Swan Song

[Note: I started writing this post about a week ago.  Had several paragraphs written, but then I had to shelve it for a while.  When I went back to it later, it was gone.  I blame the software I’m now using to publish to the blog: Windows Live Writer.  It somehow lost or deleted my draft.  Anyway, the following is take 2.]

We have been remiss.  Very, very remiss.  When we left the UK, this blog was supposed to turn into a “repatriation” blog with stories of our trials and tribulations of integrating with American society after a long time away.  Using a newfound perspective, I was going to spend our first year back remarking on the differences between American and European society and sharing our repatriation experience.  It would bring this 5+ year journey to a nice, neat close; ready to publish as a bathroom or coffee-table book (OK, maybe not).

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way.  You see, we kind of just got too busy living the experience to sit down and write about it.  That sounds incredibly self-important, but it’s the truth.  Too, part of it was that I just got a little bit lazy about blogging.  What with looking for a place to live, hunting for jobs, acquiring both, and then getting more and more busy with everything that goes along with those things, I ended up re-prioritizing things a bit.  The closest I have come to blogging is posting updates on Facebook and Twitter.  Eventually, we decided that we would just go ahead and wrap it up early.  Premature closure is better than no closure at all.  That kind of thing.  After all, we’re pretty much repatriated already.  It was easier than we thought it would be!

Sure, when we arrived last November, we were pretty overwhelmed (too much whelm, much too much).  In fact, we were initially in a kind of psychic recovery position.  So much going on.  Drama at home (don’t want to go into the details), new awesome President elected, Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, tons of mail to go through, getting to grips with being back, etc.  It was impossible to concentrate enough to write an email, even less a blog.  A few weeks later, I was able to muster the strength to coalesce a few of the thoughts and emotions into a stream-of-consciousness piece about the arrival.  Then it was time to start concentrating on our move to the opposite corner of the United States.  Look for a job.  Then a place to live.  Then plan our road trip across the country.  We bought a car.  We got mobile phones.  We had a Christmas From Hell (long story).  And then we set off.  Great road trip that put us in Eugene, OR just in time for New Year’s.  But we were so tired that we couldn’t even stay up to midnight, though we did watch some of the East Coast celebrations on TV with Nanny.

After a couple of days catching up with ourselves in Eugene, we headed out to Central Oregon to stay at Kristen’s aunt & uncle’s ranch in Sisters.  We had been invited to stay there for as long as we needed to.  Looking back now, I don’t think we would have recuperated from the stress of November and December (well, probably the stress of all of last year, if we’re honest) if we had not had this opportunity.  Staying out there in the peace and solace of Willows Ranch was just the kind of panacea we needed.  We’re just sad we couldn’t stay longer!  We pretty much were just there for the month of January, a month that saw the most Project: Expatriated blog posts of 2009.  It didn’t take very long for one of us to find a job (me getting hired on an Americorps contract at Portland YouthBuilders) – that was our plan: stay in Sisters until one of us found a job and then we would look for a place to live near that job.

At the end of January, I was hired as a Learning Coordinator at at the Computer Technology site of Portland YouthBuilders and I started a mere week later on February 5th.  The week before that we found an apartment in Milwaukie, OR (just south of the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland) and moved in almost immediately.  I hit the ground running with this job and time has just been FLYING by.  And I just love it.  It has really cemented my aspirations to go into secondary education (high school or middle school).

Kristen had a bit more of a challenge finding a suitable job.  What can I say?  She’s got a more specialized skillset!  She went the networking route (the way most people find a job in Portland, Oregon) and eventually was hired as a Program Manager of the Project Management course at Portland State University’s Professional Development Center.  She loves her job, too.

