Home in the Neighborhood

I’ve heard my neighborhood referred to as “the bohemian part of town” by people who have lived here their entire lives. I never really took on to it in the last two years that I’ve been here. However, in a conversation today, I realized that “bohemian” is probably an appropriate adjective. I mean, we don’t have a naked cowboy and the scent of patchouli won’t assault your nostrils, at least not when you’re on the sidewalk. We do, however, have a wandering minstrel, who owns at least three stringed instruments that he plays as he strolls along the streets. We also have a black man in a kilt who walks a bichon frise. More than one home has an arguable excessive, though tidy, number of mosaics, stained glass windows, and other artwork hanging from their porch and in their front yard. The older woman who lives in the condo next to mine has “decorated” the hallway with her “art” which generally consists of a clock, some sort of plastic flowering bush with a duck perched in it, and something seasonal. There are garden animals in her parking spot, featuring a rabbit, frog, alligator, and their little metal and acrylic friends. Another of my neighbors has obscured the make of their car with liberal bumper stickers. One of the restaurants up the street is decorated with foil balls dotting the ceiling tiles, framed paint-by-number posters, and reclaimed mailboxes that have been morphed into sea animals. The local coffee shop gives the Starbucks across the street stiff competition. It all makes me feel at home.

As 2011 came to a close...

...we found ourselves in 2012.

Here we are on the other side of the New Year. I always feel complete looking back at the year, to mark the happenings and to be gracious for all we have. This year’s been a full one.

• We got married! I mean, seriously now, this is the highlight of 2011. Surrounded by our families and best friends, we vowed to take care of each other until someone kicks the bucket. This is not a small promise! (Love you, bebe!) We got the year off to a good start in March.
• January and February were filled with getting ready for our wedding. We did most of the work, from assembling the invitations and programs to decorations and writing ninety percent of the ceremony. (Yes, we cried when we first read our vows to see how they sounded. That’s when we knew we did them right.) April was spent recovering from the wedding.
• We honeymooned in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We perused art galleries, ate ourselves silly, and hiked through Tent Rocks National Monument. The photos came out pretty great. Too bad we were just learning how to use the camera.
• In professional news, Tracy earned a promotion at her structural engineering firm, which allows her to become a stockholder in 2012. San finished his first year of work at his current job, editing a professional publication.
• Tracy was appointed to the condo association board, and became the president in October. “SUCKER” must be etched into her forehead in some secret fashion.
• Over the summer, Tracy and San rearranged the small room off the kitchen (who really needs a formal dining room anyway?!) to accommodate a piano. Tracy is finally beginning to re-establish her relationship with the instrument that fueled half of a piano performance minor.
• Tracy took up a new hobby: DSLR photography. A budding pile of photography books has begun to collect on the lowest shelf of the coffee table, and Tracy’s latest purse selection took into consideration whether or not the camera would fit comfortably.
• San continues to fill all of his non-working hours dreaming of producing mead in a more structured and consistent fashion, and nurturing his new baby, I Kick Your Face Comicast. The podcast is scheduled to be a weekly downloadable discussion show about comic books and pop culture. If you’re interested, it’s on iTunes or at www.ikickyourface.com.
• Friends visited Chicago, and we visited friends. Attending the Superman Festival seems to have become an annual tradition. Tracy finally visited Niagara Falls (her second trip to Canada!) while visiting San’s family in New York for Thanksgiving. Christmas proved to be another short, busy jaunt to Kentucky. The long weekend was livened with an evening spent at a local winery that was recently opened by a couple Tracy knew from high school.

At the beginning of a new year, we raise our glasses to toast the exit of things past, and to celebrate optimism and looking forward to great adventures ahead.