Happy autumn, friends

After reading this article about how the fall is basically the season of depravity and evil, I started thinking about some of my favorite things about the season. Here are some of mine:

• Fall foods
  • Squash — acorn, butternut, pumpkin, all wonderful for hearty, inexpensive dishes
  • Apples — and not just in pie (Galas were on sale at 3 lbs. for $1 at Sprouts market today.)

Might I interest you in a Gala gala?

• • Dark/Oktoberfest beers
  • Halloween candy — OK, so I don’t trick-or-treat any more, but I did buy peanut butter M&Ms for my co-workers
  • Slow-cooked recipes — chili and soup season is on its way
  • Pomegranates — apparently at their best in September, but still all over the place now
  • Cranberries — my favorite Thanksgiving dish, really
  • Potatoes — my  other real favorites at Thanksgiving, mashed or sweet or baked or however you do them as long as you don’t ’scallop’ them
• Special times
  • Every day below 90 degrees is special in Texas, and we’re having our share now!
  • Halloween — I didn’t get to celebrate much this year, but just seeing all the pumpkins and a couple costumed kids was enough for me.
  • Thanksgiving — I won’t get to celebrate in any official way this year, but I will probably still make some of my holiday favorites and remember the things I’m thankful for, which is what it’s about, right?

My first 'published' newspaper article was a 'recipe' for Oreo turkeys in our sixth-grade paper.

• • Running days — it’s cool enough out to run outside! I’ve been navigating my new neighborhood and loving it. It’s hillier than my old one, but a run to my gym, then a workout, then a run home puts me at 1.7 miles plus plenty of exercise in between.
  • Walking to local businesses days — there are all sorts of eateries and shops within walking distance of my new place, and it’s nice enough to actually enjoy the walk to and from.
  • Rainy, stormy days — it’s not all sunshine around here lately, but the rain is pretty welcome after such a dry summer, and a great excuse to read and watch movies at home.
• And all the other wonderful things
  • Seasonal changes — I saw my first red, orange, yellow, maroon and brown leaves on a single bush yesterday.
  • Fall clothes — before it’s so cold you have to cover them up, there are cute tights and jackets and sweaters and boots, oh my! (see previous post)
  • The bats leave Austin and parking becomes twice as easy at my office.
  • TV specials — I might have missed ol’ Charlie Brown this week, but there’s plenty more to come.

The only bad thing that can be said about 'It's a Wonderful Life' is that it doesn't include a judge who confirms the existence of Santa Claus.

• • Happier people — it might be different in other parts of the country, but I think people in Austin let the heat get to them a little bit much by September; along with the sky, they’re cooling off now.
  • Football season — no, I don’t actually celebrate football season, but isn’t it nicer when the BCS rankings are out and people can bicker with a list in front of them rather than blindly, as they were two weeks ago? High school kids who care are getting district championships and other honors that make scholarships seem ever more within reach. And Austin is a happier place when the Longhorns are kicking lots of butt.

I know none of that was groundbreaking, but hey, it’s Halloween night and I’m working hard. I had a lovely tomato and Muenster grilled sandwich this evening and a few too many M&Ms, which are nothing to sneeze at but not exactly festive, so forgive me!

For a look at what I’m ‘missing’ downtown, see below. (Note: Been there, done that, not eager to try again.)

Winterized, for the fun of it

Me in my new hat, edited with picnik. Thanks to Jess for showing me that site!

I apologize for the lack of updates of late. I’d say I’ve been busy, but that’s not quite true. What is true is that I now have paid-for Internet access at home (for the first time since 2004 or thereabouts) and I’ll do my best to make it worth my while, and yours.

Too much sleeping (and getting my house together) and not enough blogging. Is it just me or does that clock look like it's malfunctioning, too?

Today’s post is about something with which I have a love-hate relationship: shopping. I love to go out, see all the interesting things I could have, get new things I like and people-watch. I hate feeling like a consumer-monster, spending money on disposable goods, and trying on clothes that don’t fit.

Well, the last couple weeks have been what, for me, is a flurry of spending. And since this is a blog about me, what better topic to draw on than what I’ve been up to?

My closet is awfully summery, no?

