Dear Amy at 8,
Libraries are a still very prevalent in our lives. I mentioned it once before and I will say it again. The nice thing about libraries, aside from the common interest with Mom, is that they are peaceful. We’re never much for quiet, but when we want it the library is there waiting. There are two main libraries during this time in our life: one is in Hellings, and the other is by Esquires. Both are unique, so we will consider them both.
First off, Hellings, our school library. The layout is a bit hazy to me now but there was a long round counter that had a small saw behind it for some reason. I remember that part well because we were a part of some sort of club that cut out Styrofoam figures… That sounds odd, but we basically pasted cut out pictures onto small squares and then trimmed the excess foam off. I’m not 100% sure what we did with them afterwards, but it was fun. This library is also where we develop our interest in a specific set of numbers that will later help us find our soul mate. It will take a while, but hold out and hold on.
The other library is just in the Surrey/Delta area. Truth be told I am not sure which city it belonged to anymore, but I remember the Esquires fondly. They used to have a logo with a penguin and it was in the strip mall just down from the library. Mom will take us every once and awhile in a mission to try all of the various flavors of syrups in steamed milk. Our favorite is Almond. It’s delicious, but it doesn’t exist in many places now so we settle for Hazelnut. Luckily enough, there is an Esquires in our next city as well – but we still never manage to try them all. Spoiler alert.
We will move again this just, just before our birthday. The sad part about leaving is that some of these friends we will never see again. Mom has a going away party where everyone comes over. It’s a murder mystery, like clue, and Annie surprises us by showing up. There are two pull out couches in the living room where everyone sleeps, but we choose to sleep under the desk instead. It’s hard on us emotionally… going to a new province. At least before the moves were relatively close so we could still hang out on the weekends.
This time around we have siblings to come with us. When the other two were born, I don’t remember being effected as much as the first. That’s them in the picture in 1998 – we aren’t there, but aren’t they adorable. All four of us will have each other in the move, and also Zeke, our black lab. He likes to wander, but he always comes home. We’ll get a kitten in Alberta as a moving surprise… don’t get to used it… the poor thing runs away. Cats don’t like being thrown to see if they land on their feet. None of us really knew cats back then, but the good news is that you make it up to many cats later on and they love us.
-A
A. N. Stetzl 