10 Things I've Noticed Post-Salt Spring

My little munchkin movers, Lisa and Heather. Why it pays to have cute, young friends~

So, it has been almost a week since I've returned to the Lower Mainland, my stuff crammed into an Econoline  van and my Mazda filled to the fish tank brim so that I  resemble a long lost relative of the Drysdales from the Beverley Hillbillies. There goes the neighborhood. Oh right. It's New West. No biggie.

I felt like my style of move this time (this being my 15th move to date) was a cross between two movies. First up, National Lampoon's Vacation. My bed was strapped to the top of the van replacing the dead granny. It also felt a bit like Little Miss Sunshine although I wasn't suicidal there was  no grandpa or porn to be found and  I definitely wasn't rushing to make the entry deadline of a beauty pageant.

Now that I'm back, can I just say that after spending a good part of three years chopping wood for heat, setting mice and rat traps, being on guard in winter for the incessant scratching of rodents trying to get in from the cold, acting like a paranoid schizophrenic who was hallucinating spiders (except they were real) and even once having maggots from a dead and rotting rat flop from the ceiling through a crack in a pot light onto my kitchen counter, moving into a typical apartment, feels like winning the Set for Life lottery.

And yet, in spite of all that, there's still something charming about a little country cottage. It's just that now, the romantic illusion has been placed by knowing better. If I ever set foot in a cottage in the country in the future, you can be sure it's going to have only the top of the line of everything.  Still, I will never forget Marjorie's little hideaway with a history on Walker's Hook.

Let me just digress and say that I had actually forgotten about the maggot incident until some masochistic friend (who shall remain unnamed) reminded me. I'd just returned from the Lavender festival and I was leaning over my kitchen counter and I thought, very stupidly, how did all those lavender pods fall off the top of my hat. You can only imagine how big my eyes were when I realized that not only were they not purple but they were MOVING!  It definitely took a few days to get over that, not to mention the extra strength cleaning that went into wiping away the remains. Yuk!

In my first 7 days of being back, here are 10 things that I've noticed:

1. Heather, No. 1 Munchkin Mover, in spite of her petite frame, is a rock solid, hefty strong sheroine!
2. There are Doppelgangers everywhere. Why is my former landlady, Sharon, working at Starbucks? Why is Palu Rainbow wearing the ultra conservative navy and driving a courier van?
3. When you return to the city of your birth, you're scanning every face thinking (and fearing), "Did I go to high school with you? 
4. I'd forgotten how many strange people live in New West. It might just be the weirdo capital of the Lower Mainland and this is coming from someone who lived on a Gulf Island.
5. When you move from a place that didn't have a single traffic light, you really, really have to pay attention when you're driving to the cornucopia of lights from strip malls and fire engines and street lights. It's so BRIGHT!
6. I miss the Arbutus trees and I miss getting up in the morning, opening my curtains and doing a lingering scan of the back four acres watching as the bunnies chase each other, the deer feast and the birds peck for worms. Luckily, I still have my mind, hence my memories.
7. I do not miss that stupid Rooster that someone needs to shoot.
8. How am I supposed to compost my kitchen scraps?
9. I miss not knowing anyone in the coffee shop and at the same time, I feel an amazingly huge sense of relief and freedom that I don't know ANYONE in the coffee shop. I don't like that the coffee shop is Starbucks.
10. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing but I trust that my subconscious does as it always has.  Onward!