Nature Up Close

       We had been hoping to move into our new house this past Saturday, but as literally none of our renovation projects had been completed, we put off our move for a week.
       Still, I spent much of the weekend at the new place, hoping that some worker or another would show and do what had been promised.
       Instead, I had a lot of time to myself. And I spent much of that time looking out the side window – rather than out at the driveway. I knew looking at the driveway would be fruitless, because just as a watched pot never boils, a watched driveway never delivers a handyman. 

       Anyway, while looking out the window, I noticed some lovely things.
       For instance, a large bird – possibly a grouse – walked by. A cute, white-tailed bunny rabbit (a future friend of Olympia, perhaps) meandered under some bushes. A rather large butterfly fluttered by. And I realized that I have Aspen trees growing wild in my yard – with perhaps 10 saplings sprouting here and there. One of them is already around 7 feet tall, and next spring, I’ll transplant it to a location where I can watch its delicate leaves tremor all year long.
       I don’t have the broad mountain view I had in our old home. I won’t be able to watch the sun set over the mountains from the distant comfort of my living room. But it feels like nature is all around me at our new home – pressing against our windows, blowing through the trees, sharing the ground I walk on.
       I think I’m going to like it here.

Parking

       One of the unexpected benefits of having most businesses around here in strip malls is that the strip malls have parking lots. This might be obvious to those who already live in the suburbs, but to me, it means a whole new comfort in driving. 

       If I wanted to go to a shop or business downtown, or in the neighborhood near Tom’s office, I had to steel myself in advance for the whole parallel parking thing. This included the stress of looking for a place to park, worrying about being late for an appointment if I had to circle for too long looking for a place to park, getting into the parking spot efficiently if I did find a place (without holding up traffic and without hitting any cars), worrying that the meter would expire before I got back, and of course, worrying that I’d forget where I had parked the car (since the parking spot often was nowhere near my destination. 

       You can laugh all you want, but let’s face it. Down deep, everyone would prefer not to have to parallel park.

       I actually failed my first drivers’ test -- a great way to spend one’s 16th birthday -- because of a parallel parking “issue”. At least it was an issue to the person testing me.

       In my defense, I should say that this particular tester had a reputation for failing young drivers on nearly any pretext. It was well known that anyone assigned to her was likely to go home unhappy. But there was really no way out once I learned I was one of the unlucky victims who had to drive for her...

       And in fact, everything was fine until I was told to parallel park on a busy downtown street. When I backed into my spot, the car touched the curb. It was not anything hard or abrupt – nothing which shook the car or anything. I smoothly pulled forward and continued gliding into the spot. 

       But the nasty witch conducting the test said that if a child had been sitting on the curb, with his legs hanging down into the street, I might have hit said child and crushed said legs. 

       I replied that I thought it inappropriate and unnecessarily risky to even attempt to park in a place where a child was already sitting on a curb with his legs hanging in the street. I told her I would think it wiser to find another spot instead. And really, should a child even be allowed to sit unattended with his legs hanging into a busy downtown street? Where was his parent or guardian? 

        You can see, perhaps, why I became a lawyer. But the tester didn’t seem impressed. 

       When I re-took the test a few months later, I successfully parked without running over any imaginary legs. But my confidence had taken a blow. And it seems I have never quite recovered.

        In my new 'hood though, I can just drive up practically anywhere and with virtually no effort, pull into a parking spot, often remarkably close to the door of the business I wish to enter. And the parking spots here are huge. They appear to have been designed specifically for mini-vans and SUVS, all pulling a horse-trailer, and with room for obese people to comfortably open each and every door as far as the hinges will allow without fear of dinging the next car over. And frankly, there is so much space out here that there rarely even is a next car over.  You could probably park sideways -- across two or three spots -- and not even cause a raised eyebrow.

       The stress of parking is gone – entirely.

        I hate to say it, but I may never go downtown again.

AYCES!

       I learned today that in the same strip mall as the Persian restaurant we ate at the other night, is an All-You-Can-Eat Sushi place – charging only $20 per person each evening.

