Love at first sight

As far as first impressions go, Virginia, you have won me over.    I know we won't live here forever, but it's a pretty great place to be for awhile, even I have to admit.  Maybe it's the warm sunny days, the delicate Virginian breeze, the soft slight southern drawl of the locals or the friendly conversation.  Maybe it's just our neighborhood with its myriad of young professionals, mothers and babies and dogs, I might add.  Or maybe it's the rhythmic choruses of crickets from the ravine merely twenty meters from our back deck.  But whatever it is, I'm hooked.

People are very friendly here.  Almost everyone I have met has greeted me with a smile.  They want to know about Abe and they ask me questions about Gabriel.  We stop and chat at the dog park as we wander through. I went shopping the other day and asked for directions.  The short, stout, slightly grey-haired woman greeted me delightfully with "Didn't you just show up on time!   I'll walk ya there!" And spun from her original direction, face lit up and waved me along.  She walked me straight to the small appliances at the other end of the store jabbering the whole way. 

This part of Virginia is very very diverse and my ears are still working hard to decifer the wide variety of accents compounded by my lack of knowledge of various colloquialisms.  For instance the cable guys were talking about "juice" which I later came to realize meant power.  I laugh.  And you know when a conversation is over here.  I am used to the reciprocal "Have a nice day." "You too!" But here, the conversation is over when the person says "Uh hun." As in "Have a nice day!" "Uh hun." 

So it looks like I may need to brush up on my Spanish.  The lovely young nanny across from us who cares for two girls (aged two years and seven months) speaks only Spanish and barely a word of English.  And while she is delightful, she rambles on in Spanish, face alight with excitement as if somehow, in the magic of the moment, I will understand her.  She is there every day so it's a language barrier that we will have to cross.

Being in Virginia also means embracing my youthful love of country music.  Bet you didn't know that I was a country music fan.  Well, when I was about eight, my childhood friend, Dianne and I used to sit for HOURS listening to country music or watching it on TV singing loudly at the top of our lungs to Twila Paris, Bonnie Raitt, Shania Twain and other various artists.  Since being here, Jordan and I have decided that country music is just more wholesome radio music....   And funny to listen to as well.  I never thought I would see the day when Jordan would sing "Truck, YEAH!"  at the top of his lungs before bursting into hearty laughter. Best thing is that I feel like I already know all the lyrics.  I like to think I am the missing member of every band.

Yes, I miss Squamish with all my heart.  I miss my dear friends and their babies and I miss our house.  I cannot wait to go back.  But for now, we have a pretty good life here.

Finding edges

I love change.  In fact I thrive on it.  There is exhilaration in the newness, in the rejuvenation that comes with change.  But there is always a natural anxiety, fear of unknowns and uncertainties.  I begin to visualize and conceptualize finding patterns of living and stability, try recreating place and belonging and routine.   All this to say that I love exploring and adventure, so long as there is a home base, a place to call our own.  Fortunate for me, Jordan's job creates these opportunities and having Gabriel gives cause for the planting of roots.

I am not alone in this need for equilibrium, I know.  Whenever Gabriel goes to bed, he rolls and kicks until he finds himself in a corner or at the edges of his crib, where he hits his head against the side, wailing at the top of his lungs before zonking off to sleep.  I think he has a love-hate relationship with the edges, the sides of his crib.  He longs venture, but also searches for the coziness of the boundaries while resenting the hardness of its structure. 

Gabriel is a wanderlust.  From the beginning, he has thrived on adventure and travel, the excitement that comes from seeing and experiencing new things.  Yet, at the same time, he needs and loves some routines built into his exploits.  Even if they are shifting and flexible, he seems to thrive on them.  No surprise there.  He is just like his mother.

We have quickly and smoothly fallen into a rhythm that works for us--early morning dog walks, afternoon dawdling, Thursdays at the library, late naps that allow for supper preparations, suppers together.  And we have carved out a burrow here, albeit temporary as it is.  We've discovered our neighborhood village complete with library, coffee shop and grocery store, as well as located the closest swings and dog park.  Our townhouse is flanked by other young families.  Would you believe that there is an seven-month-old ten feet across from us, an eight-month-old two doors down and a four-month-old four doors down the opposite direction?  And of them, two of the mothers stay home with their babies.  Gabriel has "insta-friends," all girls.

Now that we have settled into a familiar ebb and flow, time to discover "the city" and Old Town Alexandria.  

Mondays are for sleeping

...and ironing shirts, doing laundry and 5:00am meetings.  Hubby goes back to work.

After a pretty full week/weekend, we are pretty knackered.  But we made the best of our move-in weekend!  After loading up with all sorts of goodies to outfit our new place, unpacking suitcases, etc. we ventured into Washington to drive around and check out the "seat of the American empire," grab coffees from Washington's Best Chinatown Coffee and hit some hot neighborhoods.  Later, we drove down to Alexandria old town for lunch at another of Jordan's finds, Bittersweet that serves DELICIOUS sandwiches and cupcakes too.

And we found our new "Nexen Beach," a quiet walking path along the Potomac River (pronounced Pa-toe-mic), not "Pot-o-mac" as in "Hey Ma, I'm hungry!  Can you make me a Pot-o-mac 'n cheese?"  It's Jordan's mission to have me so confused every time I say Potomac that I will mispronounce it every time.  He thinks it's hilarious and quite possibly the name of our next dog.  Sort of like "Abitoke" (rather than Etobicoke).  We argue about the nickname. "Mac?" "Po?" 

In all of our adventures, dragging Gabriel and Abe around, we chose to forgo naps. Gasp!  Yes, we did.  So today we sleep before checking out our 'hood--from the walking trails by our house to nearby Shirlington Village.  Lots of people out today, could have sworn it was Thanksgiving.  But it wasn't.  Not here.  It was Columbus Day.

So instead of turkey and all the fixings, which we were ill-equipped for in our new place, I decided I'd opt for pie and put my new pie-making skills to the test.  Quickly I learned a number of things about pie.  First, American stores don't carry Tenderflake.  They carry Crisco.  Close, but not the same thing.  I rolled and rolled and rolled that pie crust out (without a rolling pin) for three hours before I decided I was either going to launch it off the deck or buy a rolling pin.  I couldn't decide what the problem was: my wine bottle make-shift-rolling-pin or my dough.  Anyway, managed to make a crustless pie this afternoon.  Which I effectively butchered by serving it steaming hot.  Apparently, I know astonishingly little about pies.  It was a little sad looking, but it was flaky despite HOURS of rolling.  Wishing we had our typical "orphan" crowd to celebrate Thanksgiving with.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!  We miss you!  And we are streaming CBC and thinking of you.