04/09/2002

In the Kitchen with Rosie (yes, the Oprah book, you just shaddup – Heather suggested I try it out after I whined about always burning the red beans and rice, and this was pretty damn good), and okra as our vegetable. I know boiled okra is slimy, but I really like it. And Fred took this great picture of Tubby last night (no, I haven’t thrown over my love for Miz Poo in favor of Tubby. You’re seeing all these Tubby pictures lately because Nance loves him to death, and we’re all about feeding the addiction). He’s quite the little model, isn’t he? Okay, here we go – sights from my walk. I did my best to remove any identifying marks so as to not encourage stalkers, but if you see anything I missed, I’d appreciate a heads up. Thanks! This is me, in my jaunty yellow cap, grinning like a fool. You’ve gotta love the self-timer function on the camera. I think I should have used the flash for this picture, don’t you? This is from our driveway looking up the street. We live at the end of a circle, and from our house to the end of the street always seems to be the longest part of the walk, both coming and going. Fred and I both call this cat "our buddy." He’s one of the few outdoor cats we see on our walks that will come over to be petted. In fact, as soon as he sees me, he comes running over, meowing his cute little head off. If he thinks I haven’t petted him enough when I try to leave, he’ll try to "herd" me to the side of the sidewalk, in hopes (I guess) of getting me to stop and pet some more. Not far from where our buddy lives, there’s a house where two scottish terriers (I think) live. A lot of the houses in our area have electric fences in the front yard, and these two dogs will bark their fool heads off, but can’t get close enough to tear off one of my legs. You can imagine my terror at the idea of them getting that close. Next door to the barking dogs, someone lost their mind and planted fake daffodils in their flower beds. It absolutely cracks me up. Another yard with an electric fence and two barky dogs. These guys bark in a more friendly manner, though, and I’ve stopped a few times to pet them. I love the way trees blossom in the spring. Have I mentioned? Believe it or not, there’s a house back there. You can’t see it, even if you stand at the end of the driveway and peer up at it, because the people who live there have grown a veritable forest in their front yard. No doubt they’re pissed because a yuppie-filled subdivision popped up across the street from them. It kills me, because I’m the nosiest person in the world, and I’d like to see what the house looks like. Not enough to trespass, ’cause I’m afraid there’s a scary old man with a gun up the driveway a ways. This is the yard where I saw a beaver a few weeks ago. I love this yard, because of the little waterfall. It took the people who own this house a couple of months to get the waterfall running right. When we were looking for a house last fall, this little church was up for sale. I tried to convince Fred that it’d be cool to buy and renovate a church to live in, but he wouldn’t go for it. He has no sense of fun, that man. These flowers are growing alongside a fence. They look like morning glories, a little, but I don’t think they are. I could be wrong, though. Another thing that fascinates me, this trailer in the middle of yuppieville. See, up until maybe 10 years ago, there wasn’t much to Madison, but in the past 10 years, they’ve built it into a total yuppie community. I’m guessing that this trailer was here long before they started with all the subdivisions, and the guy who lives there ain’t going anywhere. I never see the guy who lives there, but I’ve seen a taxi leaving several times, and I think he drives a taxi. You can’t see in the windows at all, even at night, and being the curious sort, I’d like to see what it’s like in there. They finally finished widening this road and paving the sidewalk – which they were doing when I was doing all my 3Day training last year, and had to tromp through the mud and the muck every thrilling day – and it’s turned into a pretty good road to walk down. They also finally finished this big-ass church, and it looks pretty cool. I don’t know what kind of tree that purple one is (note: it’s apparently an American Redbud tree. My readers know just about everything, I swear), but I’d love to have one in our back yard. Think Fred would chop down one of the Bradford Pear trees and plant one of these instead? Probably not. There’s this big old farm house I walk past most days, and I’d love to see the inside of it. They have electric candles in all the windows, and they keep them on all the time. I wonder what that’s about? The farm house from the front. I’d love to own a big, rambling farm house. And part of the land the house is sitting on. It’s pretty close to the road, but has a lot of land behind and to the side. This walkway is pretty much the scariest part of my walk, because it’s pretty secluded, and if some psycho jumps out at me, well, I’m probably done for unless I can beat the shit out of him with my walkman. Needless to say, I’m pretty aware of my surroundings during this part of my walk. And I pretty much run through this part. Having a fence on each side of the sidewalk creeps me out for some reason. Someone got tp’d! As long as it’s not in my yard, I think tp’d trees look pretty cool. Remember last Fall when we were looking for a house, and we made an offer on house number three, and said to each other that if they accepted the offer as written, we’d take the house, and then we found that the realtor had lied about the sellers accepting the offer as it was? Well, this is the house. And it’s still for sale. Thank god it didn’t work out with this house, because the one we ended up in is way better. Around the corner from the above house – and coincidentally, across the street from the second house we made an offer on (which we withdrew because of the rotting windows) is a river. They’ve spent several weeks clearing the land beside it, and now they’re not doing anything. I thought they might put a walkway along it, but who knows? Nice port-a-potty, eh? My favorite yard of all the yards I pass, because it’s so bright and well-kept. I don’t really care for tulips, but I like the colors in this one. Fred told me he thought this ground cover stuff is called phlox. I tried to convince him to put some in the flower bed with the roses and holly bushes, but he’s declared that he’s done messing with it all. From the end of our street, looking down toward the end of the circle. The street veers to the right, so you can’t see our house from here. And we’re home again, home again, jiggity jig. I’m always more than happy to be home at the end of the walk. ]]>