With the move earlier this month, I had to pack up my winter/fall wardrobe and, in doing so, realized it almost all predates my leaving my parents’ nest (yes, that means it’s stuff I wore in high school) and that I like almost none of it. While I didn’t toss it all out right away, I did decide it’s high time to start supplementing.

First, I went to Macy’s and got a cute non-wintry gray sweater dress and a black-and-white flecked V-neck sweater.

I swear, I'm not a lumpy sack, just a bad clothing photographer. Someone did say this dress (on me) looked like it cost $200, but it was less than $30.

Yes, the tags are still on. It just hasn't gotten cold enough in the last 3 weeks for me to wear this.

Then, we went to Old Navy, which I generally don’t like, but I needed to replace some basics:

Brown henley. What I'm wearing as I write this.

And in black:

It looks shapeless and drab but actually fits quite well, and I love the ruched sleeves. Perhaps this means my body is shapeless and drab, too?

Then a day at the outlet malls in San Marcos. We went all over the dang place trying on things, with me insisting that 75 percent of everything was vastly overpriced. Cheap or practical? You decide.

Then we got to Banana Republic, where my years-long desire for a cute hat got the better of me when I tried on this number, which my shopping friend also picked up … in magenta.

$25, no longer available online (outlet only)

At Express, my eardrums were nearly blown out, but I escaped with at least half of my original hearing ability AND a $4 cowl-neck shirt that will work with jeans or pulled low over some leggings.

Yes, I could be wearing this over leggings sometime in the near future. Yes, I've decried leggings in the past. So sue me.

At Tommy Hilfiger, my shopping buddy and I again got the same item in different colors. She had bought the corduroy pants I bought here when she visited the store the week before, too.

It's hard to tell, but this is navy blue. My friend's is the same, but in purplish-pink.

As you might guess by the lack of a photo of the corduroys, I returned them when I found a very similar pair with a slightly thinner fabric (more practical most days in Texas, anyway) at the Gap, 30 minutes later.

They are comfortable and cute. Seems to be a theme with my purchases of late.

And finally, because I’d been looking at them for a week straight and then found a discount code online (Shopping tip: Always Google ‘promo codes ____’ for whatever site you’re shopping on, and you’ll often find a legitimate, worthwhile discount code. Through 10/31, try “shoesvip” for 20 percent off on shoes.com), I placed an order for these boots. They’ll arrive next week and I’ll find out whether they’ll work for my feet. My fingers (and toes) are crossed.

If it got icy around here for more than two days a year, the heel might worry me.

In which I finally eat a plum

I went to a Yelp party yesterday in honor of the UT-Colorado football game (Longhorns update: 5-0) at a relatively new venue in town, the Liberty Bar. They’ve got a great backyard at the place, but it was chilllllly in my short dress (In my defense: The thing has a turtleneck!) and I had to get to work, so I made only a brief appearance.

We hung out in frames. What party animals! (That's photographer Mark Couvillion on the left.)

On my way out the door, I snagged a cool, free Yelp lunchbox. The details on the thing are pretty impressive, and I’m definitely digging the thermos.

Lunch for one: Red plum, piña colada yogurt, and a fake-bacon (use Smart Bacon!), lettuce and tomato with mustard on wheat. Unfortunately, I found out seconds later that I can't fit both a thermos and a sandwich container in the box, so I went back to my old sack for the day.

That’s my new countertop you see in the background! It is a pretty granite, but the plaster around it needs work because they scraped it up on the installation, and there’s a gap between the counter and the cabinet because they had to level it. Hopefully it’ll all be done soon, because I really like the counter itself.

My lovely new sink and counter

In cowboy country

OK, OK, so I live in Texas year-round. But we wanted a good time away from home that w0uldn’t be too expensive, and according to some people, I’ve lived here for far too long not to have some knowledge of our second-biggest city and its little cousin — Dallas and Fort Worth.

So this weekend, after finally getting my bed up my stairs (insulation work up there took way too long), we packed up and got the heck outta Austin (I sold my Austin City Limits ticket, and given the torrential rain and muddiness that was this year’s festival, I can’t say I’m disappointed that I did!).

We did an art-themed weekend, partly by design and partly by circumstance.

Friday morning, we took the long way (4.5 hours) to Fort Worth, where we unloaded our bags at the hotel, which had a pretty great view.

Lots of big old buildings with lots of windows.

Apparently Fort Worth is experiencing some rapid growth.