Speaking of loving stuff, we just LOVE Portland.  We say that to ourselves on a regular basis.  “I love this town!”  It has EVERYTHING we could possibly want.  Great: food, culture, beer, people, activities, character, bands/music/venues, neighborhoods, and resources.  It’s cosmopolitan, liberal, forward-thinking, cool, and just plain awesome.  And it’s kind of below the radar.  People seem to think it just rains in Oregon and the lumber comes from here.  And to be honest, as hypocritical as this sounds, we like it that way.  We don’t want more people to move here (except for my sister, her fiance, and my mom).  Really.  Don’t.  If that doesn’t convince you, let me just say that it is REALLY HARD to find a job here.  Oregon’s economy is syrupy slow at the best of times.  From what I’ve been told by friends and colleagues here, Kristen and I are INSANELY fortunate to have found the jobs that we did so quickly.  It usually takes up to a year or more to find anything viable.  Not sure what we did to make it happen so easily, but it’s apparently rare.  Who knows what will happen when my Americorps contract runs out?

We really like the place we live.  It’s a great apartment complex/community (Waverley Greens).  We have great neighbors and we are in close proximity to all necessities and within walking distance of Old Town Milwaukie.  It ain’t cool or hip like areas in Portland (not yet anyway), but it’s quiet, affordable, and cozy.  Sort of old school, in a way.  It’s 5.6 miles from my current workplace and about 6 miles from Kristen’s office.  We have a nice little one-bed flat on the ground floor with a sizable back patio, covered parking, amenities, and a communal garden plot.  Things were a bit bare at first, but after a couple of months here, we have made this into a cozy little abode.  A place we intended to stay for at least a year.  [Yeah, I wrote intended.]

This past week (July 20th until now) has been action-packed!  Kristen has been looking at the real estate market in Portland for almost a year.  Checking all the neighborhoods we are interested in for houses.  Just to keep a toe in the water, really.  We haven’t really looked at any in person because we have been operating under the assumption that this is something we will do in a year or two.

We had an impromptu tour of another house several weeks ago just because we walked by and the owner was there.  It was a wonderful little place that we briefly entertained going for, but then changed out minds because we felt we weren’t ready.  Then last Saturday she found a house with a good price tag in a nearby neighborhood and scheduled a viewing.  Just for fun. 

It rocked our world.  Though small, it had EVERYTHING on our wish-list plus a GIANT backyard.  We fell deeply in love with it.  And we enlisted the house listing agent as our realtor.  And we viewed another property with her, just as a contrast.  And we MADE A FRIGGIN’ OFFER on the first house we viewed!  It sounds crazy, but it’s not.  Trust me. 

Well, this past Friday, while my sister was here visiting from Florida, we won the bid.  Kristen had a tense afternoon back and forth on the phone with the listing agent/our realtor.  There was another buyer interested in the house (interested almost as much as us), so we entered into a bit of a bidding war.  A war that we won.  And we still got a great deal on the house.  It’s a place we can see ourselves staying for a LONG time.  But this is all so crazy and sudden that it hasn’t really sunken in yet.  We have a tentative closing date of September 15th.  Both of us are SO looking forward to taking over this house, though we’re not too thrilled with the prospect of moving again as we only got to this apartment in February!  At least a lot of our boxes are still unpacked!  (Yeah, stashed in a couple of closets and in Nanny’s garage).

In our not-too-distant-future, we will be homeowners and we will be able to get a dog, some chickens, a lush garden, and the home we have been craving for so long.  A new adventure begins.

So, without further a-do, we would like to call Project: Expatriation/Expatriated/Repatriation to a successful close.  It’s been an amazing journey.  We hope you have enjoyed following along.

PS – As this new adventure begins to unfold, we will have plenty of things to share, but we are going to do it in a different format.  That of a private Ning social network.  We would like to invite our loyal readers to join our network “The RK Corral” where we will post photos, blog entries, videos, and other goodies on a semi-regular, informal basis.  It’s a private network, so you will need to sign in to view it.  Friends and family will receive an invitation when we are ready to go live with the site.  Otherwise, surf on over to it and submit a request to become a member.  Don’t worry, it’s free and easy to join.

