Wo Family Open House Project, Episode 2

I did promise to keep the crowd apprised of our household review process.

Newsflash: Not much has changed.

We have spent a few weekends out at open houses. The results of these searches have been predictable dismay about how little you get for a half a mil' in this city, somewhat peppered with uproarious laughter over what we keep pretending we might accomplish with any of the 'diamonds in the rough' we have had to consider. So my party line this week. Well, p-man is trying to move and I am trying to renovate this house. Whoever is done first wins!

But you know to be honest I am NOT moving. I have about 32 reasons, I will post a sampling over the next few months. Reason for today, the park.

We live across the road from a small but vital park about the size of one of our small city blocks. It offers the following:

Tennis courts where the horrifyingly fit seniors in the neighbourhood play tennis for 2 hours most mornings.

Large lawns where people take their dogs to crap, which does not bother me. It means my daughter has like 20 surrogate dogs and I never need to pick up one bit of poop myself.

An aging playground that is well used by all the kids I know in baby hollow, my pseudonym for the hood. Good enough equipment that doesn't draw crowds but keeps me happy.

Also, our park is well treed and beautiful with a view from the swings of the Strait of Georgia that stretches almost to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I honestly would have been a lesser parent without this park. When anything is awry I just trek across the street for instant entertainment in the hiding tree. Or, I rush out to see the only thing my daughter considers a princess, a friendly 8 year old Shiba Inu now retired from the show circuit. If I need to get out of the house I have 'instant mommy group' at the sandbox, no Gymboree fees involved. When I lacked routine the magic of a walk in the park gave me a lot of help. As with so many things I have done in my brief parenting experience, I don't know that I did anything "right" but when the situation required it I had somewhere that would give her something instead lurking inside and giving up. A hectare or so can offer quite a lot to a little person and -- I now know -- to me. I can't imagine living somewhere else, somewhere distant from this.

I mean it is possible that a bygone period of chemically-fuelled interface with the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society is disproportionetly directing these views.. but heck I have made worse decisions than "Hell, no I won't go" based on even flakier criteria.






ps.. I fixed the sink in about 7 minutes, cost 50 cents. We are not completely hopeless.