ode to the forgotten child
You know, Franny really gets a bad rap. Not like she doesn’t bring it on herself – she hisses at anyone who’s not me and Greg, she tortures Porter, she scratches on all of my Anthropologie furniture, and she requires special prescription food that’s expensive and hard to come by. But still. She’s been with me for a long time, almost eight years. I even remember a certain someone [coughcoughGREGcoughcough] telling me, “Don’t get a cat, I hate cats, they’re terrible.” And although Porter tends to steal the limelight these days, I still love my Franny Fran.
five more minutes
Oh Porter Pants, I didn’t want to get out of bed today either.
what have I gotten myself into?
I’m in the middle of the dreaded biannual seasonal clothes switch. It has to get worse before it gets better, right???
color me productive
Finally made some new curtains for the dining room! I went with Pink Zinnia by Alexander Henry because I am terrible at coordinating colors, so I decided to cheat and pick a pattern with every color in it.
mash good
Boy do I love Halloween. It’s the perfect holiday – fun, silly, and full of unhealthy food. I have such fond memories of swishing through leaves up to neighbors’ houses, bringing home a huge haul, and watching Halloween specials with a lap full of baby Snickers and Milky Ways. As an adult it’s a little difficult for me to get all that into it. I don’t really have any friends that have parties, my husband is a Halloween curmudgeon, and it always sneaks up on my and catches me unprepared. This year hasn’t been much different, although in the past few days I’ve gotten more into the spirit – I carved a pumpkin (which has already disintegrated), hung some lights, and made a ghost cake. Tonight we’re going to see Haunted Poe and maybe we’ll squeeze in a horror movie or two.
I brought Porter to work yesterday and thoroughly embarrassed him by parading him around in his chicken costume. It was quite the hit, only magnified by the fact that he looked so miserable in it. My favorite quote of the day was from Meredith, who said, “You already have the world’s most emo dog, and now you’re making him dress up like a chicken? What did you expect?”
I know that “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” gets most of the Halloween cartoon limelight these days, and I understand, because it holds a special place in my heart, too. There’s also “Mr. Boogedy”, which only my mom and I appreciate. But since Mr. Boogedy will sadly never be released on DVD, I’d like to introduce you to another oft-overlooked spooky gem that they never seem to show on TV anymore – Garfield’s Halloween Adventure:
And last but not least, a song I wish could be played all year long…
addendum to my post about how I want a different life
I feel I should say a few more things about my post from yesterday, lest everyone think we’re miserable homeowners who regret their commitment and yearn for the open road. Yes, it’s true, we have talked about doing the same thing, dropping out of society for a bit and driving across country, which neither of us have ever had the opportunity to do. In theory I think it would be a good thing for us. Greg and I tend to nuzzle into our comfort zones and always choose the safe and reliable path in life, and sometimes I really want to shake things up and give up some of that security in exchange for some excitement and more meaningful experiences.
And then I remember the down side of things like, say, rehabbing a camper and spending a year driving across country:
- We complain almost every second about having to work on the house, and are incapable of doing most things without the help of professionals. What on earth makes me think doing the same thing to a camper would be any different?
- Cleaning out a waste tank? Yeah, no thanks. I mean, can anyone envision Greg standing outside in his underwear saying, “Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!” So yeah, pass on that.
- How would I order things from Amazon.com? How would my mom send me my birthday card with $20 in it? Where would all of my Crate & Barrel catalogs go?!?
- Where would I store all my craft supplies?
- I’m not sure we’d fit in too well with the campground crowd, as we’re both democrats under the age of 65.
- Making every meal in a kitchen the size of an elementary school desk has got to get old pretty quickly.
- I’m not sure anyone we know would be willing to take Franny for an entire year. It’s basically like saying, “Can you take care of my tiny pet cougar? Thanks! Oh, but don’t get too close, and don’t look directly at her, and don’t talk to her. Other than that, she’s a sweetie.” We might just have to leave her on someone’s doorstep in a basket and hope for the best.
- We pretty much have like two friends that live outside of the east coast, so that would be quite a lonely year.
So yes, when you get down to the nuts and bolts, a trip like that could prove less glamourous than it seems on the surface. And ultimately, I’m a homebody. I like to cook, and decorate the house, and watch movies on the couch, and sew, and go down to our local on weeknights. I guess the moral of the story is that nothing is ever clear cut, and when it comes down to it there’s positives and negatives to every lifestyle choice, and maybe I just need to focus more on the positives of ours.
getting there is half the fun, come share it with me
I know that originally this blog was all about our house, and how we were new homeowners embarking on fixing up an old house, and generally just a blog about settling down and staying in one spot for a while.
But I have to admit that pretty much immediately after buying the house, I started to feel a little trapped. Like, “So this is really it, we’re really going to be in Philly for the foreseeable future.” Which is sort of a joke because we’re both such wimps it’s not like we could make a big move anyway.
