Things I Will Find Myself Missing About Anacortes

I am someone who becomes attached to things very quickly. For example: In summer school biology class (that I took to get ahead), we had to create a bug collection (properly labeling the species and type) for our final class project. My friend Elisa had caught a caterpillar and dropped it into a jar for temporary storage before it was transferred to the the kitty litter-plaster of paris-acetone gas chamber. While it was in it's little holding cell, the caterpillar just made circles over and over again to the point where we named it Speedy. And once you name something, knowing that it will be dead mere hours later and pinned to a foam board, the act of killing it becomes heart wrenching. I assume little Speedy was eventually killed, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Just trying to remember it brings a tear to my eye.

That being said, knowing that I will be moving away from the Northwest, Seattle, and Anacortes is heartbreaking. For the short time that I have lived in Anacortes, I have grown strangely attached to this little town. Perhaps it is due to all the Gilmore Girls I watch and my secret wanting this town to be my Stars Hollow.

Things I will miss: This view.

These are the things I will find myself missing about Anacortes when we move away:

-The Senior Center. In this period of unemployment, I have volunteered at the Anacortes Senior Center as a way to keep myself from going crazy and also to just hone whatever skills I still have. But I like the place and the people that frequent the Senior Center. They are just characters. Most of them are what I imagine my friends and I will be like when we get into our twilight years.

-Stan, Yeong, and Mark the Skagit Transit Bus Drivers. They are awesome--when I get on they greet me by name, they know when I get off so if I happen to zone out they won't pass my bus stop, if the bus is running late and I need a transfer they know to call the bus driver ahead to wait for me. Yeong even brought me homemade kimchi one day when she found out I liked kimchi. They were the first people I ever talked to, on a regular basis, in Anacortes.

-The Seafood guy at The Market. I swear he's stoned most of the time, but I've never met anyone who's more excited about seafood than that guy. Plus, he remembered that I was from Seattle and what I did last weekend, thus making for casual conversation while he's weighing out salmon for me.

-The deer in the backyard who live under our porch. Sometimes I pretend they are like pets, but sometimes they are just a touch annoying what with the eating of the foliage and peeing on our lawn.

-Victoria radio, mostly like CJZN The Zone on Vancouver Island. It's a cute little radio station and they play great music and they're just so adorable in their little Canadian ways. Although I have yet to get used to their weather reports, as they measure the temperature in Celsius.

-Old Salts. It's a gas station mini-mart. But it's owned by a nice Korean couple, who make kimchi on the reg and sell it. Homemade kimchi, at a gas station mini-mart in Anacortes: Weird, I know, but so delicious.