We live in the flight path of the airport. We are about a mile or two before landing, so we get a really good dose of noise. I thought living so close would be something like that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa goes apeshit and memorizes the flight schedules of each airline, rocking back and forth with her eyes bugged out.

Fortunately, it’s nothing like that. We don’t even notice them unless we want to. Sporadically we sit outside and watch. “Oh there goes another Southwest, oh man those Alaskans are huuge!” We can gauge how touristy the season is by the frequency of the planes.

It’s even become a comforting sign for me. When driving home from the hospital or school I see the planes headed for descent and I know I just have to follow them. They’re like a giant flock of homing birds I just have to join to make it home.

Mid Saturday morning I was just waking up, lying peacefully in bed thinking about the day. The sound of a military plane was unmistakeable. I heard the high pitched whir as it came closer, closer until it was just over us. My heart pounded in my chest. There was no reason a military plane would need to fly over us, especially so low, unless shit was going down. The whir was so loud I couldn’t hear my own breathing. I probably wasn’t breathing, I was terrified, my heart was beating as hard as it ever has.

The whir was still deafening as the plane flew towards the bay, where the military battleships are stationed. I waited for the inevitable explosion. Out of bed now, I ran to the open front door, making wide eyed contact with TBU. I waited for the bombs thinking, “This is it! We should have never moved to a military city!” I waited for the worst to happen. Flashes of marshall law, no internet or cell service and panicked fits of trying to find my mother were in my head.

Then nothing.

TBU spoke first, “I’ve been on Twitter all day and haven’t heard anything.” That broke the ice and I bursted out laughing. WTF was I so afraid of? Well besides the aforementioned. We live in a military city, for better or for worse, there are training exercises all the time. I guess what scared me was the fact that training exercises never take place near the flight path of the civilian airport. TBU scoured Twitter and found the answer – naval aviation centennial. A fucking air show.

It goes to show how tuned in I am to the military goings on in this city. Not. At. All.

When TBU first came to visit me in San Diego we went to Silver Strand Beach in Coronado. Military planes fly low here, really low, for training I assume. I never thought anything of it, I’ve been going to that beach since since I was a tiny little thing. The whole beach rumbles when they fly over and if you don’t know the layout and military-ness of San Diego, the worst must come to mind. I remember TBU’s face as he saw it approach, fly so low he could see the rivets, and make a sharp turn back to base just past the breakers. I was confused at his terror. I smiled and said, “We’re right next to the base.” He was like whaaaaa? That was almost a decade ago.

Eight years of living in Santa Cruz, where anything in the sky was suspicious, has turned me into TBU at the Strand I guess.

So TBU has climbed a few rungs as of last week. He landed a gig as Interactive Art Director for a very large and well respected PR company. Remember when he was doing Flash shit? Ha! So 2002.

I’m so proud of him, he works so hard and is so in love with what he does. He is going to make a fantastic leader, I’m positive he’s going to make great things with his team.

He starts on Thursday. We took great joy in cleaning out his office last night. I may or may not have taken a couple office supplies. That job seemed to take equal joy in dicking him around with everything. From month to month he would never know for sure how many hours he’d be working. Some months it would be 60% other months it was 85% or he would be told it was 100% then the day before it was supposed to start it would go back down to 80%. That made it hard to plan our finances. They fired his supervisor then made his annoying co-worker with no design, creative or managerial experience “team leader” whatever that means. We deduced that it meant he was doing two peoples jobs without an increase in pay. Which was fine because he just fucked it all up anyway, he didn’t deserve any more money.

When he told them he was leaving, team leader asked TWICE how they could keep him. TBU kinda guffawed and asked if they could provide parking, pay him double, respect his creative input or stop giving him shitty powerpoint presentations to make less shitty. They could provide none of it. I loooove it that he made it clear he took a large pay cut to work for them. They really had no idea what a fucking force they had in him. The supervisor that was fired knew what TBU was about, but when she left it was the blind leading the blind and refusing to listen to TBU when he told them maybe they shouldn’t cross the freeway.

It wasn’t all bad. This was the job that allowed us to move from Santa Cruz to San Diego. And it wasn’t bad until a few months ago. But when it got bad, it got stupidly bad. TBU was honestly too good for what the job turned into. A person with his experience and talent doesn’t need to be fixing powerpoint slides 40 hours a week and he doesn’t need you standing over his shoulder while he designs a flyer.

Anyway, he’s moving on and we’re all very excited for him. His new office is the top floor of a building that makes up the San Diego skyline. Maybe we’ll move. We are so cheap though, it’s crazy. We’ll probably stay put unless some serious shit hits a serious fan.

In a rare Millionizer move, I’m going to actually update on something. Like a blogger who knows what they’re doing.

So Juan, the loud sex having raver who shares a bedroom wall and a floor with us. After the incident that occurred last week he has been gone an uncharacteristic amount for someone who works from home. He’s also been uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe I was right, maybe he does regret being an asshole. All I know is that it’s been a lot nicer around these parts.