home away from home away from home

Vera made silk scarves?! Gotta be one good dress in all that! Dishes for my imaginary cabin. And, Nest, San Francisco.

Before we left for R&R, the first time back to the U.S. in a year, I didn't so much feel like I was going home as much as I felt like I was going to visit a country I know really well.

Once we'd been there for 5 weeks, I didn't want to leave and was thinking, do we HAVE to be in the Foreign Service? Do we really want to live overseas still? Why not live in the U.S? They have:

• Frozen yogurt galore. Preferably the no-sugar-added Valrhona Chocolate flavor from Fraiche on Filmore.
• Sugar free carmel syrup at Starbucks.
• Second-hand stores. Thrift stores. Overpriced, eclectic boutiques like Nest, in San Fransisco and Stripe in Santa Cruz. Goodwill. Used book stores.
• Baby carrots.
• People asking "How can I help you?" and even better, a form of good-bye I've never heard anywhere else in the world, "Have fun!" Can you imagine a French store clerk saying "Amusez bien!" 
• Dogs on leashes.
• Clean air and drinkable tap water.
• Bogle Zinfandel.
• Chaou Firecracker chocolate which is a fancy way of saying spicy chocolate with poprocks, omg.
• Sensible drivers. Except that guy who got mad at me at the Y in Tahoe and stopped short so he could swear at me and then got rear-ended by the guy behind him. Car-ma.
• How many kinds of laundry detergent do we need? Wow.
• Wallaby's non-fat greek yogurt. It's like it's whipped! I was buying it by the LITER or quart or whatever those huge tubs they have at Whole Foods.
• Grinding up honey-roasted peanuts and taking home warm, freshly-extruded, addicting peanut butter from Whole Foods.
• Okay, just Whole Foods in general. 
• Except today I went to Tia Market (down the street from me in Bucharest) to get bread and milk and I got bread and milk and okay, some bananas and I spent $4. Not once did I go to the grocery store at home and spend only $4. 

It's easy to love being in the U.S. 

This summer we had our daughter's bf with us, the intelligent and hilarious Alex. He observed that Americans fly the flag from everywhere, although none of us are sure of the point of it. Are Austrailians or Russians less patriotic for not painting their national flags on the sides of their car dealerships? Alex also noticed we have a lot of dentists, and he doesn't understand why, since everyone already has such nice teeth.

Then after spending July to mid-August at "home," the circuit of Paradise-Davis-Santa Cruz-Tahoe, I didn't want to come back to Bucharest. I had to remind myself of Bea and my own bed. Then just one day back at work, and I was all, "I love it here!" I hate leaving home for work, hate leaving work to come home. I think I just have a transition problem. As Alex said, when he was small when his mom asked him if he wanted to go to the park, he always said no, and then he cried when they left the park.

I miss how hilarious I find my sister. When I pointed out Stefan's pre-adolenct paunch, she says, "And you were how thin at that age?" I miss the blue, blue sky of Tahoe and Marin. I miss Torrie and Jon's swimming pool lapping outside the bedroom door. Hummingbirds darting at each other, then sitting in trees, having no idea of their own tininess in this world. 

I miss the rural-ness of Northern California, the wild beauty, the constant of hills in the distance, seeing hawks during the day and deer in the evening. Finding blackberries to eat, nearly every time I go running. Sitting outside in the morning to watch the birds–in Tahoe, squawky blue jays and at my mom's house, little quail families, looking like they are rolling on wheels.

I feel like my kids don't really get enough time in the U.S. We are turning into weirdos. We don't want any kind of "club card." I can't get my ticket punched enough in the time I have left, so why try. I don't care if I can save 3% today or get a free frozen yogurt on my birthday–I won't be here! U.S. city cups at Starbucks are a novelty. Camille doesn't know how much U.S. coins are worth.

Camille goes away to school in Switzerland in a week or so. By the time she graduates she will have lived overseas half her life and not bothered to learn the value of coins in any of them. She likes the U.S., and is devoted to Chipotle, but otherwise has a cool detatchment about the country in general. Stefan however, is ready to go to U.C. Davis and get a job (or create a business is more like it) so he can shop at Target.

I knew I was back in Romania as soon as I got to the airport: two men were assisting passengers with procuring luggage carts. And the luggage carts are free! Do you hear that Minneapolis-land-of-the-$5-luggage-carts?

Free luggage carts, cheap groceries, sunny skies, good work, painting projects galore, home, one of many. This is our job (Peter's job anyway) and this is our life. I do miss that yogurt though.