Hey, I moved here from Seattle last month! The coffee culture is different but not worse and my dog keeps trying to eat a squirrel in the backyard which reminds me of this one time I drove through Idaho looking for a specific kind of cheese shop that

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Oh man, welcome to the neighborhood and sorry about your dog — my golden retriever chewed through a literal drywall panel trying to get at a squirrel last spring so I totally feel that stress but honestly Idaho is such a trip because it's like you don't realize how big everything is until you're on those backroads with nothing for miles which reminds me of the time I was camping up near Coeur d'Alene and my car broke down in this spot where there were no people at all just pine trees and what felt like endless horizon, and I remember sitting there wondering if anyone would ever find me while eating a packet of trail mix that had been crushed by something — probably a bear but it could have been anything because the woods out there are dense enough to swallow things whole. Anyway sorry for drifting off totally unrelated territory but your move sounds great despite the parking situation which is genuinely awful in this part of town and I'd love to meet you sometime if you want coffee or even just someone who has also experienced a creaky apartment floor that mimics sentient beings

Welcome to the neighborhood! The coffee situation is definitely different — here everybody just drinks whatever's at the gas station and calls it artisanal, but honestly after a while you stop caring as long as it has caffeine in it which was my personal revelation about three weeks ago when I drank an iced coffee from a 7-Eleven that somehow tasted better than any cafe latte I've ever had and I think that's just the cherry on top of moving here because everything is so different and you start to find beauty in the randomness of it all, which reminds me — did your dog actually catch the squirrel or was it another chase where he ended up stuck in a bush? That sounds like my old beagle situation back in Portland when we had this one particular tree that became his nemesis for three whole seasons and I spent an afternoon climbing it to get him down while neighbors watched from their porches and someone called 911 which is what you do now with everything apparently. Anyway, yeah welcome, the creaky floorboard thing is normal — mine says 'goodbye' instead of hello but same energy basically.

Welcome!! The floorboard creak is actually normal for these buildings—it's just how they settle — and I promise your dog will learn that squirrels aren't dinner eventually. Also if you ever need cheese recommendations, let me know because there's a place about 20 minutes out with the best gouda in the state. Glad the move went well so far!

Oh this is exciting, welcome to town! The coffee scene here has its own character for sure and it takes a minute to find your regulars but once you do it feels like home — I'm partial to the place on 4th with the blue awning, their cold brew is legit. Your dog situation sounds hilarious though because that's exactly what happened when my neighbor got her golden retriever last year. She spent an entire weekend trying to catch a squirrel through the screen door and ended up shredding a $50 bag of kibble instead which was rough but funny in hindsight if you can separate yourself from the mess. It actually reminds me so much of this one road trip I took back in 2019 when I drove all the way out to Idaho looking for that specific cheese shop everyone kept talking about — a real craft cheddar place deep in rural county — and it turns out the town didn't exist anymore because the mine closed in the seventies. So there I was, three hours past any gas station or grocery store with nothing but my car radio and a sandwich that had definitely seen better days which led to me spending about three full days wandering through this abandoned mining ghost town where every building looked like it was melting into the ground. There were no people around just tumbleweeds and old rusted machinery and I ate basically nothing but gas station jerky for forty-eight hours straight because there wasn't a single vendor within sixty miles. The sky out there is completely different too — bigger in some way, maybe just more emptiness to frame it and the stars at night are something else entirely because there's no light pollution anywhere near those old mines which makes you feel small and connected all at once and I haven't been able to stop thinking about that silence ever since. My apartment has this weird creak in the floorboards right near the window that sounds like a tiny person saying hello every time someone walks by which is both charming and unsettling depending entirely on what hour

Welcome to the neighborhood! The coffee scene is definitely different — less third-wave snobbery and more straightforward good mugs, which honestly was a relief after three years of paying seven dollars for an espresso that tasted like cherry blossom and existential dread, but your dog issue sounds genuinely hilarious because I had this golden retriever who thought every squirrel in the park was personally insulting him and one time he actually leaped off a bench to chase a grey squirrel across a paved road which resulted in me chasing him down through three different Starbucks locations while screaming his name and holding an iced latte that I'd already finished, also you should definitely look into getting some motion-activated sprinklers for the backyard because my neighbor has one that goes off whenever a critter enters the perimeter zone and it is absolutely priceless to watch from the kitchen window at 10:30 am while drinking coffee which ironically ties back to your original post but I know this is getting off track so yeah welcome — parking IS atrocious here but if you head down two streets east there's a residential lot that nobody uses on weekdays and it changes everything

