Chapter Six - The Start of Something

Well, the next day was back to our same old grind that we'd gone through for the better part of our post-teen years. Now that we were graduates, the long road of life was ahead of us. And every day afterwards was yet another daily grind of survival; we'd had started to build the house that we'd always dreamed of...adding vehicles to our mix and building a garage.

Over the coming days we added a greenhouse and dug out a lake around the supports that we pre-built. Our property was starting to come together and we could truly start calling it our home. It was our refuge; our place. Once we had that property tax paid off we knew that we had no problems left; now it was the accumulation of wealth that we needed to do in order to make certain that we had a financial leg to stand on before we started a family.

We also added cows and chickens to the mix, after all, they were a big investment. The cost burden of going down to buy eggs and having no way of making cheese other than to buy it outweighed the initial investment cost of having chickens and cows. When one ran the figures together, River and I found that over time, the chickens and cows would pay for themselves in convenience.

We both opted to learn the cooking skill, as it would stand us in good stead. Either of us could cook a decent meal then and we wouldn't potentially fear going hungry. We'd had our fill of having to use a fire-pit for food and we bought ourselves a decent kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances. This was where knowing people who knew the value of gemstones and space rocks came in handy: we didn't get ripped off by unscrupulous people who wanted to make a quick buck at someone else's expense. When we put our rocks and gemstones up for sale, we knew the exact value of the stone, let other people try to undercut us with subpar gemcuts and space-rocks. Ours were of the highest quality.

The only thing that I was grateful to my mother for being the abusive piece of excrement that she was, was the fact that I no longer looked for the good in people - being betrayed by the people you trust the most in the world tends to do that to you. Put on a good face in the exterior but always keep your guard because you don't know where the knife in the back is coming from.

The only person I could trust with my life was the woman who had chosen me for her mate and that was who I placed all my trust in. Anybody else was someone who I guarded my back against.

We would face whatever life threw at us; shoulder to shoulder, united and we would over come any trials together.

At least we had a home, a property that we could call our own and a start in life that saw us from owning just the clothes on our back, a bike to call our transportation, to having a place to lay our heads at night with walls and a roof, a place to grow our plants to harvest, milk for cheese and eggs and vehicles (a SUV for River, and a Yomoshoto Evasion for myself)

For now, that was enough. But as our wealth grows, River and I have plans...big plans.

Chapter Five - Graduation Day

River and I received notice that graduation was imminent and since it was one of our most important days marking our passage from our teen years into young adulthood, we knew that we had to attend this landmark occasion. The ceremony was to be held at Vancouver City Hall in one of their banquet halls. Frankly that was the only place that could hold a graduation ceremony with up to a hundred fifty students graduating out of this year's class.

We opted to take a taxi to the event. As if in gloomy portent of our chances at making a life outside of the classroom, the skies opened up and it poured. But we weren't about to let a little rain dampen our exultant mood. We were out of school. No more teachers, no more books...yeah; at least that was something to be happy about. And then oh...god, having to listen to endless speeches. Y'know, the stuff about cherishing these years that we had in high-school, how the future is in our hands, commitment to making the world a better place, blah blah blah blah blah. River had to kick me in the ankle to keep me from snoring audibly.

Oh...and since my parents were the talk of the town with their breakup, several paparazzi were there looking to get my take on the entire situation. Well, with my rear-end planted in a chair in the Mayor's office's banquet hall, listening to the valedictorian drone on and on, they had nothing better to do than to hoot n' holler outside City Hall. And frankly one of them got hit by lightning. Goody for her. One less paparazzi to have to talk to.

Thankfully, with the ending words of the last valedictorian speech, "From this day forward, let us make each decision with our best interests in mind. Let us believe in ourselves so that we may reach our goals and fulfill our dreams. Let us be the best that we can be so that we may fill our lives and the lives of those closest to us with happiness and with pride." and all that other glowing horse-pucky, everyone broke for the doors; our numb rear-ends aching in protest. To our delight, the paparazzi had vanished. At least the speeches went on so long that the attention span of the paparazzi was drawn elsewhere.