Then we headed over to The Modern for its first-Friday music, bar, and art. We got into the collection free with my dazzling credentials (by mistake, entirely). We had to do with a bit of a skeletal version of the museum because a large portion was closed for a new exhibit (opening this week, for any readers I have who might find themselves in the area!), but what we did see was terrific. The real star of the museum, we agreed, was the building itself. It’s dazzling and perfect for the art inside.

He blends into the staircase. That or my hands are shaky as can be.

The Modern, exterior. (No, I didn't take this one.)

A neat classical guitarist played in the entry hall as people sipped drinks (at any point, I’m certain there were more people drinking than anywhere else in the museum). We skipped the movies, but several were showing.

The cafe had a special menu for the Friday event, and we decided to give it a whirl. At those prices, I’m not sure I’d try roasted acorn squash with pilaf, mushroom chips and maple cream again, but it was yet another cool space and a lovely meal overall. We walked through the very brisk evening to Eddie V’s for a delicious dessert (coconut white chocolate cream pie and chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce), after which we were so full I’m pretty sure you could have poked me and I’d have burst.

The next day we woke so late that apparently Fort Worthers (Worthians?) no longer were considering even the idea of breakfast, so after grabbing two of the last three remaining croissants in the entire metropolitan area, plain, we headed to the Kimbell Art Museum for a more traditional tour.

The Kimbell prides itself on an extraordinary, if tiny, core collection. Just across the street from the Modern, it’s free, doesn’t take long to tour and is indeed quite well-selected. It was also pretty crowded because of a family-oriented craft day or similar. We enjoyed (at least in theory) the exhibit in which a modern multimedia/video artist took the works of older artists and interpreted them on film and presented them in interesting ways. My favorite being a four-screen presentation inside a giant papier-mache skull, but then who doesn’t love sitting in the dark with complete strangers inside a huge paper head?

There may have been a number of outdoor sculptures, but we left the indoor exhibits just as the rain decided to arrive, so we made our way back to the car and I only got one shot:

The stumpy rocks are sculpture, I promise.

Fort Worth Water Gardens (across from our hotel, not in the museum). It doesn't have a lot of plants, but it does have a lot of neat water features, including this one where we saw a couple attempting to take wedding portraits in the rain.

We ate at Taverna (an Italian place we have both spotted in Austin but hadn’t tried — what tourists!) in downtown Fort Worth, then spent a drizzly afternoon exploring the Sundance Square shops, which were neat but I think probably better suited to people with more money, cows, or both, than us.

A courthouse. We came across quite a few buildings with the detailing painted on. Puzzling.

I'm not sure why, but this building made me smile.

I am so annoying. I kept doing the holding-the-camera-up-and turning-it-back-on-us thing.

Back to the hotel to change, then a night out on the town. Tasty Tex-Mex (cheese on top of cheese mixed with cheese and a raspberry-and-sugar-flavored margarita (with cheese?) on the side) for dinner, then down the block to Four Day Weekend, the city’s resident improv comedy troupe. They were cracking us up from start to finish, and even though I’d been worried it might be cheesy at first, they definitely delivered.

The next morning, we trekked over to Dallas. The void between the cities isn’t much to look at, but it’s interesting to see that even though the two are so far apart, the gap is filled in densely enough that they really do seem like twin cities.

We brunched with his friends, which was quite nice, then drove into downtown Dallas, where we were trying to figure out what we might want to do when I realized we were on the street directly in front of the Dallas Museum of Art. So why not?

We got kicked out because it was 5 and we were lingering.

We were a bit rushed because it closed at 5 on Sundays, but we still managed to get a good taste of it all and a thorough look at the temporary exhibit on visual art depicting performance (dance, music, theater).

Detail of a mosaic outside the museum.

The collection is impressive, filling parts of four floors with a good selection of American, Asian, African and European art.

We made reservations at a hotel nearby, the Aloft.

Sitting at the DMA, waiting for him to make reservations.

It was very cool, starting from the outside, where the pumped hip-hop out into the street, continuing through the lobby, into the elevator with its squishy blue tiles, and up into our modular, neat room.

The hotel lobby. Yes, we played a couple rounds of pool.

Aloft's lobby/bar

Everything was built in and fit together perfectly.

