![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Being in California is so surreal.
Jun. 18th, 2008 06:48 am
The birds aren't very different - just a little different. I don't know birds by name in NYC, but I recognize their songs and their appearances - not so here.
The plants aren't very different - just a little different. You expect palm trees and other exotica, sure - but the grass we walk on is just a little less soft, a little more bouncy. The grass that's a weed in the garden has a slightly different seed head. The leggy weeds that pop up everywhere, no matter what you do look very similar to the ones we have at home - almost perfect, but not quite.
The hills, as I've said - well, we have hills on Staten Island. But the shape is off just a bit, and the colors of course are off (ours have more trees).
At the pool on various days (such a novelty to the nieces!), we've seen other little kids in bathing suits. In NYC, at the sprinkler, all the little girls have bathing suits like my niecelings do, in various shades of brown and olive green and some gray, with subtle flowers on them. Here, it seems like they all have bathing suits in bright blues and yellows and greens, with bright flowers on them. The bathing suits were no doubt all bought from the same national brands, but here and there there's a different color preference!
And, of course, to me a house isn't a house without at least a second story. It makes sense for my Bonne-maman to have a house all on one level, but still! (Actually, for some unknown reason, there's a step from the kitchen into the backyard. Pisses me off - how hard would it be for a ramp to be put in there?)
People favor a different style of car here.
The very moss is different in a subtle way.
All these little things, you know? Not the big obvious stuff you expect (it was actually, for example, cooler here when we arrived than it had been when we left New York!), but the little things.
The plants aren't very different - just a little different. You expect palm trees and other exotica, sure - but the grass we walk on is just a little less soft, a little more bouncy. The grass that's a weed in the garden has a slightly different seed head. The leggy weeds that pop up everywhere, no matter what you do look very similar to the ones we have at home - almost perfect, but not quite.
The hills, as I've said - well, we have hills on Staten Island. But the shape is off just a bit, and the colors of course are off (ours have more trees).
At the pool on various days (such a novelty to the nieces!), we've seen other little kids in bathing suits. In NYC, at the sprinkler, all the little girls have bathing suits like my niecelings do, in various shades of brown and olive green and some gray, with subtle flowers on them. Here, it seems like they all have bathing suits in bright blues and yellows and greens, with bright flowers on them. The bathing suits were no doubt all bought from the same national brands, but here and there there's a different color preference!
And, of course, to me a house isn't a house without at least a second story. It makes sense for my Bonne-maman to have a house all on one level, but still! (Actually, for some unknown reason, there's a step from the kitchen into the backyard. Pisses me off - how hard would it be for a ramp to be put in there?)
People favor a different style of car here.
The very moss is different in a subtle way.
All these little things, you know? Not the big obvious stuff you expect (it was actually, for example, cooler here when we arrived than it had been when we left New York!), but the little things.
