rustypants speaks

it was great seeing family and friends today at the house before we left

but all these goodbyes are killing me - i forgot how much it hurt

we leave tomorrow morning

it’s been a flurry of activity here at the house as we pack twice: once for our move to pensacola (in which we are loading our two cars and my dad’s pickup), twice for the house itself (so when it sells, we can just come back up and load the truck without having to do a lot of packing, too).

we’ve come across a lot of memories of the four short years here and even more memories of the seventeen years we’ve been married. when we bought this house we were certain that we’d never move again - it was perfect and things were all sunny and bright! it’s funny how things change - i’m more sad that we’re leaving our families and friends. i’ll definitely miss the house (especially temporarily moving into a 1 bedroom apartment) but it’s not as crushing as i thought it’d be. the realization of how awesome it is to do what we’re about to do - that’s overpowered the great sadness i thought i’d feel over selling it.

we’ve been having great fun getting things together, seeing family and friends, packing, dreaming, hoping, planning. we’ve got a couple more days and we’re on the road. please do stop by sunday afternoon and hang out with us a bit - we’d love to see you.

we’re not quite sure what dolby’s going to think of this whole move thing but hopefully his dog-brain will adjust as he stops to smell the fragrant fire hydrants of pensacola, leaves his own frangrance, meets some new butts to smell and pups to wrestle with. who knows? maybe his obsession with eating crap will end as he basks in the florida sun.

for now, it’s back to the list of things to pack, things i’m forgetting to pack, things that need to be disconnected and services turned off.

will we accidentally leave a burner on? will i need to turn around and check?

hey folks -

Sunday, July 29th from 3-6pm, we (Lise and Scott) are having a little get together at our house!

come over, eat a hotdog, have a drink, help us pack our two cars with a couple boxes, hug us, tell us about what’s going on, then…

say goodbye. :-(

we move to pensacola, florida the next day.

scott’s teaching 5th grade language arts and social studies. lise’s going to be teaching art. we’ll be living 10 minutes from the beach. new adventures! great excitement! a place for you to come and visit!

to get the skinny on how all this came about, click here or just scroll down & find the posts on pensacola.

email me, message me, call me for information or to cry one solitary tear as the painful realization hits.

scott

lise and i pulled into pensacola tonight around 9pm to a gorgeous and outrageous lightning storm. decided to put off checking into the hotel and instead drove straight to the beach - the storm was coming in from three sides with the moon still visible in the southwest sky and stars abounding to the south / southwest. the rest of the sky was pitch black, thick, billowing clouds moving through with a nice wind blowing from the northwest.

we parked our butts and gaped. it was gorgeous.

and then i thought, “hey! long exposure shots will capture this lightning! quick! get the tripod!” and what was documented doesn’t do justice to the real show, but wow - what a night. definitely in the top 5 greatest electrical storms of all time.

i’ve got 16 pictures up for your viewing! bring on the elctrical storm!

if you’re a regular reader of this blog you know we’ve been working on moving to pensacola, florida for the past 6 months or so and things are getting down to the wire!

things that are going on. in no particular order:

• the house is still on the market and we’ve dropped the price a second time. this is distressing only in that we’re almost down to what we paid for it 4 years ago. our rationale, however, is that we’re either going to lose money by holding out for a higher price and continuing to pay the mortgage, or we’re going to lose money by dropping the price another $5000. not happy about it, but the move is here and it’s more important than making a mint on this place.
• we leave for a 1500 miles in 36 hours trip to pensacola friday july 20th for lise to take a 45 minute $25 subject area (art) content test. it’s quite possibly the most asinine thing we’ve had to do in regards to this move. if not most asinine, then certainly the most expensive and time consuming thing.
• i’m very excited about teaching 5th grade language arts and social studies. when we went down 2 weeks ago and met with the principal, toured the school, met a few other teachers - this was VERY cool. i’m looking forward to getting started and being a part of the team at semmes elementary!
• things have gotten more exciting and more stressful as we move towards the moving date. lise’s not been hired by the school district in part because of this test she has to take. the house not selling yet and the dropped price ads to our financial concerns. getting the house ready for us to move out - holy cow, so much to do!
• the excitement, though, is overpowering. this is the biggest move we’ve ever made and the anticipation of the things we’ll get to do (like, TEACH 5th GRADE! among other things) is bubbling just below the surface.
• sadness, too - moving away from my mom and dad, moving further away from lise’s mom and family, moving away from friends - this has started to become a daily realization, an almost perverted song and dance of, “zow - we may never see this person again!”

it’s 3:10am and we’re leaving in less than 5 hours. i guess i ought to sleep.

we’re in town for one more week.

