excelsior

While I was out doing laundry and getting the car Jiffy Lubed yesterday, my husband was saying his goodbyes to the folks with whom he's worked for the past six years and change. My school adventures may be over, but his are just beginning. When we return to Boston, we will switch hats: I'll be the one earning the wage (albeit not much of one, as a state court clerk) and he'll be the one shouldering the backpack and heading off to the classroom (although he'll be doing research and teaching, rather than struggling through basic intro-level classes, and plus he gets a stipend as a TA. Even with roles reversed, he's still and will always be higher-utility than I am).

Apparently it's become somewhat of a trend among the Silicon Valley software engineering set, of late, to abandon software engineering and Silicon Valley in favor of other stuff you'd been meaning to do. P. and V., our old homebrewer friends, moved to Southern California last year and had a baby; now P. is opening his own microbrewery. Another guy left the company to travel to South America for some sort of grown-up Peace Corps effort. And at least one of my husband's coworkers is even heading to law school (good luck at CLS, A.!).

My husband retains an affection for the Valley that, at least as I perceive it, is stronger than any of his departed peers' connections to the place. I'm okay with the area, basically; and I'll confess that I dashed straight to Burrito Real upon arrival, like an addict in search of a fix, and promptly devoured an entire chico con mole doused liberally with salsa asada. You can't get those anywhere but here, and I miss them terribly. But I don't get homesick for here the way he does. He credits the sushi, the weather, the taste of the ambient energy level in the air. I credit the burritos, but that's about it. Unless the need arises for me to retake the California bar a year from now (my February is already booked in MA), I'm not sure when we'll be back.

So this weekend we're heading up to Mendocino, one last time (for now), to the wonderful Elk Cove Inn. It was the first place to which I ever escaped from law school, and now, appropriately, it will be the last. After we get back to Boston, early next week, blogging will resume apace. Until then, please join me in happily observing the dissipation of bar exam stress. (Imagine the noise a drain makes, when you unstop it at the end of a long hot bubble bath.)

And so it goes.