Bad Squirrels: Last week we brought some spring bulbs - 25 tulips, 50 crocuses and 50 grape hyacinths. Last Wednesday I looked on the packets and they said 'plant before the first frost'. As it was starting to sleet outside and snow was forecast, I donned Jamie's jacket and raced out to dig 125 holes and plant the bulbs under the trees. Over an hour later and looking severely bedraggled and feeling hypothermically cold, I returned inside: mission accomplished! Imagine my horror today to see a black and a grey squirrel (are they not meant to be in hibernation right now??) out digging holes right where I had planted the bulbs. Mr Grey Squirrel slowly ambled up the tree and sat watching me long enough for me to go inside and get the camera and snap a photo of him. That is most definitely a tulip bulb in his paws and not an onion. Maybe I need to pay more attention to the packet and dig 6 inches deep and not be content with 4-5 inch deep holes....
 

After Thanksgiving dinner: Jamie, Victoria, Jac, Joe, Trish, Tyler 

My First Thanksgiving - VF

And a snowy day it was with breaks of sunshine thoughout. We had a lovely leisurely sleep-in (after our 6.41am wake-up call from Popsie!) and then set aboutfinishing the preparations for taking some food to Joe & Trish's for a 2pm lunch. The table had been set by Jac (age 4) and we feasted on turkey, corn-bread stuffing, beans, potato (a la a Smith/Florida recipe with sour cream and cheese) and vege meatballs (Mother's cheese-centred recipe which I used smoked gouda for the centres) - which being made with one of the USA vegetarian products that are a little too meat-tasting for my liking! Dessert was cinnamon ice cream with apple or pumpkin pie (of course!). We stayed until around 6pm and then headed for Canada to Kim and Steven's house. Kim is the sister of Chad, Jamie's best man. They had so many people there it was initially a little overwhelming for me as they all seemed to know us and the only person I had ever met before was Chad. We were too full from our late lunch to eat more than snacks, but the almond splinters from Pat's recipe and some white chocolate/toasted coconut balls I had made went down rather well (yes the long stringy coconut, not the NZ/Aust version!). After some rather heavy-duty questioning on the way home at the border we got home around 11.30pm.

Here is the yummy cranberry jelly we made to take to Joe & Trish's house. I can highly recommend that everyone makes it for Christmas as it is ever so much nicer than the standard cranberry jelly that one usually buys to go with turkey and that no-one eats. It comes from Tami's grandmother Esther. Let us know if you need us to send you the cran-rasp jello!

1 cup ground cranberries (I used fresh, you can use frozen, don't need to cook them)
1 cup sugar
1 pkt red cran-rasp jello
1 cup hot water
1 cup crushed pineapple - well drained
1 cup pinapple syrup (I neede to open another tin of pinapple to get enough)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped celery
Combine sugar and cranberries (I used the belender for this, but make sure there are still chunks of the berries)
Dissole jelly (Jello!) in hot water and then add the syrup
Chill until partly set
Add the rest of the ingredients (I had the celery and walnuts in approx 1/2 cm bits)
Refridgerate until completely set

It is seriously very yummy and I did not deviate from the recipe at all (quite rare for me!!)

Here it is, on the eve of Thanksgiving! The first snow! 

Yesterday the 'lawn and snow' guys came for the "Fall Cleanup". They had been talking about this for quite some time but I hadn't quite realised that it was indeed quite such a big deal (as they had been making out that it was quite a big thing) until the last week or so when all the leaves finally came down. And indeed it was quite the big deal to blow all the leaves from the entire property into a couple of big heaps. Here is the resulting pile last night waiting for the city council to come this morning! As of 8am this morning they have all gone - just in time for the first snow that is forecast for later today. 

Here is the floor-to-ceiling bookcase installed in the entranceway. Apparently it was built with the house so it was quite a find in the basement! 

Discovery in the construction zone - 2

Today another discovery was made - the kitchen floor is also wooden!!!! Most exciting!!! So we got the builders to cancel the tiling plans indefinitely and investigate further. There were two layers of old vinyl (one a very bright spearmint green) and some strange black substance - like it is roofing tar paper laid directly on the wood. Much of the day was spent by Brent and I tipping various kinds of stripper onto it. Both of our noses were so stuffed up with allergies from all the dust that we even mixed up weird combinations of the different cans of stripper to see if they would work but to no avail. Some of it has come off but it looks like they will have to sand off most of the black (hmmmmmm, more dust - I think I will give up on sweeping, mopping and vacuuming until this part of the project is completely finished as I feel like I am fighting a loosing battle!)

