role of Sarah Palin during the vice-presidential debates as spoofed by Saturday Night Live. He is watching it on Hulu.

He has been watching Hulu all morning

First, the Simpsons. Now, Tina Fey.

I can’t hear the shows. I can only see them briefly as I walk on by the Ukrainian as I go into the kitchen to refill my cup of tea or nibble on a cookie.

But I can hear the Ukrainian laugh. So rarely do I hear the Ukrainian laugh so full-heartedly as I hear him today.

See, he is trying to adjust to working in a new country where standards and expectations are different than those in his own country. He is trying to learn a new industry. He is trying to go to school full-time. He is trying to make his wife happy. He is trying to help take care of the dogs and the house.

And he is succeeding. Slowly, but surely, he is getting over that hump of trying to figure out how his new world works. And what is his role in this new world. And what does want. And what he will become.

So today…today, he is taking a rare day off from all these roles and expectations and trying-to-figure-things out. He is laughing. He is enjoying the fun of his new world’s popular culture. He is enjoying the free tv offered by Hulu. He is enjoying technology. He is having fun. And relaxing.

And he deserves it.