One month has gone by and a lot has happened.

This time I mean it though. A lot has happened, life changing changes ahead.

I have been stupid-busy with work.  A bunch of people quit, were transferred, or started school.  As the only non student there I had to pick up the slack.  I had back to back 13 hour days giving me more than 40 hours a week, a lot more.  At first I didn't mind it, I zoned out and let my body do the job as my mind wandered to the stories and characters I will write about later, when I have time, when I'm not completely fried to the bone.  Tengo el cerebro frito.  But the part that was bad was coming home exhausted.  I didn't want to do anything.  Eat, sleep, repeat, that was me.  It was pretty shitty for Loo because I was so grouchy and burned out.  She wanted to do SOMETHING, anything and I was like NO!  And finally I relented and went to a bar with her friends.  I was nodding off in the middle and could barely stay awake.  Working all the time was tough on the two of us.

But the money was good, too good apparently.

On august 29th the lease was up at the place I was staying at with my two coworkers.  One of them I like the other I do not.  When it came to sign up again I was an emphatic NO.  I started looking at new places to live with Loo to get her out of her family's house.  I found places for cheap that were nice but I didn't like the idea of facing another Michigan winter.  Or any Michigan winters for that matter.  I started wondering what I was doing out here and why I had come and when I would go back.

Loo recently graduated with a degree in accounting and was ravenously looking for a job.  All day that I worked she was applying, searching and filling out applications for jobs all over. But she wasn't having much luck.  Seems like they want people with experience and don't want to pay them for it and don't want to give experience either.  I asked my uncle what to do (he is an accountant and lives back in Cali)  He said that Loo needed to be in California if she wanted to be an accountant.  There were more people and more jobs.  She started looking for jobs in California.

There were hundreds and they paid better.  Starting pay was often more than three times what I make.

She started applying there too.

Long story short we are coming home to Cali.  I want to tell you I am excited, but it seems naive to say that, or maybe temporary.  No, the feeling I have is a deeper general happiness. 

We were going to leave a week ago, but Loo checked with the University of Michigan's Migraine pain clinic (best in the country, 2 year wait for an appointment is normal, she had been on the list for a year already and had an appt for next November) and they had a cancellation on the 21st. 

That is our departure date.  Our cars are packed and we are taking all our stuff including all my books (whew!) our two rats Swiper and Shredder, and our Savannah monitor lizard Bup and his new big cage, which he hasn't used yet. It looks funny on the roof of my car.

I strapped it to the roof of my car with two ratcheting tie straps and we filled it with bulky and light weight items.  Funny story about that.  EVERYONE seems to have an opinion about how it should be strapped down and it isn't the way that I did it.  Loo's mom wants me to strap a third strap running from the front of the car to the back across the windshield and back window and rear wing.  There wasn't anything to hook it to, but that didn't seem to matter so long as it was hooked.

got to go, see ya soon!