       I am beginning to think our new neighborhood may just be heaven on earth.

       Tom and I have had All-You-Can-Eat Sushi only once before. 

       It was in Toronto, perhaps 14 years ago, and we had seen an advertisement offering the sushi extravaganza one Sunday a month. When we got to the restaurant in question though, we learned that the advertisement had been misleading. Our waiter, and then a manager, tried to insist that we first consume miso soup, salad, gyoza, stir-fried vegetables and teriyaki chicken, before moving onto the sushi “course”. 

       We were annoyed, as were a few other diners at the restaurant. I think I pointed out that I am a lawyer. And we insisted on just sushi. 

       We were served it grudgingly, and with admonitions that we had to eat all the rice and that if we failed to eat anything we ordered, we would be up-charged for the cost of the pieces we failed to eat. That, of course made us still more annoyed. We figured that if they were going to be nasty to us, we were going to be nasty back.  So we decided to eat the restaurant into bankruptcy. 

       We surreptitiously formed baseballs of rice in our laps and consumed plate after plate of tuna, salmon and yellowtail. And then we ordered more…and more…and more, and ate all of that too. It’s amazing how much sushi one can eat (or sashimi, since we were not eating rice except when a waiter was watching) when one is annoyed.

        The only problem was that when we got up to leave, we discovered that we could hardly move. Our gullets were so full of fish that we feared some of it might swim right out of our mouths.

       We had taken the subway to the restaurant, but understood that if we tried to take it home, we would almost certainly end up regurgitating our feast. Familiar with the erratic driving of Toronto cab drivers, we feared a taxi would be even worse. And it was too far to walk. 

       So we were stuck.
       Even now, I can’t help but feel there is an Aesop’s Fable that addresses this situation. Or if there isn’t, there should be:  “The Righteous Customers Who Ate a Whale” or something like that. 

       In any case, as I said, we were stuck. With small shuffling steps, we managed to make our way out to the sidewalk. And with still more shuffling steps, we carefully walked a few feet in one direction and then a few feet back. And then a few more feet in one direction and a few feet back. We moaned – a lot – and laughed just a little. We knew that if we laughed too hard, disaster might strike. 

       After perhaps 30 minutes of this, we felt able to walk to a tiny specialty book store that was only a block away. This was not the type of store that, like Barnes and Noble, offered vast areas with nooks and sofas where we could curl up and be left alone. Instead, we had to squeeze between bookcases, where we perused every item in the store with tremendous care, and then re-perused them. And then, pretending to find things in particular books that we simply had to show each other, we gazed at them together. 

       And we waited, patiently, for our fish to digest. 

       When the store closed 90 minutes later, it was dark outside, and it was getting cold. We decided it was time to risk the subway trip home, and we did make it without mishap. Since then though, we have never gorged on sushi. 

       But here in the suburbs, that is all about to change. Only a few blocks away, we can eat all the fish we want – for $20 a night – every night of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year. And assuming the restaurant staff isn’t nasty about it, we’ll even eat a nearly reasonable amount – preserving our relationship with this neighborhood treasure, and coming again and again. 

       And again...

       Mmmmmm...

More Than Applebee's

       It seems Tom and I have been guilty of a little bit of city snobbery.
       We had assumed, for some reason, that there would be nowhere interesting to eat out in the suburbs. 

       But over the last week, we have discovered three excellent and lovely restaurants serving sushi, Persian food and Vietnamese food. 

       After living in Toronto and New York, we have pretty high standards in our ethnic cuisine, but have been delighted by the offerings within a 10-minute drive of our new place.
       The Vietnamese food is some of the best we have had since moving away from our all-time favorite – Pho Hung – in Toronto. The food at the Persian place was actually better than at the Middle Eastern dive we frequent,  and was food-styled with such panache that I think the chef must have dreams of being Van Gogh. The sushi, admittedly, was not as good as some of the outstanding stuff we can get at our usual ultra-trendy place, but it was far less expensive and still good enough that I did not suffer gastric distress afterwards – surely an important test. And the eager staff at the otherwise empty restaurant checked on us after nearly every bite – Do we like it? Is it good? Are we happy?

