notes to the neighborhood

(Los C--- edition) <-- i feel all nineteenth-century doing that.

Dear coffee-brown two-story house,



I admire your decor, with the stonework on the front matching the stone wall around the front yard, and the flowers just outside the wall are wonderful. Most of all, I covet your left-side bougainvillea, the one whose flowers are cream-white with pink tips. I've never seen one like that; it is gorgeous.




Dear pair of adobe-style houses,



I admire what you've done on lots that are half the size of most of the other lots. Did the others used to be your size and everyone else combined them, or did someone split a regular-size lot and build two houses on it? In any case, you left-side house in particular have done a really nice job with the front courtyard with the little fountain, and the bougainvillea (regular bright color flowers) that adds just the right amount of color to the setting. Anyway, good going on your architecture (what I can see of it, anyway).

[edit 2010 Apr 16: they both have neat fountains. the other one is in a slightly different spot, and I hadn't noticed it before writing this/taking the pictures.]


Dear brick-front house with the gable second-floor windows in the dark-shingled roof,



You remind me of a common look for houses in the Philadelphia suburbs where my husband's family lives. It's a good thing; it means you remind me of vacationing every time I walk past. Though, in general, I feel that the effect of a facing on the front of the house, such as brick or stone, is dissipated somewhat when it doesn't continue around the sides. But I still like you.


Dear little house with the covered porch running the width of the front,



I admire the neatness of your front yard. Your porch looks nice and cozy and is the sort of thing I wish we had on the front of our house, with a few design differences (ours would be above ground-level and wooden railings instead of brick floor/pillars). Thus you inspire me to thoughts of home design every time I walk past, which I enjoy.

-----

Hm. I should perhaps have pictures with this. Maybe I'll manage that soon.

[Edited, finally, on 2010 Apr 16 to add the pictures. I took them only a day or two after writing this entry, but.]

song of myself redux

Three years ago, I posted my answers to an "answer these questions to describe yourself" email forward, which I had received in two different forms from two different friends. I merged the two sets of questions and answered the whole shebang, over several days.

This proved to be a mildly fateful decision, because only a few months later, I met the man who is now my fiance. His interest piqued, he decided to do a little "research" on me by reading the purple tricycle, and found the April 2003 question-and-answer sequence enlightening. In a positive way, luckily.

I'm in the mood to kick off this new Blogger phase of my journaling by revisiting those questions and comparing present to past answers. I'll try not to look at the old answers before writing the new ones. For those interested in following along with the 2003 sequence, it begins
here. I did several per post before, but this time I'll do one per.

1. If you could build a house anywhere, where would it be?
I have a better idea of the sort of house it would be -- solar-paneled, well-insulated, capable of transitioning off the grid in the future, when that becomes necessary -- a house on enough quality land to raise some good food with. The size of this envisioned farm, and whether it includes farm animals, fluctuates with my mood. It would be a solid house capable of anchoring an extended family over many generations. I'm still trying to figure out where good locations would be for it, though. I want it to be at least 300 feet above the current sea level, so that it will still be above water when the polar ice melts. It should also be within a strong, friendly, like-minded community in or not too far from a town, because a farm in the middle of nowhere will be no good in case of banditry. (I'm thinking very long term, collapse-of-the-Roman-Empire timeframe, in case you hadn't noticed.) Current possibilities include the vicinities of San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and the Pacific Northwest, as well as Vancouver and Victoria in Canada in case of theocracy.

I don't want it to be very far from the ocean partly because of weather moderation, partly because fishing could be a secondary food source, and partly because I simply love the ocean.