Weekend events

We have had quite the busy social weekend - especially considering that we are more into the spending time together mode than going out. After church we had lunch at Andy's - he is an English guy, engaged to Jana who is Brazillian (wedding June 2005) and they just brought a new town house. All the usual crowd was there and we took some baked beans (no, not like NZ Watties in a tin - beans, vege sausage, brown sugar, worcetershire sauce etc etc) which were obviously quite yummy as they all got eater; corn bread and the famous potato/sour cream/cheese dish. We had dinner on Saturday night at Papa Vinos (Italian) with Anna and her sister Nadia who are going to visit Australia and NZ in December/January and so we spent the evening planning their itinerary for them. On Sunday we were up bright and early for breakfast with Tami and Steve to celebrate their news that they are having a baby at the end of May after being married for 18 years (we think this is likely related to the great holiday we all had in Maui in early September!!!). We spent a couple of hours in one of our favourite stores 'Home Depot' and spent not an insignificant amount of money on home items like screen doors (which are also needed to keep snow out as well as mosquitoes) etc. Then Shelly and Mark came for dinner - that was our first foray into entertaining which seemed to be a success! We continued the italian theme with antipasto and bruschetta, lasangna, a sour cream/mushroom/chicken dish (with both real and vege chicken options!) and individual lemon tarts made with lemon honey (lemon curd) that Victoria made on Friday.

Discovery in the construction zone - 1

Today an exciting discovery was made - the 3 stairs and landing between the back door and the kitchen are made of hard-wood!!! Amazing that this would be hidden under the bright red lino! That means that they can be sanded and polished up like the rest of the lovely floors in the house! We had a sleep-in this morning as Jamie is working in the evening and when we got up, the builders had crept into the lounge and fixed the bookcase to the wall in the entrance hallway! It looks so cool and I will spend the evening putting our books up in it (photo to come later).

Construction zone returns

Today our friends Brent & Brandon returned bright and early for phase 2 of the building rennovations. They asked 'did you miss us this last 3 weeks?'. I made a comment in return about the fact that it is "like your family being on holiday - after all you were here at 8am on our first day home as a married couple". They are going to put tiles on the kitchen floor and down the stairs and then gib-board (dry-wall) up the stairs and add in a ceiling down there as well as build in a box/cupboard around the water meter that is there. Should take about a week

Parial solution to the dessicated coconut issue - VF

As per my earlier comment in 'Moments associated with living in the USA - 2', and two batches of chunky-looking lamingtons later (which are not tooooooo bad as you have to make the chocolate part much thicker so they are quite yummy!) I've come up with a temporary solution. Putting the long strands of coconut in the blender, choosing 'liquefy' whilst turning the speed up as high as it will go and adding icing sugar seems to be a compromise! It's enough of a solution that I have just made Mothers chocolate truffles that almost look how they are meant to!

Another interesting thing is that in the USA they don't have Cadbury's Dairy Milk! Apparently you can get it in some places, but it is made under licence by Hersheys and the NZ/Australian websites say that it tastes different. We met a Canadian couple at a formal dinner for Jamie's work (he is a radiologist who works with Jamie) and I mentioned this most interesting fact to them and the wife said that you can get it in Canada. Three days later Jamie returned from work with 2 blocks of Cadburys Dairy Milk that they had bought for us!!!! No, I have not taken up eating chcoclate, I'm planning to make Pat's chcolate almond splinters for Thanksgiving.

I remembered that in the earlier posting about the boxes arriving that I said that I would post a photo of the wall unit in place. Well here it is, housing half of our collection of recipe books. The lovely pewter tea-set belonged to jamie's grandmother and we are looking after it for his Mom.  

More on joining the gym - VF

Since writing the post on going to the gym earlier, I received a link from a friend who writes for the NZ Herald newspaper. He wrote a piece about gyms which is rather amusing. Check it out on http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3609329&msg=emaillink
I met Willy in September 2000 when we sat together on an aeroplane going from Auckland to Sydney and we still briefly keep in touch every once in a while. He was going to watch his sister play in the NZ Hockey team at the Sydney Olympics and it turned out that I had gone to school with her (she was in my cousin Megan's class) and they had grown up in Darfield, not far from where we lived in West Melton.

