2005: Operation Phoenix

To celebrate my sixth anniversary at Apple and the conclusion to Somara’s classwork in culinary school, we flew out to Phoenix for a week of job hunting.

Thankfully, it didn’t completely pan out and I’ll get to that.

Around the end of 2004, things were rather glum for me at Apple and to some extent Austin. I felt a change of scenery was needed. While Somara was gliding through school (she loved it and excelled in her classes), we discussed moving to Phoenix. Why? It was about the only city we could agree on.

• I didn’t want to live any place with a Winter resembling what I escaped from in the Nineties (aka Wisconsin or Illinois weather).
• Somara lived there in the early Nineties, she missed it.
• We had visited a couple times and always enjoyed ourselves.

Besides, any city my mother hates must be great. She said negative things about Austin in 1983 and look how wrong she was there!

We had started putting the gears in motion during my time on sick leave. The doctor wouldn’t let me return to work over my laryngitis so I could still pack boxes to put into storage which is what I did. Then when the day came to pack the moving truck, we’d have a head start. Somara then pressed her teacher who supposedly had leads for gigs out there. This gamble (mainly mine) had us pass up an opportunity down in San Antonio instead.

So we flew out there, rented a car and got a hotel room on the north side near I-17. We stocked up on groceries at the nearby Costco to save some money as well. Then I got ill around the second or third day which destroyed the vacation aspect for me. Wouldn’t have mattered, we had a hectic itinerary trying to land Somara a paid externship for school. I remember waiting around for her while she applied and interviewed at a couple resorts. One was in Scottsdale (a wealthy suburb) and another near downtown (I think). Meanwhile I tried to get an audience with the managers of the two Apple Stores on landing a Genius gig. Neither of them were committal beyond “move here and we’ll see.” Being overqualified didn’t help. Thus, the quest was turning into a bust for me.

It wasn’t all business. Somara and I took in the scenery: the new site in Glendale where the Coyotes and Suns would be playing in next Fall; Camel Back Mountain (from a distance); various things I can’t recall clearly. We didn’t have any luck visiting my friend Rad, he was busy working plus we didn’t give him much advance warning of our arrival.

Then cold feet set in for me, especially during one of the numerous trips around Phoenix’s belts. Despite my waning love of Austin then, I didn’t have to live in the car to get from Point A to Point B. Our future home was starting resemble Houston, Chicago and (ugh!) Southern California in this regard. This cascaded into further doubt for me: What about selling the house? Could we really live in an apartment with four cats? How long would it take me to land a job that paid adequately because Somara’s profession was going to be near minimum wage; etc. The list manifested into a dozen concerns. Enough to completely kill the move for me by the time we were on the plane home.

I was too late and probably still on the fence back in Austin sometime later. Somara received an offer with a resort in Scottsdale. Backing out wasn’t a feasible nor wise option because she had to have something happening before graduating in July. We accepted, hoping maybe something could happen to trigger a move West. (I did have an interview for Systems Engineer later on, a rare opportunity.)

The plan morphed into Somara packing up her truck with Wicca in tow for Phoenix. There they lived in an apartment around Mesa (a not so great suburb). I stayed behind with the other three cats; Nemo showed his anger over Somara’s absence by whizzing on the kitchen floor every morning for three weeks. What else was involved I forgot. Operation Phoenix turned into the Underpants Gnomes’ business plan. I never did really do much to facilitate Phase 2.

Around May, the really rough Summer of 2005 began. I had the house and chores all to myself. On the upside, Somara’s sudden departure forced me to join the 21st Century with the acquisition of our first cell phones. Being apart was rough on most days, especially on the wallet: paying for two households over a few months stunk.

As Summer drew to a close, I had to break the news to Somara, “Come home, we can’t afford this any longer and I’ve decided to stay in Austin.” I’m sure she was disappointed. The resort was going to start training her for better things but I think she knew the situation was getting too expensive to maintain.

It was a rough decision in the short run. We had a big tax bill the following year; My stubbornness on Phoenix probably cost Somara the better, wiser San Antonio opportunity; and money was a bit tight while she had to go job hunting. The HEB gig took a month to get.

Looking back, we did the smart thing by staying in Austin. When the economy tanked around late 2007, Phoenix was one of the hardest hit cities courtesy of Californiacators buying/flipping houses there. Matters continued to improve even through the rough patches which shortly followed.

If I could do it all over, I think I’d do it all the same just without the nasty cold I contracted. I can’t see myself scrimping up the money to buy Coyotes’ playoff tickets when the Red Wings will eat them alive this week.