The sun sets over the Blue Ridge Mountains

I am a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia. I live in Virginia. I live in Virginia. This is Virginia. There is a hazy mountain range visible from my front stoop. This is not Texas. This is not a vacation. This is real life, and I live here now. Semi-permanently. I sort of feel lost in space and time right now. I've been lost in time ever since I quit my job in February. I generally have no idea what day of the week it is or even what month or season it is. It's very odd. And now I can add to that not really comprehending where I am. I need one of those huge electronic clocks that shows in big red laser letters "TODAY IS FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2004" hanging right by my computer. It's not enough that the computer screen already shows me this information. That little bar is small and unassuming. I need something garish that I cannot miss. Something I can see from anywhere in the room. Maybe I should have this item affixed to my body in some way. I'll have to work on this.

So I hate my dishwasher here. I miss my old Performa. It was a low-end Maytag with the best usability I have ever seen in dishwasher configuration. There were specially shaped pegs on the top rack that perfectly fit the bowls standing upright in such a way as not to clang into each other repeatedly during the wash cycle. And that was a major space saver to boot! I didn't realize how much so until we started using the Whirlpool. There is no good way to put the bowls in without obstructing necessary space for other dishes. We have tried many options, and there just doesn't seem to be a good way to input bowls. And we dirty up a lot of bowls somehow. The utensil basket is annoyingly toward the back of the bottom rack, which means you can't simply open the door and fling in a fork with ease. NO...you pretty much have to open the door fully and pull out the whole bottom rack in order to put something in the utensil basket. And this is a major inconvenience multiple times each day now that we are trying to instill the good habit of putting dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher as they are dirtied rather than creating a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink (which inevitably turns into a mountain range of dirty dishes all over the kitchen cabinets and stove top). And to top it all off, the soap dispenser doesn't open. Nope. You just have to hope the "prewash" bin full of soap will do the job. So what we really have is a dish sterilizer rather than a dishwasher. It is highly frustrating. Rodney (the unfortunate head of maintenance here at Squire Hill) will be hearing about it. Among other things.

(Cue Annie.) "I think I'm gonna like it heeeeere!" Why?
1. The sun sets over the Blue Ridge Mountains right outside my front door! Mix a little air pollution with the setting sun, and it's an orangey-pink delight!
2. Whole Foods Market! Oh my goodness, I was in nutrition heaven. Now if only I had money.
3. So far a "hot" day is about 90 degrees with humidity around 60%. I successfully missed out on the hottest part of the Texas summer. It's like losing hours when you cross time zones. I'll take it.
4. I can paint the walls if I want to!
5. I can walk to the mall from my apartment.
6. BOSTON MARKET!!!!!! (My new favorite fast food eatery.) Vegetables! Need I say more?
7. There's a New Balance store within minutes of my apartment. This is fabulous timing, as my shoes are shot, and my feet, legs, knees, hips, back, neck, and head remind me of this fact daily.

The down side is...
1. We lost a LOT of storage space that we were spoiled to having.
2. No Mrs. Bairds bread. (I sure do miss the smell of bread baking at the Mrs. Bairds plant as I drove over the 18th Street bridge at just the right time back home.)
3. No Ranch Style Beans.
4. No Saturn dealership.
5. The dishwasher is terrible. See diatribe above.
6. There are crazy drivers everywhere!
7. No Target store! (But there's one coming to a town near me!!!!)
8. No HEB, and no HEB prices either. Milk is $4/gallon! And people are shocked by gas prices!?
9. My parents are no longer right across town providing a convenient safe place for Ava any time I need to do something without her. This will become a challenge in the coming weeks.

Okay, that's all I can think of off the top of my sleepy head, so at 12:32am Eastern, I shall say goodnight to the Blogger dashboard and head to the kitchen for my nightly bowl of right-before-bed cereal. (The point is to dirty up one more bowl before the close of the day just so I can remind myself of how annoying the dishwasher is one more time before bed.) I am now faced with that pesky decision of which Food Lion delicacy to indulge in...will it be Bran Flakes, Frosted Wheat Squares, or Honey & Nut TasteeOs? Oh to have HEB here in VA...