Lockdown – Day 15

Written by Pat on March 30th, 2020

Shae created a Tik Tok account. For the dog.

Lockdown – Day 13

Written by Pat on March 28th, 2020

It’s only Day 13? It feels like at least day 31. Then again, does it matter? Time is meaningless, we’re all in our own version of Groundhog Day now. There’s snow on the ground again, I actually volunteered to take part in the run to the grocery store today, and I HATE going to the grocery store. But, when you need more beer, you need more beer.

Speaking of adult beverages, this lockdown continues to find new ways to suck. For Christmas, Shae’s parents got me a kit to make my own bourbon. Basically, you put some “moonshine” and some chard into the barrel, let it sit for about 3 months, and enjoy. Well, Saturday seemed like as good a time as any to finally crack into it. I’d love to say how great the bourbon was, but I can’t. I have no idea how it turned out because the barrel was completely dry. I have no idea where the booze went, but it’s not into my glass. There aren’t any signs of leakage on the mantel where we stored the barrel or any other indications, but my booze was gone! Shae contacted the distillery that sold the kit and they’ve had this happen once before. They’re going to give us another kit, but that doesn’t do me any good now! That’s another three months to wait! Another middle finger from 2020.

Lockdown – Day 5

Written by Pat on March 20th, 2020

Apparently we didn’t write a post for Day 4. Who can even tell what day we’re on at this point? No one knows what day it is, the dog is confused about why we’re all home all the time. We got the normal Colorado spring snow storm, so for the past two days we’ve been stuck inside. Hopefully it warms up soon.

The days stuck in the house are starting to take a toll on some members of the family (I won’t say who). During a game of Catan, I rolled an 11 and the rest of the family stared at the dice for at least 10 seconds unable to add 6 and 5. I continue to be terrified how much we’ll deteriorate the longer this goes.

Lorigan Lockdown – Day 3

Written by Pat on March 18th, 2020

The sun was out today, a nice break between yesterday’s rain and tomorrow’s snow. We actually got a nice walk in, even if we had to deal with a minor catastrophe with Ella’s bike chain (it’s fine now). Nothing exciting today; everyone at work is still feeling the stress of being stuck at home, Shae is still working on puzzles, the kids are still mixing school work with running around and driving me like crazy.

I figured out that my poor Internet performance the past couple of days was my network’s fault, rather than Comcast. This led to me spending half the day working to improve my network so my video conferencing doesn’t sound like a stuttering robot. Super productive day!!! Let’s keep it going.

Lorigan Lockdown – Day 2

Written by Pat on March 17th, 2020

Is it really only Day 2? Hard to believe all the positivity from yesterday has given way to cabin fever and frustration less than two full days in. Work folk were definitely testy today, this is going to be a FUN few days. Shae is passing the days by sewing, quilting, doing puzzles, and whatever else she does every other day. She’s been practicing for this, this is SHAE TIME!

Lorigan Lockdown – Day 1

Written by Pat on March 16th, 2020

How’d I spend my first day teleworking? Driving into work, of course. Since word came out late in the weekend, we decided a few of us should be onsite for the morning to make sure everyone got the word on our new policy and answer any questions. Shockingly, there were only a couple of people who showed up. Tell everyone we’re shut down for a day for a full blown blizzard and half the place decides they have to somehow drive in; forced teleworking for COVID-19 and everyone actually stays home. Go figure…

I got home from work to the kids actually doing their school work…who would’ve expected that? Maybe this won’t be too bad. We even went on a nice walk around the neighborhood and the kids played outside until it was dark. I’m sure things will continue to go smoothly the whole time…I don’t see any way this turns ugly. Worst part was I had to drink my own beer during our monthly retro meeting rather than enjoying the free beer at work, good thing we stocked up. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve taken a growler to-go from work when I stopped by this morning. Live and learn.

