stomping grounds

So much of it was different, and so very much of it had stayed the same. I drove into the city with Mona tonight, to pick up a crib in Queen Anne. We took my car which was a good thing because without my gps I don't think we would have ever found the place. Something happens to residential streets in the city and they become completely inscrutable and impossible to navigate. That part was certainly the same.

I moved to Seattle in 1995 when I was another person. Moved into the city because that's what you do when you're a young couple and you don't have a car and you want to experience the fast paced city life. We lived in Queen Anne for two or three years (I can't remember exactly). I have to look at my resume to figure out when I moved. Most of those early years are completely fogged out of my memory. They were shitty years, quite frankly. Working at crappy jobs, grinding through the day to day to pay the bills and never quite doing it, married to a total creep and never happy.

I don't think about those years very often, but tonight it was so very strange. I was driving around on the tiny winding streets that I used to walk on day after day, past the grocery store where I could only buy what I could carry on the long walk home, the bar that my ex got thrown out of for brawling, the awesome independent used bookstore. A lot of it was the same. A lot of the town has gotten glamorous and condo-filled and hip. Familiar, though. There was another person still in my head, because suddenly the overlay of area knowledge was there and I could navigate. Strange feelings too, as if things suddenly smelled different and I was looking out of different eyes and had a list of things to worry about (bills, could I afford fruit, what was he going to make me do tonight) and there it was, the old me that I forgot was there.

And Mona said "go left, you can sneak over into the lane now!" and I did, and my gps told me to make the next right and I did and and I was totally confused and wasn't sure where I was. But my car reassured me we were on the right path, and we certainly were because minutes later we met a bulldog with a name that meant "awesome warrior" or something like that in Japanese and we got Mona's crib and then went and had sushi. Because my life now? It is different and it is awesome.

Tomorrow's bento highlight is the quiche I made with Penelope's eggs. It took five instead of three because they were small, but I followed Karen's most excellent horseradish and sour cream recipe and it was delicious. Then, a container full of halved supersweet tomatoes sprinkled with pepper and golden balsamic vinegar. For breakfast, yogurt. For an afternoon snack, carrots and three precious baybel cheese cubes. They are tiny but my latest obsession. They posses a sharp tangy flavor that makes your mouth hum.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1