Photo of the Week: the Quick Like A Bunny Edition

This is a short and sweet entry, as I am suddenly realizing that my upcoming trip to see friends in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is coming up in ten days and I have done exactly zero planning, and today I found out I am flying to Kansas City next Wednesday. Hope Delta doesn't lose my luggage this time.

Halifax looks fun, though, and will hopefully get me out of the godawful Georgia heat for a week. I'm ending up my trip in Montreal and flying back from there, so I'll get a nice cross section of Eastern Canadian-isms. (My flight to Halifax includes a hotly anticipated two-hour layover in Detroit, which is a cross-section I could do without.)

Photo! This is from Puerto Rico, the view north out of the El Yunque Rainforest (only rainforest that is part of the USA! Go see it!) down through the mist to the coast, which you can just see in the distance. If you are going to IslaVieques - and you should be, right now, and if I weren't going to Halifax I'd go with you - the entrance to the rain forest is on the right hand side of Highway 3, right before Luquillo. That's right, the only American rain forest has a drive-thru! Because that's how we roll. Literally in this case.

Go there. You'll thank me.

Photo of the Week: the Chill Out, Already Edition

Whee! Hard to believe that a mere 5 months ago I was going out to my yard and marveling at everything being covered by snow and ice, like all the trees were being dipped in that jar that you made rock candy with when you were a kid. And that in 2 months it will be fall, and I will be able to go outside without an oxygen tank and/or a personal dehumidifier, and breathe the cool air of autumn. I love the south, but by god I am so glad that I live in the part that has seasons, as opposed to Florida, where I grew up. There they have two seasons: summer, and not summer. Summer is when you stick to the tarmac in the parking lot. Not Summer is... summer. But less sticky.

A friend of mine sent me a photo of snow in Yosemite he took a few years back and said he was meditating on it to cool the brain. Here's my version (his is much more artistic and, also, in focus). With everyone going nutty in the heat, I figure we can all use it.

Meditate, be calm, chill. Repeat.

The Big Move

So my boyfriend showed up last night with the news that his ongoing struggles with his bank to get pre-approved for a home loan have finally borne fruit, and he can start making offers on houses. This worries me.

A little backround: about a year ago, he became obsessed with the idea that he was going to buy one of the multitude of foreclosed houses in our city, so that we could live together, have more space, lower our bills, all that good stuff. (I was originally thinking that there would be a wedding ring somewhere in that equation as well, but I've since disabused myself of that notion.) He began working with a banker, we looked at a bunch of houses (from the outside), and he began thrashing thru the paperwork. Since it was his project, I've kind of stayed out of it. And that's where things have stood, for about a year.

Suddenly this mortgage-approval-thingy has been, well, approved, and suddenly the "moving into a new house" idea has become One Step More Real.

I am not at all sure I like this.

I like my house, though it's clearly too small for both of us. I like the location. I like the neighbors, except for the psychos who made me get rid of my chickens, and they have the sense to keep to themselves. I like that I'm five minutes from the farmer's market. I like the huge yard, even though I hardly use it, and I like the deep, arching trees that go back to the woods. I like my landlord, who lives in upstate New York and could care less if I keep bees and paint the house purple, as long as I don't burn it down.

This moving thing, I don't know. I don't think it will save money (I've moved lots of times, and I can painfully remember cleaning out my bank account to move into this house). I don't like the idea of adjusting my indoor-outdoor cat to a new (albeit safer) neighborhood. I don't like being outside the perimeter, like some suburban square. And I will lose my Mexican joint, which is an outpost of the local Los Bravos chain that I eat lunch at at least twice a week. Everyone needs a place like this - the one you go all the time, and they don't even bring you the menu any more, they just bring you your usual, and you can go in alone and not get the hairy eyeball for taking up a booth by yourself (in fact you have "your" booth) and you can go in looking nice or go all ratty in track pants, claiming you just came from the gym, when everyone knows you actually are coming off a three-day sudafed bender in Las Vegas and you need your fajitas NOW. I don't like the idea of disassembling my entire life, putting it in boxes, taking it to another place, and trying to reassemble it, only to find that there are bits that you are missing. And they were never things that fit in boxes to begin with.


Probably I am just saying that I don't like disruptions of my routine, and I should look forward to this exciting new household chapter, full of challenges and changes and positive things. A quieter street! An office that's not in the living room! Space for more shoes!

I don't like this... at all.



Rose photo above, from somewhere in Spain. I love the warmth of this photo and the slightly melancholy lean of the roses - are they waiting for a princess? - and I would tell you where I took it but I have gone off coca-cola again, to try to be healthy, and my brain is rewarding me by turning into a sponge, and I'm sucking down green tea in a desperate attempt to stay caffeinated and not sink into the throes of withdrawl. So you're out of luck. It's probably in Granada, though.