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Where I Lived

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

It was my house too

Nestled somewhere in this jungle field is my parents' house, which they have lived in the past twenty years and for which the mortgage has been all payed off, yay! I lived here too, but for a much shorter period of time, aged 13 to 18. Only five years, but I can distinctly remember junior year of high school, with the scary senior year and the even scarier college and the Big Bad World looming, talking to my friend Michelle in the kitchen and together wondering how long, once we left home, we would be able to last on Taco Bell and Coca-Cola before dying.

Goldfinch

Goldfinch picnic in the backyard.
In the backyard is also buried my dog Beau and my cats Pepper and Tammy, may they rest in peace.

But la. We flew the coop and did survive out in the big bad world afterall, and with finer nurishment than that of canned beans or soda thankfully, and it's been a very long time since we've referred to our houses as "my house" or "your house." It's now my parents' house, and I am just a guest.

Right now my parents' house is pretty much empty inside. It is the exact opposite of what it's like outside, with the masses of rose and azalea bushes, wisteria and camellia trees, peonies and irises bursting from every corner. There is a thick row of rose bushes growing and spilling along the brick courtyard in the front of the house that has not even yet bloomed. Once it does, watch out! It will be a bumblebee's favorite playground. My mother sent me a small stump of this same rose variety up North when we bought out first house 6 years ago, I stuck it in the ground, where it remained stunted at 6 inches tall for all that time. What went wrong? Besides the fact that clearly I have inherited both my parents' messiness but not their green thumbs? Life isn't fair, I'm doomed to not pick after myself and kill plants forever.

My mother wails everyday how much she's going to miss her garden and her backyard wildlife. It's been a long while since I've missed this home myself, but I understand how she feels.

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Wednesday is for Where I Live

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I live in Boston. For almost the last 10 years I lived in various suburbs of, none of them more than 5 miles away, but this past summer we moved downtown and what a lifestyle change it's been! All for the better.

Farewell, car

We donated our car sometime in November, just in time to avoid the pains of the season's first major snowstorm. It is not fun having a car in the city with only on-street parking available which is impossible to find as it is. Since I work from home mostly and Duck takes the subway to work, keeping it no longer made sense. Now we just use zipcar (a very cool urban service) when we need a vehicle.

Farewell, car

The side effect to not having a car anymore, besides the reduction in bills from not having to pay for insurance or gas, is that we are totally jacked! Two or three times a week we walk to the grocery store with our backpacks, and are not afraid to fill them with a large cantaloupe, a gallon of milk, a bag of apples, a roast chicken and a couple of bottles of wine, give or take several other items, and haul all that stuff home. We're walking everywhere, patronizing local shops and with a mall and two major bookstores nearby, I've find that we're shopping online less and less. Which means no need for shipping.

We support our local stores, we get our exercise, we reduce our monthly bills, we reduce our carbon footprint.

It's a nice win-win-win-win.

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