the making of me {chapter 7}

to escort me to our new abode, he drove along prospect street. it nabbed up all of the bits and pieces of the most beautiful parts of town. driving thru the undergrad campus and the beauty of the architecture, up the hill to the business buildings on to the school of forestry and then past Bet's house and the divinity school.

We pulled up to the sign that said "whitehall" graduate student housing.

pulled into the parking lot and into our parking slot. walked past the fence bordering "foote" school, the private school i would be looking at for the next 2 years. up the steps, thru the outside door and to the left. right to our door. oh, i was thrilled, OUR door, OUR doorbell. upon entering the kitchen i instantly designated the space a one bum kitchen, a hallway really. thru the rest of the house he took me. 2 bedrooms, wow! i wasn't thrilled but i wasn't devastated. it felt tolerable. we got to work bedding down for the night in our separate rooms only to discover the misery a night filled with humidity offered. within minutes, we were all on the queen blow up mattress under the one and only window cooling unit s.mac had installed the night before. oh, the torture. wet, hot and miserable.

looking back, it was really quite funny. i felt like i had been dropped off in another country. everything was so foreign to me.

within 48 hours of our arrival we had been greeted by a fresh loaf of bread, a welcome packet from the LDS church and the discovery of the routine in this city. it did indeed have rhythm, rhyme and reason.

walkers and joggers all over, IPODS everywhere and oh, the busyness of this town. everything right at our fingertips within walking distance. shops, restaurants boasting every cultural pleasure our tongues could imagine, people from every walk and country of this vast great world.

my first and foremost important task?
a grocery store. yes indeed. i had already googled WalMart and saw there was one right up the way from us. we made that one of our first stops, only to discover it was not a super center. it was devastated. we couldn't afford to shop at a regular grocery store, no way was $30 a week going to feed us at a regular grocery store. the local wal mart did offer some canned goods and other varieties that would get us by. i went home and immediately googled super center walmart connecticut. 4, in the ENTIRE state. what was wrong with these people, hadn't they heard wal mart had run for office and had been elected as rulers of the world? behind the times these people were.

s.mac had spied a "stop and shop" on dixwell avenue right by his barber shop. he gave me the directions, offering to watch the kids and off i went. it was old, decrepit and run down. when i entered i had my first experience of being the only white person in the vicinity. i decided every culture is the same in their need to love and be loved. all the black people in that store knew each other. there was singing in the isles and hugging and reuniting all around me. strangely reassuring to me. what wasn't reassuring to me were the prices. getting the things off my very stringent list and adding the prices on my calculator were putting me into a coma mode. $71.00 my total came too.

i came home with my brain turning on how we were going to survive these 2 years. no way on this green earth could i spend $71.00 a week. no way. milk was almost $5 a gallon and bread was sky high and processed into oblivion. i needed to find the secrets to more provident living for sure. i came home with a determined attitude to beat high grocery store prices and find a routine that would allow fresh food on a tight budget.

unpacking, rearranging furniture over and over again. and, a call home. help, i don't know if i'm up to it dad.......everything is so old in this town, plus their grass is dead and ugly. we haven't seen a sprinkler system yet. dead, ugly and dirty. plus, it seems lonely here. then.....

we went to our first sabbath worship at the parish house for the center church on the green.....