Another Day

Two weeks ago, news of my husband’s resignation from Microsoft came from Brier Dudley’s article in the Seattle Times, and included correct and incomplete information about what he is doing next. Yes, he has accepted a new job. No, it is not in Seattle. No, it is not at a start-up. No, it is not in California.  The job is in New York City.

Some of my friends are disappointed we are not moving to California. Before we lived here we lived in California, and we loved it. What’s not to love? A thousand miles of beaches? Nicer produce in an average Safeway than is available anywhere in Missouri? Yeah, yeah, earthquakes blah blah blah, mudslides blah blah, wildfires blah blah. I have reasons to admire San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento and Los Angeles.  I think the people who have that mentality that “Northern California is great but Southern California isn’t” need to go find someone to argue about Klingon grammar with and stay the hell away from me. Oh, yes and they have traffic but you can’t name a real city that doesn’t have traffic.  
Given what Otto has done in his career, we were right in assuming we’d be moving back to California.  It just happens that we’re not. 

Despite an endless, damp, gray 50F degree winter in Seattle this year, I have few complaints.  We raised three kids here. We learned to ride horses here. We enjoyed a ridiculous amount of great music here. We lived on the very best street in the whole entire city, walking distance to four great restaurants.  We made some incredible friends here.

Of all the many places I thought I might live someday, New York was not one of them.  Nineteen years ago, I would have said the same thing about Seattle. Twenty-seven years ago I would have said the same thing about Salt Lake City.