Every other time we’ve flown into the Bay Area to visit with Josh, we’ve always mapped out very carefully exactly where we will eat and when - to jam in all the good eating experiences we can before we have to return to wherever it is where we lived. It’s crazy to think that now we don’t have to eat ourselves into a food coma in less than a week, since we’ll be here and can comatize ourselves anytime we want.

Our trip wasn’t bad at all. The car service came and loaded our stuff, crated Ava and all, and we arrived at O’Hare with no problems whatsoever. United, however, sucks nuts. It’s no wonder bankruptcies are abound because good christ, were they ever inefficient and sloppy.

Case in point: When we first booked our flights, I called United to ask about how to transport Ava and how much it would cost. The guy on the phone said, “Oh, that’s $85,” and then proceeded to book our flights without really telling us what he was doing nor understanding a damn thing I was saying and then wanted to charge me $15 for the privilege. I told him that he was making this entirely too complicated (he couldn’t grok that Josh and I don’t have the same last names) and hung up and booked the flight online. Chicago to San Francisco, one-way via Las Vegas.

(Herein lies a rub: if I’d just booked the flights to begin with, we could have gone straight from Chicago to San Francisco at the rate I’d chosen, cheeep.)

A week or so later, I call back and ask if there’s anything else I’m missing, because of a thread at TUS I’d started about flying with pets and hot weather and such. I call and the guy tells me that there’s in fact a pet embargo from July through September on flights with any stops in hot weather areas, of which Las Vegas is definitely one. So Ava will be able to fly, but instead of $85, it’ll be $286 “approximately”, and no worries, Ava will be able to fly without us, directly from Chicago to San Francisco.

We get to the airport yesterday and Josh checks in himself, his two bags (which the way things turned out were my bag and Matthew’s bag), and Matthew as a “lap infant”. I take Ava to the pet cargo area and the woman’s like, “No, you can’t take her on this flight. She has to stay with you at all times.” I told her exactly what the last agent had told me, and she typed furiously into her computer. When she was done, she announced, “OK, you’re now flying directly to San Francisco,” and tore up Josh’s and Matthew’s old boarding passes. And instead of $85 or $286, her flying fee was $200.

We got to San Francisco with little to-do - thank goodness - and Ava was alive, if not a little wary and a little stir crazy. The bags Josh checked didn’t make it to the new flight, so we filled out a form to have them dropped off. I called last night at 11pm to find out what the status was and the customer service person said that the bags had arrived in San Francisco, and would be on the 12:30AM delivery service route. “Leave a note on your door and we won’t disturb you.”

This morning, no bags. I call back and it turns out that the bags didn’t arrive until 4:30AM (!!!) and would be on the delivery route this morning, so right now I am waiting, and very cranky.

Not one piece of this trip worked out with United, except we got into town a lot earlier than we anticipated, and United didn’t kill my dog. So I guess that’s something to be happy for. But I’d also like clean underwear.

Matthew was a bear on the plane for a while - not saying bye bye plane but for awhile shouting at the top of his lungs because he was fighting a nap. He succumbed to my will after patiently patting and shhing (Thank God for Dr. Harvey Karp - the shhing still works!) and slept for a good chunk of the flight. He fell asleep straight away once we got to Susie’s place and didn’t stir until 4:40am, at which point he nursed and rolled over, cuddling me in my back, for about an hour and a half. That would have been really sweet - and I enjoyed it, I admit - if I’d had more than 4 inches of space to lie on my side. Alas.

Also, today, he fought a nap like crazy. I glanced in his mouth and he has an incisor and a molar coming in, at the same time. Poor kiddo.

The Brown Elephant has come and gone. A few people from craigslist have come and gone. Almost 800 pounds of goods are now gone from our lobby area. Tonight, we tidy the rest and pack up. Tomorrow we leave Chicago for good.

I find myself missing Chicago a great deal, and we haven’t even left yet. We ate dinner at a Somalian restaurant on Clark and I wondered aloud whether or not we’d be able to find Somalian in the Bay Area (I’m sure we will). We popped into Devon Market and I glanced down the aisle at the freshly baked bread and missed the bread. I miss bread!

This city has treated us well. For three years nearly to the dot, this place has taken us in, nurtured us, and cared for us (mostly). Matthew’s entire life has been in Chicago up to this point and I hope we can adequately express to him how much Chicago has meant to us.

Thanks, Chicago. Hopefully we’ll meet again soon.

