I'm from East of Here.

(Post by Tracy)

To people in Los Angeles, even though I am only from Milwaukee/Chicago (which I was taught in 4th grade is in the Midwest region), I am from "Back East." And it's not that I'm from "Out East," or even "East of Here," I am from "Back East," as if everyone here was originally there.

The first time someone asked me this, "You're from Back East, aren't you?" I was confused. I stumbled over my words, saying something like, "Well, no, I mean yeah, I guess, well, I'm from Milwaukee," and they said, "Yeah, Back East."

So the next trip I take to somewhere on the East Coast, when I'm in conversation with a stranger, I look forward to answering their question, "So where are you visiting from?"
I'll say, "Oh, well, I live in Los Angeles now, but I'm originally from Back East."
"Oh, really?" they'll say, suddenly more interested. "Where?"
And I'll reply with pride, "Milwaukee," and I look forward to the look on their face.

Our Trip in Pictures

Leaving Home...

St. Louis, Missouri

Driving through Kansas

Boulder, Colorado

Denver, Colorado
Georgetown, Colorado
Edwards, Colorado
Driving through the Rocky Mountains
Colorado National Monument

Arches National Park, Utah

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Sedona, Arizona

Driving through Arizona

Palm Desert, California

...and Home!

A Funny Thing Happened...

(Post by Tracy)

A funny thing happened on the way to school this week. Even though I leave the house at 6:45 am, there's always plenty of other people out on the road with me during our sunrise drive on the 101. So it didn't surprise me when I followed the same car from the highway off my exit and onto one of the main roads that leads me to school. I was noticing that the young-ish woman who was driving the black sedan seemed distracted, looking back and forth from the road to something in her front seat or near her center console, but she was managing to still drive safely enough.

We exited the highway and merged into traffic on the 6-lane surface road before coming to a stop at a stoplight. Even on the surface roads, traffic was pretty heavy, so we weren't leaving too much space for the Holy Ghost between us and the car in front of us. The lady in the sedan stopped pretty close to the decent-sized SUV in front of her, and there were 2 or 3 more cars in front of the SUV at the stop light.

While the lady in the sedan continued to look around for whatever was distracting her in her car, she must have subconsciously let her foot believe that the light had turned green. Still looking down, she picked her foot up off the gas and inched up just enough to bump the SUV in front of her. In the same instant that her bumper banged into the back bumper in front of her, her head flew upwards, and she and her car froze. I could tell from what little I could see of her face in her rear-view mirror, as well as her body language, that she was stunned. Oh crap, I imagined her thinking, what the Hell do I do now?

We sat there for a few more seconds, which I imagine felt like a small eternity to the lady in the sedan. Her hands did not move from the steering wheel, and her eyes did not leave the car in front of her. I didn't blame her for doing nothing, as there wasn't much she really could do at the time - all the lanes were blocked, and there wasn't a place to pull over. Getting out of the car right there would have caused a major headache for all of us behind her.

Then the coolest thing happened.

The light turned green. The cars in the front of the lane started to resume motion. The SUV slowly began to drive forward, and the driver of the SUV raised their hand to wave at the lady driver in the sedan. The SUV drove on, the slight wave dismissing the whole issue.

Still kind of in shock, the driver of the sedan just barely allowed her right hand to leave the steering wheel long enough to give a sort of half-wave-reply, and she also drove on.

I thought about it for a little while, wondering if I would have reacted the way the SUV driver did; I probably wouldn't have. I would have pulled over, at least to see if there was any damage. But then again, we were at a complete stop, the sedan probably only moved 6 inches before hitting the SUV, and she couldn't have hit the SUV any harder than when someone bumps your car parallel parking. The mature and forgiving response from the SUV driver was such a refreshing way to start the day. It no doubt kept a lot of people from being late to work, and maybe it will lead at least the driver of the sedan and myself to be more calm during a typical road rage-inducing situation.

That's our City of Angels for you.

Update on the California Life

Update! If you scroll down to the bottom of our blog, there is now a place to put in your email address ("subscribe via email") so that you will get email updates when we update the blog! This is different than becoming a "follower," which just shows who likes the blog. Go ahead and do both!

(Post by Tracy)

Big News. We have been living in California for 6 weeks. Why is this Big News? Because I have officially broken my standing record of how long I have been away from home. Until now, the longest I have ever gone without visiting the ol' Chaput Homestead in Deerfield was 6 weeks, and that record was set during my brief stint abroad in Lyon, France. Perhaps to some it is surprising that I've never been away longer than that, but then remember that I have never (until now) lived more than 2 hours (110 miles) from the only house I grew up in.

