I was lucky enough to get the window seat on all my flights.
Some people close their window shades on the airplane, a phenomenon I've never quite understood. Leaving mine open, I caught a glimpse of the Mississippi River on the way to Phoenix and back. I saw barges, cattle, rectangular countryside, sand and the blinking red light on the wing of the plane at night.
Landing into the Phoenix airport (Sky Harbor (awesome)), it amazed me again to see just how much space the city encompasses. It takes about three-and-a-half hours to drive around its circumference. Stretch across a gridded canvas, the city streets reach far enough in the cardinal directions you lose sight of their ends in the haze.
I stayed with a (newly) Phoenician friend my first night and spent all of the next day talking with editors at the city's main newspaper.
Mark came to the city to pick me up and drive me down to Tucson (roughly two hours southeast), but before our trip we polished off some In-n-Out Burger – one of the great pillars of "out West."
It was my very first paid vacation, a concept I still have trouble wrapping my head around. I used the time wisely -- lounging, drinking, watching copious amounts of 30 Rock, eating omelets and desert driving.
I reconnected with editors (of whom I've grown quite fond), met some new ones and talked with Silliman for more than an hour via phone. I made a journalism decision that may greatly alter where my career goes next.
Mark and I left Tucson for Phoenix Friday evening. We listened to Wolf Parade and The Arcade Fire:
There's something about leaving a small place and plopping down in the middle of cosmopolitania. Just the change in pace -- hearing people all around you all the time -- it makes a major difference. I like it a lot.
Phoenix was different this time around. Younger, energized, hotter and more eye-catching. It's a real city, too young for its space and still growing into itself.
I landed in the Shenandoah Valley, back in Virginia, without regrets and ready to get back into my routine. On the drive home I blasted The Hives.
Our low opinion of Richmond -- based on a rainy trip and a snowy visit -- turned 180 degrees this week.
We started with the Design Sponge city guide for Richmond (they have many other great guides) and got ourselves to a great vegan lunch spot, some superb art galleries and a few cool shops.
I could see us living in Richmond.
Among our adventures I probably most enjoyed Page Bond Gallery (some favorites: images 1 and 9). A close second was our lunch at Ipanema.
Like Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Detroit, the city has its share of industrial might and blight, which I like, and its specialty shops are special.
We're still taking photos of food (an idea that still wows Katie's dad, who now does the same), and at long last we've wrapped up some sewing gifts and such. Probably the main thing missing from these photos is a reference to the smoothie kick we went on, oddly enough, just as the weather turned cold. In short, smoothies are easy and healthy. Please leave any recipe or project questions in the comments.
"Go up Skyline Drive," Sean told us, "and if you look back to your right after the first big curve, you can see the castle."
So we did, of course, capturing ourselves the image seen above: the castle atop Afton Mountain, a short jaunt from our home. I took the picture through my dented Rummage Sale binoculars.
But it's not enough that we've got a castle, or that it belongs to the Royal Orchard that sent apples to the Queen of England, or that it has its own driveway bridge across an Interstate (click here, use Street View on I-64 at Royal Orchard Drive), or that it was so awesome that it dictated the route of Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park.
What's best is that it spawned a ... fan site ... that without any frills pieces together a strange history of the place. As you'll see, the Web site host simply leaves the site up and waits for those with knowledge and rumors and scraps to write in e-mails that get posted verbatim. It's enthralling to hear from these visitors and past deliverymen and whoever else managed to get a peek at the grounds.
A "decedent" recently wrote in as well to confirm much of the information and hoped that the writing "quenched all curiosity about our beloved home."
Au contraire. It just makes me want to look again at images of the place and wonder what might be true.
But now I'm pretty much completely settled into Waynesboro, Virginia life. It's weird. For the first time in four years I don't have a roommate, I'm making trips to the grocery store, thinking about cooking (in terms of whole meals), learning how to budget myself, etc.
When I crashed my car (and hurt my eye), it was on the day I'd left my house in Louisville to start my "new life" in Virginia ... my car was packed. Everything I owned was with me.
