Teddi’s foot #lexusgoogamooga (Taken with instagram)
Nostalgia
We are getting a new bathroom on the 3rd floor of our house (yes, we got in just before the market went nuts. Hate us if you like.) The contractor/bathroom artisan showed me the tree rings yesterday—layers of wallpaper dating from the 40s (swans, blue background; demure); 60s (regular print of small flowerlike designs in a coral, blue and gray pattern).
We’ve tried to improve our house since moving in as much as we can (new kitchen, which has its natural limits—not great location mostly). But the thing that gets to me, aside from the beauty being created on the third floor of our house is….urban roadkill!
Directly facing us is a parkway (though it’s sunken at that point). Believe me, during the first couple of days after we moved in we asked each other “Do you hear it?” every 5 minutes).
The roadkill I’m talking about is things like air conditioners. Old mattresses. An entire sofa bed, plopped there (who carries these things over to our block, and thinks “Oh, this is a GREAT spot!?). Bottles of urine on the side of the road, gleaming in the spring sun.
It doesn’t bother me at all that the local drug-wizened bottle collector stores his shopping cart inside the guardrail. Really. That’s his livelihood.
It bothers me that my fantasy of living in a lovely home in a lovely setting will never be.