Three more sleeps until we leave Chicago for good. I am finding myself homesick for Chicago, and we haven’t even left yet. This past week has been a concluding one - my last day at work was yesterday (although I have to go back in tomorrow to tie up a few last things), work threw a small goodbye party on one of the most humid days in Chicago we’ve had so far (I’m not complaining, as it’s 67 degrees F out right now and decidedly not humid).

There are sixteen boxes, weighing approximately 679 pounds, stacked in our lobby, waiting for the USPS to come and pick them up. I don’t think our regular carrier was working today - he knows we’re moving and is expecting lots of boxes. Instead, the sixteen boxes sit, stacked fairly high. I’ll put a note (and some cookies) out to indicate they’re to be taken away, and our sincerest thanks. We couldn’t do this move without the USPS.

We are being brutal with this move, although I think in some ways I could be more brutal. The majority of what we’re sending are books and other things that are absolutely irreplaceable and/or that I haven’t touched in over a year (so most of my wardrobe is going to be donated). We’ve invited friends to come over and pillage our apartment. There are no plants in the apartment at all anymore; earlier this week they went to find a new home. Tomorrow, I pack up my computer and bring it down to the USPS myself to ship out. Matthew will undoubtedly be annoyed with that; he loves mousing over my dock and making the icons magnify.

(side note: Perhaps Matthew would enjoy this program)

Our apartment sublet situation is THISCLOSEOMG to being resolved. It’s been one annoying delay after another. Ava’s cleared to go, health-wise, from the vet. She’s overweight, but she wears her weight well, I think. Her flight and arrangements will end up costing us more than we anticipated. Such is the case with moving.

We have very few spices left in our apartment now, thanks to Emilin & Brooke. They came over with their daughter, Sanna, and cooked us the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever - pepperjack cheese and cream cheese and poblano peppers and fresh mozzarella - it was all wonderful! Then we made them go shopping in our cupboards. It was so good to finally meet Emilin and Brooke; we initially met online at a pregnancy/parenting forum. And of course, fates align themselves such that they are settling into their new home as we are settling out of ours.

Tomorrow, dim sum with some friends - a goodbye dim sum. Monday, the Brown Elephant is coming over to take our stuff that hasn’t sold. Tuesday, early, breakfast with my former boss, come home, and get ready to fly out of Chicago for good.

Matthew is growing up:

Things he does now that totally cracks us up and amazes us at the same time:

• In bed, he will lift our shirts and gum our bellies - like we do to him.
• If you hand him a phone and tell him someone wants to talk to him, he will put the phone up to his ear and “talk”; although now I think he’s on to us and knows that there’s no one on the other end! And if we do it with an old phone, he doesn’t mimic us at all.
• He is so close to walking. He can stand up by himself, quite strongly, for more than a few seconds at a time, and then carefully sets himself back down again. He still loves crawling, so if he wants to be somewhere five seconds ago, he drops down and scoots like crazy.
• He loves his baba so much - you can totally tell. It is so cute. Anytime Josh goes to the bathroom, Matthew perks up and drops whatever he is in the midst of and crawls over to the bathroom and tries to open the door. And some nights, the only way he’s comforted to sleep is when Baba sings Freight Train.
• He fake laughs - and it makes us laugh for reals!

I might desperately miss what he was like as a newborn baby, but man, I wouldn’t trade these days of him as a (gulp) toddler in for the world.

My uncle died this past May.

I haven’t written about him yet, because I am teeming with memories and happiness and grief. We moved into our new apartment at the end of April and two days afterward, my mom called me with the news that this was it - it was time to come home. I quickly got the first available flight out of Chicago to Providence, and Mom came and picked us up. The three of us left on one-way tickets - I left work that day thrusting my keys into the hands of a coworker, asking her through tears to walk Ava in the morning and evening. She took them, graciously, and took care of my pup. That was a Monday.

We spent the day after in the hospital the entire day. When I saw my JoJo, he was gaunt. I could see every bone on his body. He laid on his side and slept fitfully, having had a particularly bad night in the hospital. The hospital gown draped over him disjointedly. He moaned occasionally in pain. His passing was at once heartbreaking and relieving - he pulled in the people closest to him and told him how much he loved them, what his hopes and wishes for them were, amidst the tears of anguish and grief. When he finally passed, comfortable at last from the intense pain that the cancer eating away at his body caused (amusingly enough to me, he was on the same medications I was when I was initially in labor, and if the pain is anything similar, I know my uncle died a very relieved man), we were all there with him. Talking and smiling and listening to music - The Beatles, his favorite - that his eldest daughter had brought in on a CD/DVD player for him to listen to. The same CD/DVD player she’d gifted him with for Christmas one year so he could have something to listen to while he spent hours attached to the chemotherapy machines that pumped his body full of toxins, futilely.