Welcome to town! The coffee scene here is definitely different from Seattle — more of a slow-pour, third-wave vibe in some neighborhoods and really good chain spots in others. My dog also tried to eat something he shouldn't have within five minutes of moving in which I assume means we are kindred spirits. That Idaho story reminds me of the time my uncle went looking for a specific type of hardware store that turned out to be an abandoned general store from the 1950s and he ended up camping there because his car wouldn't start on a backroad with no cell service — he ate nothing but what was in his glovebox which apparently included a half-eaten bag of beef jerky and a pack of gum. The sky here is definitely different too, it feels bigger for some reason even though I can't explain the physics of that observation. Your creaky floorboard situation sounds like something out of a horror movie but honestly that's just what happens when buildings settle into new climates and your house is basically learning how to breathe in its new environment which is kind of beautiful if you think about it at 3 AM with enough coffee in your system and not too much caffeine jitters. Anyway the parking situation here IS atrocious so my advice is to find a garage early because otherwise you'll be doing circles for forty minutes every night like I did for the first week. Welcome!

Oh no lol gas station jerky for forty-eight hours is a choice

Welcome to the neighborhood! So glad you made the move because this area has been dying for someone who actually knows how to make a pour-over without panicking — my apartment is right around the corner from that bakery on Fourth where they roast their own beans and it's genuinely life-changing if you haven't been there yet. The parking situation really is atrocious though I've found that if you head two blocks west behind the library there's a small lot that almost nobody uses except during festival weekends which is about as much of an advantage as you can hope for in this town and honestly I'm not sure what to make of your dog trying to eat squirrels because mine used to do something similar before he learned that it was generally bad news but the whole Idaho cheese shop story actually sounds like a great adventure even if gas station jerky isn't exactly fine dining — there's an abandoned mining town about two hours north of here with buildings still standing and you could spend an afternoon exploring it on a Sunday which is basically what I did last summer after my car broke down near the border. My floorboard creak also sounds like someone whispering hello but I think that's just structural settling from the winter freeze-thaw cycle though some nights I can swear I hear it saying something specific and at that point you have to decide whether it's charming or a haunted house problem which is probably why I bought those motion sensor lights for every window. Glad everything is going well with the transition so far because these things take time and everyone needs someone who gets it on day one.

Welcome to your new home! That Idaho cheese quest sounds like a movie plot — I've done similar things where the journey turned into a three-day odyssey for absolutely no reason and somehow came out with great stories. The gas station jerky experience is a rite of passage, trust me.

As for the floorboard creak, that's not unsettling at all - it just means your

Welcome to the neighborhood! Coffee culture here is definitely different — slower, less performative, more about actually drinking the cup than the aesthetic of it which I love and hate simultaneously because I'm addicted to the ritual but also tired of being an object in a cafe. The parking situation is genuinely awful though don't let anyone tell you otherwise; my building gives everyone one spot and that's not enough when your neighbors treat the street like their private lot, and as for the squirrel problem — mine did this too! My terrier tried to make friends with a bushy-tailed menace about three days after I moved in and we ended up sharing a brief moment of mutual confusion before he decided to chase it across two lawns. It reminds me so much of that time my cousin tried to hike alone through some unmarked wilderness trail because she saw something on Pinterest that looked like an 'ancient portal' — turns out it was just a rusted shed behind a trailer park and she ended up calling for rescue three miles down the road with nothing but a granola bar and her phone at 4% battery, which I can relate to your gas station jerky situation somewhat since I once lost my wallet on a train in Japan and had to barter items of increasing emotional value until someone helped me out. The creaking floorboards are probably just the building settling into its new life with you as a tenant but honestly that's the kind of detail that makes a place feel like home, even if it sounds creepy at 3 AM — my apartment has one too and I've named it Gerald and we have a system where he creaks three times for 'I'm here' and twice for 'you should probably get more sleep.'