       It seems the restaurant owners out here may be trying a little bit harder than those in the city. Perhaps it is because the surburbs provide the sort of place where they can afford to start out and try to make their dream come true. Maybe they haven’t yet become jaded or decided to cut costs. Or perhaps they haven’t yet compromised their native cuisines for what they view as American tastes. Whatever the reason, our experiences have been far beyond what we were expecting.

       And we have driven by many other tempting destinations we hope to explore in the coming months. Who knew that all these places were out in the suburbs, across from Home Depot or tucked between a dry cleaner and a nail salon? And they are all on the same street – a rather busy main road not far from our new home. 

       In the city, we had to decide in advance where we wanted to go and then drive to that ethnic part of town or to that specific destination. Now, we can just cruise the boulevard for a range of cuisines and feast our bodies and our senses at every stop.

Right on Target!

       Okay, I know I made a snide comment about strip malls the other day. But today, I drove to the nearest strip mall -- called there by the concentric red and white circles of a Target sign.  The mall is perhaps two minutes away from my new home. 

       Before I continue, I guess I should explain one important thing: my name is Brenda and I am a Target addict. 

       Because of that, I have been doing my best to stay away from Target stores.  I know Target is bad for me. 

       I seem to develop a sort of sickness as soon as I enter through the red doors.  It is like a fever, or dizziness or perhaps even a blackout.  And once it hits, I tend to inexplicably buy stuff -- which would be okay, except for the fact that it isn't stuff I even knew I needed until the moment I saw it at the store. 

       At Target, I can easily spend $4 buying the toilet paper I went in for, and $276 in other products -- like towel racks  and soap dishes and luggage and dresses and dishes and make-up and dog toys and coffee grinders and bedsheets...

       Luckily, Target is very good about returns, and when my Target fever passes, I often take back most of what I bought -- although once I am in the store, the fever naturally hits again and I will frequently end up replacing the returned purchases with new treasures, which later, or course, end up being returned.  

       But after a 12-step program and intensive Target aversion therapy -- including hypnosis, acupuncture and electro-shock -- I started to develop an ability to avoid the store.  

       I admit, I have not been perfect. I would still cave in every once in a while. But I am proud to say I have been able to survive as long as two months without going there.            

       Part of what made that possible, mind you, was the fact that we lived about 20 minutes away from the nearest Target. I had to make a conscious decision to go there.

       All that is over now, however. 

       My new neighborhood has not only the Target I went to today -- two minutes away from our house in one direction. There is also, inexplicably, a second Target -- about four minutes away in another direction.  

       And I have decided that this must be part of what it means to live in the suburbs -- abandoning oneself to Target once and for all. 

       And I feel a sense of relief now. 

       After all those years of trying to resist, I can just give in. Yes!  I want to rub Target all over my body. I want to breathe its filtered air. I want everyone I see to be wearing a red shirt. And I'm not going to fight it any longer.

        It is now, in fact, the nearest store to my home. I no longer have the will or the ability to deny it. It will be my new corner store, my new go-to destination. It will be the convenience store of my new suburban life.  

       Indeed, that new life suddenly feels right on Target.

Julia Child and Hardware Stores

       Tom and I just got home from seeing the movie "Julie and Julia", which is about Julia Child's quest to learn French cooking and get her cookbook published and about Julie, a blogger who spends a year cooking every recipe in Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".  

       Some of the similarities between Julia, Julie and me were a bit overwhelming.  Tom commented that it was very nearly creepy in parts.

       But it also was a bit inspiring, in that each of Julie and Julia relentlessly pursued their goals and their writing.

       It made me feel terrible for not posting for the last week...

       Each day over the past week has been exhausting.  Each day I come home confused about where the hours have gone, but it seems like I can't accomplish more than two or three tasks in any day -- which may involve overseeing construction in our new home, seeking permits from the city, moving some of our more fragile possessions myself, ordering items for the new place, trying to rent our condo before we move out and keeping our home life healthy and sound. 

