Why don't you make like a tree....

.... and get outta here.

The outside of my former abode.  The front porch was all mine and that was lovely.

The dishwasher-less kitchen.

Well, call me ginko, cherry, maple, tulip poplar or whatever you wanna, I'm outta my apartment on Roland Ave in Baltimore!  It was a cute little place, to be sure, and super convenient to work (hey, can't really beat a 10min walk) and Zeke loved going to the little grocery store a few blocks away to meet new friends.  But, after 4 years of no dishwasher, little to no storage space, no central air, weird/badly wallpapered bathrooms, and a W/D down in a scary scary basement populated by cave crickets it was time to move on.  Oh, not to mention the guy on the floor above me who liked to stomp around in bike shoes - you know, the kind with the metal clips on the bottom - at any and all hours and blare his TV loud enough that I could lie in bed and almost guess what he was watching.  Yeah, not going to miss that. 

The "cozy" (a.k.a. tiny) living area.

So, on to my nomadic summer, bouncing between places with Zeke at my side.  I've managed to keep my summer needs down to one large suitcase and a carry-on and that was a daunting task.  I selected 5 pairs of shoes to get me through from now until essentially the beginning of August.  "But wait, 5 pairs sounds like a good number of shoes," I hear you say.  "Surely it wasn't all that tough to select - and really, why do you need more than 1 or 2 pairs?"  To those of you thinking this or something similar, please refer to my previous post for more background reading. I still have a few more weeks of school followed by musical theater camp then the wedding week and the drive out to CA.... what's a girl to wear!??!  Oh and a friend's wedding, too!  The catch is, whatever I have with me now has to come in the car on the honeymoon.  With the dog, his crate/food/toys, Kevin's suitcase he'll need for the wedding week, and possibly/hopefully the "fourth" car companion, Flo.  My plant.  Some context:  There's a commercial where the opening line is, "My house is where plants came to die."  I relate very strongly to this.  I enjoy plants but despite my best intentions and constantly renewed promises to really truly keep this one alive and kickin' for a good long time... they all end up in the same sad state eventually.  Even a cactus.  But that's because it kept falling (or purposefully jumping...) off the window sill and it just gave up.  All but Flo.  She's a real trooper and has managed to stick it out with me for several years now.  I just can't see parting with a plant that has bravely hung in there and survived my benign neglect.   I've done quite a good job keeping Zeke healthy, even with his delicate bulldog constitution, but Zeke makes noise and lets me know when he needs attention of some sort.  Flo just helplessly sits on her stand, subtly starting to droop without my noticing, until somehow I mercifully remember to put the rest of the water from my bottle or drinking glass in her pot.  I'm a terrible plant parent.... Her sheer fortitude has won her a spot in the car. 

So, all four of us in the car and anything else we need to cram in the CR-V from coast to coast.  Oy vey.  Sure, the whole situation is a little displacing, and Zeke has just given up on trying to figure out just what the hell is going on, but it adds to the adventure of it all.  Just one step closer to finally being able to call CA home, weird as that still sounds.  Weird in a good, exciting, OMG sort of way, but weird nonetheless.  Luckily, that's a state in which I am perfectly comfortable existing.  Oh - did I mention that I also have my Lord of the Rings extended director's cut DVD trilogy along for the summer?  I sensed that a marathon might have to happen at some point.  Making space for that was an easy decision.  Boo-yeah.