Side effect of the topsy-turvey lifestyle...

...at least we are assuming that Jamie's nasty cold is a side effect of not enough sleep combined with the bugs from one of his residents he worked with. I have it now too, although it seems less severe so I was in denial for the first 24 hrs. Luckily I have some supplies of Southern Hemisphere cold & flu drugs - I haven't investigated the USA options yet (and there are many in the 'drug stores') but it seems that they don't have codeine or pseudoephidrine in them so I'm not sure if they are as effective as what I am used to. I think I will have to go on an excursion this afternoon to investigate as my 'Vicks' sore throat medicine is getting low and we are completely out of tissues.... Poor Jamie had to go off to work this morning as his workplace doesn't do sick leave unless you take a full week off at a time and it is booked 2 months in advance. Hopefully there are no patients requiring him to put needles into them or chop bits off them as he is definitely infectious. I think we will have to have soup for dinner due to the sore throats and the cold weather outside so provisions for cooking will also be required to be purchased on the excursion.

Topsy-turvy lifestyle - VF

Jamie is working nights this week. This means he goes to work from 11.30pm - 8am so we have been having bizarre sleeping habits. The lady next door apparently has a strange knowingness of the two weeks a year that Jamie has to work nights and true to form she has organised for her front porch to be demolished this week so that is resulting in Jamies sleep being rather broken. But only one more night to go after this one! I have been attempting to stay up as late as I can (hence many people in NZ receiving evening phone calls from me!) and have managed until 2am, 3am and close to 4am. I sleep until he comes home at 8.30 and on until around 11am-midday, then I slip out of bed and creep around the house getting ready to go out to the gym, shops etc and then Jamie phones me when he wakes. Strangely enough he has awoken every day at 3.24pm!

Bureaucracy 1 (there will likely be more bureaucratic issues to come!)

We were more than a little stressed the Thursday before our wedding after getting our marriage license to be told that the standard procedure for the state of Hawaii is for the wedding certificate to come to us in the mail approximately 120 days after our wedding. The big problem was that we needed it in NEW ZEALAND only 7 days later for Victoria's new passport and for the US immigration people at the consulate. Ron the celebrant said that in his 15 years in Hawaii, the fastest he had heard of was 3-4 weeks and only once did he know of a couple getting a faxed copy at all as that is just not done. So praying, praying, praying was done by us and so many other people! At 9am on Friday 17th when we were preparing to leave Maui, the Honolulu office phoned to say that they were sorry that they could not post our marriage certificate before then, but that they were about to fax it to us. Wow - a fax was better than nothing at all! So then we had a copy in hand that we were pretty sure would suffice for the NZ passport people (even though we knew it would not for the immigration people). It was definitely enough for the AA people in Auckland issuing the international drivers licence who were more interested in the "Certificate of Marriage" from the Grand Wailea (complete with gold seal with a 'loveheart tree' on it) than they were in the real one 'that's just a letter from the Hawaii Department of Health Records'.
Back in NZ on Monday 20th, exactly a week after our wedding what should appear by courier but the original of the marriage registration certificate!!! So now we had a faxed copy and an original! Amazing! - 5 working days and across the world as opposed to the official process of 4 months! On arrival at the US consulate for the big interview on Thursday 23rd there was yet another courier envelope containing another official copy of the certification! God surely can work miracles!!!!

Joining the gym - VF

I have been feeling rather slobbish the last week or two now that things around the house are coming into some semblance of normality and the realisation that I have done zero exercise since leaving NZ keeps hitting me repeatedly. In addition we have had so many meals in hotels and restaurants over the past 2 months and I find even the normal the US food quite different to my usual routine (which was previously quite healthy). This last weekend I felt so tired and lethargic (Jamie took my blood pressure with our new machine and I think it was 106/62 with my heartrate in the 50s somewhere) I decided I really do need to get back into the fitness regimen. Jamie is a member of a gym not far from here (well, 17.7 miles to be precise) and they offer a deal on spouses so off we went to sign me up on Sunday evening. I figure this is the best thing to do as I've already come to grief previously running on the uneven footpaths (sidewalks/pavements) - apparently it's the cold that breaks them up so much and I also don't fancy running outside in the snow when winter comes! We needed to take our marriage certificate (just as well it didn't take that 120 days to arrive here - I will put the story of that in our next post) to prove that we are married. It was just as well that Jeremy & Rebecca had orientated me to big gyms because this one is 100,000 sq feet with several pools with water slides, a cafe, spa and salon, climbing wall, several squash courts and is open 24 hrs a day http://www.lifetimefitness.com/clubs/index.cfm?strWebAction=club_details&intClubId=112 My fitness test didn't show anything surprising - I was exactly where I thought I would be after just over 2 months with no exercise. I have booked a personal training session for Wednesday and if I attend two of the free seminars within 60 days I get a free massage voucher for 30min at the spa!

