[Update, June, 2021: Statements below about where I/we live “now” will need to be updated, sometime. We’re heading out on a lengthy — months-long — road trip, during which we’ll have no real address to speak of. If you’re so inclined, you can follow reports of our progress here, in a separate blog which I’ve set up primarily for our families to keep tabs on the adventure.]
In brief: North Florida, USA, with The Missus. We currently live in an apartment, in a nice complex. Before that we lived in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood with many trees. (I love trees.)
My step-kids once lived nearby but no longer do. The Stepdaughter is down towards South Florida, near the Atlantic coast; The Stepson, in Las Vegas. We see them when we can, although as with many families in mid-2020, we don’t know when we might again get together. That aside, we have a nice life.
I will never, never get used to Florida’s “climate.” (They don’t have months-long seasons here. They have day-long Atmospheric Events, punctuating long stretches of heat and/or humidity and/or rain and/or, sometimes, inexplicable cold spells.) I don’t think any of us has any particular allegiance to the area anymore, but we’re stuck until we can retire, unload the house, and/or get struck by lottery lightning.
(We don’t actually play the lottery — not often. But, well, who knows. Maybe a winning ticket will blow in through an open window.)
The Missus and I first met on-line, in 1991, on the old Compuserve Information Service, or CIS. I was an aspiring fiction writer at the time, living in Virginia, on an exploratory leave of absence from my paying job with The Phone Company; she was in graduate school, working towards a Master’s in English with a focus on creative writing. The area of CIS where we met was called the Literary Forum, or simply LitForum (or LF). I’ve written about it here, in the post which (for some bizarre reason) attracts more spam commenters than any other on the blog.
We emailed and argued and flirted back and forth for a good while before actually meeting. I moved down thisaway in January, 1993, and we moved in together in October. We’ve been married since May, 2000.
The Missus is assistant director of a non-profit organization, the Innocence Project of Florida. IPF uses DNA (and some limited other) evidence to exonerate people imprisoned, often for decades, for crimes which they did not commit. I am insanely proud to be married to someone who does this for a living. Retirement looms for The Missus sometime around September, 2020.
We still argue and flirt via email. Also off-line.
We had cats, and cats, and more cats, for many years. We first had three indoor cats and a half-dozen half-tame, half-feral cats which we had at one time or another managed to catch, neuter, and release. Eventually we were down to one cat, ultimately none. All lost, as the business world says, via attrition. We probably won’t have cats again: The Missus eventually realized she’s allergic to cat fur.
We acquired The Pooch, a five-pound mini-Yorkshire terrier, in 2008. (Yorkies are hypoallergenic pets, hence no respiratory issues for The Missus.) We got her from the local Big Dog rescue group; that she had to be rescued from an abusive home never failed to flabbergast us. She died in September 2017, an event which left us reeling for a long time. Nonetheless, we know we’ll be en-dogged again at some point.
marta says
I knew you had a connection to The Innocence Project (clicked on the link ages ago), but either didn’t know or missed that your Missus was involved. That is very cool.
Our newish (we’ve had her almost a year now) dog was neglected before we met her at the Humane Society. Every day I ponder how anyone could not have cherished her.
John says
marta: We do know The Pooch’s backstory. We know she was adored by her original owners. We know about their troubled young grandson who was coming to live with them, and we know that they had to choose: Pooch, or grandson. So we understand why they had to divest themselves.
But the way she is sometimes… the cringing, which I mention above… and also the way she used to “duck and cover” whenever someone walked through a room or passed on the sidewalk while holding any sort of stick: a yardstick, tree branch, and so on… It’s hard not to conclude that she and the troubled grandson had indeed crossed each other’s path at some point.
But sheesh. She weighed 2 pounds and change when we got her. (She’s not fat now, but she’s up to 5.) That something so tiny would have had to learn evasive action…! Words fail.