So what has been going on in the last 6 weeks? Well...

Mom and Dad stayed with us this weekend. (Mark and Brigette's beautiful and fun wedding was last weekend in Phoenix. Mom and Dad stayed the week in Arizona and then came to see us before heading back to the Midwest.) And we had a great weekend:

- Ate at The Counter - Mom and Dad's favorite LA eatery
- Visited "The Autry" - "Cowboy Museum"
- Went to Mass at another new LA Catholic church
- Ate at Carousel - tasty Middle Eastern Cuisine
- Saw a sketch comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
- Shopped at the Studio City Farmers Market
- Played with puppies up for adoption in the park, barely leaving without a new family member
- Made 2 impromptu visits to some Studio City open houses, accidentally checking out the same house as Corbin Bernsen and his wife Amanda Pays
- Had a home-cooked dinner and played some gin rummy (Tom and Mom beat me and Dad)

I am looking forward to their next (not-yet-scheduled) visit!

To catch up, here are some of the other highlights of the last 6 months of California life in a nutshell:

- The DMVs here are awful. It took 3 days visiting the DMV (multiple locations) to get our stuff organized.
- The pizza here is great. We have found our favorite take-out place, and the first time I ordered my favorite pizza (pepperoni, pineapple, black olive), the lady on the phone thought it was "cute."
- I splurged and took the Honda to a hand-wash car wash since there's no rain or snow in sight.
- I also splurged for my first California mani/pedi and ran into two of my new co-workers while at the nail salon.
- While I was missing terribly the best season to be in Milwaukee or at Legend Lake, Tom and I were lucky to be able to spend plenty of hours at the beach in Malibu.
- Although it also tore me up to miss the last weekend of the summer at the lake and miss the Shawano County fair for the second year in a row, Tom and I had a great weekend with family in Phoenix to celebrate Mark and Brigette's wedding. The wedding and reception were beautiful, and I really enjoyed the mini-vacation with some of my family.
- The drive out of the LA area on the Friday of Labor Day weekend was the longest, slowest strand of city traffic in my recent memory, replacing the (awfully long and slow) drive between Hammond, IN and Milwaukee, WI on a Friday evening. It took 3 hours to go 50 miles. Previous Hammond to Milwaukee record: about 3 hours to go 115 miles.
- Overall, this traffic does not faze me. My commute is about the same distance and time as it was between Milwaukee and Elm Grove. With that said, people here do not seem to understand what I am saying when I tell them I don't mind the traffic here because "I am from Chicago."

By the way, school is going great. Being an internet-savvy teacher, I know it's best leave out specifics while blogging. So suffice it to say that things are great at work - great coworkers, great work environment, great students. Block scheduling is kind of a different world, but I think I like it. (It's hard not to like a schedule that lets you leave at 1:15 a couple Fridays each month.)

There you go - an entry without much focus but that covered a lot of ground. Also, Tom and I have heard some really nice comments from y'all about the blog. Thanks for checking in on us! Next post: a re-cap of our trip in pictures! Oh, and we'll tell you about how we became buddies with Martin Sheen.

P.S. Thanks again to Mom and Dad for visiting. Come back soon!

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

(Post by Tracy)

FYI, both http://www.tom-tracy.com and http://www.tracy-tom.com (our old wedding websites) should now direct you to this blog. Yippee!

So, it's Tuesday, which means we have officially been here on our own for a whole week. Mom and Dad left last Monday, and Erika and Michelle left the Wednesday before that. It was so, so great having them with us on this trip. Can't express that enough.

We've also been lucky to spend a lot of time with Tom's California family since we've gotten here - his grandma, Uncle Andy and Aunt Cassy, and two cousins, Alden and Anna. We're really excited, too, to have my cousin Mark and his fiancée Brigette to get together with. It's so nice to have people nearby, especially when everything is so new.

Tom and I are doing pretty well and loving the apartment (even with its thin walls and the person upstairs who seems to rearrange his furniture nightly). It's roomy (ok, compared to our Milwaukee apartment,) and homey and so close to being “done”! Those of you who know us well will not be surprised that it took us an entire afternoon to unpack our books and arrange them on the bookshelves, but it feels really good to have that put together, alphabetically of course, and arranged by genre.

There is one thing I've been less-than-excited about. It just kind of dawned on me the other day, the fact that California has earthquakes.