Pact

Now that we have moved one more time and this time we actually have to get rid of some of the stuff we have amassed since moving to Norwich, K and I have made a pact:

If we are suddenly asked to move out of this apartment (can't blame us for being paranoid), then we will just go directly back to the US and stop pissing about with these easily-broken leases.

That's the deal. No matter what.

In our new roost

We're pretty much officially moved in to the new apartment. K picked up the keys yesterday afternoon and has been bringing things up here ever since, it seems like. It's definitely a nicer apartment. Much more light and a great view.

We're going to have to get rid of quite a bit of the furniture that has been accumulating since Norwich. The only pieces we're keeping are our futon mattress, dining table and chairs, a couple of shelves, "a/v" shelf, and our filing cabinet. Everything else must go. This apartment is furnished and it even has a widescreen TV, wider than our current one which we'll have to get rid of, too. And we now have a microwave and even a bread machine!

So far, so good. The only catching points so far have been that our car doesn't fit in the garage (not only are they 2 feet shorter on this side, but there are two utility shelves in the back) and we can't get any reception on our Freeview box (free digital cable through the tv antenna). At the moment, not sure what we'll do about either one of those problems.

Moving Week (again)

So, for the 8th time since December 31st, 2002, we will be moving to another apartment. This is also the first time since 2003, that we are moving within less than a year from our previous move. This one wasn't our decision, though! At least we're staying in the same building, so the only thing we need to change in our address is that flat number. We have to get rid of some of our furniture because the new flat is furnished, which we don't mind because it saves us having to do that when/if we move back to the US (as long as we get to stay in this new apartment until then). We're pretty much looking forward to moving to the top floor: nice view, warmer (heat rises), no mold (hopefully), and more amenities in the kitchen (like a dishwasher). I'm going to miss our squirrels, though. This move is proving to be a bit of a financial strain. The deposit is equivalent to 6 weeks rent and the first month's rent amounts to a total of about £1928 (excluding the £300 we've already paid for estate agent fees). We weren't quite prepared for this expense, so we had to empty our savings account and will have to run on "fumes" until payday at the end of the month. Fortunately, our current landlady, perhaps to assuage any guilt that she is feeling, has told us she will come by on Friday with a cash payment of our deposit plus a refund of the remainder of the rent paid through March 7th. This should put us back on track.

Aside from that, K is getting back to working on her PhD and I'm starting to get a bit stressed about the paper I have to write for the Boston conference which is a little over a month away. A lot of work to do there and I'm getting a bit frustrated because I basically only have the weekends to work on it and that means I don't get much of a weekend. In the end, it will be worth it because it means I got my airfare to Boston paid for. It's hard to focus on that positive at the moment, though.

Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to list the moves we've undergone during the past 7-8 years:

-December 29th-31st, 1999 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Los Angeles, CA
-December 31st, 2002 - Los Angeles, CA to Scottsdale, AZ
-July 7th, 2003 - Scottsdale, AZ to Aurora (Portland), OR
-August 30th, 2003 - Aurora, OR to Brussels, Belgium
-August 29th, 2004 - Brussels, Belgium to Norwich, UK
-August 24th, 2005 - Norwich, UK to Winchester, UK
-July 8th, 2006 - Winchester, UK to Flat 3 Kingsgate, Bournemouth, UK
-[Impending] February 23rd, 2007 - Flat 3 Kingsgate to Flat 16 Kingsgate

We're not on the run from the law. And we're not necessarily "rootless". We have roots, but like potted plants, they travel with us. I often wonder if our wanderlust is genetic. After all, I am descended from the Vikings and K is descended from the Oregon Trail Pioneers.

However, these past years of moving have ignited the desire to settle, which is what our current trajectory is all about. With any luck, our next-next move will be a step toward that goal. A step toward pulling our roots out of the pot and transplanting them into fertile soil somewhere. Not sure where we will end up, but it will not likely be English soil.