Lorigan Lockdown – Day 0

Written by Pat on March 15th, 2020

It happened…as of today I’m directed to telework and the kids are doing remote learning from home. For at least the next two weeks (and likely a lot longer) the Lorigan clan is going to be cooped up together in the house. As we spend our days trying not to kill each other while trapped together, Shae decided I should write about the experience. I’m pretty sure this ends with a post describing why I’m never leaving the basement and never want to talk to anyone in this house ever again, but we’re not there yet so let’s go…

Thursday night word came out that the kiddos’ school (and all schools in the county) would be closing for the next two weeks. We saw this coming, but looks like Shae gets to deal with the craziness for an extra week. Sucker! Well, at least until I get the word I’m forced to work from home too.

Since it looks like we’re going to be holed up for a while, we decided to do a little shopping over the weekend. Things weren’t too insane, there was plenty of beer so I’m good for a while. We stocked up on plenty of food, but if we have to live off of what we have for too long things are gonna get weird by the end. I’m not looking forward to lentils with spaghetti sauce, but let’s see where this takes us.

Sunday evening, word came down that I’d be teleworking starting Monday. The kids also got their school assignments for the week, so at least they’ll have work to do for the week. This should be fun.

Goodbye Lunchbox

Written by Pat on May 14th, 2019

Shit. I wish I had a good way to start this post, but I don’t. I tried about 10 different things, and they all suck. You’d think that somewhere in the last week (or months) a good lede would have come to me, but nothing has. Pretty much as long as Shae and I have been the Lorigans, Lunchbox has been a part of the family. He’s been with us through everything: the good, the bad, and everything in between. And now he’s not. Shit.

I apologize in advance for the length of the rambling below. Lunchbox has been a huge part of our lives and I have a lot to say. Hard to believe, but Lunchbox is more than just a hilarious name even if that’s pretty much everyone’s initial reaction upon meeting him.

Back on April 28th, 2007, Shae and I were focused on a little event called our wedding. While we were busy with BBQ, beer, horseshoes, and a margarita fountain (and that whole ceremony thing too, I guess), we had no way of knowing that about 400 miles away there was a completely separate event that would also shape the next 12 years of our lives. We wouldn’t find out until three months later, but while Shae and I were saying our vows and partying, the dog who would be named Lunchbox was being born in Ramona, CA.

Like so many other things Shae and I have done, the decision to get a dog was made with almost no planning. From the day we’d moved into our house we had talked about getting a dog “someday”, but were never really serious about it. Then, one evening in July we saw a couple walking their dog and said, “Pretty dog! Screw it, let’s get a puppy!” An hour or so on Craigslist searching for Labrador puppies and a couple of emails later, we had an appointment to look at some pups. We drove to Ramona the next day to look at the Lab puppies and, shockingly, they were adorable. The smallest of the pups was ridiculously skinny, and clearly the other dogs took all of his food. Of course, as we interacted with the puppies the little guy was the one who came up to us and instantly bonded with Shae and me. There was no question, we’d found our dog. I wish there was some great story about the dog’s name, but honestly his name comes from a movie where someone called another character a “Tubby Lunchbox” and I thought Lunchbox would be a great name for a dog.

We knew Lunchie was really scrawny, but it wasn’t until we looked back at photos that we realized just how dangerously skinny he was. It was a good thing we adopted him when we did, or who knows what would have happened to the guy. We started him in training about a week after we brought him home, and our trainer was appalled at how thin he was. Once we explained that he’d actually put on several pounds since we got him she decided not to report us for puppy starvation, but she still made sure to monitor the little guy’s growth. The first puppy class was somewhere between sad and hilarious. Lunchbox wanted so badly to play with the other puppies, but he was also terrified so he hid out under our chair and peed a lot. A week later he realized he was missing out on a great thing and he became the wild dog of puppy class. He’d go on to be a 2x Top Dog and get his Canine Good Citizenship certificate, but I’ll never forget his cowering under the chair the first day.