That being the case, I needed to find a new car that could transport me and everything I owned to Virginia. So I ended up getting a solid gold 1996 Volvo station wagon. I actually love it...and because it is so gold I named it "The Shoe" (though I rarely refer to it as such...naming a car is weird) because it looks very much akin to Usain Bolt's Olympic shoes.
The job: I am loving it so far...and I'm sure I'll post about it in the future, once I get internet at my apartment, etc.
Anyway, as the apartment goes, I made a video (poorly edited as I lost my video editor when I got a new computer...in fact, note my heavy, out-of-shape breathing in the video) of the apartment. I still need a sofa, etc...but other than that I'm pretty much set up.
Let's be undecided, let's take our time And sooner or later, we will know our mind We'll be on the outside, we won't care Cause we're together, that's somewhere
And there's a big [dog] coming, about a mile away There's a big [dog] coming, I can hardly wait
Let's wake up the neighbors, let's turn up our amps And we know we're used to without a plan We can play a Stones song, sitting on a fence And it'll sound pretty good, til I forget how it ends
I woke up early, couldn't go back to sleep Cause I had been thinking of where it all would lead So I made you wake up, I said, "Let's take a walk, I wanna hold your [leash], we don't have to talk"
The call came over the police scanner: cat struck by car at 11th and P-----. That's my territory. I was out of the office and to the scene in a minute, but the teens gathered at the corner had not seen a cat.
Around another block and another street over, I hadn't found an endangered cat. Then I saw Dirt Cat. Unscathed. Or perhaps struck by a car and unfazed. Dirt Cat lives. Here is a few months ago:
Whenever I see Dirt Cat he is walking cautiously in the wide open. And he never sees me until I'm approaching at a sprint.
He looks like a bobcat in the face, a mangy dog otherwise, but ultimately he's a stray cat and perhaps a little slow. He lives in the basement of our house with Basement Cat, Weiner Cat* and Real Cat (otherwise known as Dust Cat, because he's gray, but he's also the least stray-like, and hence, real).
The first time I saw Dirt Cat he was creeping along the neighbor's fence. I chased him for fun and he led me right to his home: our basement. The next time he was creeping into a pipe: I surprised him at the other end. I also chased him with Chase, leading to the first-ever photo seen above.
The best chase happened about a week ago, when I started chasing him around the house. He way ahead and I think he slowed down, expecting me to be coming back the other way around, so when I caught up from behind he was peeking around the corner and had to bust tail all over again.
Finally, I chased Dirt Cat yesterday afternoon. Having just finished a juggling session I turned to walk home from across the street when, sure enough, here comes Dirt Cat, padding onto the lawn but unaware of me. See him bookin' it at the end of the video below:
It has become a weekend ritual to tune in to one local radio station just to grimace and howl and change the station when a particular DJ makes his appearance. He's especially easy to find because the "commercial free" station is so full of DJ-read commercials.
Listen in for his signature Surfer-Slick Epic Pregnant Pause delivery style, like at 2:18: "... ... ... and good luck."
I park at home, almost always, at least for fear of finding myself at the end of a work day with my car the work lot, needing to be moved less than 400 feet.
I could go on about the alley, the co-worker smoke breaks, and our back deck; or how I feel the need to explain to the students walking to the high school that when I do occasionally drive to work, it's only because I'm going to pause there just a moment then continue on to the courts or to an interview.
The movement and scope of our daily lives has its limits.
But one day, walking the alley I walk everyday, I found a paintbrush holder with "Purdy" on it (see above).
One month later, same alley, I found a broken piece of a van. Not Purdy, but:
What were the chances that two equally dapper and similarly attired Hillsdale freshman would meet through a common love of The Hives and four years later find themselves living in towns named after the same fiery Revolutionary War hero while competing against Gannett newspapers, also of the same name?
Suffice it to say, it happened. The details below will paint the picture, and clarify the Center of the Venn diagram too.
