Being in a city is a little stressful to me. Living outside of my van (Steve and Richard have a very nice guest room for us) is disorienting. I bring things in from the van, and an hour later, I can’t find them. I can’t remember where I put stuff, or did I only think I took them out of the van? I can easily lose my coffee mug in an 80 square foot space when I live in the van; Imagine how much time I spend walking around in a three-story condo, looking for something “I just had in my hand” and must’ve set down somewhere.
I’m surprised at the noise. The neighborhood (I think) is a very quiet neighborhood. And yet, I can hear people talking outside of my bedroom window (I’m on the 2nd floor) and right now someone is sawing something in an adjoining unit. I’m sure Steve and Richard don’t hear anything, being acclimated to life in a city. Cosmo and I jump up at every sound, from a car driving down the street to a dog barking a few buildings away. We’ve clearly adapted to the forests and deserts and the silence they afford.
Cosmo has been fairly hyper. I think he is excited to see Steve and Richard, is happy to be able to run up and down three flights of stairs and is also a bit stressed about not “going home” to the van each night. He is also a herding dog, so he seems to get nervous if the three of us are in different rooms. I think he tries to “herd us” so we will all be together so he can keep an eye on us. I sometimes wonder if he is picking up on my vibe, of feeling out of my element.
My van went into the shop so they could do a safety inspection and take care of anything that looks like it needs or will need repairs. There was nothing major and the owner of the company told me the van is in good order to drive throughout the winter. They replaced several belts and the front brakes. They ordered me a kitchen faucet. I tried, with the help of Barbara’s handyman to do that last May, but plumbing is tricky and RV PLUMBING doubly so. The faucet I bought wouldn’t fit, so the RV shop is going to change it out with a bona-fide van faucet (they make everything specific to RV’s—my guess is so they can charge more for an almost identical product.)
Richard went to Chicago on business this week. Steve and I took turns making dinner and experimenting with new recipes. I spent time cleaning the van and clearing out anything I’ve not used since I was here last October. If I haven’t used it in a year, I probably don’t need to allot space for it in the van. I’ve been taking everything out of one cupboard at a time, wiping down the shelves, and putting back only the items I use on a regular basis. It was somewhat cathartic and felt like good preparation for moving to the southwest and living in the desert for the winter.
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I picked up my van yesterday. The new faucet is installed and is SO nice. It is a much better quality faucet than the original and looks so much better. Also, it is higher than the old one so I can fit pots and pans under it to fill them with water. It’s a nice upgrade and means that I no longer have a leaking faucet to deal with.
I went for my eye exam yesterday and the doctor assured me there is no sign of macular degeneration (my mom had that and was nearly blind) and no signs of cataracts. She said my eyes were stable and there was very little change in my Rx from two years ago. I’ve gotten all my health matters dealt with and am now up to date medically.
After Richard returned from Chicago, he helped me (when I say HE helped ME, I mean I stood behind him and occasionally handed him tools) install my backup camera on the van. I’ve had a couple near misses backing up since there is quite a blind spot behind the tailgate. It’s fixed and will make life so much easier. We also trimmed my traction boards (plastic boards with knobs that you put under your wheels if you get stuck in sand or mud) so they could fit in my “basement”(compartment on the driver’s side under the van) and free up some space in by “garage” (back of van, under my bed). I’m making progress.
Lessons From The Road: I am not adjusting well to my “life in the empire.” Steve and Richard have been gracious hosts, and my guest room is beyond comfortable. Driving in the city is traumatic for me. For one thing, I have to be constantly vigilant for red-light runners. The yellow lights in Long Beach seem to be extremely short, lasting for only two or three seconds, so that seems to just make it nearly impossible to not run the red-light. I was driving at 25 mph, and the light turned yellow as I pulled into the intersection. Driving straight across 2 lanes in each direction, the light turned red before I was completely across the intersection. I was in a left-turn lane and when the green arrow came on, it lasted only a couple of seconds. I counted 5 cars running the red light to make that left turn, with oncoming cars honking wildly. I need to watch out for the other direction as well. Stopped at a red-light, when it turns green, it is highly likely that cross traffic will run the red-light, so if I pull out when the light turns green, I would be T-boned by a red-light runner. Drivers seem extremely aggressive to me, making driving around town stressful.
The number of homeless people is surprising to me. There are many people holding up cardboard signs at the entrance of major shopping centers, and outside Home Depot, asking for financial help. Many homeless are pushing shopping carts up and down streets. I see varying degrees of homelessness out on BLM lands, but for the most part, I don’t see significant amounts of mental illness connected to it. In Long Beach, it seems there is quite an overlap of mental illness and homelessness.
Perhaps I’ve spent too much time with people in “the dirt states.” I have apparently adjusted to middle America speech patterns because I have a difficult time with the California accent. Most people seem to uptalk; that is, every sentence ends with a question mark and the last few words go “up” like they are asking a question. Many of the people I interact with are Hispanic with a very thick accent, and combined with the uptalk, it is doubly difficult for me to understand them. Long Beach, for the most part, is still wearing masks. Even though most people have them below their nose, doing absolutely nothing to prevent the spread of airborne germs, their mouths are covered adding another impediment to communication. Out in the wild, conversations are most often one-on-one, or at most, a very small group, all engaged in the same conversation. In the city, there are multiple conversations going on in most settings. I stopped into Ralphs (grocery store) to pick up a few things. The Hispanic cashier was wearing a mask. She “up-talked” with an accent, and the customer in front of me was having a conversation with the man bagging her groceries, and the couple behind me were talking loudly, and people at adjacent check-out lines were all yacking it up. I contrast that with a small grocery store in Idaho where the owner and I were the only two people in the store. I think the bottom line is that as much as I enjoy visiting my friends, I don’t think I could go back to living in a city again. There is way too much stimulation and so little connection.