Suburbia

Orange You Glad To See Me?

/ Ally Bean / 17 Comments

Every morning Zen-Den gets into Bullwinkle, his 12-year-old Lexus SUV, and drives downtown to go to work.  I wave goodbye from our doorstep with a mug of coffee in my hand– and a prayer of gratitude in my heart that he deals with traffic & office politics for both of us.

And me?  What do I do then?  Well, I go back inside the house, take care of the homestead, and write to my heart’s content.  Great job if you can get it.

HOWEVER, on occasion I do venture out of the house and wander around out there in the world.  And often times– well, most times— I don’t tell Z-D what I’m doing because, quite frankly, he doesn’t care about the minutiae of my daily life.  Nor should he.

So yesterday as I was pulling into a parking lot in front of a store I suddenly remembered that Z-D had told me that morning that he’d be out of the office– and in this particular part of town later in the day.  Which made me wonder if he’d parked in this lot, too.

After a bit of driving up and down the rows, I found The ‘Winkle parked by an empty spot in the lot.  Naturally I parked my car in that empty spot.  And then I looked around to find a piece of paper to leave a note on Bullwinkle for Z-D.  But, alas and alack, I had no paper in the car or in my purse.

[A Digression: How could that possibly happen?  Am I not the child of a compulsive note taker & a dedicated list maker?  This, my gentle readers, is an oversight on my part that is causing my parents to roll in their graves.  You mark my words.  Rolling.]

The only thing that I could find to write on in the car was a magazine insert.  You know, one of those annoying rectangles of advertising gibberish that fall out of all magazines.  So, reluctantly, I used it to write a short hi! note to Zen-Den.  Then, with it in hand, I got out of my car.

But the good Lord provides, doesn’t He?  Oh. Yes. He. Does.

And what did my eyes spy as I got out of my car?  I saw, almost under Bullwinkle’s back tire, an orange.  A bright, lovely piece of not-quite-rotten fruit that had rolled out of someone else’s car– and had come to a stop by The ‘Winkle.  So I picked it up, examined it for icky-ness, decided that it was serviceable as a fun addition to my note, and laid it against Bullwinkle’s windshield where Z-D would see it when he got into the SUV.  No missing it.

Then I quickly re-worded my note on the magazine insert by adding a bad pun– and a warning to not eat the fruit because I’d found it on the ground.  I secured the note under Bullwinkle’s windshield wiper blade and walked away from the scene.

CLEARLY, all that was left for me to do was to go about my day and wait to hear from the Hubster… which I knew that I would eventually.  In fact, about an hour later he phoned to congratulate me on getting his attention, to thank me for my gift of found fruit– and to ask what I was doing in that part of town.

And that, kids, is how Zen-Den and I roll here in the ‘burbs.  With mushy fruit and hasty messages.  Making the best of any situation and adding a few laughs along the way.

Good life, this one.  Orange Aren’t you glad to know me?

Scattered Hither And Yon

/ Ally Bean / 14 Comments

“God is in the details.” ~ Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

I’m an organized person, but I am not a tidy person.  There is a difference.  The reality is that I know what I need to do to make things look tidy– and when my heart is in it, I can get things looking pretty darned spiffy.  If I do say so myself.

However, this past weekend when I attempted to get some of the more {how shall I say this?} egregious messes in our house under control, the Fates were not on my side.

•  For instance, I knew what I needed to make the bookshelves in the TV room look great.  But the shelves are so shallow that almost no baskets or photo file boxes or office-style charging stations now available will fit on them.  Except for one lovely wooden desktop organizer from Ballard Designs… that isn’t available for shipping until April.

*growl*

•  In the bathroom I had a very cute idea, gleaned from Pinterest, about how to make my make-up and other stuff look organized… but I need a tray of a specific size to make it happen.

So I tried Hobby Lobby, Meijer, Pottery Barn, Ikea, Crate & Barrel, Kroger, Kohl’s, Tuesday Morning & who knows how many places online. And here’s what I learned: that size of tray doesn’t seem to exist, rather like a unicorn.

*humph*

•  Meanwhile in the un-bedroom, the project stalled over the size, style and cost of the frames I need to create a gallery wall behind the chairs.  The beautiful floral drapes from Pottery Barn dictate the color scheme in that room.

But now I can’t find any images to put into the theoretical, yet-to-be purchased frames that won’t fight with the drapes, while gracing the wall behind the stylish and comfy chairs… that we bought at Crate & Barrel just last winter.

*loud sigh*

•  And then there is my perennially not-so-tidy desk in our home office… where I shuffle little pieces of paper and catalogues and pens and file cards all over the place.  Never quite sure what to do with all the notes I make.  Never quite able to file things properly in file cabinets or in computer files. Always aware that my way of organizing, such as it is, would give Leo Babauta nightmares & David Allen fits.