We ate tasty “Greek” pizza and played silly games at a dive called Cosmo’s, then went to bed, only to be awakened absurdly early by a JACKHAMMER directly outside our window. We headed home on the “quick route” in three hours flat, and I was back to the grind of setting up my house.

All told, it was a great trip, a great little getaway from Austin, work, and the minor stresses of my recent move, and a lovely time with a great person. I still had a day and a half to work on the house and relax a little before a crew came in this afternoon to replace my kitchen countertop.

Rental roosting

I’ve begun moving in my new house. The only rooms that are set up so far are the bathroom, which I adore, and the kitchen, which still needs the dishwasher installed but which I otherwise love.

I tried to take some pictures today, but beware that my camera was not being cooperative color-wise. I adore the colors and the place feels homey already. I can’t wait until Saturday when all my furniture will be in place.

The upstairs (bedroom) was still getting its insulation on Wednesday when I began moving in, and they finished up that night, but the drywall guy isn’t going to be here until Monday, so there are still some holes in the walls that I won’t be able to put stuff up against until that part of the work is complete.

For now, unfurnished house pictures!

The less attractive side of the house:

They replaced the rickety old air conditioner upstairs with a cooling and heating unit controlled by a remote. Hurrah for adjusting the temperature from bed!

My corner of the house, from the front:

The windows let in a lot of sun, but not too much.

What I see as I walk in the side entrance (used to be neon green and white paint, dark-wood banisters and navy carpet!):

The painter added that molding to delineate the upstairs and downstairs, which I think works quite well.

To your right is the bathroom:

I could not get a decent picture of the whole thing after a dozen tries, but here you go. The ceiling actually follows the same curve as the top edge of the shower.

The bathroom has this cute, tiny window and a cute, slightly-too-tiny sink:

The green glass accessories give just the look I wanted.

My landlord bought a bunch of accessories for the bathroom, which was really nice, but I’ve used mostly my own stuff. I definitely will use this etagere, though!

Yes, those are dollar-store sugar shakers filled with cotton balls, swabs, etc., on top of the cabinet!

Excuse the mess (particularly the dishwasher box), but this gives you a sense of the way the three downstairs rooms are connected:

It's been a rainy week, and I already got a spot of mud on the brand-new off-white carpet. ):

The first room from the back, the “whispering wheat” living area with a neat ceiling fan and lovely old wood floors:

This is the room I plan to use for reading and working.

The kitchen is a bit on the small side but has enough cabinet space for my appliances and dry goods, as long as I put some things out on display. I also have all my special glasses (wine, margarita, martini) out on a shelf above the sink.

Look closely and you'll see the Mr. Potatohead vegetable peeler!

The front room will be my main living space.

I'm not in love with the low ceiling fan chain, but I'm sure that can be fixed.

I love the details you won’t find in newer homes. Landlord says he thinks the moldings were added in the 1930s. (correction: earlier I said the place was built in 1900. It was 1907.)

The pale yellow looks like three totally different colors in these three photos, doessn't it? Kitchen shot is closest to reality.

The bedroom will be great once it’s done, but for now, insulation holes abound:

The pale gray is calming and cool in a potentially cramped-feeling space.

I know I’ve probably overwhelmed you already with my photos of my empty house, but if you’d like to see more, check out my set on flickr: Decorating. More to come as the house gets finished, of course.

Cooky vs. Cookie

As a kid, I loved to flip through my family’s cookbooks, especially the ones made just for children, dreaming about what it would be like to make the exotic-sounding dishes inside. I was quite shy about asking my parents to buy the ingredients for fancy cakes or elaborate main dishes, but I’d find myself scouring the cupboards to scrounge up most of the ingredients for a side here, a snack there, or my interpretation thereof.

My scavengeresque style and reluctance to try the most complicated recipes certainly carry on today — you’ll see that most of my cooking involves only a few main ingredients and few elements, other than seasonings, that are unfamiliar even to the most basic of American meat-centric home cooks. I love to read about foreign and fabulous eating and preparation, but I’m still a little bit scared to put my money, and my skills, where my imagination and, well, my mouth are.

I loved that this book provided me with my very own set of measuring spoons. What a geek!

