Baghdad By The Bay

One year ago today we packed up and left the house where I was raised, grew up and moved into again after 55 years of living in San Francisco. When the house was finally emptied and we had packed up the car I knew that in driving away I would never see this house in person again.

It was a sad day for me. I had never lived in any other city than San Francisco and while this was an exciting time, it was a terrifying time as well. I hadn’t been on a plane since 2002 I think and our daughter had never been on a plane let alone sleep anywhere else.

The trip went better than expected and I assume you’ve been following along so it was fun to discover new things and re-visit some places I hadn’t seen in 22 years. Overall I’ve been happy with the move and being out of debt and feeling financially secure for the first time in I don’t know how long. 

The people of Northampton, MA have been extremely welcoming and helpful to someone who moved from San Francisco, CA unlike what you hear about the reception of San Francisco residents who move to Washington or Oregon. They gave us lots of tips for surviving the hot summers [not really needed since we have central AC] and dealing with the snow in the Winter [not a bad one and we have a Gardner who plows snow for you in the Winter].

I still miss looking out my dining room window and seeing the Pacific Ocean and the smell of the beach [well, maybe the smell of the beach from when I was a kid], but things have been much better for us since we arrived here. The food is good and inexpensive generally, but it’s kind of like pizza places have swapped places with Chinese restaurants here. You can walk down the block and pass 4 pizza places, but you’ll have to drive a bit to find a Chinese restaurant. Mexican food isn’t as bad as people said it would be [because this is Western Mass, not Boston]. Indian food is off the hook here.

Our daughter loves her school and the teachers have been there for years because they can actually afford to live here. The schools as well as the people are very accepting of all students which is nice when you’ve got an autistic daughter that sometimes was looked down upon in SF. The schools are actually helping our daughter to move forward and learn new skills and abilities and to be a part of the school.

So now I kind of have a decision to make for Baghdad by the Bay. I’m not in San Francisco anymore and can’t really experience the things I used to write about in the City. So what should I do now? If you have ideas you can email me any suggestions you might have or comment below. I’m definitely not going to remove the site and all the work I had done, but I’m thinking for now I’ll keep going with the comparison and contrasts of what I’ve seen here.

I also had developed while living in San Francisco a bit of a heart problem in that I’m going to need to have bypass surgery done in the near future. My doctor’s are confident that I’m young and healthy enough to come through it fine, but while I’ve been a bit sparse here, I might be a little more sparse in the near future as I have the surgery done and go through the recovery, but I assume if I’m spending a lot of time in bed that I might have more time to write as well.

Hi Everyone. Just thought I’d post a short little note to let my readers know that part of the reason I haven’t had a post in awhile is that the site had been hacked and I was working with my provider to fix the problem which…for the most part has been fixed. The only remaining problem was because it was hacked my site was put on a black list so I can pass along [and neither can you] on Facebook or some of the other social media platforms at the moment. I’m working to fix this and now that I’ve got this problem solved I’ll be putting together some more articles for the site. Just a little update. Continue… Oh yeah, that’s Felix our new cat that didn’t hack the website, but he did ruin the ceiling in our basement that’s about to be redone.

I’ve been debating telling people that I’ve left San Francisco for an easier life in the Hamptons because it’s less expensive. I’d be sort of correct, but not exactly talking about the same Hamptons they’d be thinking about.

Today we took a drive through the ‘Hamptons. Note the apostrophe. We drove from Northampton down route 5 to Easthampton and then continued on to Southampton, but we didn’t make it quite as far as Westhampton today because we were getting hungry and well, Easthampton was the best choice for food [close to the only choice as well outside of Northampton unless you wanted to eat more Dunkin‘ Donuts.

Easthampton is an interesting town. It’s small, but they’re working really really hard to make it a hip and artsy place. We stopped in at Eastworks which oddly enough is also the home to the Department of Motor Vehicles as well as lots of hip cafes, bars and art spaces. Like everyone else we’ve met here everyone was nice [except in the DMV, or RMV as they call it here which is it’s only little slice of hell.] They were happy to talk to you even if you were going to buy something. It’s just the way they are here.

If I had to come up with a label for the locals here I’d have to call them working class hipsters. There’s lots of factories here, not necessarily steel mill type factories, but most of the people, women included have a look like if you got into a fight with them you’d probably get tired of punching them because they’d just be able to stand there and take it. There were lots of piercings, tats and non-naturally colored hair like you were walking around Haight Street in San Francisco, but there was no waifishness to any of the locals. They were all really passionate about what ever it was they were doing. One was the owner of Crooked Stick Pops who was telling me about how he gets some of the ideas for his creations…I think you might be able to guess if you click on the link.

We were hungry though and decided to stop in at the Easthampton Diner. Diners are a big thing here usually, if they’ve been around a long time you can see the remains of the train car that they started as. This place had a rather large menu and I should have learned that if I’m paying $10.95 for something at lunch it’s going to be a lot more than I can eat. I ordered the Buffalo Chicken Quesadilla and it’s so far served as lunch and dinner and probably lunch tomorrow as well. Things like my quesadilla are typical here. They aren’t exactly traditional in anyway like you’d expect, but none the less they’re pretty darn good. Check out the menu on the link above and you’ll see for yourself. 

Easthampton was about a five minute drive from Northampton and in those five minutes there was some beautiful scenery along the way. I think we’ll be going back there often. Here’s a few pictures of the Easthampton Diner you might enjoy it’s quite popular with the locals.

I always like to visit grocery stores when I’m in a new place because you can learn a lot about people by what they buy and eat. Stop and Shop is the grocery store for people on the East Coast like Safeway is to the Bay Area. Sure there’s also Big Y, but Stop and Shop has more coverage.

For the most part you won’t see too much different than you would in San Francisco other than the price, but there were a few things that stood out to me.

1. Cannolis: They are everywhere around here and in Stop and Shop you can buy a bunch of prepackaged ones. I’m sure they aren’t the greatest, but you know, if you want a few cannolis after ripping a few bong hits of some newly legal Massachusetts pot then they’re do.
2. Fried Raviolis: I rather smugly thought I was the only one who ever did this and I find $5 boxes of breaded and fried raviolis here. Again, I can guarantee they aren’t as good as when you make these appetizers yourself, but if you’re lazy and hungry they’d fit the bill.
3. Marshmallow Fluff: This is a staple of Massachusetts. You can put it on ice cream, or on bread followed by peanut butter to make a fluffernuter sandwich. My Grandmother used to make them as a treat for me which is funny because she wasn’t from New England even though she did have New England sensibilities at times. If you haven’t tried one…try it. You’ll like it.
4. Local Ice Cream: Friendly’s is a local chain that used to be a burger and chicken place that sold sundaes and milk shakes, now they’re pretty much an ice cream place that selling a few sandwiches. You can find their ice cream and ice cream cakes at the local grocers and Stop and Shop was no different. There’s nothing great about it, but it’s the standard.
5. Specialty Ice Cream: Since there are several local creameries here and people in these parts take their ice cream seriously you can find pints of ice cream that are of the handmade, artisanal, gourmet variety. Prices tend to be cheaper than in San Francisco, but the ice cream is very good and rich tasting, almost gelato like.
6. Coffee Syrup: What in God’s name is this? Apparently it’s a coffee flavored syrup that people like to mix with milk to taste like a cold regular coffee or something like that. I still can’t figure it out, but it wasn’t with the ice cream topping so I don’t think you would do that.

Probably the biggest thing about Stop and Shop is its size. The place is huge like a Walmart, but it’s focused on groceries. Not everything like a Walmart. After taking a walk through here I found I’ll have everything available that I need here [even Mexican Coke!]