For the first year and a half of his life, wherever we went the Box went with us. He was well known at Jitters (our neighborhood coffee shop) and Trolley Stop (our neighborhood deli). He was a huge “help” around the house on all of our projects, especially painting. We even took him with us on our annual camping trip to Death Valley. Because the rocks and ground were so hot, we got him some special hiking boots. He looked completely ridiculous, but for whatever reason he thought they were fun and just went crazy running around whenever we put them on him. Back in those days, Lunchbox was an occasional contributor to this blog (with a pretty foul mouth) and had his own Twitter account. Mr. Box would have been happy for things to continue on the way they were, but then in October of 2008 his life was thrown into chaos by the arrival of two tiny little people.

From the day we brought Ella and Jackson home, Lunchbox was obsessed with them; they were HIS babies. He guarded them while they slept, and would sleep by their crib if they were crying. He even got to go on lots of walks around the neighborhood with the kiddos riding in their stroller. Sadly for the pup, over time the kids took more and more of our attention and he got less. Lunchie didn’t get to go everywhere with us like he used to, but I think he was happy with the trade to have his kiddos. Jackson, especially, had a special bond with his yellow dog and we could always count on Lunchbox to calm Jackson down if needed.

We still aren’t entirely sure what happened, but in the summer of 2014 the Lorigan humans made a trip to Disneyland and left the Lorigan dog at his normal kennel. We don’t know if it was bad food, the ridiculous heat, some combination, or something completely different, but when we picked up LB from the kennel he was in awful shape. The kennel spun some story about him being sick when he got there, but that was complete bullshit (we obviously never took him or any dog back there and made sure to recommend against them to anyone who asked). He was severely dehydrated, and had several other issues. We took him to a 24-hour vet and got some fluids into him, but he still wasn’t great. Over the next few days, our pup seemed to get over the initial issues but he was having serious problems. Based on discussions with our vet, we were fairly certain LB had some pretty serious issues and only had a few weeks or (best case) months. We basically decided to just enjoy the time we had left, while also starting the search for our next pup. We thought if Lunchie could hold out until we got the puppy maybe he could pass on some of that great training (did I mention he was a 2x Top Dog?)

Of course, we had no idea what was in store for us when we brought Whiskey into our home. I have no idea why, but bringing home a new pup seemed to completely revitalize Lunchbox. The second we brought her into the house he started jumping around and playing with her like he was young again. Shae and I were both shocked, it was like he jumped in a time machine. Over the next couple of weeks, LB was still our grumpy old man-dog, but most of his health issues just magically resolved themselves. I still have no clue why he turned around, but we have enjoyed the past five years with him.

The move to Colorado was an adjustment for Lunchbox. He loved his new yard, but the stairs were not his jam (I’ll miss a lot of things about the Box, but the barking at the bottom of the stairs until he realized he could just walk up them won’t be one). Then there was his battle with a deer. Well, battle may be giving LB too much credit; the deer went after him while he was…ummm…relieving himself…and gave him a nice puncture in his side to go with bruises from being dragged around the yard. And, of course, the snow…oh the snow. Our San Diego dog had no interest in that white stuff. While Whiskey would run around having the time of her life in the snow, Lunchie just gave us his snow look, turned back around, and ran back in the house.

Several times since the incident five years ago, Lunchbox has seemed like he was on his last legs and then managed to bounce back. About once a year we were prepped for the end and then a few days later he’d be back to his normal grumpy self. This time, he didn’t bounce back. After a rough week or so, last night Lunchie’s rear legs completely gave out and he was extremely uncomfortable all night. This morning, we took Lunchbox into the vet and had him put down. The vet was amazing at helping us deal with things, but Shae and I were still a complete mess.

So, I guess that’s it. Lunchbox was an amazing member of our family and the perfect dog for us. Today is tough: the kids are crushed, Whiskey is confused, and Shae and I are just trying to hold it together. I can’t imagine life without him, but I guess we’re going to figure that out. I’ll miss him running to greet us with a sock in his mouth, even though the sock was buried under 10 of his toys. I’ll miss the looks from everyone around me when I yell out Lunchbox’s name in a crowded dog park. If I’m being honest, I’m even going to miss his stupid barking at the bottom the stairs.

