Adjusting To The New Hood

Ok folks - it's been about 3 weeks since Dan and I moved out of downtown Toronto. Both of us having lived in the city for almost 10 years! It's been tougher on some than others in the household. In terms of who is handling it the best, it goes:

Dan
Me
Frankly

One of the greatest qualities I admire in Dan is his ability to be resilient and unperturbed in the face of change. I like to think it's partly because he grew up having to move 10X across 10 different houses growing up, and then in university he had to move every 4 months for co op. All that moving must have built his tolerance level for enduring transition and change.

I on the other hand - dislike change immensely, and subsequently - I've had a much more difficult time adjusting. I feel like an alien that's been dropped on a foreign planet here! And don't even get me started on Frankly - she's a bigger disaster than I am!

The following things are observations I've made about our new life here. I will acknowledge that I know it seems ridiculous - but note that I've never encountered any of the below things before in the past decade, so I hope you can understand why I feel like it's uncharted territory for me:

NEIGHBOURS - like legit friendly ones that want to chat with you + get to know you. Within the first few DAYS of moving into our house, neighbours were popping by left and right introducing themselves.

Note: I had lived in the condo with Dan for almost 5 years and only knew TWO sets of neighbours - and that was only in the last two years and it's because we got Frankly and made friends with the people in our hall that also had dogs. Before then, we had no idea who our neighbours were - beside us or across from us. At most we would say hi or good morning but otherwise everyone kept to themselves.

Here - within 3 days, Maureen from 3 houses down already told Dan + I to save the date in the first week of December because she hosts a holiday party for the street that her and her husband John had been throwing for the past 22 years. Oh Maureen!

DEMOGRAPHIC - not going to lie, ethnic diversity on this block leaves a lot to be desired. I think I'm the only Asian person living on this street. And Dan + I are definitely one of the youngest people living on the street. Everyone we've met (so far) seems to have lived on this street for 20+ years and have grandchildren.

SQUIRRELS + RACCOONS - this street is infested with them. And they're terrorizing Dan + I. I think we're being made victims of vandalism by them - possibly (most likely) racially motivated. Evidence includes:

Raccoons ravaged our green bin when we left it out the night before.Toppled it down, pried open the lid, and dug through our organic bin and spilled all the contents onto the ground. SAVAGES
Leaving chewed up bitten nuts (or fruit maybe?) on our deck - always in the same spot. I had to work from home the first week after moving in because I caught a really bad cold. Sometimes I would work in front of our windows and I would see the squirrels parading themselves up and down our street holding these green little nuts or fruit, likely showing off. Twice now when we wake up in the mornings, we see a pile of these chewed up fruits or nuts left on our back deck, always in the same spot. They're clearly sending us a message: I'll leave my garbage where ever the eff I want. And you can't do anything about it.
Chewed on our pumpkin! My mom picked out a gem of a pumpkin for us to leave at the front of our front door steps. The other night we started seeing nibbles on the pumpkin that progressed into bigger and bigger chunks the next day. They were eating our pumpkin and leaving a trail of the remains on our door step. Another hate crime!

As you can see - the above things have left me rattled and quite uncomfortable. I'm trying to embrace all this change but I think it's really going to take me time to get use to this new life. Except for the savage animals here - that I will never get over.

I'll keep you guys posted more on my Mimico/Suburbia tales - because not all things have left me rattled, some sweet gem experiences happened this week that made me feel like I was in Stars Hallow (Gilmore Girls holla!) so I'm hopeful as time passes that this place will feel more like home.

Sidenote: A thought just occurred to me - maybe all the things I'm mentioning are normal and I'm just jaded from being poisoned living in downtown Toronto for the past decade... *shudders* I'll have to ponder more about this.

I hate not including pics in a post, so below are some pics that were taken today of a park we drove near by to walk Frankly. Bonus of moving into a house and the burbs though - a photo of us shopping around for a barbecue... obvs Franks had to provide her input :)