Grab the tide and turn it yourself!

We've secured another apartment now. And it just happens to be in the same building we're in right now! A mirror version of our current apartment, but on the top floor (7th to Americans, 6th to Brits*). Nice view, fully furnished, and including a dishwasher. Same price as our current apartment, though that wasn't the case until recently. They had been trying to rent it out for £850, unsuccessfully. We'll be signing a 12-month lease starting on the 23rd.

K and I were talking about the timing involved in this outcome. All of the events leading up to this seemed to be steeped with bad luck, but was it actually good luck in disguise? We now believe the manager of LD Property Management knew all along that the landlord was dying. In fact, there was a court case already ongoing when we first looked at the apartment (something about a someone who owns three of the other flats in the building, the settlement being that she has to buy the one we were interested in). We think he was just stringing us along for some reason and when he first called us about the landlord possibly dying, he was probably already dead. Anyway, if we had moved in there sooner and all this happened... ooh, that would have sent me off the edge like Michael Douglas in Falling Down! Luckily that wasn't the case. But the timing eventually led to us being able to stay in the building to which we have become accustomed. No need to get a moving van. We won't even need to move very much furniture up there since the apartment is furnished. And since it's in the same building, we can leisurely migrate our belongings up the stairs without packing!

Is this perhaps the end of our chain of bad luck?

Are we cursed?

This is crazy. This must be a sign. England is trying to tell us something: "Go back to America, you good-for-nothin' immigrants!" We usually are quite fortunate, but we seem to have run into a stint of bad luck ever since we came back from Florida (though it probably started from the incident during re-entry).

Ok, first we find out that we have to move out of the apartment we're currently in because our landlady wants to take over the property. So we stress out for a bit and find a really nice place in Canford Cliffs and it's CHEAPER than where we are now. Phew! We've been looking forward to moving into that apartment (nice size, no mold because it's not a ground-floor apartment, cozy garden where I might even be able to do some gardening, close to the beach, dishwasher, large refrigerator, etc.). Life's looking good, right?

Not quite. Today we are told that the fellow who owns the flat is very ill and could possibly die. All right, yeah... commiseration, sympathy, and all that... but it means that we are pretty much shit-out-of-luck. If he dies, the property will probably go into "limbo" while some lawyers figure out what to do with the guy's estate. They might sell it (they'd make a pretty penny if they did) or they might decide to keep leasing it to tenants. If they sell it, obviously we're not moving in there. If they decide to keep leasing it, I don't know if we should move in there because the landlord's next-of-kin might suddenly decide they want to sell it or move in or whatever and then we'd be back on the apartment search again. And if they do continue leasing it, I'm sure they'll want to lease it for the highest price they can get (i.e.- not for a strangely low sum of £695 per month), so then we'd be priced out of it.

Then again, he might not die... this time. But if he's ill enough for this to suddenly happen, he could certainly go at any time and if we're already living in his flat when it goes in "limbo", well that's no fun either. No matter which way you slice it, it looks like we're going to have to find another place. The estate agent will call us on Monday to let us know the outcome. He said, "Don't worry. We'll find you another place." We don't want another place! We wanted that one!

So... anyway... back to what I mentioned in the first paragraph. England is trying to kick us out. It's like what happens in workplaces over here: it's almost impossible to fire someone, so they just make the person's life a living hell until they quit. Ok, to be fair, our life's not a "living hell", but shit... this sucks! I'm really pissed off about this! And none of it would have happened (to us) if our landlady didn't decide to oust us.

K and I have both been thinking, "Fine... I get the picture... it's time to move back to the US." It's hard not to take this as a sign, but there's just no way. There's no way that we can just up-sticks to do an inter-continental move by March 7th. No matter how you look at it. It's just not possible. At least not without GREAT expense, frustration, and trauma.

So, step off, England! We ain't leavin' yet! Not until we're good and ready!