Thanks, Lunchbox. Sleep well, buddy.

The Lorigans Move (The Shit Show Continues!)

Written by Pat on July 4th, 2017

Warning: This post is going to be long. Way too much crazy shit happened during our move process and I don’t want to leave any of the “good” stuff out, so if you don’t have some time to spend reading right now maybe save this for the next time you need to spend a while in the bathroom. 

Spoiler Alert: We made it to Colorado Springs and got moved into our house. Now that that’s out of the way, enjoy.

Sunday (6/18):
Well, we’re finally starting our trip to Colorado Springs! First stop: Las Vegas. Of course, being us, nothing could be easy so we’ve spent the last two weeks in Lockwood (Shae and kiddos) and Lompoc (me) because the movers came and packed up all of our stuff at the end of May. Rather than spend weeks on air mattresses with no clothes we decided to move out of our house and start the adventure early.Things actually went relatively well packing up and getting on the road. Shae and I only had one minor spat during packing (seriously, how do you leave a load of laundry to do until 9 PM the night before we leave??), which anyone who has ever watched us pack up a tent should find amazing. Since we have two cars to get to Colorado, we are caravanning: Shae has the kids, dogs, and most of our stuff and I have…well…silence and a calm drive.Of course, we picked travel dates that happened to align with a crazy heat wave. We hit 118 degrees on the way to Vegas! Shae being Shae, she decided that despite the fact people were bursting into flames on the side of the road we had to stop at some artsy thing outside of Vegas where someone had stacked a bunch of huge, painted rocks and go take pictures (Shae says I need to tell you it’s called Seven Magic Mountains…whatever, it’s a bunch of stacked rocks). Since the ground was hot enough to fry an egg on, we had to put our special shoes on the dogs’ feet so they could go out with us. As much of a pain as it was to get them on the dogs’ feet, the ladies loved them. We got tons of comments from all kinds of girls. I may have to remember those things.

Our hotel is pretty nice, extremely dog friendly, and we have a nice little lawn right outside our room for the dogs to crap on. The kids enjoyed the pool (of course), and I enjoyed a good beer or two at the restaurant/bar (of course). The only problem we had with the hotel was getting all of our stuff from the parking garage to the room. We didn’t plan things out well, so Shae and I ended up carrying all of our crap (including dog dishes/food) from the garage to the hotel in triple digit heat. Not the dumbest thing we’ve done, but not our finest moment of planning.

Hopefully the rest of the trip/move goes this smoothly. I’m sure it will.

Monday (6/19):
On to Grand Junction, Colorado today. This is our longest travel day of the trip, clocking in at about 530 miles and about 9 hours (counting dog and kid stops). The drive was pretty uneventful, kids were really good considering the amount of time spent in the car over the past two days. 

Even thought it was still over 100 degrees and everyone just wanted to get to the hotel and relax, someone (looking at you, Shae!) decided we HAD to get stop and take a family selfie in front of the “Welcome to Colorado” sign.

The only issue that popped up today was with the closing on the Niblick house. They were supposed to close today, but apparently there was some “minor” paperwork issue with the buyer’s lender. Sounds like everything will get taken care of tomorrow and we should still be lined up to close on our house in Colorado Springs on Wednesday.

Tuesday (6/20):
We made it to Colorado Springs today! The drive was OK, but we found the kids’ car limit. Unfortunately, it was about two hours outside of the Springs. The last couple of hours were apparently filled with fighting and arguing, at least in Shae’s car (my car continued to be calm and silent). The kids are really excited to finally be in their new city. The kiddos also got to see our new home today, too. We did our final walkthrough and the sellers were onsite cleaning the house so we had talked with them quite a bit. They have a daughter the same age as the kiddos, so the kids ran all over the house and found all the best hiding places and got the inside info on the house and yard. Ella may already have a new bestie here. Of course she does. Things are still a little tense though, because we haven’t closed on the Niblick house yet. Apparently, the paperwork issue should be resolved but the lender still hasn’t signed off. Not sure what’s going on, but everyone assures us that it’s not a big deal. I’m starting to have doubts we’re going to be able to close on our new home on Wednesday, but it sounds like we should still get moved in this week. I guess the kids just get more days in the pool.

