Our last day in Baton Rouge is Monday. (AMEN!)

Actually – that sentence is misleading, because what happened did not happen on the bus or even on Greyhound property. However, as a result of having ridden the bus, I was waiting for a friend of mine to pick me up from the bus station and while I was waiting an interesting fellow offered me crack cocaine.   Here’s how it went down:

Him: Hey, you wanna smoke – I’d like to get you high and do things to you.

Me: Ignore him… ignore him… ignore him…

He walked over to me and said, “Hey, let’s smoke some shit and get crazy,” and opened his hand up to show me two vials in his hand.  I’m such a dork that I said, “What is that?”  He said, “That’s rock, baby.  Wanna smoke?”

Yeah, no.  Definitely not.  Nope.  Thanks, but no thanks.  (Crack is whack)

He asked me if I was waiting for someone.  What was his first clue?  The giant suitcase I was standing next to while watching the cars to keep an eye out for Mike.  I told him that I was expecting my friend any second.  He walked away, but said he would be back and when he came back, if I was still there, he was going to get me high.

Now, this has never happened to me before, not even for weed at the Oregon Country Fair (WTF?)  Nobody has ever offered me doses or hits.  I even had a difficult time finding the black market in Chinatown in NYC.  (True story)

The happy ending: Mike picked me up and I never saw Crack-Man again.  I do have a very weird story now, though.

Yesterday I took some video of our new house and posted it to Facebook.  Then I hung out in downtown PDX until Carolyn finished work at 4:20 and we came home together.   Adam cooked avocado chicken that was to die for (YUM!).  I was supposed to go out with Lauren, but we kind of mutually flaked on each other and rescheduled for Thursday night.

Tomorrow I want to go back downtown and just walk around for a while aimlessly.  Who knows what I’ll find!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Little had an IEP meeting today that went exceptionally well.  She is almost all caught up and a “normal” kid.  They suspect she’ll end up in a gifted program.  We knew that all along.  Big is excited to go to public high school.  She just needs to finish up her exams and she’s ready to be done with her school in Baton Rouge.  She is going to end up having a month off between semesters because her school ends in December and the second semester here doesn’t begin until February.  Lucky kid!

So I wrote about this place that I found in Portland that seemed perfect for us a couple of weeks ago.  It was described as being in a nice neighborhood, a good school district, the property owner was just delightful, and it felt *right*.  Well, I made arrangements to see it on Saturday after I had lunch with my family.  My sister went with me as the voice of reason, since I am known to be a little impulsive.  It was every bit as perfect as I had hoped, but better.  As it turns out, I really like my neighbor, Maxine.  She is also a redhead and moved recently from Baton Rouge.  We are going to grow tomatoes together (actually she says Toe-mah-toes because she’s from Australia originally).

The back yard is cute as can be.  The fireplace is warm and cozy.  It’s quiet quiet quiet even though it’s in the city.  You can even hear the train once in a while from down the road.  It’s also private private private.  You can’t even see the street from the house.  I like that a lot.  So YES!  Positive thinking pays off.

In the end, even my sister agreed that I should take it and I did!  We now are official residents of Oregon and now the true work begins – moving across the country in the middle of winter.  You can do it, Otto.

I’m leaving in just a couple of days, so I’ve started to pack up things I need take with me – pictures of the kids and gifts are all I’ve really managed to pack yet. I got a copy of my lease ledger from my property manager to take with me. I’ve always paid my rent early here, so that’s got to be in my favor! My sister is picking me up on Saturday from the airport and we are going to (hopefully) look at a couple of houses before having dinner with our Mom in Portland. (Mental note: I need to still find a good place for us to eat and make a reservation)

I’m going to stay with some friends from Charlotte that moved to Portland to begin my trip. They are right in Portland and it will be good to be in Portland on the weekend. I’m super excited to see their (almost brand) new baby. I’d like to babysit for them and let them have an evening out while I’m there. On Monday I’m planning to surf over to Vancouver to stay with Adam and Carolyn. Carolyn is super sweet and is letting me use her car during the day while she is at work so I can drive around Portland. I’m so lucky to have good friends. Then I’m planning to go down to Eugene and visit with friends there and if I still don’t have a house nailed down I’ll look for a house there. I’ll stay one night with my grandma, who is 90 and has serious dementia. That should be interesting. Then I think I’ll go back up to Portland to finish out the trip on Jeremy and Diana’s couch before heading back to the airport on the 14th. Busy 10 days!! I am so lucky to have great friends who are actively pulling for us on that end.

I spoke to a woman today who is renting out a uniquely private duplex. I felt instantly like it was fate. Her daughter lives in the other house of the duplex and her daughter moved back to Portland after living in Baton Rouge. Coincidence? I hope not! So we talked for like 20 minutes on the phone and I sent her an email and now it’s a matter of destiny. If it’s meant to happen, the place will still be available next weekend when I land in Portland and I can pay her the deposits and spend the rest of the week looking for a job. That would be ideal.

Job hunting is going pretty well. As it turns out, Portland has a good market for bilingual people – in any field. There are a lot of social service agencies and they prefer to hire bilingual people. The hospitals prefer it. The city and county governments seem to prefer bilingual in their postings. I applied for a job in a law office today even. Despite feeing fairly good about finding a job in Portland, everybody I know is trying to convince me that I will never find a job in Oregon and I might as well give up. (Maybe that’s why they don’t have a job?)

Failure isn’t an option, people. I will be a receptionist for $10.00/hr if necessary. I don’t have to make $41,600/year any longer teaching overindulged kids in private school in Baton Rouge. After paying nearly $8,000/year on (really lousy) health and dental insurance and the $15,000/year it costs us to put both of the girls in private school here, I can make substantially less and our standard of living will not really change. (I will go off on a rant about the health insurance another day) My net income after paying for insurance and tuition ended up being a receptionist wage anyway.

So to sum up:
1) Good thoughts about the house I want to rent. If it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t meant to be.
2) Stop trying to convince me to give up on the job market. I have a unique skill that is in demand.
3) I’ll be in Portland at this time next week!