Wither us?

We can go whenever we want, wherever we want (within reason, I mean, I can't return to the Central Coast without seriously taking up the piracy I always joke about and I don't own a boat). The top choices now, assuming a return to California is out, are Portland, Oregon--land of my fathers, or Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from the land of my fathers (true story about these fathers, one of them, three back, was the engineer behind the Columbia locks--what that graduate student at UCSC working on that topic would have done for the pictures we have...). Anyway, I know that P and V are sort of like comparing DC and Baltimore, but then, do what?

For the two friends of mine back home who occasionally read this drivel, any thoughts, especially regarding returning to CA? Feel free to weigh in, please.

November is our current set-out date, but that could change depending on our laziness. I mean, we moved last September, and we hate moving (something we do all the time it seems), but we seriously want to get out of here. My job, which was always a bit challenged, has recently decided to nose-dive into the sticky humid pavement. Thanks, Job. Bastard. Lai's is going well, but still, when we realized I could be a stay at home dad back west, assuming Lai works the normal pharmacy gig, and that we would be better off than we are with both of us working here, well, that helped. We also just plain do not belong here. Say what you will, this country is really a series of disparate cultures, who, if were not for their mutual love of all things retail and the unity that one can only find on television, would be at each other's throats like lawyers on accident victims. We don't have television and my leftist tendencies only grow more suspicious and mean-spirited toward the mercantile, so, well, we're kind of screwed, but happily my better half is just that, better, and her rationality and sensibility more than make up for my troglodyte ways. Without them, however, ain't no one gonna be packin' that van, yo.