Just Call Me Donna Reed.

As I woke from my slumber and stumbled out of bed I suddenly got hit with that primal urge to nest, and make the bed. I moved into the kitchen, desperately trying to ignore the 6ft 4inch blond behemoth in his tightie whities obstructing my path, and proceeded to make coffee. I then wiped down the counter and did last nights late night snack dishes that were left out. As I reached for the snack bowl, hands covered in suds, it hit me. I have become domesticated. Am I becoming my father (if you knew my mother you'd understand)? I tried to shake off this realization as I turned on the dishwasher and began moving last nights pasta casserole into tupperware. Maybe I'm not the only one. Maybe this is a right of passage, like your first kiss, and the first guy you punch out, or for those of you with normal childhoods, your first apartment.

Have I been bred for this? After a sufficient amount of wild and reckless dish washing habits, and lack of sweeping and putting food away is there a chemical that triggers me to tame my feral and savage ways?

Finally I pinned it down. It came to one four letter word....

B-R-A-D.

Yes, Brad.

It seems as of late there's a trend that I am now officially a part of. Maybe it's the cold of winter, maybe it's the holidays and family, maybe some beacon went off igniting our collective (if not slightly accelerated) biological clocks, or maybe the flood is coming. Regardless it seems we are pairing up like Noah's Ark.

Brad is my significant other. My main squeeze. The bread to my butter, and all those vomit inducingly cute things to say. I've been staying in his house for the last few days, and have rapidly fallen into a routine of cooking, and cleaning and tidying. I'm waiting for Donna Reed to present me with my string of freshwater pearls for my accomplishments in housewifery. Except that I think she might be dead. Is it a sign of maturity, or neurosis that I vacuum his living room, and clean his sheets. Is it love or just madness.

Maybe I'm becoming my father. The kind of person who cleans up your plate before you've finished your sandwich. Maybe I'm settling in. Maybe I'm just growing up, oh god......

All I know is that if one more dish gets put away dirty, I swear to God, I'll take another vicodin and wash it down with gin. Straighten my pearls, iron my apron, and scrub it till it sparkles again.

And then I'll make a roast.

Ok America....yes, I Love you, but you're weird.

That little cousin you have that likes to pull your toes. Your best friend in High School who started the Star Trek/Lord of the Rings combo LARP club. (live action role play, for those a little less nerdy) Or that dog you grew up with, the one who liked to bring you rocks, instead of sticks, and liked to eat your blue socks.

This is how I feel about America. Specifically, California. I love you, but you're weird.

Being Canadian born and raised and only venturing outside the safe borders of the land of the Maple Leaf one year ago, I had a skewed version of what America would be like. You see, America to me is exactly like the movies. It's Canada, but with a few more issues. It's the intimidating big city where dreams come true. It's the typical small town where your roots always lie. It's magical and terrifying.

Well. America. You are all these things. You are all these things and so much more.

America to me feels like home, especially since Canada has always felt like the little sister to America. Trying hard to be as cool as it, but never quite getting there. So, I love America. I love the way you can have four different climates in one country at one time. I love the skewed cultural ambiguity. I love Football.

I love that little cousin, he's adorable and sweet. I love that friend from high school, he could make me laugh no matter what. I love that old dog, who curled up in my legs to sleep. Regardless of this love there's still the LARPing, the toe pulling and the sock eating to contend with. America is not exempt.

It started at the Bellingham Airport in Washington. I was lucky enough to score a flight to Los Angeles for $38 out of Bellingham, and living in Vancouver it's a quick $25 bus ride out of town. In the Bellingham Airport I was greeted by a Washington State Trooper, who talked to me for at least a half hour about what it's like to be a Trooper (sounds impressive, it really isn't). He kept referring to me as his "Friendly neighbour to the North" and yeah, it's a small town, not a busy airport. I get people telling me boring stories all the time. Maybe it's just me, I attract mind-numbingly boring stories. What got me was that sitting behind him was a sign that read "Dear Passengers, Please be sure that your Firearms are in your CHECKED baggage, not in your carry-on. If firearms are found in your carry-on baggage you will be charged $50 fee and will then be asked to place them in your Checked baggage. Please also be sure that your firearms are not loaded and in a hard shell case. Thank You"

Well. Naturally I felt reassured. That $50 fee is really going to deter people from bringing guns on a plane. Thank goodness for that sign. If however, as a Canadian, I were to fly across the border, I can't even have anything on my lap during the flight.