Move Date: Monday, July 30.

want to stop over and see us before we roll out? please give us a call!

but that didn’t stop us.

wednesday was lise’s birthday and we were down in pensacola. now, normally, sitting on the beach as the sun goes down gives you a spectacular sunset, a salty taste of the gulf on your tongue and some sand in your sandals.

not so this time.

the initial sight was clear sun and balmy heat. we looked around for some seashells and hung out together.

and then the sun was blotted out by some cool cloud formation. we still had no idea what was coming so we settled in to see the sunset.

before long, the sky to the northwest has gotten pretty dark and scary looking. the clouds envelop us overhead and lise and i start making some mental contingencies for a quick run to the car, should the heavens open and dump their load on us.

we weren’t worried when the beach east and west cleared out. we weren’t worried when the lightening started from the north. we weren’t worried when it was obvious that it was raining just across the bay on the mainland.

we got worried when the sight became what you see here on the left. THAT, my friend, and the sudden 10 degree drop in temperature, made me look at lise and go, “i think we need to get the hell out of here, pronto.”

so we snapped this last shot on the right of the two of us on the beach just before 50,000 volts of electricity were scheduled to be unleashed on our fool heads. and we ran like crazy to the car, careful not to have our metal chairs up too high. why encourage it with lightening rods?

this last picture is the sight of the beach taken from the relative safety of our car just before the rain came down hardcore. couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us. wind went nuts and we looked at each other and went:

“um. ha. ha. we’re fricking nuts!“

it was a beautiful storm and worth every minute.

it’s official.

i’m the 5th grade Language Arts / Social Studies teacher at Semmes Elementary School in Pensacola, Florida.

from now on, you’ll address me as mr. rust.

or, if you’re slightly more daring, O Rustypants My Rustypants.

we were busy beavers today.

pensacola chamber of commerce gave us a phone book.

verizon wireless told us we can’t add a third line with a pensacola number and two cincinnati numbers.

we got a bit lost.

we called about a house across the street from my new school.

i met my new principal (he’s quite cool).

i saw my classroom (unflatteringly pictured at right).

i signed my contract.

we lunched with the principal at the new yorker deli (if you visit pensacola, it’s worth the trip - unless you live in new york).

we got an apartment.

we’re officially residents - we have a pensacola address now.

we went to maria’s seafood market, grabbed some jumbo shrimp, had it steamed, crossed the bridge and went to pensacola beach.

sat on the beach (flatteringly pictured at left) and looked back at the past couple years, ate delicious shrimp, watched the sunset, stuck our toes in the water, grabbed a couple seashells and were content.

today we’ve more to do, not the least of which is to…

celebrate Lise’s birthday! woo-woo!

more later.

we’re on the road again monday morning for pensacola - we’ve a thousand things to do down there, including:

• signing my contract / meeting my principal / fingerprinting
• visiting two or three schools that are still hiring art teachers - lise’s going to work on getting her foot in the door and see how things look for getting a position in the district.
• finding the apartment complex we’re looking to rent from starting in August, filling out paperwork and writing too large of a check.
• stopping in on the school district offices and getting some final information before school starts next month.
• visiting the chamber of commerce for more moving information and area details
• hitting the beach in the evenings for sunsets, strolls, and sea shell hunting.
• going to joe patti’s seafood and loading up before we leave for cincinnati thursday morning.
• celebrating lise’s 39th birthday wednesday july 11th!! woo-woo!! want to send her a note? email her at liserust at gmail.com

for now, however, i expect my thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do when i’m ridin’ sixteen hours and there’s nothin’ much to do. we’ll survive somehow.

it should be no surprise to anyone that my favorite show of all time is The Simpsons - nevermind that it’s been on for 18 years, it’s still clever, biting social commentary on a broad cross-section of American life. i can’t get enough of it.

now that the simpson’s movie is weeks away from release, i’ve given in and become a pawn in the game.

i’ve wanted for years to have a caricature done in the likeness of groening’s creations - it was worth the wait.

one thing i’ve always enjoyed about the show is their willingness to offend anyone and everyone - christians, muslims, hindus, whites, blacks, jews, gay, straight, men, women - nothing is sacred (and thank goodness).

i occasionally meet folks who are offended by the portrayal of God / Jesus / Christians in the show but i look again at the point: non-christians look at us and THINK WE REALLY ARE LIKE THIS or that we believe this or that about God! it’s a caricature of the real thing, a stereotype - but it’s what people think.

and if it takes a cartoon to offend us, make us step back and say, “geez - do i really (act / think / believe) this way? is this what people see when they see me?” then i’m all for it.

want your own Simpson’s likeness? www.simpsonsmovie.com - click on the section about making your own avatar and have fun!

as mentioned in posts of days past, dolby, our big dumb black lab, doesn’t as much “play” with toys as “hunts, pounces, dismembers, and eats” them. given the expense that is required to keep him in squeaky toys, we’ve pretty much resorted to bricks and barbed wire as his only toy source.

and then i found a toy we’d bought for him months ago.

he was bored. so was i.

and it wasn’t long before we were having a blast ripping, tearing, chewing, and annihilating this toy. dolby’s lethargy instantly left his body and he was transformed into a terrifying jungle beast bent on the disemboweling of his prey.

watching my fun-loving puppy morph into the creature capable of giving me the “step off, mo-fo, you in my space” look you see to the left is quite a sight. an hour of pleasure was had by all as he retrieved the first of four squeakers and a mound of stuffing. we played some fetch, he ripped and rended, i shot some pics, some more shredding and mauling was done.

and then it was over.

we both pooped out on the floor and watched Oprah.

such is the life of the suburban feral mutt.

7-11 turns stores into kwik-e-marts - promo for new simpsons movie.

hee hee!!

we had a fun-filled visit to maryland last week.

we got to see a lot of good friends. ate crabs. stayed up late talking. played cards.

dolby got to hang out with his old friend, Ace. they got into some wonderful fights and rough playing over dolby’s toys (Ace won 98% of the arguments because he’s just a smooth and cool dog - dolby’s not refined enough yet).

and now i offer the pictures to you. enjoy. or not.