WAYNESVILLE
WAYNESBORO
Rookie reporter
Jack
Tony
Population
3,507 (˜ 20,000 when grouped with St. Robert and Ft. Leonard Wood "metro" area)
More about the namesake: Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745–December 15, 1796) was a United States Army general and statesman. His military exploits and fiery personality quickly earned him a promotion and the sobriquet of "Mad Anthony".
With renter's insurance in mind, we have started taking photos of everything we own. We'll soon log our pizza cutter, waffle iron, crock pot, and more; cheese grater, bowls, griddle, and flipper; colander, juicer, and red microwave.
In the meantime, we're putting these new kitchen items to work. We made some puppy chow, for example:
And for Christmas dinner we did pork tenderloin, potatoes (my way) and green beans cooked in onions and soy sauce:
Also recently: Thai steak salad
Pan-roasted steak w/ oven-roasted bell peps and saffron rice
Birds at the bike shop Across the street, someone was being rolled into an ambulance. In the bike shop Katie was trying a tricycle, and outside the little birds were making space on the line and making space on the line and making space on the line. The next one came from below, the next one came flapping from the side; the birds were making space on the line.
Bird math Three dots. Space. Two more on one telephone wire.
Straight below, two yellow lines and four buzzing tires. Back up, next wire down, two more dots. Next wire down, two again.
They're out of sight, all nine behind me. They sat in odds.
Bird pursuit series: driving by Tony, photos by Katie
The real art After walking away from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis we stopped for a few minutes in a little park by a pond. We heard squawking above us. So we settled in on a bench to stay and watch awhile.
We admired the little birds flying in and out of one big tree. We had company. The old man on the bench beside us also seemed to be enjoying the show. But no.
Our to-do list fluctuates daily, but the apartment is steadily more livable. We've ventured into the city's commercial sectors the past two weekends, finding that few things make it directly to town. We've got consignment and discount and overstock and antique and junk stores. We've got a permanent flea market where tractor trailers become stores each weekend.
And we've got a dirty river. Official warning: wash after playing in the South River.
I coasted nearly three miles tonight, down the mountain.
I thought ahead to the trips I'll make over that mountain, and how on the other side everyone will say, "just over the mountain," when I tell them where I live.
I wondered why I've always mistakenly thought that the time it takes to travel a given highway will eventually decrease after enough repeat trips.
We live 21.9 miles from the nearest Panera Bread but near enough to the newspaper office that I could play long-toss with my co-workers on their smoke breaks from our second floor back deck.
The lights were out when we arrived last week. None of the switches worked so we spent our first night in a hotel watching The Daily Show and Colbert Report and preparing the wording of a complaint phone call we were planning for the power company in the morning.
It was only a matter of flipping the circuit breakers on, which, luckily, we discovered the next morning before calling to complain.
We also found our apartment keys and three pages of the eight-page lease on the street corner that morning. That's where they'd blown from the car rooftop the night before.
She was angry. I was giggly.
Tucked beneath the windshield wipers of my car, which had spent the night stretching wide in our gravel parking area, was this note:
Driver, You are blocking the parking of this residence plus you are blocking parking 4 my car. If you are about to move in please note that each apt. has 2 spaces apiece and you are blocking both of mine. my car was unable to park comfortably because of yours being in the way. But if you are not a resident of --address redacted-- than next time I will call the police and have it towed. So please be considerate and park further down. Thank you, Apt.--address redacted--
Fairly pleasant greeting considering the U-Haul was attached and pretty obviously part of a moving operation.
Our landlady found and read the note that day too, told us not to worry, and described that we weren't actually blocking anyone else's spot, that the author of the note only had one car, and that it was indeed parked comfortably. For a diagram, click this link.
We have a toilet with a lot of swirl and little power. We kill a few bugs every night. And it's the laundromat for now until our landlady brings over the new washer and dryer.
We nailed in a new mailbox and share a shake a day from Kline's Dairy Bar. We see mountains all around us but our windows are painted shut. We've had a mottled move-in and I start in the morning.
Drive from Phoenix to Louisville
