u/KimchiAndMayo

I keep parrots and take in rescues, and I am in dire need of newspapers for cage liners.

I’ve called coffee shops, grocery stores, gas stations, animal shelters, and all of the library branches… no one has unused newspapers, or if they do they send them back to the distributors at the end of the day/week.

I called the Kalamazoo Gazette - apparently that’s not even printed here in Kzoo? It’s in Grand Rapids. Also their customer service sucks.

Does anyone have any newspaper they’d like to get rid of? Or know who I should call?

I still love Kalamazoo, I still think this city is amazing and cool and fun. But one of the weirdest parts about moving from the south to the Midwest is trying to wrap my brain around the shift in everything that is connected to the weather.

It’s August. In Virginia, it’s usually high 90s, and well into the 100s with the heat index.

Here in Kalamazoo, some of the trees are already changing color? Apple season starts in August? It’s often snowing by Halloween? What? WHAT??

So, some questions for y’all:

1. What do kids do about costumes when it’s cold? I have a 7 year old. Do kids wear costumes over a snowsuit or something?

2. Apple season is my freaking favorite time of year. I know there are orchards around (yay!), but none of the websites seem to list Apple varieties. What’s usually grown around here?

3. SOUP SEASON! So excited for early and long soup season. Are there any soup recipes that are “very Michigan?”

I appreciate you guys. I still love it here, I don’t care what anyone says. Kzoo is awesome.

Pacific Rim is very nice, for sure, but kind of expensive and didn’t have a lot of the produce I was looking for.

Is there another option within an hour or so driving distance?

Moved here from a crappy hillbilly ass town in southern Virginia, with no real local food or cultural diversity. It was a wasteland of chain foods and racism.

Kalamazoo is like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I freaking love this city already. Except for the water, because what the fuck?

BUT I find myself overwhelmed. There’s so much! I don’t know where to start.

What’s your absolutely favorite restaurant here? If adventurous friends are visiting for a weekend, what do you make sure they check out before they leave?

Please don’t tell me how much you hate it here, leave my inside my optimism for a little longer

Single family home - concrete basement, first floor, second floor. There’s no yard, just one strip of grass with hostas on one side of the house. Everything else is concrete. Nothing has died in any shrubbery, there isn’t any.

The basement is entirely concrete, and suddenly we are inundated with houseflies down there. In 24 hours of hanging sticky strips, I’ve caught over 30, and that’s not including the ones that get into the main part of the house that we’re killing.

There’s no smell - I have dogs, they’d be all over the smell of something having died somewhere. And when I say it just started, I mean just this week.

What do I need to be looking for? I feel like I’m going crazy.