July was a busy month where I stuffed as much as I could into my last month on the East Coast. SMS came out for the 4th of July, which is a VA Beach tradition down at the waterfront. The year was toned down since Marc’s absence was strongly felt, but it was really nice to hang out with family and enjoy the gorgeous day. There were more babies this year. SMS met my cousin’s child Q and longtime beach friends brought their twins who were distraught at being isolated from the action in their little baby pool.
And look who else was here!? Dad! Sorry for the bad picture Dad! Tit for tat, get rid of some of the horrible candids in your possession and then we’ll talk, hahaha. Yes, Dad was in town for my promotion ceremony since I finally put on Commander, yay!
I held my Wetting Down on 5 July. It was in the event space of my apartment building and I basically re-did the party I hosted for two colleagues in January. The catering was from Handsome Biscuit and there was plenty of wine and craft beer. I mention the craft beer not to sound super bougie but to set up the contrast against my previous two wetting down which were slightly less classy/more wild. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my wetting down this time. I was Commander, how could I not? A lot of awesome colleagues were there and it also served as an almost-Farewell party as well since I was moving in August.
It is funny, though, to compare this affair with appropriate volume music, relatively low alcohol consumption (so much left over and one week before my move, ugh), early ending with almost everyone gone by 9:30p, classy and mature conversations to the other parties I’ve had in the past. O-3 coincided with med school graduation so I co-hosted three parties with assorted friends. One was at the Army-Navy Club in DC so that was quite nice although, don’t get me wrong, everyone was shit-faced except for pregnant Rose. But the other party that was a lot of fun was the pigroast where Pete burned the pig to ash in an attempt to avoid Trichinosis. No matter, that is what pizza delivery is for, plus there was a lot of beer (craft!) being drunk so no one really cared. O-4 was on the rooftop of the apartment I lived in at the time overlooking downtown San Diego. It was gorgeous. It also featured a lot of alcohol on a rooftop with a slightly precarious railing and a Frenchman who sabor’d the Champagne open to everyone’s delight although the residency program director came perilously close to losing an eye.
ANYWAY! I am only on July 5th. Sheesh. This is going to be a long one. The weekend was a lot of fun. SMS and Dad were both in town. SMS left Sunday and Dad left for his high school reunion on Monday. On 10 July, it was my pack-out date! The move was very smooth, although I gave the packers a heart attack at the end when I said that they missed the second bedroom. Ha, ha I am such a joker. There is no second bedroom. And then they broke all my stuff. (Kidding!)
Once I moved out, I was off to California! Not for the real move but for ten glorious days of house-hunting leave. This is my sixth move with the Navy and first house-hunting leave ever. It’s ten days to find a house and does not count against my normal vacation time. Yes, please!
However, we did sort of house-hunt for two of our friends! Jyotsna and Akshay’s lease was ending and they decided it was time to buy! They were between two houses so we toured the two. One was a little out of the way and farther from the school so it seemed fairly easy to rule out, although it was very pretty. The second house was in the neighborhood they wanted and another fantastic house. SMS and I liked it and thought it would work well for them but it wasn’t our $$$$$ to spend!
Things were moving fast in the real estate world so we decided to put off our original plans of going to Pt. Reyes where cell signal is spotty. Instead, we had a picnic by the Lafayette Reservoir with great food and yummy wine. At one point, Jyotsna and Akshay went for a walk with a bottle (hey!) and upon return, had decided to put an offer in on the house. Hooray! As an added bonus, we decided that we would go out next weekend to Pt Reyes to celebrate.
That next week, I did my best “Real Housewives of Silicon Valley” impression. I went to Soul Cycle, read books, worked on a paper, and overall had a great time. On Wednesday, I went into the city to meet Jyotsna for lunch and a tour of her workplace at a cool, successful (post-IPO) start-up company. I didn’t want to act like a tourist with lots of photo taking but I did take a picture of my start-up snacks. Gummy bears- yum!
Ok, ok, too much happened in July. I’m going to divide the posts to prevent a novel-length post so July, part two coming up!
Portmanteau Suitcase 