What do you miss?

So, I did my taxes today. Looks like I’ll get a nice sum back, mostly due to my usual trick of not claim­ing a tax-free threshold for any employer. Also, because I scraped through from July to Decem­ber being sup­por­ted by Doug and earn­ing barely a cent from freel­an­cing and then have sup­por­ted him from Decem­ber till June so I can claim him as a depend­ant for half the year…

Been think­ing about the US a lot today for some reason – maybe because we watched the Obama/McCain debate on You­Tube and I’m sad about how badly it’s all going; maybe because Doug has spoken with both Tina and his sister in the last few days. 

I miss our little apart­ment, espe­cially the bal­cony, over­look­ing the pond. I miss the ducks. I miss the sparse­ness, believe it or not (Doug won’t… and I know that to get that sparse­ness back, I just have to Get Rid of Things but that’s the dif­fi­cult bit!). I miss Bare­foot Coffee Roast­ers. I miss Trader Joe’s and cheap organic juices! I miss fresh lem­on­ade being at most good res­taur­ants (even though we have minted lem­on­ade in the fridge right now). I miss NOLA, the cajun restaurant/bar in Palo Alto. I miss Fiesta del Mar, the Mex­ican sea­food place in Moun­tain View. I miss Joanie’s, the comfy café in Cali­for­nia Avenue. I really, really miss Water­course Way.

What do you miss?