We came out and mingled with people we probably wouldn't see again for the rest of our lives exchanging half-hearted congratulations to the people who had picked on us throughout the course of our high-school years and making light chit-chat as if we were young adults and above the petty grievances of teen-age years, all the while thinking veiled "Go fornicate yourself". Ah thank goodness our highschool years were over. Back to the mundane existence of trying to make a living and keeping the roof over our heads...a taste of which we'd had from the time that River and I got thrown out of my parents' house.

Both River and I had to get back to the job of keeping the roof of our very basic home over our heads. Now that City Hall knew that we had a home, we had to pay taxes. And I was told this by a smug city bureaucrat as we exited the grad banquet doors. "Hi, Mr. Chikamori, we were notified by City Assessment that you have taxes outstanding in the amount of §1500.00. If you could remit that as soon as possible so that we don't have to repossess your property, that would be great. Thanks. Oh...and happy graduation. Welcome to adulthood." Oh, flark me! River and I couldn' get on our bikes fast enough to head home in the pouring rain.

When we got home, I set my only prized possession that i took from the house which I had grown up in; my camera and set it on a tripod so that at least River and I could have our grad pictures in our graduation robes.

We celebrated our graduation in our own way...by getting out of our sopping wet clothes and getting warm...in a nice shower...

Happy Graduation Day to us...

Chapter Four - Finding Our Way

Eventually with a few well-timed influxes of cash from finding gemstones in the dumpster and River and I managing to scrape together enough paintings to give us a little tidy amount in the savings account, we managed to scrape enough to put a second storey on our home. At least we were out of my mother's grasp and far enough away to make it a difficult run from West Side - Vancouver to South Richmond, if she even knew where we had gone to. The scuttlebutt going around was that she'd separated from my dad because things went south in terms of their relationship. But at least we were well away from that toxic relationship; River and I had each other and for now, that was enough.

A loud blast indicated a meteor strike nearby (if you call West Side near from the likes of Richmond and well, after hearing that, I was on my bike in an instant pedalling through the darkness to a house from where I could see smoke rising into the air. Everytime there was a meteor strike, there was usually space rocks that could be found. If I was lucky, maybe it was my mom's house that got impacted. But no, it was someone I didn't know. He told me I was welcome to the spacerocks. He had no use for them and well, for me having some connections within the astrophysics and space sciences community, I could get the rocks appraised to see how much it netted River and me.

Lugging all the space-rocks back home was bone-tiring and well, I certainly felt like hitting the sack when I got home, but I saw that River was on her way out the minute that I returned. She indicated that she had a buyer for one of her paintings and was headed out to meet that guy. No worries. I knew that she could handle herself and well, we both loved each other so I had no worries in that regards either.

Lo and behold, the guy she met who wanted to buy one of her paintings was my old friend Phil, who had just started his job at the fire-hall. She met him at the Richmond Hogan's Diner, which meant that she didn't have to go all that far to hand-off the painting. At least it meant that she was able to get back just as quickly as she didn't have to go all the way into Vancouver to meet with him.

From what I could remember, Phil had a habit of talking to himself and well, suffice it to say, he was a few cashew nuts short of a squirrel. So it was fitting that he was joining the VFD. It takes bravery as well as being a few screws loose to run headlong into a building on fire while everyone else is running the hell the other way. Gotta hand it to these first responders - they do the jobs that most of us would think twice of putting ourselves in harm's way. When I take a good hard look at myself, I'm not brave enough to be a first-responder. The only person I'd willingly risk my life for is River.

...and of course, I took the time to show River just exactly how I felt about her...in the shower of course. ~smirk~

The nice thing about Richmond is that it's far enough away from Vancouver that we don't get the disturbances from all the traffic or the smog. The only thing we have to contend with is the airliners flying into YVR, some of which go right over our heads on #3 Road. That's when they're landing aircraft on 26L/8R. When you see a Boeing 747 or a A380 go by and get distracted, it's a great recipe for a fender bender and let's face it Richmond drivers ain't the best in the world, even at the best of times. Some of the Watcher's white-hairs come from driving in Richmond. There's a reason why Richmond is world-renowned for having carp drivers.

Sometimes it was just safer to stay home and paint.

But of course our pocket book pretty much ruled out that eventuality. So it was back to the dump to go rummage through the piles of trash to see what hidden gems we could find.

That took the rest of the day.

But all of that was appeased by a warm shower and a hot dinner made by an even hotter cook on the teppanyaki grill. Ah...the comforts of home.