*oh well*

All of which brings me to the following conclusions:

  1. Decorating a home is much more difficult than I once believed– and makes me understand why so many people don’t even try;
  2. I do not enjoy the process of making a house pretty, but know, from experience, that I will love living in it after it’s all finished;  and
  3. That when this home redecorating project is over I might never, ever change another thing in this house again.  Ever.


Whatever The Day May Bring Us

/ Ally Bean / 12 Comments

The other afternoon I was at home writing and listening to a classical music radio station while waiting for Dave, the man from the chimney/roofing repair company, to arrive.  Dave has been to the house before so I knew who to expect and that he’d find a solution to our latest homeowner problem.

He showed up on time and started by looking at our water/mud mess in the basement.  Then he and his camera went up on the roof to figure out what was happening up there to cause the mess.  It didn’t take long for him to determine that the builder had once again skimped on something important.

[Details of problem for those who care about such things.  Chimney cap not installed with proper horizontal support.  Hot water exhaust pipe, which goes up inside of the chimney, not surrounded by proper gasket where it intersects with chimney cap.  Result: water doesn’t roll off top of chimney cap.  Instead, water forms a 2″ deep puddle on top of chimney cap and then slowly drips down leak around the exhaust pipe into inside of chimney.  Along the way to the basement water rots first floor sub-flooring under fireplace and creates a gentle steam down the basement concrete walls into the adjacent floor drain.]  

So Dave got down off the roof and knocked on the door.  He put on his standard issue contractor-inside-your-house paper booties, and stepped into the foyer to show me photos of this year’s month’s week’s problem.  He explained to me how the problem could be repaired.  And then he told me to expect an estimate in the mail in about 2 days.

Very standard.

But what made this visit different– and almost got me to the point of giggles— was that while Dave was talking with me the classical radio station was playing The Blue Danube Waltz.  Just float-y, water-y, swoosh-y music drifting into the foyer from the radio in the next room.

I don’t think that the music registered with Dave at all, but to me it was very fitting and funny.  I ask you, could there be any more perfect background music for a discussion about water running down the inside of your chimney into the basement and then flowing toward the drain?  Me thinks not.

Well played, Universe.  I bow to your sense of the absurd.

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~ as a way of including The Blue Danube Waltz in this post, and for your entertainment, I leave you with this video ~

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For Us, November Is HOA Month

/ Ally Bean / 13 Comments

I would never of thought that I’d end up living in suburbia.

I’d say I’m more of a city chick– or maybe an old neighborhood near the city chick– or even a historical preservation district in a suburb of a city chick.  But not a suburban babe [as my cousin calls me].

Yet, I’m here and I like it.  Chalk one up to my ability to adapt.  And chalk another one up to my ability to be amused by what goes on around here.

~ ~ ~ 

November is when we have our annual Mom Trails HOA meeting.  It’s not mandatory that everyone go to the meeting, and we don’t go.  It is mandatory that everyone vote via a paper ballot that is sent to us in the snail mail.  You check your choices for the board members;  say “yes” or ”no” regarding neighborhood issues;  and can add some comments, if you are so inclined.  Then you send the ballot back to the HOA.

Pretty standard stuff.

Choosing board members is easy.  Very few people want to be on the board, so those who do want to do it seem to be sincere.  We’ve been happy with just about everything that the board has done since we moved here.  Consequently, we rarely have had any comments to add to the comment section of the ballot.

Things are good, as far as we can tell.

The voting gets more interesting on the “yes” or “no” questions.  This is where I get to see what my neighbors are worrying about this year.  And, for once, I think that these people are really asking us to decide on something of value to the whole community– rather than the more personal, backstabbing issues that sometimes show up on the ballot.

~ ~ ~ 

So, what are we voting on here in Mom Trails this year?  Glad you asked.  We are deciding two things.

√  First, we are deciding whether it is appropriate to hang large, non-US flags on our property;  and where said flags of all sorts, if allowed, will be hung.

Personally, I don’t care what flag you hang in front of your house.  What I care about is how you hang it.  That is, don’t hang your large flag from the back of your mailbox post with the flag pointing back toward the house.  It is, in my understanding, an insult to whatever the flag is representing;  and, as I am driving down the street, it hides from my view whoever might be standing on the other side it.  

Not smart.

√  And second, we are deciding if we will upgrade our standard, township-issue, green background/white lettering street signs to something more stylish.  Something that will coordinate with our black, historically accurate, reproduction gaslight-style street lights.

Now this is an issue that makes sense to me.  Our boring green street signs are difficult to see because they fade into the lawns that surround them.  Plus they’re ho-hum.  Our street lights, on the other hand, look great and are distinct;  you notice them.  So, it seems to me that by changing the street signs to coordinate with the street lights we will be able to see our street signs [finally] and add some style [aka resale value] to our subdivision.  

Win-win.

~ ~ ~ 

The actual meeting isn’t until later in the month– and because no one on the board seems to know anything about updating our official Mom Trails website– I won’t know what has happened for a while after that.  One day, sometime in early December, we’ll receive a snail mail letter telling us the news.

And then, we will think no more about the HOA for another year.