It rained cats and dogs here today. Or worms and snakes. That actually fits better. Big wormy/snakes all over the place. I won't go any more into detail. I don't even want to think about it.

I don't like being outside at night here. That's when you see all the creatures. The other night we had a play date and dinner at a friend's house. On the walk home I saw a few GIANT roaches. I was sure they were on me when we got home. Shudder.

Our building has a faux wall with an area where the trash bins hidden behind it. So when you walk past it looks all nice and clean and you can't tell what's back there. A few nights ago I finished up cleaning the kitchen at about 10pm. My kids had long been asleep. I tied up the trash and was slipping my shoes on to quickly run it downstairs. Then I started thinking too hard about what might be lurking back there by the trash cans in the dark of night. I didn't want to find out. I decided the trash could wait until morning. I mean, when I hesitate to go back there during the day, why on earth would I want to go back there at night?

It really is a jungle out there. Quite literally.

And as I have mentioned, the bugs are loving me. Better me than my babies but, still it's pretty much crazy. I hope my body adjusts soon or I can find out what works to keep the bugs at bay. I read that taking a high dose of thiamin (B-1) can make you taste/smell bad to bugs. I need to swing into GNC tomorrow and pick some of that up! (Yes I can walk to a GNC from my house.)

This area where we live, Discovery Bay, is relatively new. I think the first buildings were built in the late 1970's or early 1980's. Our building was built in the mid 90's. Back then there was no road access to this place at all. Only ferry. I sometimes can't help but think about those workers coming over to build those first buildings and how crazy it must have seemed to them: building resort style residential housing a 25 minute ferry ride away from the city. And that was before the ferry was in service so how did they get to work? Did they live here in temporary housing (with no food or anything--only the jungle surrounding them) or did they take a boat and go home at night? The developers really had a vision. And it has happened--this is a busy, crowded and thriving suburban community.

But it's still a jungle!

Despite all that, we really are enjoying ourselves. I had enough contacts here (via email) and did my fair share of research so there haven't been any big surprises or things we didn't expect. I mean there are things that happen every day that are unexpected but it's not earth shattering stuff. In fact most things tend to surprise us in a good way. I wish I could come up with examples...

I am getting back into my cooking routine which feels good. I made soup today with a squash that had no sticker. I guess it was local? And leeks from Holland. There's lots of produce from Holland here. It seems like the produce is local from China or from Japan, Holland, Canada, USA, or Chile.

The meat seems to be local from China or from Australia or New Zealand. The deli counter has stuff from every country. There are about two name brands from each major country. I can get Sara Lee lunch meat (turkey, ham, or chicken) sliced fresh from the deli! I did not expect that. Plus all the different salami and ham, cheeses of the world: all the good Euro stuff. It's quite the spread.

Tomorrow we are going to a pitch in to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We are bringing guacamole and chips. We didn't pack our 15 pound molcajete over here for nothing! So I rsvp'd earlier to say that's what we'd bring and then realized I am not in Kansas anymore and I had no idea if I could find any avocados (ripe or otherwise) by tomorrow. Thankfully we found some at the first store we tried. But what we couldn't find today? Tortilla chips. So tomorrow's mission is to score the chips. I hope that works out.