Driving rather aimlessly around the planet (Ann Arbor) today with Elizilla, the discussion turned for a while to which planet was better, Ann Arbor or Berkeley or whatever. I’m not going to relate that whole conversation but it did get me thinking off on my own tangents. In my life, I’ve spent five days in Berkeley and going on 30 years in Ann Arbor. That’s more years than I spent in Sault Ste. Siberia, even though I grew up there and it’s my first and longest lasting love. Although I often felt like just blowing that pop stand when I was a kid. Malls? J. L. Hudson’s? Relatives in Detroit, Ann Arbor, East Lansing? I loved visiting them. I tried my hardest to be what I thought was a sophisticated city kid back then. But hey: you can take the girl outta the Yoop butchya can’t necessarily take the Yoop outta the girl!

I moved to Ann Arbor because I loved Ann Arbor. When I was a kid, I always thought it was just about the coolest place on earth. And here I am! When I was young and we lived in The Marquis’s old apartment on Seventh Street, we used to be able to easily walk downtown and we often did. To eat or go to the bar or whatever. Walk out the door and through West Park. I remember that old, shabby apartment fondly, even with its rock-n-roll floors and I was so glad that our friend Jim Carpenter took it over after us and our kids actually got to see it back in the day. Not sure where Jim Carpenter is now! Buddy? Love you. Where are you? Surf on in! Please???

We got married and, being tired of the rock-n-roll floors, etc., we moved to a nice two-bedroom upstairs apartment on Jackson. Noisy there but it was a nice apartment. Kids were supposedly not allowed, so when we found out about Elizilla, we, ulp, found a real estate agent and after months of dreaming in thousands of dollars, we closed the deal on this loverly landfill. The price was $65,000 (can you believe that?) and we put down a third of that so we wouldn’t have to do an escrow account. Note that we had a little help from our parental units to do the down payment. Sigh. I can’t believe how much this house seems to be worth now, although with the real estate slump, it’ll surely drop quite a bit. I don’t care. This is my house. I live here. It is paid off. Yay!!!

Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’ve spent so many years here now. We raised our kids here and they know their way around town and have been known to say (during political type discussions with their dad) things like, “Well, you raised us in Ann Arbor and you sent us to Community High.” Indeed! 🙂

It’s hard sometimes. I have my loverly little landfill here and Fin Family Moominbeach “up north.” I love both places so much. In the last couple years, it’s been hard to be here at the landfill. I needed to be on the beach to the point that I neglected the roots I’ve grown here. I don’t know exactly how to balance it all but I will figure it out. And, omg, I love Berkeley! Love y’all. Kayak Woman.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.