What to take for a "potluck" - VF

Every Saturday after church, a group of people get together for lunch at Jim & Becky’s house. ‘The Group’ has apparently been in existence for quite some years since Jim & Becky took on responsibility for providing a place for the youth of the church as well as their non-church friends to hang out. This has continued for so many years that no-one fits the criteria for “youth” anymore but events still happen each week http://www.cupofdecaf.com/v2_calendar.htm . (Jim & Becky and eight others from 'the group' came to our wedding in Maui). Anyway, after we had dinner last night, Jamie thought that what I had made would go down rather well with cornbread at Jim & Beckys. So, after my previous comments about things corn (see post “Moments associated with living in the USA - 2”) I thought I would attempt the very American ‘cornbread’. Well this proved easier than I thought: - take the cornbread mix, add water, mix it in the new KitchenAid mixer until smooth (that took all of 7 seconds), put in a pan (baking tin) in the oven for 30minutes and Voila! - all American cornbread! The proof will be in the eating tomorrow I daresay…. Well, this is to go with an new batch of last night’s Lentil and Tofu curry which was ever so much more delicious than it sounds. I got the recipe from one of the little Sanitarium cookbooks, “Best of Vegetarian” - the one that goes through month by month with different recipes. This one is on pg 19 (picture pg 18) and seems to fit our cirrent criteria of being low-fat, low-carb and all good and healthy. However I didn’t put in the curry powder as we didn’t have any and instead put in my own mix that I like to use of crushed corriander seeds, ground ginger, cinnamon and extra cummin (in addition to the listed cummin, corriander and garum marsala). The all-natural ingredients will hopefully make up for what is surely on the cornbread mix label that I didn’t dare read as it’s surely all extra-refined, processed, enriched, bleached, hydrogenated and additived. Speaking of pre-prepared, the other thing I made to take (“bring a dish to pass at the potluck”) was one of Jamie’s favourites - vegetarian sausages in puff pastry. Easy-peasy again when you’re in the US of A…. you get the pack out of the fridge and break the seal and it kind of explodes and there you have, 8 little pre-cut pastry triangles so then you open the tin (can) of vege-sausages and wrap the pastry around them and after about 12 minutes in the oven, hello, there are eight little croissant-like sausage-rolly things that to date seem to vanish so fast at lunch that you hardly remember that you made them. Not a problem to make 16 or 24 or 32 or however many it takes to feed everyone (we are doing an experiment to see how many we can take and have some left. So far we are up to 24 vanishing rather swiftly).

The new KitchenAid mixer
Here is our newest appliance (we have been collecting quite a few in the last couple of months!!). Trish phoned just before we went to New Orleans to say they were on sale at Costco for $249 (Costco is like a NZ combination of The Warehouse and Pak n' Save but with wider aisles, bigger trolleys (carts) and bigger sizes of everything from baking powder to pianos and you pay an annual membership fee). I have seen them at my favourite shop 'Bed Bath & Beyond for about $369 so it was a good deal and so we had to get one as we did not have one at all. BTW I saw one of the mixers in the November edition of Delicious (my thoughtful husband subscribed for me so that I have a downunder connection each month!) on pg 168 so they are available in Australia and NZ. It so reminds me of mothers mixer when I was a child. Herewith also the cornbread mix that I will write about next!
 

Half-way there....unpacking in progress (you can see the dragonfly light that is above where the table usually is). The wall unit is exactly the same colour as the darker grain in the wooden floor. Had a rather emotional moment when unpacking one box which I had first acquired when leaving Sydney Adventist Hospital in 1990 (the box, not the exact contents). The box has endured several trans-Tasman crossings and now a trans-Pacific crossing.... And now I finally have a home so the box has gone out to the recycling (Jamie suggested we keep it for posterity but I said no, it is GOING.... its kind of like the end of the transient life phase... that went on for rather longer than my liking!) But now I have a wonderful husband who has been so supportive throughout this merging of lives phase and the transient phase has well and truely ended, never to return. Final picture of the room looking less chaotic is yet to come!!! 

