And also there are chickens here

So I check in and drop Michael off and: this is it!  This is the epic kick off to the year of Duder!
What do I do?  I find "Happiness".
See, I've been reading "Happiness" for a few days now and it was coming the crux and when we were packing to leave I couldn't find it anywhere.  Turns out I'd already packed it and so I happily dug it out, sat in the backyard and polished it off.
Then I ate some brie, blue cheese, cherries and a nectarine as well as some pistachio nuts while I got through 30% of the most recent Rolling Stone Magazine, while listening to Wilco, the Jayhawks and Sade.
I also fucked around with Google Voice and managed to "call" Michael on the laptop for free which was awesome because I have no money.  It wasn't great: it kind of reminded me of the "cell to cell" phone call days where you pause and say "what?' a lot, but for free?  I'll take it.
Anyways, the digs here seem a bit too perfect.  She's a bit of an environmentalist and I got a welcome basked of fruit and free range eggs from her own hutch when
I arrived.  She talks about water conservation.  She composts.  And there is literally a chicken hutch outside my window and if you know me, and you don't, I grew up next to family that raised chickens.  It was so surreal to sit on the couch and listen to all the funny sounds that chickens make because it reminded me of my childhood.  And lo, when I grabbed a plate out of the cupboard?  It was the same pattern as the plates we had growing up.  I know they were prevalent: but that was eons ago.
It was nice to know that all the plates from my childhood weren't broken.
Oh: I just remembered that once I went to Lasqueti by myself for a few days in my late teens.  I went kind of feral: I didn't shower a lot and I ate oddly and napped in the grass often.  I went out kayaking and a qualicum blew up and it was so severe it sank a sailboat in the bay that night.  I barely made it in.
Okay.
I've made it in.