The Travails of a Transient and A Birds Horror Movie on My New Street

Reporting again from Flood Central. I know many of you are tired of hearing me whine, and I promise I am not going to whine, or at least there will be humor, and even good humor sprinkled in the whine. And besides, if you read on, you will witness (via writing) a modern day version of The Birds, the freaky scary Alfred Hitchcock movie. (But first you have to wade through the other stuff.)

I am in a temporary residence, with much of my life boxed up still because it is a smaller place and it wouldn’t make sense to unpack EVERYTHING, only to have to pack up again when our new home is built and ready – in addition to being stretched on space at the temporary abode. Although I am going to have my usual Seder and make all the great foods I love cooking, the Seder plate and some serving things are boxed up somewhere. I can’t get to them, and some of them flooded and were thrown out.
Situations like the above cause me to wonder if I should spend more time unpacking, or just borrow stuff.  There is nothing that will make me buy additional things when I am trying mightily to rid myself of “too much stuff.” (read this blog for more scoop on that)

I am neither here nor there,  (The U.S. Postal Service has confirmed this for me, as you will see if you read on.) and life is not yet normal, or is that dreaded phrase, “the new normal.” Still I am fortunate. We have a cozy place we are comfortable living in, and when my friends visit and act very polite about the area of the house that is being used as a storage unit, and I make a joke about it, they all give me kudos for having such good humor about it all.

The mail is not right yet, and that is causing some concern. When I have to fill out home address, I rarely can decide which one to use, having two addresses. The good old U.S. Postal Service took a forwarding order from us from our torn down home to our rental home,and then proceeded to send our mail back to sender when the old home was torn down. We are getting just dribs and drabs forwarded, and some returned to sender. Who knows what we are missing at this point.

My husband decided to put a mailbox up on our empty demolished lot and cancel the forwarding order after an important work/business piece of mail for him was returned to sender.

He called our branch of the Post Office, spoke to a manager, and asked that our mail be delivered back to our original address and we would check it regularly. (In the meantime, that new mailbox sits empty so they still haven’t gotten the memo and we are still missing mail on a daily basis.)

The moral of the above is: Don’t take mail for granted, people. It is an important part of keeping you whole, and your life in order. I learned this the hard way. (My friends were smart in taking down my temporary address to send me cards and invitations directly.)

The last item to discuss is our getting used to the new neighborhood. We have to drive back to the old neighborhood for various errands and things, so there is a whole lot more back and forth driving. Also, I knew all of our neighbors there, and we love them – one of the key reasons we decided to take the long road of building on our lot. Now we are basically strangers in a strange land where we currently reside. While I am certain we are surrounded by quiet, lovely people – I just don’t know them and don’t think it is worth investing the time to cultivate relationships in our temporary stay. (Time – that’s another thing that there is never enough of these days!)

One neighbor is already causing us grief though in a daily nuisannce. If you can picture the bird lady from the Mary Poppins movie, (with one of my favorite movies songs, “Feed the Birds.”) we have our own bird lady on our new street. Not that I mind flocks of birds congregating on my block, but this quirky neighbor insists on putting bread crumbs out daily – SEVERAL TIMES A DAY-  so the birds are non-stop congregating in the middle of our street, making a quick exit out the cut-de-sac nearly impossible. (I have witnessed her doing this on multiple occasions.)

As I drive out of the street, the birds are ALWAYS there, in many multiples. I slow, honk, and wait. The birds, who are used to this routine from me and all of our new neighbors, aren’t afraid of us, and take their good old time to get out of the way. With dozens there, it takes a while until the last one is gone and we can safely exit the street.

In fact, in my fertile and active creative mind, I imagine the birds turning on me one day if I get too impatient about waiting for them to scatter. It’s a scene right out of the classic Hitchcock movie playing in my mind right now.

The bird lady was sweet and harmless in the Mary Poppins movie, but this neighbor is really getting on our nerves. In addition to which, she really has them on a very high carb diet that probably deters them from eating worms and healthier things. They are on easy street here, not having to hunt for food – and of course they probably like carbs and bread as much as I do, as written in this funny blog, so why should they bother being the early bird any more?

Other than the above, we are adjusting and doing well, thank you very much.