And for right now, I’m pretty happy with where we are, at the moment I don’t hate the house, I’m looking forward to working on it in the coming months, and even called a couple of contractors today about upcoming projects we have in mind.
That being said, when I see a story like this, it makes me want to kick myself for settling down too quickly. I was originally drawn in because I saw a project involving renovating a Scamp camper. Greg and I saw one on the road a few months back and thought it was the greatest little thing. But then I started digging into their story and was hooked. After a year of being married, this couple quit their jobs, rented out their house and are spending a year traveling around the country in their fantastic little remodeled Scamp. Oh, and they’re writing a blog about it, of course. Being that this is something Greg and I talk about once in a great while but would never have the guts to do, this is a pretty inspiring story.
Read their blog, The Wanderlusters…
a love poem for an amazing city
We’ve been back for a week and no posts! I just haven’t had the time or brain power to write about our trip, so I’ve been avoiding it.
Oh Amsterdam, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
1. I love thee for thy civilized culture. No arguing, no cursing, no honking of horns. Just melodic jingling of bicycle bells, like a polite little, “Would you kindly step out of the way so I don’t mow you down? Dank u wel!”
2. I love thee for thy lovely bicycles. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before, bikes seem to outnumber cars by 10 to 1. Everyone rides the same type of oversized vintage looking models – business men, elderly people, mothers with kids piled on. And absolutely no one wears helmets.
3. I love thee for thy crooked buildings. I love that since it’s built on marsh land, there are all these buildings that lean over menacingly, or have completely skewed and slouched, yet they’ve been there for hundreds of years and will probably be there for hundreds more.
4. I love thee for thy lack of rules. Apparently the way they do things is that everything is legal until someone gets hurt, and even then it’s probably still legal. It made me realize how in the US, there are so many oppressive laws that were made because of a select few rotten apples or whiny complainers. Over there it’s like, “Hey, here’s a windmill that you can go up into, but you have to climb a crazy steep ladder with no railings or safety nets. Be careful!” In general it seems like they’re not really into modernizing things for safety and convenience. And there’s something refreshing in that. Over here I feel like so much crap has to be done to a historical building to bring it up to code, that it becomes this unsightly anachronism. Over there it seems like safety issues are mostly left to personal judgement and common sense, and I guess that works for them. I’m not sure it would work for us because we’re such a litigious society. I doubt anyone over there is suing for being burned by a cup of coffee, that’s for sure. It just makes you feel like more of a grownup when you’re allowed to actually make your own decisions about things.
5. I love thee for thy cafe culture. There are more bars and restaurants than I’ve ever seen, and you can just go and sit for hours nursing one drink, they really don’t care. There’s no rushing you out to get to the next people who will leave a tip – you have to ask for a check if you want one.
6. I love thee for thy art of relaxation. People there really seem to go the extra mile to make things nice for themselves. Everyone seems to have some sort of boat that they cruise around in, and it really doesn’t matter what it is – a beautiful yacht or a crappy motor boat. Everyone brings all their friends, and an ice bucket with wine, and they just cruise around. A boat could be totally old and crappy, and there are still pillows in the bow for relaxing. And people love to be outside. If there is a tiny patch of sidewalk, they have a table and chairs on it. We walked past this place that we thought was a cafe, but it turned out to be a lighting shop. The owner and his friends had just set up a table and were having their happy hour out there. If we did that in front of our house, the police would probably come by and fine us for drinking in public.
7. I love thee for thy lack of curtains. No one seems to have curtains in their windows, which is so fantastic for nosy types like me who love nothing more than to look into people’s houses. And boy oh boy, do these people have beautiful apartments.
I could go on forever, but I won’t. I thought we would have better internet access so I’d be able to post here, but no such luck. Actually there were a few days there where we had no way to communicate with the world back home, and no one knew where we were – it was such a weird feeling, but sort of refreshing.
We spent five days in Amsterdam, two days in Bruges, and then back to Amsterdam for another three days. We pretty much walked all day for ten days straight, which is probably what saved me from gaining weight after all of the frites and pancakes and waffles. No bike riding for me, as I’m still a little shaky and this was definitely not a place for beginners.
I’m in the process of going through the photos (all 600-something of them) and am planning to put together a slideshow that I’ll post here, hopefully in the next week or so.
seven miles below me i can see the world and it ain’t so big at all
If all goes well, this entry will be posting itself as I’m reclining my seatback and settling in for a crappy movie.
We’re off to wander around The Netherlands (and a bit of Belgium) for 10 days of beer, cheese, french fries, windmills, waffles, Rembrandt, pancakes, canals, clogs and who knows what else. (Why was that list mostly food-related?)
Hopefully I’ll pop in to post a couple of pictures with our nifty new netbook. In the meantime, I was just listening to this song the other day and thought it was apropos for the occasion…