Today I was reminded of one of the classics of my, and my mother’s, childhood, the “Betty Crocker’s Cook Book for Boys and Girls”/ “Betty Crocker New Boys and Girls Cook Book.” In addition to the literary-oriented “Wond’rous Fare,” which grabbed recipes straight from the pages of children’s classics (and from which I never made a single dish), and Klutz Press’ silly “Kids Cooking: A Very Slightly Messy Manual,” among about a dozen others, I read every single recipe, top to bottom, imagining the dishes and the cooking process as though it held the mysteries of a scene straight out of a witch’s den.

None of my classmates looked like these kids.

One of the great elements of the Betty Crocker manual was that it included a panel of uppity-looking kid testers whose comments guided you throughout the book when mom’s recollection of the time she made that castle cake  just wasn’t enough for me.

Well, it turns out a writer for Gourmet had some of the same questions as little me did about this book. A true child of the ’90s, quite a bit younger than the Gourmet writer, I didn’t trust a boy with such an uppity crew cut to tell me the merits of things like milk with maple syrup in it (perfect for lumberjacks) or a loaf of canned ham with pineapple on top. Read Missy Ketchum’s tale of the kid testers for more information.

Look, a cake shaped like something! A "salad" made of canned fruit and raisins! Something, anything covered in heavy cream!

Curious about the title of this post? It was a question that plagued me for some time. Older cookbooks seem divided on whether the singular of everybody’s favorite hand-held chocolate chip snack was “cooky” or “cookie.” In the days when our family’s copy of the Betty Crocker children’s book was printed, it was “cooky” for one, “cookies” for more. Just goes to show you can’t always trust an artificial homemaker to be grammatically infallible, I guess.

Oh my goodness. Please don't look in the upper-right corner.

See, I told you there were bunnies made of canned pears. Would YOU eat that crap? No. But it sounded so nifty and quaint and unusual to me, I still kind of wondered what it’d be like to make it.

Splish-splash, several ways

For Labor Day, several friends and I spent the afternoon swimming and picnicking at Lake Travis.

For those of you not living in Central Texas and watching our dismal weather reports all year long, note that we’re in a severe drought period right now. Also note that Texas has exactly one natural lake, and Travis isn’t it. All the rest (including our lovely lake system) are rivers. Rivers that can’t seem to get a break — they’re all shrinking to the point where boats are having trouble getting into the water, and we’re on tight watering restrictions.

But for the six of us on Monday, that meant a reasonably small crowd on the shores of the lake. After parking in the sand and crossing the littered, jaggedly rocky beach that had been under water for years prior to this season, we were in the water, practically out of earshot of the nearest group of sailors and floating kids, enjoying the feeling of slippery mud underfoot and our own good company.

Grilled Hatch and bleu cheese burgers (and black bean chipotle veggie burgers for a couple of us) piled high with vegetables, naan and two kinds of hummus, fruit, and other delights under a shady awning (it was a pleasantly cool 101 degrees, but still bright enough to burn our tender skins) broke up the day’s swimming.

The sandy island in the middle of this photo was more of a penninsula on Monday, with the level of the lake so much lower.

The late-afternoon beach was a bit more crowded, but that was just an excuse to go a little further out and enjoy the waves created by the few motorboats that passed by while peering at the area’s most lavish homes across the shore.

Speaking of water, however, I’ve found some interesting items for my new house, particularly my new bathroom, which I plan to enjoy thoroughly after two years in a house where the pipes rattle spontaneously (ALL night, one night last week), there is no tub, and geckos take up residence in the drain.

I’m excited about the slightly antique look to all the things I’ve found thus far (and for relatively cheap), including some odd, brassy shower curtain hooks that resemble giant fishhooks, which I’m sure thrill all my readers immensely. At any rate, preparations for the move seem to be progressing nicely —  the decor stuff is just a perk. I’m picking up boxes tomorrow and have already taken down all my wall art and begun boxing all my non-essential items and gathering things to donate.

And speaking of even more thrilling activities that are very vaguely related to water, as well, I went to the dentist and was told to start using Sensodyne toothpaste, which unfortunately tastes approximately like paste (I bought the extra whitening variety, after being told that my dentist offers whitening services for the low, low price of $200 in-house or $350 to have a custom whitening tray mold made).

Anyone have a recommendation for a sensitive-teeth paste that tastes at least semi-palatable? There are plenty of varieties out there, it seems, and the difference in my  sensitivity is marked after only three days of use, so I definitely want to keep it up.

