Welcome to my New Home!

I have moved back to my birthplace - a town of about 1800 in rural New Brunswick, Canada.

I have been gone for 20 years working in various cities, but not a lot has changed around here. People still leave their keys in their cars and their front doors unlocked...people still walk into your house without knocking and help themselves to a cup of coffee....and neighbors are both nosey AND some of the most helpful and wholesome folks you will ever find!

I am not sure if I will fit in here. I am used to "breakfast, lunch and dinner", not "breakfast, dinner and supper" which leads to all kinds of confusion when my friends show up at noon for a meal I was making at 6pm. I am also used to wearing $100 Lululemon yoga pants not $15 WalMart specials. (Not that there is anything wrong with WalMart!).

I have a convertible, which is completely inappropriate for a town that has snow 6 months of the year. I loved it when the old-timers would say, half-smiling, "So, you gonna be driving that car this winter?" like I might have just fell off the turnip truck the night before. I'd make my big blue eyes as big as I could as I would sweetly reply "Do you think I could....?"

Well, I WILL adjust, I WILL! One way or another, I want to be part of this town. I want to "be the me I was when I was child", not the one I created while living in the city.

So, let me share my experiences with you, as I adjust to this new, but old, environment.


Sunday, June 1, 2014

My Top 9 Wishes

My drive from home to work is often up to an hour each way. I tried to shorten the drive time but driving as fast as may car would go, but that didn’t work out well. One day when I was high-tailing it to work, I passed the only other vehicle on the road, who was going a snail’s pace at 120 km/hr. I almost ran over top of the car as I sped up on him at 160, but slowed to a leisurely 140, and passed. As I zipped by, I only then realized I had just passed an RCMP forensics van. I had a split second to decide if I should slam on the brakes or keep going. I figured a bunch of forensics nerds surely would not be able to give me a ticket. Well, my judgment call on that one was not good. I didn’t get a ticket, but I did get a good scolding by a forensics gentleman who is not a nerd, and who does indeed have the ability to give offenders like myself a fine. Oops.

During my long drives, I start to make lists of things that I wish would happen, or wish would be. Daydreams of a finer life.

 Here are my top 9 wishes:

1)      I wish that the Star Trek do-dad that can transport people from here to there in no time, really existed. That would make my 2 hour daily commute much more manageable, and I would have more time to spend on my hair in the morning.

2)      That one could achieve the positive health benefits of exercise just by thinking about it really, really hard.

3)That I could quickly and discretely change my skin color depending on my mood. Sometimes I like  the tanned look…sometimes, I like pale.

4)      That more people would be like me and send NICE emails to HR about my manager, instead of calling HR because of a general belief that all Managers are notoriously evil and should be destroyed.

5)      That there would be more “whoopsa-daisies” on the road to make commutes more interesting Whoopsa-daisies are those unexpected lifts and dips in the road that make your care weightless for a few brief moments. It’s kind of like flying without the expensive airfare and luggage charges. If wish #1 came true, this wish would be unnecessary.

6)      People would shut the heck up and stop trying to prove their superior intelligence. As Steven Covey wrote, “Seek first to understand, and then be understood”. Many people’s rule is “Talk their ear off until their eyes glaze over, and then talk some more until they are rendered numb and unresponsive”. If a fella has to work that hard at trying to show they are intelligent, the fella is probably a dolt.

7)      Projection would no longer occur. Did you ever have anyone say, “you shouldn’t eat that candy bar”? And you are left wondering, why do they think it is any of their business what I ingest?  The reason they are commenting, is that their internal running commentary is really directed towards themselves, but their internal lecture overflows out of their mouth and into your space. I call this the “Hector Projector” phenomenon.  Projecting your own beliefs onto someone else. Whenever you hear someone say “you shouldn’t…..” say to them, “Yes, Hector” and laugh maniacally. Hopefully, they will leave you alone from then on.

8)      That the weeds in my ditch would be zapped into outer space, and be replaced by lovely lupins.
 
9)    That I could be a writer as a full-time job. I would travel the world signing aoutographs. But I woulnd't have to drive or fly around the world. I would use that Star Trek do-dad to transport myself here and there in no time.

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