Wednesday (6/21):
Well, as I worried about, things are still held up in San Diego so we are going to have to extend our hotel stay and request an extension on our closing here in the Springs. I’m still not sure what’s going on with the Niblick sale, but I keep hearing it should close any minute now and then we can close here as soon as everything is wired over. I’m starting to get pretty worried because if we don’t close here on Thursday I’m going to have to reschedule the delivery of all of our stuff and we’ll probably have to go the weekend (at least) without beds, toys, TV, etc.On the bright side, Ella made yet another instant friend. She was down swimming at the hotel pool (while I supervised and enjoyed some free hotel beer), and somehow managed to make friends with a girl about her age from Missouri. They played for about an hour, until I dragged Ella away. So far, she’s made two “friends” in our two days in Colorado; I think her worries about making new friends may have been unfounded.

Thursday (6/22):
Well, shit. Since we still haven’t closed on our Niblick house, we aren’t going to be able to close here in the Springs today. That means I have to reschedule delivery of all of our stuff because we aren’t going to be able to accept delivery Friday morning if we don’t have keys yet. To make things even better, the next available date for delivery is July 10th. So we are going to get to sleep on air mattresses and live out of our suitcases for two weeks or so. You know, assuming we ever get our house.To make things even better, we had to move hotels because there are no rooms at the place we were staying. Yet another pet deposit. On the bright side, both kids like the pool at the new hotel (Doubletree) even better, especially Jackson (although Ella misses her new friend from the old hotel). I also like the bar (good Happy Hour and good beer!), and there are quite a few good places to eat within walking distance of the hotel. We finally got some clarity on the issues with the closing in San Diego. Huge shout out to our SD realtor (Thanks, Kat!) for doing everything she could (including calling from alternate phone numbers) to get the buyers’ lender to finally get off their ass and commit to getting things moving on Friday. We’ve been assured that they are going to send over the clear to close first thing Friday morning, so things should move on the SD side early. There’s still a slight chance we’ll have a new home tomorrow! That said, I’ve already booked the weekend at the hotel; I’ve learned my lesson by now.

Friday (6/23):
And the hits keep on coming. The lender did finally send over their clear to close first thing in the morning, but due to all of the delays all of the paperwork had to be redone and we still haven’t officially closed. Word is that the buyers are signing all of their docs this evening, but then we get papers to sign sent over at 6PM. Looking at the docs, they are all dated from Monday! Why are we just getting these? Even if we send them in now the soonest we can close is Monday, which is also the day the lock on our loan here in the Springs expires. What the hell??? I’m getting a beer. And another one. I give up.

Sunday (6/25):
The weekend was pretty uneventful with the exception of the kids swimming so much that Ella got cuts on her feet from the bottom of the pool. The kids also managed to make a new set of friends at the pool each day. We also found a pretty good pizza place, but the kids were sick of pizza after the second trip in two days. We are still at the hotel, but we’ve received word everything is signed and will process Monday morning. Suuuure it will. I’m really confident. We’ve got an appointment to sign docs here at 2PM so if things actually go as planned we’ll get keys and be able to sleep in our new house Monday night. I’m sure this will work out. We’re due right?

Monday (6/26):
What. The. Hell?? Even when things seem to go well, they suck. We got word early in the day that everything went through on the Niblick house and we have officially closed. Yay! Sounds like things are all working out, and we’re on schedule to close tonight. We get everything packed up from the hotel (it looks like a federal disaster area after the kids spent 4 nights in the room, and they make us put deposits for the dogs??), and head out to get lunch before the doc signing. The signing goes well right up until the end. The dogs and kids were both outstanding (no one even noticed we had dogs laying under the table until we told them). Things were great, up until we went to sign the last set of docs to get our keys and they mentioned the closing date is Tuesday because they hadn’t received the wire of funds from SD when they setup the closing. Seriously? Even when we sign docs for an hour we don’t get keys? Shit!!! Well, back to the Doubletree (luckily they had a room ready), too bad Ella’s feet hurt too bad to enjoy swimming.