Tom and I had been wanting to buy a map of LA, so we went over to Barnes and Noble. While I looked at maps, not finding exactly what I wanted, Tom started reading something aloud from the book he was browsing, and he was reading an account of the Northridge earthquake that happened near where we live, in the early 1990’s.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am an anxious person, and for most of my life I've had a respectful fear of tornados. I think my grad-school roommates could best attest to this from the time I made them pull chairs into the windowless, first-floor hallway of our former-convent home and sit with me for a few hours while a storm passed. Then when I moved to Milwaukee, I signed up for severe weather alert text messages (from both the Weather Channel and WTMJ) and also promptly tuned my weather radio to the appropriate frequency. There were many nights when a storm would roll through, making my phone beep every 15-30 seconds to let me know that, yes, there was a severe storm rolling through.

So until our recent trip to Barnes and Noble, I was breathing easy about the lack of tornados in California, especially when the Weather Channel told me that "a Tornado Watch had been issued for Milwaukee WI" last Friday and I was here. I suppose the relief that I had been feeling about being away from possible tornados had distracted me from considering the other natural disasters.

And then Tom started reading to me about the Northridge earthquake…

And then I picked up a California guidebook about earthquakes...

And after about 3 minutes of reading, I was ready to buy my plane ticket home…

I forced myself to put the book down and waited in agony for Tom to be ready to leave the bookstore; I reasoned that if I was going to die in an earthquake, I would hate for it to be from millions of books falling on me at Barnes and Noble.

We've talked to numerous people about earthquakes since then, and we've been gathering the important information necessary to try to be prepared. Our major furniture is bolted to the wall. We have museum putty to hold down glass vases. I've been reading up on what to do before, during and after an earthquake (during an earthquake: Drop, Cover, and Hold on). Under heavy desks or tables is a good place to be. I do plan to gather some emergency kits, and I'm following the other useful advice on FEMA’s website as well.

We got on the topic of earthquakes with the Trader Joe's cashier that day after leaving Barnes and Noble. He told us about the app he has on his phone that tells him whenever there is an earthquake, how strong it was and where it was. It sounded interesting, but I decided that for now, it's probably better for me to just keep hearing when Jefferson County, Racine County or Milwaukee County has a severe thunderstorm alert or flash flood warning instead.

The Day We Bought a Refrigerator

(Post by Tracy)

We all made it safely to California, and on Monday, Tom and I set out with our gang to find a refrigerator.

Back when we came to California to find apartments in June, we almost skipped visiting a few because the listings said, “Need to supply your own refrigerator.” People around here might be used to that, but it seemed strange to us Milwaukeeans that an apartment would come sans fridge. We’ve asked a few people why it is that California (or at least Los Angeles) seems to do that, and no one has a real answer. Perhaps it’s a weird question to them. I wouldn’t have an answer if someone asked me, “Why is it that in Milwaukee all the apartments are already equipped with a fridge?” So anyway, we needed to get a fridge.

Although less essential, we also decided to buy some sort of bed for our second bedroom. So on Monday, we started out on a refrigerator and bed hunt.

We decided the best option would be a day bed with a trundle bed hidden underneath. After doing our online research, we had a list of stores to check out for this and a fridge.

We found the ideal bed frame at one mattress store, but we decided to shop around a little more for the actual mattresses, plus we still needed to find that refrigerator.

We spent the afternoon flipping back and forth from fridge to mattress mode, visiting half a dozen stores in total. While we had found the bed frame, we weren't having such luck with the refrigerator. Finally, while in refrigerator mode at one store, we got a tip on a cheaper place to shop by eavesdropping on the conversation between a salesperson and an upset customer.

Back in bed mode, we eventually found ourselves at another mattress store. Somewhat exhausted already, even though it was only around 5pm, Dad and Michelle decided to wait in the car while Tom, Mom and I went in to check it out. Tom left them the keys so they wouldn’t overheat in the afternoon sun, and we went in.

The store was surprisingly big inside, and it looked even bigger than it was due to the head to floor mirrors placed randomly throughout the showroom. After being inside this mattress house of illusions for about 10 minutes, we were eventually approached by a young salesman. We told him we were looking for mattresses to fit a trundle and day bed, and he pointed us towards some cheap mattresses.

It seemed like we might find what we were looking for, so I took a second to send Dad a text message. He and Michelle joined us inside.

