City vs. Country

I’m starting to know my way around this big hospital down here. This morning I was able to get my surgery moved up from Wednesday night to Tuesday afternoon. So I had to go into the hospital today to get some additional blood work done as part of their surgery prep, and I am now tagged at the wrist, and ready to go tomorrow.

On the way home from the hospital, Knut wanted me to pick up a cheesecake from the grocery store as a surprise for my parents tonight. Although, it’s not for them, I don’t think. Because, you know, he wouldn’t benefit from that at all!

I went into Safeway, and city living flooded back to me. It’s one thing to visit a city, it’s another to live there. When you shop for groceries, you’re living. You should have seen the selection they had! Their ice cream aisle was the size of the entire frozen food section at my grocery store back home. And the cheeses! I just loved walking by and reading the names of all of them! I could have stayed in there for a few hours, but my energy was running low.

It’s probably a good thing we don’t live in the city anymore, because I can’t even imagine how high our grocery bill would be, because I’d want to try everything out.

I’ve found that I like Phoenix much more now than when I lived here. That’s pretty easy to say when the temperature is in the negative degrees back home! I drove around today with the windows down, and loathed the fact that I had only brought long sleeves. I get a headache almost every time I go out without sunglasses on.

However, we stick out like a sore thumb down here. The wonderful van that we’re driving is dirty, and all the vehicles down here shine. One guy at church last Sunday (who comes up north a few times a year) laughed and said “Now you guys are from Minnesota! I don’t even need to see the plates. It’s dirty, and a plug for the block heater is hanging out the front.” I’m sure we should have gotten it cleaned right away, but our whole vacation, or at least my whole vacation has been consumed with doctor visits, hospital visits, and such.

Still, there’s something about walking past teenagers making out on top of the grocery carts in front of a Safeway, that makes you think “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” Here you can leave the back door wide open, and not have a thought about bugs or cold running in. There is no bundling up to go outside, and there is shopping galore.

Still, I don’t think it holds a candle to our charmed life on the farm. At home Knut gets to come home for lunch on most days. At home I get to have a huge garden, which is almost a foreign concept down here. Back home there is skiing and snowmen and a 2 wardrobes for the different seasons. Back home the leaves (usually) fall in a rainbow of colors, and back home, tulips pop up in the spring.

As you can tell, I think we’re mentally ready to be home, although the reality of that will probably smack us in the face, as arctic temperatures tend to do. There will probably be no update by me about the surgery tomorrow afternoon. I’m setting aside lots of time for throwing up as I come off the anesthesia. Then we’ll be walking the fine line of figuring out when to come home after that. Not too soon, as we don’t want to push my health to any breaking point, and not too late, as we cannot trespass on my parent’s or the farm’s (or the sweet people watching Lena) kindness longer than necessary. Plus, despite the warm, beautiful weather, I think we’re ready to be home.