Tuesday (6/27):
Woohoo! We finally got keys and have our house! Holy shit! It’s about time. Of course, being us, even today didn’t go smoothly.I finally had to go into work, I could only take so many days off before people forget I exist. Things go relatively well at the new office, although it took me about 3 hours to get my badge properly setup to grant me access to my office. Compared to the past week, that’s the least issues I’ve had with anything. Shortly after lunch, I get a call from Shae that our funds from CA have finally come through and we’ve got the go ahead to go get our keys. I head on over to the title office, while Shae gets stuck in traffic (seriously??). While I’m waiting, our title person comes and tells us that they don’t have authorization from our lender to release our money because they’re still waiting on some paperwork from CA. Again, What the hell? We were told by the lender everything was good and now there’s more issues? In the end, we had to sign a couple more forms and the escrow people on both sides had to talk a bit but things finally got ironed out and we got our keys. YAY!


So, that’s our saga. I haven’t done the craziness and stress justice, but just know it was pretty ridiculous. We are loving our new house, although it’d be nice if we had beds to sleep on. At least the delay is giving us time to paint and get carpet replaced before everything is here. The neighborhood is great; the kids made a new friend on day one (granddaughter of one neighbor) and hung out in their inflatable pool. There are tons of kids for them to play with, and we even got cookies delivered from the “welcoming committee” family that lives just up the block. I wish we hadn’t had to deal with all the insanity, but things have been great since we finally got keys. 

Dear Niblick Dr,

Written by Shae on May 31st, 2017

To our little house on Niblick Dr:  I just want to say thank you.  Thank you for being the perfect first home for us.  Thank you for protecting us during the storms and keeping us safe.  Thank you for putting up with the crazy kids and dogs and our numerous house guests.  Thank you for teaching us so much about home ownership.

 

From the moment we walked in, 10 years ago, I knew right away that Niblick Dr would be our home.  It was quirky and had a ton of personality, and we instantly fell in love.  Over the years we have added our own little touches and turned it into our home.  Sure, we never got to do some of the projects we had in mind, but that didn’t make it any less “home” for us.  

 

Over the last 10 years, Niblick Dr, has held many firsts for us.  Soon after moving in, Pat and I got our first dog together.  Lunchbox may be a cranky, potty mouthed, old man now, but as soon as we got him, he fit right in!

 

After Lunchbox we found out that I was pregnant!  Pat and I put so much work into getting their room perfect for them.  I like how they have shared a room all these years, but I guess it’s time for them to each have their own space at the new house.  

 

Niblick Drive is the first and only house the twins have ever lived in.  The day we brought them them home it really made our house feel complete.  This is the house they took their first steps in and said their first words in.  The first time one of them got sick and I had to sit in a cool bathtub with them was in this house.  The first time they rode a bike and the first time they fell off their bikes was here too.  Over the years we have marked the passage of time on the hallway doorjamb as we watched them grow taller and taller.  The doorjamb has gotten rather dirty and gross as time has gone by, and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to clean it.  I feel like if I do, and all the markings come off, I won’t remember what it was like when they were at each stage.  I know it is rather silly since I have a million pictures from those times, but I just can’t do it.  I did transfer all those marks to a piece or parchment paper so I can put them in the new house, but it won’t be the same.  

 

 

Our little house on Niblick Dr has seen us at our highest and lowest points.  It is where Pat and I learned what it meant to be married and where we took that marriage and made it into a true partnership.  I almost feel like starting our life in a smaller home forced us to be in the same room together and hash out any problems that have come up.  It makes me feel better about moving into such a large home where we will each have our own spaces.  So again, thank you Niblick Drive for helping us create this amazing life we have and for holding onto so many memories.  You will be missed.