The salesman seemed friendly enough and was willing to help us look. Then when I asked about the return policy, he barked out, “None.”
Confused, I asked, “You don’t have a return policy?”
“No. No stores ever have take a return on a mattress.”
I informed him that this was not true. “I bought a mattress last year that had a 30-day return policy.”
“Did you return it?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“See? They wouldn’t take it if you had tried. No store ever would. If they do, that means they’re either selling used mattresses or they’re going to put themselves out of business.”
“I have a new mattress at home that has a 3-month return policy,” Michelle piped up from a Temperpedic mattress on the other side of the showroom.
“Have you returned it?” he demanded.
“No,” she said.
“See? They wouldn’t take it.”
“So, are you telling me that they are lying then?” I asked him, starting to get irritated.
He shrugged. “I’ve been in this business for ten years, and I’m telling you, no store would ever take back a mattress.”
Luckily, before this elevated to a full-on argument, my dad cut in and said, “Well this isn’t going anywhere, so let’s decide on a mattress.” I put my sunglasses back on (my adult way of pouting) and kept looking at the mattresses.

We decided on two, bought them, and arranged to pick them up at the warehouse. He flipped back and forth between telling us that he thought the warehouse closed at 8... or 9... or 8... or 9... After handing us the receipt (with a handwritten and underlined “All sales are final” note), we left.

In the parking lot, we waited for Tom to unlock the car door. Then I noticed that Tom was pointing into the car. I followed where his finger was pointing and saw the car key sitting on the driver’s seat inside the locked car.
We all stood there a little stunned, not really knowing what to do, for a couple of minutes. Then we all started our own plans of action.

I realized I had a spare key in the new apartment, which wasn’t very far away, so I called 411 to get the number of a cab company. I used the number, called for a cab, and was told that they only serviced Orange County. I asked that cab company for a number to use in L.A. County and tried again. That worked out, and a cab was on its way.

Meanwhile, Mom was on the phone calling AAA. She was told that someone would be out to unlock the door for us within the next 30 minutes. They were on their way.

Also meanwhile, Dad had gone back into the mattress store. He and the salesman came back out, and the salesman started looking through his own trunk, apparently for a coat hanger or similar device. Not finding anything that would work, the salesman walked swiftly towards the dumpster in the parking lot, surprising Michelle and myself with his newfound urgency to help us. Again finding nothing, he came back to our car with his hand outstretched, holding out his own car key. “Take my car,” he said.

I didn’t quite understand what he was offering. Take his car in place of mine? My mom said, “He’s offering to let us take his car to the apartment to get the extra key.”

“Really, take it, please,” he insisted. I politely refused, bewildered by the offer. “Then at least wait inside in the air conditioning. What better place to be laid up than in a mattress store?” Who was this guy?

We followed him back inside, and as Tom started filling cups of water for everyone from the water cooler, the salesman left the store again. He said something to Dad and then walked off down the street. Dad informed us that "the Chinese food store down the block apparently owes him a favor, so he went there to get a coat hanger."

We couldn't believe that he left us alone in his wide open mattress maze, and when we saw a lady pull into the parking lot and park her car, Mom jumped up for the chance to play Mattress Saleswoman. Before she had to play the role, our salesman reappeared, sure enough, with a hanger in tow. He and Dad went to work unmangling the hanger to use as a tool.

Luckily we only had to wait about another minute before the locksmith arrived, beating the taxi. I called and canceled the cab. The salesman retreated back into the store. We went out to watch as the locksmith opened the car door, and we were ready to go.

I went back inside to thank the salesman for his efforts, and told him, “Thanks very much. We really appreciate all your help.”

“Sure, no problem,” he said, without looking up from his computer.

Getting over the whole weird situation, we finished our afternoon of shopping, found a decent refrigerator at Lowe’s that will be delivered tomorrow, and then sent Tom and Dad to the warehouse to pick up the mattresses.

Waiting at the apartment with Michelle and Mom, my phone rang at 8:05. It was Tom, calling to tell us that the warehouse was closed. Tom said that he had called the warehouse to make sure that they were there. He got the answering machine, so he called our mattress salesman to inquire. “Oh, no, they definitely close at 8:00,” he told Tom.

Oh, the refrigerator is nice, by the way. It’s white, 18.2 cubic feet. The first major appliance that Tom and I have bought together. Plus it comes with a built-in warranty, 365 days long.

You Be the Judge

(By Tom)

As is true of most national parks, Arches National Park can be a striking symbol of American pride, with its giant, sweeping arches and vast landscape. It is only appropriate that during our visit, we saw people partaking in two of our country’s favorite national pastimes: doing stupid things without thinking, and unsympathetically judging those who have gotten themselves into trouble.

