Day Zero: There Very, Truly is a Box for Everything.

We haven't left yet. We were supposed to leave about a month ago, but due to various factors, we've managed to stay in the Northwest until very nearly the end of June. This was beyond awesome--I got to celebrate friends' birthdays that I was unsure I would ever get to spend their special days with, we got to see a hint of a Northwest summer, and I got to experience purchasing liquor at the grocery store! But alas, the time as now come for us to leave.

This morning the movers (or more technically, the packers) came to box up all of our stuff. Literally. They boxed IT ALL UP.

And this is just our living room.

 Things that were packed into bins were wrapped in special brown paper: I don't know what it was, but it was two sheets of special brown paper sandwiching a sheet of plastic-like paper. It was special brown paper. Then, the bins, which were wrapped in special brown paper, were wrapped generously in packing tape.

And there were the many various sizes of boxes! So many boxes. And they all had numbers and codes for them. It was pretty amazing to watch all my things get boxed up. Especially since all my previous moving experiences have been going to American Eagle and asking Tracie if she had any spare shipment boxes. But, now there is a box for everything. I do mean everything.

This is a very large box. This is not a very good picture.

BEHOLD! I am standing next to a box that they put our mattress and box spring in. I didn't even know they made boxes that large, but they do. Somewhere in the world there is a corrugated cardboard manufacturing magnate churning out bed-sized boxes for all the moving companies of the world, living large on the riches built from supplying cardboard boxes.

Tomorrow, the movers are supposed to come and take away our things, which will hopefully make their way over to North Carolina. Tomorrow, I hope to be less fascinated by how many different types of boxes exist out there. But until then, I'm just going to stare at the boxes (and wondering how best to build my cardboard castle), wishing them (and us) a speedy trip to the East Coast.

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.

Adventures in Public Transit

True story: I was asked by the bus driver to put on the seat belt before the bus would leave the stop. Also: Buses in Anacortes all have seat belts.

For someone that's grown up in Los Angeles' car-centric culture, I am really taken by public transit. It's probably because I've never really owned a car and so I need rely on public transit and the occasional ZipCar to get around town, but I really do enjoy taking public transit. Luckily, Seattle has a fairly robust and reliable public transit system (barring any budget cuts and service reductions) and I've been able to get by without a car. When I decided to move up to Anacortes, I was worried that I'd need a car or risk becoming shut in since the area was not nearly as dense as the city. Fortunately I quickly discovered that there is a small fleet of buses servicing the Skagit County--with TWO WHOLE BUS LINES in Anacortes alone. Woo!

It's a different experience riding public transportation in Anacortes. The service hours are more or less for people traveling to/from work, so if you want to go anywhere after 7:30pm you're shit out of luck. The buses really only come once an hour (twice an hour, on certain smaller local routes) so if you miss one, you're shit out of luck. Along with the limited routes, there are only so many stops along the route, luckily the buses do serve the main drag and most businesses, but if you want to go anywhere that's just slightly out of the city (say Edison, WA), then you're shit out of luck.

However, the system does have some pretty cool upsides. Bus fare is only $1.00 and, depending on where you want to go, it's like a super cheap taxi. Skagit Transit is not nearly as frequented as the big city transit, many of the stops are "by request", so unless someone requests that a bus stops at a certain stop it will be bypassed. So, I can go from my house, walk three blocks to catch a bus, and be dropped off at the front door of the Senior Center (where I volunteer) for $1.00 and one bus transfer.

Additionally, Skagit Transit seems to dovetail well with the other transit systems. I can take the bus from Anacortes all the way down to Seattle and Seattle back up to Anacortes. And so can you! All you have to do is:
1. Take any bus from Seattle that will take you up to the Everett Transit Center.
2. Make sure that you arrive at the Everett Transit Center between the hours of 5:50am - 8:35am or 4:10 - 5:35pm (Monday through Friday only), so that you can catch the hourly 90X bus up to Skagit Station in Mount Vernon.
2a. Skagit Transit does not take ORCA cards, so you're going to want to make sure you have some cash on hand.
3. Once you're at Skagit Transit, wait for the 411W heading to Oak Harbor on Island Transit. Get off at the March's Point Park and Ride.
3a. Good news Island Transit is free!
4. Get off at March's Point. Wait for the 410 to Anacortes.
4a. You're going to want to break out that coin purse again to pay for your bus fare. Also note that the last bus leaving March's Point leaves at 6:25pm (Monday through Friday, earlier on Saturdays). If you get there after, you might want to phone a friend to pick you up.
5. Once you're on the 410 toward Anacortes, it'll take you through town and to the San Juan Ferry dock.

Believe it or not, the bus trip only takes about 3 hours in good traffic (driving takes about 1.5 hours). However, these times and routes are only applicable Monday through Friday. There's a "Plan B" Saturday public transit option, which goes through the Mulkiteo-Clinton Ferry and up through Whidbey Island, but that takes a mind boggling 5+ hours.

Finally putting my high school film class skillz to good use

The soundtrack for this video might be a bit rough for sensitive ears. You have been forewarned.

When people ask me what it's like to live in Anacortes, I will say that it's nice and quiet and inevitably complain about the local deer gang that roams freely around the neighborhood. At first, they were cute and it was pretty novel to see wildlife hanging out in your backyard with complete disregard for private property rights. Soon, I started noticing the downsides--basically the animals were pooping in the yard, making it a veritable feces landmine and I didn't enjoy spending too much time in the grass, and eating the shrubs down to bare branches.

The romanticism of having wildlife so close to me wore off very quickly. I don't hate them outright, but it does get annoying when you're driving and there are deer in the road, but they don't bother to scuttle out of the way so you end up having to stop the car and wave wildly out of the window while honking your horn to get the deer's attention and, after all of that, they take their sweet ass time walking away.

First world problems, amirite?

Anacortes

I can't believe I live here. I mean that in a sense that we scored an awesome deal getting a house with a view, but also that I've made it through the moving process to live with Jack. It's a bit bittersweet.

I don't think I'm sick for Seattle yet, probably because it has only been a week and it is still summer (I'm sure once the winter doldrums roll in, I'll be hankering for more Seattle love). However, a visit by Jen, Jason, Christy, and Xuan this past weekend definitely helped ease any creeping sense of loneliness that I might have been getting.

It was a fun weekend with an air show at Whidbey NAS, marathon gaming, and breakfasts in the mornings! They definitely helped the house feel more homey and lived in--I guess that's why people host house warming parties. Well, I'm looking forward to when we really finish with our moving and putting stuff away so that we can have another house warming party!