Return to Normalcy

[tikistitch]

So, we've been back in the USA exactly a week, and wanted to list out things we've accomplished or not accomplished so far in regards our Reintegration into Society.

• Jet lag: 90% gone. We still occasionally wake up at 4 am and can't sleep for an hour or so, but no more falling face down on the desk at work to snooze through the 3 o'clock meeting with the boss.
  
  
• Reorientation in space and time: accomplished! Absolutely no more waking up in the middle of the night terrified as to why the train has stopped running, wondering where is the bathroom, and where the hell country am I in? Now we know, Casa de Tikistitch, where Mr. Tiki is off somewhere reading a Potter book.
  
  
• Unpacking: at about 70% and holding. We have to wonder about this since it's so easy, but we can't force ourselves along. For example, on bag still holds several pairs of clean socks. We had extras since we did a load of laundry, and then ceased wearing shoes with socks for a couple of weeks. So, each morning, we go to the suitcase, and pull out a fresh pair of socks. Why not just put them in the drawer? 'Tis a puzzlement. We could even do it now. But, we won't.
  
  
  
  
• Yellowjackets: 100% gone gone gone! This was part of the terrfying week before we left, when the exterminator promised that they'd slowly quit using our computer room as a clubhouse. But, they didn't. And we returned to find out computer room coated in a 1-inch thick carpeting of yellowjacket bodies, plus some new friends buzzing in the curtains. Repeated calls to the erstwhile exterminator finally persuaded on of their associates to spread 16 different kinds of poison around our siding. We will probably have to live our lives as mutants. Ding dong, the wasps are dead!
  
  
• Tummy troubles: OK, you don't want to know about this, but mostly gone away, although, our appreciation for American food still hasn't snapped back into place. It's specifically a US foodstuff avoidance syndrome, too, as we eagerly snarfed up every darned pakora & morsel of garlic naan at the Indian place last night. But Lean Cuisine pizza? Feh. And we must have at leat 2% fat milk in order to appreciate a latte. It's so different from countries where you can have a random meal at the airport and it's absolute brilliant. We'll start eating pretty soon, but it's odd to see how most of what we consume when we're at home in the USA isn't really food at all, but just things you put in your mouth to keep it busy. Also, at least we've now been to Safeway enough times that the fridge holds a bit more than 5-month-old cottage cheese and a half jar of pineapple chutney.
  
  
• Cable TV: Around 65%. This was a heartbreaker, as Mr. Tikistitch elegantly programmed our TiVo to treasure every morsel of Quality TV during our absence. Then, days after we left, our next door neighbor disconnected their cable, only to have the tech guy cut off our feed by mistake. This led to a DVR full of dead air, and some unhappy customers. Our almost apologetic cable company restored us to the feed, and after reprogramming TiVo, we managed to make it work again with whatever new crap the cable company also pulled to defeat it. And, we are slowly aquiring our shows, only scattered, and out of order. I think we've managed to be 100% on Big Love (the show that might finally do for me for polygamists what Six Feet Under did for morticians), and almost there on John From Cincinnati (though I want to strangle Milch for sheer waste of my time--he's on my List unless he brings back Al motherfucking Swearingen). We might be still missing some Entourage, though the glorious realization is that Ari Gold is awesome even totally out of sequence--much love to Jeremy Piven. And we're sorely lacking on Flight of the Conchords, though this is another gem that maybe is even better out of sequence, especially with multiple repeats because you're not sure what episode and then just get sucked in--it's difficult to explain this show, although you can kind of imagine "What if The Monkees TV show was absolutely stone brilliant, plus they had adorable accents?" but we're through just being a fan of the show, we really want Bret and Jermain to bring their New Zealand tourism posters and come live with us and have bad band meetings and rehearse, because they are really the most lovely thing on God's green earth.
  
  
• Running: we're doing it again, only really really really really really REALLY really slow. Oh, so slow. And we were slow before. So this is REALLY slow.
  
  
• Photo album: done! We're just going to steal the one Mr. Tiki did. He's so much more organized, really.
  
  
• Tidying up: *gah* OK, don't even mention this one. Criminy....