       I'm not doing everything equally well, however, especially in the latter category.  

       We have been eating out for nearly every meal. I have not done laundry. I am taking Olympia on very short walks, and have been telling myself that this will be good preparation for when she has to start doing her business in the back yard of the new home, but I'm not sure even I believe me. On top of everything else, my lower back has been killing me; I'm not returning calls from friends; and, I'm feeling fat.

       I feel worn out already, even though the biggest part of our move is yet to come. 

       But at the same time, I made a commitment to this blog, and like Julie and Julia, I will continue to see it though. And I really must keep in mind that it is all supposed to be good for me!

       Take my resolution for this month: I do need to learn about the suburbs. If my new home is going to be as satisfying as I hope, I have to force myself to see the good things in my new 'hood. 

       Looking at earlier months' resolutions too, I really do have to look after myself -- eat my vegetables, strengthen my back, be organized in keeping two houses, try to feel good about myself.  And if I don't want to feel summer has slipped away, I have to continue to enjoy nature...

       

       And the fact is that I have been discovering some things about the new neighborhood, even if I haven't made the time to write about them...

       One of them is BIG hardware stores. 

       In Toronto and New York, I did not own a car to drive to the suburbs.  The city-center hardware stores available to me bore a resemblance to corner groceries, with everything jammed together in as small a space as possible. In my new neighborhood though, there is a Home Depot and a Lowe's -- only a block apart from each other. 

       Now I should make clear that I am not a do-it-yourselfer -- and neither is Tom. We believe in hiring experts for anything more complex than changing a light bulb.  And weeks of procrastination can pass before even that light bulb is changed.

       But we now have a large house and nearly an acre of property.  We need things like garden hoses, a ladder and garage shelving.  At the same time, I am trying to oversee the renovation of our home without hiring a designer and without being fleeced by our contractor, so I need some knowledge of materials, prices and availability...  

       So I have explored both Lowe's and Home Depot at length, walking up and down each cavernous aisle and taking notes on what we might need and what we might be able to adapt to our own uses. 

       And I have learned there is a whole world of possibilities out there.  I understand now why some people enjoy going to such stores. Unlike the tiny stores I used to go to just to buy a lightbulb or have a key cut, these are stores  which seem to offer a promise of re-creating our own little part of the universe. 

       I feel myself curious suddenly about types of glass and fencing materials and thicknesses of wood. I find myself wanting not only to buy a really nice drill, but also to learn how to use a circular saw. I even bought myself some leather work gloves the other day, so I'd be ready to dig in and get to it.

       A transformation is beginning...

       Look out world, Brenda the Handyman is coming!

First Night in the Suburbs

       Although Tom and I aren't planning on moving until the end of the month, we did spend one night in our new house this past weekend. We actually had thought we might stay longer, until we were reminded just how hard it is to sleep on an aero-bed. 

       In any case, I was filled with a sense of wonder at the new house. After decades of living in high-rises, it was incredible to watch the dappled sunlight coming in the windows, after making its way past the leaves of our trees. There were birds right outside -- our birds -- nibbling on berries and checking us out.  We opened windows on opposite sides of the house to enjoy a cool cross-breeze at night -- something unheard of in my previous world of apartments and condos.  Perhaps the strangest thing though was how dark and quiet it was once we turned out the lights to lie on our so-called bed.

       It was suddenly clear that we were not downtown anymore.

       There were no streetlights shining in the windows, no ambulances wailing down the street...

       It was our first night in the suburbs.

       That might not be a big deal to some people.  But I have always  been somewhat suburb-phobic. I like the hustle and bustle of city life. I like noise and action and light. Darkness and silence seem oppressive to me. 

       Indeed, those who know me well expressed shock when I first told them of our plan to move.

       Yet, I didn't regret our decision on Saturday night.

       And I hope I never will.

       But just to be sure, my resolution this month is to try to uncover some of the things there are to enjoy in the suburbs.  Despite my city-slicker comments to the contrary, I know there must be more to them than strip malls and restaurant chains. 

       At least I hope so...