22 items - finally delivered door-to-door, Newmarket, Auckland - Berkley, Detoit! 

The arrival 

Finally, finally, the big day.... - VF

.... when my belongings arrived!!!! It took less than a month from NZ to Los Angeles, but exactly six weeks from arriving in LA on 23rd September until today. The ensuing period has brought much anger, tears and disappointing disbelief from one expat kiwi. According to the various third party removal, trucking and freight forwarding companies I have spoken to, this is some kind of a record for moving things across the US so I was relieved to find it was not just me who was horrified at the time it has taken to get things across this country (when really, it is only a 4.5 hour flight). From the start when there was difficult getting my 22 items released from customs and I needed to send multiple copies of my passport, visa, marriage certificate, Jamie's passport, copies of the pages with stamps from when he visited NZ, his social security No (I didnt have one at that time but thankfully that piece of bureaucracy was the easiest yet) etc along with an 8 page Power of Attourney document giving authority over to some customs agent whom I had spoken to on the phone once; to the last few days when they were going to dump my life on the side of the street. All very traumatic for moi..... Most of the issues seem to have been related to the fact that although we paid a lot extra money for door-to-door delivery Auckland-Detroit (we didn't want to have to go to some downtown Detroit warehouse with a trailer), it seems like this is unusual and "kerbside" is the norm. So when they announced (for about the 7th time) on Tuesday my things were DEFINITELY coming today, I was delirious with excitement and ran to the window every time I heard a truck outside (and as there are roadworks up the street AND it was rubbish, recycling and leaf collection day, there were a lot of them). When no truck had come by 4pm, I resorted to phoning one of the many companies involved again, to be told that there was a problem with fitting the truck up the street (I still have not worked that one out as the trucks I saw going past that day were rather massive) I was devastated. Then, many phone calls between me, LA, the Detoit trucking comapny depot, the contractor who was contracted by the depot to deliver, the NZ shipping company and the NZ people I originally arranged things with, later; it seems like one of the issues (as with the customs issue) as this door-to-door business. It seems like only me and the original NZ people are in agreement and everyone else thinks it is "kerbside". Well, as I kept saying to these people "aside from the fact that we have paid for inside delivery, it is absolutely pouring with rain, it is 'trash day' and I am only 5 foot 2 and some of the furniture is 6 foot tall, you CANNOT leave it on the side of the road". With all the time differences, I was told it would be sorted out "tomorrow as long as someone pays for it and if there are truckers in Detroit that deliver inside". So on Wednesday I phoned 3 random removal companies in the yellow pages and indeed, all had availability and what's more, they all did inside delivery. Hmmmmmmmm methinks someone doesnt want to pay for it..... So I yet again phoned the LA people and gave them the details as well as the phone numbers from the yellow pages. More phone calls to and fro again and by the end of the day still no boxes.... I really lost it when the LA people phoned at 7pm and said 'we have someone who can deliver tomorrow but you will have to pay the $250 charge on your credit card and when the NZ people reimburse us we will pay you back. After the shocking service they have given me and the lies they have told????? I don't think so!! In my most polite voice I said "Donna, no offense to you personally, but with all the issues I have had with your company, the lies I have been told and the phenomenal delays, I really don't trust your company to pay me back, there most be some other way". I then suggested that she (who has been most incompetent throughout this whole fiasco) might like to put it on her personal credit card because then her boss could make sure it came in her next pay. She hung up on me. (nothing new, her and her colleagues have done this to me on at least four occasions). Finally, finally this morning dawned and the nice man I had found in the yellow pages phoned to say that he would be there in 40 minutes!! I could hardly contain myself, I was so excited and could scarcely think what to do in the meantime. And then... there they were... all my little (and not so little) boxes and suitcases and the wonderful rimu wall unit, chest, desk etc. Miraculously the glass in the doors of the wall unit was intact, as was the glass in all the picture frames. [There is something not at all good going on with the desk - parts were sticking through the packaging like broken bones and part of it fell out when I started to open it so I have left it be for now and will get to that later when I am feeling less fragile myself!] So I worked crazily like a mad-woman for the next 8hours, unpacking and moving furniture and rearranging and taking things down to the now clean and dray basement so that it all looked ship-shape when the husband got home. Thankfully he was late, so I had an extra 3 hours longer than I thought that I would and it was all looking rather homely if I dont say so myself! And indeed, he was rather flabbergasted at the change! He even commented along the lines that it really does look and feel like a home now. Poor Jamie has been just incredible thoughout this process and has known exactly what to say and do when his wife keeps getting emotional over the delays of the last six weeks. Even when he walked in the door when I had just hung up the phone from the horrid LA people, I would feel instantly calmer and as it everything was going to be alright. It's quite strange - not that anything in the boxes etc was life/death to me, nor would it have been the end of the world if it had fallen off the boat into the sea, it's just strange to not have 'my stuff' with me. And not that there was much of it either! A total of 4.5 cubic metres!! I guess in a way it represents one's life and that is significant, or maybe it was the not knowing where it all was - possibly it might have been different if it had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. I really feel for refugees who flee their countries with nothing but the clothes they are wearing that kind of situation makes mine pale into insignificance. Huge sighs of relief here in the Berkley estate..... now we can focus on takling the issue of the green card that came in the name 'Smith' and not 'Finch'.... more on that at a later date....