The mailboxes and newspaper boxes threw me for a loop when I first saw them. Being a film and television technician, I see these mailboxes all the time. Usually when I'm carting one off a set-dec truck. Not so much when I'm actually buying a newspaper or mailing a letter. It just made America feel a little like a movie set to me. On that note: Mail Service on Saturdays? No wonder the Postal Workers of America are pissed.

The grocery store, Walmart, Target, Etc. They have aisles and aisles of liquor. This is not weird. This is just AWESOME.

Bars also open at 6AM in California, this is a booze-hound's dream. Wake-up, go to the bar, drink, go to work, drink, come home, drink, go to the bar, drink, pass out in the alley for a few hours, repeat. Except that the beer here tastes like someone splashed a little beer in a glass of soda water. I seriously have to pee every ten seconds when I drink American beer. I also look like a rockstar when I, a 125lb (er....sure, 125lbs) fairly slight, blonde can down ten beers without blinking an eye, Thank God for adult diapers.

Mmm Also, CHEESE is ridiculously cheap. It's awesome. My father, who spends $100 on cheese a week would feel like he died and went to heaven. Huge wedges of Jarlsberg for $4.50, Parmesan, Asiago, Romano, THREE BUCKS! Old English Extra Aged Cheddar 5 bucks! These are all fairly sizable chunks here too people. I'm talking Chuck E Cheese sizes not Stuart Little.

So, Firearms, cheese, booze, mailboxes.

When I come home, or into someones house, my first instinct is to take off my shoes. Well I was met with looks of shock, disgust, inquiry and mild displeasure when I did this after arriving at my destination. Apparently clean socks on carpets and furnishings are much more disgusting and rude than shoes that have been outdoors walking through the dirty streets of LA and Vancouver. These are shoes that have tread through the drug addicted areas of East Vancouver, through the urine and heroin and spit. Shoes that have walked through mud and remnants of dog feces, maybe human feces, and have tread the alcohol soaked floors of many a night club and bar. This, is okay to have in your house, but god forbid you save the carpets and furnishings and expose your socks! gasp.

Kraft Dinner. The staple of the student and those of us desperately grasping on to student status and milking it for all we can. "What did you have for lunch today baby?" asked my American boyfriend, Brad. "Oh I just whipped up a box of KD. There's some left in the fridge if you want some." I was met with a stare that rivaled the shoes in the house incident mentioned above. "You mean Macaroni and Cheese?" he replied. KD. KD is not Macaroni and cheese. I mean, yes, technically it is, but Macaroni and cheese implies nutrition and effort and a crispy cheesy top, maybe a cracker crust bottom, and 20 mins baking at 350 degrees. KD is the closest thing to cardboard the FDA will approve as edible. Soooo not Macaroni and Cheese. Plus, it tastes different, KD feels like it has more artificial flavour, something that "Kraft Mac and Cheese Dinner" is seriously lacking.

My spell check is currently fighting me and pissing me off with these underlined red words. Flavour, Neighbour, Colour. Yeah. With a U. Deal with it Spell Check!

Ketchup Chips. The greatest invention in the snack food world. Non existent in America. Which is weird, because they're made by Lay's, both countries have Lay's chips, so why wouldn't both countries have Ketchup Chips. So tragic for the Americans.

I also had a heck of a time trying to convince Brad that Smarties were:
A)Not a compressed sugar snack known to Canadians as "Rockets"
B)Not the same as M&Ms. They taste nothing alike.
So I brought him some, "These taste like M&Ms." GAH!

You know. America, you're awesome, with your trash TV. Your Pinkberry Fro-yo. Your random celebrities on the street. You're great. You have NFL and gigantic freeways. Apparently you also have handsome men. America, you and me, we're bros. I love you, but you're weird.

Oh yeah, don't even get me started on Fahrenheit and the Imperial system....we'll be here for days.