I miss my JoJo so much. I have so many memories of him that make me double over in laughter. And, at the age of 30, I am just simply used to having two uncles, twin uncles. I am used to having an uncle who is older and who is younger (by something like 20 minute) and having that difference mean the world in family dynamics. JoJo used to tell me that when they were kids, my two uncles would take turns breaking each others’ noses and beating each other up. “Now, when I look to the side,” he said, shifting his eyes to the left or right, “I can see my other eyeball!”

His wake was the Friday after his passing. Hundreds of people came to pay their respects to my JoJo. There were people I hadn’t seen since I was a kid and spent summers with my uncle in Connecticut - high school friends of my JoJo came to give my auntie a hug. It was amazing to see the impact he had during his fifty-three years here.

Old habits die hard. Josh and I IM each other from time to time during the day:

Josh: You got a card from your uncle.
Casey: Which one?

That just fell right out of my fingers before I remembered.

I was at the train station with Matthew waiting for my in-laws to come. Woman comes up to me and mentions how cute Matthew is.

Woman: “Are you Korean?”
Me (sigh): “No, I’m Chinese.”
Woman (amazed): “Wow! Your English is so good! It’s perfect!”
Me (sigh): “I was born and have lived in the US my entire life.”
Woman: “Do you ever feel like you want to go back to your home country?”
Me: “Uh, this is my home country.”
Woman: “Oh wow! That’s the spirit! Way to go!”

Yeah, I think she missed my point entirely.

Here is a link to all of the party pictures - I am too lazy to cut and paste all of them, but here is one of my favorites:

And the cake! What happened to the cake, you might ask?

Freshly hatched:

Things you did back then: sleep, nurse, sleep, poop, nurse, shout, nurse, poop, pee, nurse, hiccup, startle, nurse, poop, pee.

One. Year. Old.

Things you do today: “talk” on the phone, crawl like crazy, pull up on everything, explore everything, nurse, poop, pee, smile, laugh, shout, pet the dog, pet your Baba.

That will have to suffice for now. Happiest of birthdays, my sweet son. I love you.

I was in the hospital this time last year, about to start the laboring process.

Tomorrow, Matthew will be 1 year old. I am on the brink of tears and I think I will be a weepy mess tomorrow.

The first time I met my doctor, we had a long talk about technology gone awry. I’d been in the midst of troubleshooting a buggy homemade program that you had to beg, borrow, cheat and steal its away into working, and apparently, so had Dr. D. Their entire network, three years ago, had started using a system that essentially removed paperwork from files - every waiting room has a computer, every doctor we’ve met (M’s pediatrician is in that office too) and the hospital where M was born - same system. She hated it - there were a bunch of clicks to order tests that before she just had to check tick boxes off on a carbon copy form.

Not too long after Matthew was born, I got electronic-by-proxy access to Matthew’s account, and I’ve emailed and consulted M’s pediatrician via that system quite a bit - which is nice. A few times here and there I’ve also emailed Dr. D for myself - the most recent example being yesterday. For over two months, the muscles underneath my right ribcage have been aching and sore and hurty hurty hurty. I went in twice to get it checked out, and Dr. D referred me to get an ultrasound and xrays of the area just to rule out anything else internal that might be causing the pain, but that she (and I too) thought it was a muscle thing.

“Yeah, you’re going to have to stop lifting heavy things to let your side heal.” Pause.

“My son weighs over 27 pounds. I can’t not lift him.”

So I got the results back yesterday afternoon, after an infuriating morning in the hospital getting the tests done, and everything is normal. I emailed the doctor telling her that I was moving out of the area and can she refer anyone in the Bay Area to me?

I reaaly don’t know anyone in that area. I can’ write a referral for an out of network therapy. It alos won’t be accepted ina different insurance system

She still hates the system - can you tell?

Halp dis woman crazy, originally uploaded by caseycasey.

Not just me, we all are. Right now things are timecrunched to the max and all I can think is why aren’t people bending to my will? We have two potential sublessors (sublettors? subletters? sublessers?) who are just waiting… for our rental company to get information back to me so I can push it out to them and all I want is resolution on the apartment end - as soon as we can find someone to officially snag this apartment, I will feel so, so much better about our impending move.

I am also feeling amazingly nostalgic for Chicago now that we only have two weeks left. I am going to miss the Lake (I can hear Josh now, “Well, we have the Bay. And the Pacific Ocean!”). I am going to miss our old neighborhood - hell, I already do! No more walking down the street to dim sum - at least in the near future. This was Matthew’s first home. Chicago will always have a special place in my heart.