Moments associated with living in the USA - 3

After hearing me describe my escapades described below, Jamie came home from work with a website kindly provided by someone he works with who is from Melbourne. In the e-mail she wrote to me via him, she even e-mailed a list of Australian TV programmes should I need to hear some Antipodean voices!

She said "I don't know if you've seen this site before but I thought I'd share the address with you. I have enjoyed wasting some time reading, smiling and nodding along with many of the things written here. If you get a moment I think it is worth a look just to reassure yourself that it doesn't just happen to you... http://www.aussieinamerica.com
It is described by the author as: 'A "light-hearted yet insightful" look at the cultural differences between Australia and America, as based on my experiences as an Aussie expat living in the United States of America.' "

I can really relate to the "telemarketer" section (I must try playing Mary had a little lamb with the 4, 5 and 6 buttons on the phone!) especially seeing as on the weekend there were 3-4 calls each day by the political parties. Also the "language" (I don't get the 'erbs' and so now wont even try to) and "decidedly different" (so it's not just me puzzled by the 'pay cheque', the light switches ARE upside down and the taps do turn the opposite way off is on and on is off - confusing in the shower because I make it colder when trying to make it hotter....) sections.

Moments associated with living in the USA - 2

Also when I was here on holiday earlier in the year, I was shopping for cornflour..... the crucial secret ingredient in my pavlova recipe.... I find corn everything - corn meal, corn bread, candy corn, corn muffin mix, corn pancakes, and more.... six 'stores' later and some phone calls (thanks Jeremy) I discover that cornSTARCH is cornflour. I had a similar issue recently looking for icing sugar (powdered sugar).

Last week I was reassured to find that the other shopping "issues" I have had relating to the fact there is no fine desiccated coconut (resulting in chunky-looking lamingtons with large strands of coconut stuck on!), no golden syrup, and finding custard powder took me to three different stores (but with eventual success) are normal! This web-site explains all http://www.heartwindow.com/abroad/foodhints/ - see the sections on 'different names and labels' and 'same name but it's strange'. They also give some very useful hints about buying things and I could SO relate to the section about the size of the supermarket! It seems to take me so long to even go up the road to the smaller supermarket that I found and get 10-12 items. I really find the big supermarkets (imagine K-Mart and Foodtown/Woolworths all combined into one huge shop) so overwhelming. I think it's all the lights, sounds, colours, combined with the fact that most things look quite different so I can't just go and get something off a shelf, I have to read the label on each item that I pass to work out what it in the bottle. It's amazing how alike detergent, laundry liquid, fabric spray, stain remover, toilet cleaner and air freshener look and how there can be about 17 varieties of each!

Moments associated with living in the USA - 1

This happened to me last time I was here on holiday....
I was needing to get a key for the house cut and couldn't seem to find a place anywhere saying "Key Cutting" and there's no handy "Mr Minute" shops around like I am used to so next thing, when I am driving past a shop with a window sign "everything to do with doors and windows is here" so I stop and take in my key to be cut. "Oh no, we do sell locks but, no, we don't do key cutting - you'll have to go next door to the lumber-yard" . Lumber yard??? (not hardware store) so off I go and sure enough, the very cheery man cuts my key for 75c and to top it off sends me off down the back to the free popcorn machine to help myself to as much as I want!!

I guess they would find it just as bizarre to have to go to a 'shoe repairs' shop in NZ, Aust or the UK for key cutting...