Last day at work

Well today is my last day at SmallUniversity and it's kinda like the PhD defense - anticlimatic. I know HippieHusband is just itching to be packed and moved to YummyLargeCity. And this is a most stressful time for both of us - I can tell because we're arguing about a lot of dumb things. One of the seats in our car, Shepherd, is broken and I thought we could get it fixed, but it is stressing HippieHusband out a lot to think about adding yet another errand to do before we leave. He's acting like a real grouch.

Maybe part of his grouchiness is how uncertain our living situation will be in YummyLargeCity. And HippieHusband likes timelines, order, goals, contingency plans, and daytimers. It drives him nuts that I am not at all organized. In fact, this is the one and only time I will admit it, but I am the tiniest tinyest little bit of a flake. I had bought this green leather daytimer that was to help in the organization and planning of my time. You know for the usual suspects: meetings, lab tasks, the undergrads, drs appts etc. But then I lost it. Oh my god, on and off for a whole year, HippieHusband would ask me,

"So where's that really expensive green leather daytimer we bought you?"
"I dunno."
"What good is an organizer if you just lose it?"
"Arguably, no good at all."
"You just need to keep track of it," he would say with great disgust in his voice.

Then about a week ago when I was packing up my office, I found the expensive green leather daytimer! Triumphantly, I brought it home. And guess what HippieHusband said, "Great now you can use it." Then just to mock him, I left it out on our coffee table. Everyday, he'd walk by this big green thorn, which would prick him until he could stand it no longer and he would say, "Why don't you use your daytimer?!"

And frankly this move well, it's more my style. Fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. We've hired a moving company that puts a trailer in front of your home, you pack up the trailer, then they drive it to your new address, and you unload the trailer at your new place. The only hitch is that we don't actually have a new address. No apartment. Instead, our plan is to drive to YummyLargeCity, find an apartment and then forward that new address to the company who will notify the guy driving the trailer towards YummyLargeCity. We have about five days until the trailer shows up in the city. Of course to add to it, neither of us have actually been to YummyLargeCity. I know it's crazy. Meh!

I spent most of the morning with the lab tech and undergrad and listed what experiments and how they will carry this out step by step for the Fall Term. They both seemed a little unsettled at first, but when I told them that I would be available to talk on the phone or skype, they calmed down. The lab tech and I have agreed to check in weekly via the phone. I think some of this is not just for them but for me. I'm finding it hard to let go, especially because I feel like I built and ran the lab not just as a postdoc, but as a PI.

It becomes even harder when some of the faculty reiterate this fact. HippieHusband and I had lunch today with two of the senior faculty from SmallUniversity, GuruofSmallThings and ProfAgingHippie. GuruofSmallThings, looked at me, shook her head and asked what was going to happen to DrAdd'EmUp's lab now that I was leaving. I said, that I'm sure things will work out, he's got a plan for the fall.

HippieHusband's comment: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley"

Ah HippieHusband, if only you could remember this when it came to the usefullness of daytimers.