Two more cucumber dishes, to round things out (It’s a watery vegetable, right?) with more of my summer vegetable obsession:

Chunks of cucumbers and tomatoes and diced Hatch chili (Austin’s summer favorite!) with a generous dressing of lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and olive oil with fresh black pepper and salt. Gets better on the second day, once it’s been marinating!

One whole cucumber, tomato and carrot, peeled and diced, with one bunch diced green onions, 2 cups couscous (cooked, from 1 cup dried), salt, freshly ground pepper, rosemary, parsley and coriander (optional), plus olive oil to moisten. Serve cold. Makes a TON, but refrigerates well, too.

Powerless against temptation to decorate

I’ll admit, one of the top reasons I chose to move to my new apartment (I hope to be settled in about one month from today) is that I saw amazing potential in the place, decor- and design-wise.

The place is, of course, a rental, and therefore my options are somewhat limited when it comes to major alterations, but I already have the following commitments from my new landlord. He will:

• Paint all the walls with colors of my choice
• Replace the miniblinds with wooden slat blinds
• Replace the gross, fuzzy navy blue carpet with a low-pile “light beige” carpet
• Replace the aging refrigerator
• Replace the torn up bathroom door (actually, the only interior door aside from one closet, which appears to be in fine condition)
• Possibly replace the knobs on the kitchen cabinets
• Possibly purchase a dishwasher
• Revive the scrubby lawn when the drought decides to end

Which leaves the fun stuff up to me, but a great base to start from — the place has some unusual antique crown molding on the front windows and other architectural features that I wouldn’t want to mess with, anyway (though it’d be nice to tear out the kitchen linoleum).

The front room, off a long front porch, will be my living room space, with my couch, swivel chairs and entertainment center (TV, music). I plan to put my big, red rug on the beautiful wooden floor. The paint color will be the same in the front room and the kitchen (where I’ll put my small dinette), a very pale yellow (Glidden’s online colors are a shade or so darker than the paint chips were in the store):

The back living room will be sort of a multipurpose fun room, with my desk and computer, my sewing machine, painting supplies, and hopefully a vintage wingback chair with a nice floorlamp for a reading nook. I’ve been shopping around for a neat chair but somewhat daunted by the expense. Most of the stuff in this room happens to be black or white, but I hadn’t thought about that when I picked the color:

I’d love a chair like this one from Pier One, though perhaps not in this exact print:

$500.

The bathroom is a bit rough around the edges, or at least it was when I checked it out (didn’t help that there was a dirty litter box on the floor and that they hadn’t cleaned the tub since the Carter administration), but I was really happy with the black and white tile in there, and I decided to go with a light, fresh look. I’ve started by buying fluffy white towels, a plush white shower curtain, and shopping around for some sleek accessories (there’s no storage space to speak of). The color, which looks a lot less green in person, if I recall correctly:

An oddly shaped — long, narrow, and low-ceilinged — attic room will present a few challenges for filling the space without looking silly. I’m sticking with my muted purple quilt on my bed, but hoping to repaint my current dresser in something more dramatic, and maybe add a little vanity to fill one end. The change from navy carpet will be most impactful here. I picked the color hoping for something that will be calming, which I think is important in a bedroom, without being boring, and most importantly something that wouldn’t make the attic seem like a cave:

As usual, I’d love any suggestions or comments, especially for the following items I’m looking to buy:

• Coffee table, either black/ebony or light cherry, or something modern in a material other than wood
• Slipcover for full-size couch in a light neutral, charcoal gray or black
• Storage solution for a tiny bathroom — either a sleek white or chrome étagère or a low, small bench with storage, or whatever you come up with
• Bathroom accessories (soap pump, toothbrush holder, etc.) in green or blue glass or bright white
• Vanity that doesn’t look like it belongs in a little girl’s room or the 18th century, with stool or chair
• Book storage/shelving for a few hundred books

In honor of the Afghan election, vote

…

on where I should live!

I checked out this duplex today, and after nearly two years of living in the same place, I’m actively considering moving.

The new place

I would be in the left half of the house, the part with the peaked roof. Cute, no?