Tracy and I were walking in front of the “Turret” arch when I noticed two older women opposite the arch, sitting in the shade and scowling at the sky. Wondering why a beautiful natural rock formation would cause them to make such faces, I followed their angry gazes to the top of the arch’s right spire, where I saw the source of their disgust: a pink, bearded young man, framed against the bright blue sky, wearing a polo shirt and an expression of confusion and fear. A handful of other people were scattered around the base of the arch, but he was alone atop that spire, clearly in a place where polo-and-cargo-shorts-clad young men are not supposed to be.

“It’s going to be slippery as the devil when he tries to climb down from there,” one of the women said, her voice dripping with contempt. “I am not going to watch him try to climb down.” Her companion nodded in agreement.

A third woman walked up to them. “He’s stuck,” she said, shaking her head. “He told his dad he wanted a picture of himself on top of the arch, in the middle, but now he’s saying he can’t do it, he can’t find a way there.” As she was speaking, the man was tentatively trying to make his way forward, advancing a few steps, then retreating, then advancing again on a slightly different path.

The park’s “Don’t climb the rocks” warning poster sprang to mind. “It’s easy to go up, but hard to go down,” it says. “Rocks fall. People do, too!” I could envision the man in the same position as the poster’s cartoon example, gripping the side of the arch, staring at the ground far below him with wide, saucer-shaped eyes, fat drops of sweat flying from his forehead.

I asked the women if the man was in their party, thinking that their anger could be part of a reaction to seeing someone they love or care about risking serious injury or death. “No,” one of them replied emphatically, as in, “Hell no, we’re not related to that clown in any way whatsoever, and he deserves whatever is coming to him.” This set off another round of tongue clucking.

Now, to be fair to the women, I was only mildly concerned about the man’s fate. As long as he stayed where he was, he was safe; the danger would come if he, who appeared to be untrained in the rock-climbing arts, tried to pick his way down and took a wrong step or two. However, there were plenty of people around to help spot a safe path for him, and if they couldn’t, I was sure the rangers there had plenty of experience helping schlubs like him back away from mistakes like his.

However, I couldn’t quite understand the anger of the women. I suppose they were peeved that the man had stupidly endangered his life, and possibly worried that they would be subjected to some kind of gruesome spectacle just because he wanted a neat picture. But even if that is true, their vitriol still seemed a little bit out of line. Instead of being fearful for the man’s life, they were angry at him; their concern, if that’s what it was, had a distinctly punitive flavor. It felt almost like they wanted him to fall, so that he would learn his lesson.

I don’t know if the man descended safely or not; Tracy and I had, as she wrote, air-conditioned vehicles full of family members to return to. I’m assuming he was fine, since I saw no “Man dies in fall at Arches Park” headlines, though fatal falls may be so common that they don’t warrant anything more than a police-blotter-like mention in the Moab Times.

After the Grand Canyon, which Tracy documented in her post, we stopped at Sedona, Arizona, a far less cutthroat place than the Arches National Park, though no less alien, in terms of otherworldly landscapes.

Sedona is surrounded by shrub-covered mountains and large, distinctly shaped geologic formations, a burnt-orange world of massive boulders with whimsical names like “Snoopy Rock” and “Coffeepot Rock.” It feels repetitive to keep writing this throughout our trip, but it was, of course, beautiful.

What separates Sedona from the pack is its vibe, or, as some might say, its vibrations. My understanding of this is fuzzy, but the area is said to be rich with energy vortexes, places where there are swirling concentrations of unseen energy forces strong enough to twist tree stumps and nourish the human spirit, though the explanation of this concept likely depends on who is explaining it. Whatever is going on, the area does seem to draw more than its fair share of unconventional thinkers, and the city is replete with stores that cater to everyone from crystal-enthusiasts to people who need their auras photographed to UFO devotees.

I can’t speak to the veracity of the various claims about the area, but I can say that the eclectic collection of people gives the area an agreeably loose, “anything goes” kind of feel. Though the real estate is costly, the population is anything but snobby; judgmental attitudes are melted away by the glowing, purple and gold sunsets and free-wheeling theologies and mythologies.

Our traveling party did visit the site of a supposed vortex, and while I can’t claim to have felt anything mystical or supernatural, I did get to experience a wonderful hike to a mountaintop that boasts gorgeous views. And while I am, admittedly, skeptical, I do want to point out that Sedona seems to have a higher concentration of traffic circles than any other part of the country I’ve been to.

Or should I call them “traffic vortexes”?