Some Background

I live in southern California with my dog Annie, cat Piper, and fiancé John. I’m a college professor – love my job and the socal lifestyle. But it hasn’t always been so.

I’m originally from Texas (as is John) and I used to have a terrible, horrible job in industry, which never-the-less earned me plenty of money. (Like Opinionista says, “It’s pretty fascinating, when you think about it, how we’ve built a society based on making yourself deliberately miserable in order to achieve success and supposed happiness?”) So, one day I just quit.

Around that same time John’s dad had been diagnosed with cancer and was on his own personal mission to fight it in every possible way. While John and I were visiting his family in a small suburb of Houston, we did what most people do for fun on a Thursday night – we went to a school board meeting. John’s brother is a board member, so we got kick out of heckling him from the back. (Should they or should they not allow Coca-Cola vending machines….)

At the end of the meeting I jostled my way through the crowd over to the high school principal and asked her for a job. Two days later I was teaching math at the local high school. (Which, by the way, is located on an old farm road next to a cow pasture.)

John and I thought this was a good opportunity for me to do something I’ve always wanted and, at the same time, be able to help his mom and dad. So while John returned to our apartment in socal, I settled in to his old room at home with his parents.

Living with John’s parents for eight months was its own special kind of adventure. The stories below capture just a couple of the many unforgettable moments I enjoyed with them.