Pros:

1. Really cool layout
   1. Two spacious living spaces with hardwood floors, in front and back of house (if I ever had guests this would be an awesome party space)
   2. Kitchen in the middle of the main floor, raised (two steps up)
   3. Attic bedroom that runs the length of the house
   4. Front and back porches
   5. Lots more space than I have now
2. Awesome location — closer to work, gym, downtown, good groceries and other shopping and cafes — in a great neighborhood (Hyde Park)
3. Change!
4. Landlord, who lives two doors down, seems really on top of things (the other half of the duplex was getting maintenance when I was there)
5. Parking in rear
6. House was built in 1900 and is really cool on the outside

Cons:

1. Costs $50 more per month for rent (plus cost of electric and gas, which are included at my current place — current tenant says it should be $115ish in the summer, $50ish in the winter); water’s included
2. Cost/hassle of picking up and moving (moving truck, setting up electric account, etc.)
3. Bathroom is pretty antique looking — not very polished at all, not very big
4. Smells like intense dog pee (but carpet’s supposed to be shampooed and walls primed before move-in)
5. Will have shared wall with three guys in other half of duplex, but as far as I could tell that shouldn’t be a huge issue (attic room does not share a wall)
6. No central heat/air, but window units and fans seemed to be keeping it nicely cooled
7. Raised kitchen is kind of strange — cabinets are really high up and appliances might be old, and laminate flooring is cheesy
8. Signing a year lease is a big committment
9. Walls cracked in places and lots of other quirks that might turn into issues (but if they haven’t in the first 100 years, will they ever?)

The old place

Pros:

1. Wouldn’t have to move
2. Nice neighborhood
3. Wouldn’t have to redecorate
4. My house is decent
5. No extra bills (just rent)
6. Neat space

Cons

1. Those maroon walls are getting old
2. Path to the house is a warzone (some day I am going to get a rusty nail through the foot)
3. Repairs never get done
4. Heater smells like gas
5. Shower shakes uncontrollably on settings between HOT and COLD
6. Bathroom is tiny and has no tub
7. I’m in somebody’s backyard
8. Street parking
9. Smallish space with next to no storage
10. Bad lighting

Back in the ol’ routine

OR: What to do with that new swimsuit cover-up once you’re back from the beach

This ‘weekend’ was a pretty darn good one. I can once again thank Yelp for a pretty stellar night out, replete with lots of food I couldn’t (wouldn’t) eat, made by the infamous Stubb’s Barbecue folks, and lots of drinks I chose not to drink (oh, the joys of a fizzy club soda with lime on a sweltering evening in a dusty bar! Better than a PBR any day), and plenty of friends, laughs and cool tunes thanks to the Costellophones, an Elvis Costello cover band (and apparently not the only one of its kind, little did I know!).

As usual, some photos:

The finest 'Elitists' around. (Thanks to Cory Ryan for the photos!)

Through Elvis Costello's eyes, artistically speaking.

Some Xena thing? I don't know. I just did; I didn't ask questions. I trust this woman.

Apparently we fawn and/or crouch on command. Yikes. Guest appearance by my legs.

What, you ask, have I been doing when not cavorting about town and getting my picture taken in front of checkered backdrops? Working, of course. My dear readers, clearly you don’t know me very well by now if you still bother to ask this question and expect me to answer with something interesting.

Well, if you must know, I watched a couple interesting movies lately, “Grand Torino” (rent it! you’ll like it! who can say no to Detroit, cars, racism, revenge and Clint Eastwood at his grizzledest?) and “Lars and the Real Girl” (rent it, if you don’t mind slowish, very sweet movies wrapped in bizarre clothing — in this case, a life-size doll-woman’s clothing!). Last week I caught “Gone with the Wind” (why did I wait so long?) and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (I’ll tell you why I waited so long — I was kind of afraid of Virginia Woolf (Ever read ‘To the Lighthouse’?). But you shouldn’t wait. What a funny, heart-wrenching movie!).

I read a couple books, ate some good food, got my prints from Costa Rica (Shutterfly did an awesome, quick job with them. Now I just need to pare down the selection for some kind of photo arrangement on my walls.), the usual. Did you know it can take over an hour of simmering to cook beets if they’re gigantic? I had some gigantic organic beets this week!

Lastly, I know you’re as excited as I am about the looming arrival of football season. Get your pom-poms out!