As the Chestnuts Prepare to Rain Down in Everyday Ramblings

I took this with my phone yesterday so have less control over sizing it. This is the mystery apartment building from the front. It looks so normal from this angle but there is just yard and hill and tunnel and freeway in front of it. There is no street and no normal access.

They are doing extensive remodeling work on the red cottage that faces the street and parked over the brick path in yesterday there were a couple of trucks full of old light fixtures and rolled up worn Persian rugs. There was a guy sitting at the picnic table in the front yard right next to where I took this talking on the phone completely oblivious to me taking pictures.

I talked to the woman who owns the cottage next door. They have a contractor in and are redoing the roof. She said her house was built in 1888. But she knew remarkably little about the other houses on the block and referred me to the historical society.

With the dramatic change in the weather this weekend (it is raining again now!) I admit that I am struggling with a atmospherically inspired migraine today. I am about to take a second round of drugs after trying all of my usual non drug related interventions, a bath, a nap, yoga, rubbing my feet, drinking a bunch of water and eating something light.

S. and I went for a long (for me about 11 and a half miles) walk this morning with Frieda. She has got to be the happiest healthiest dog I have ever met. She is a four-year-old standard poodle and yes she has been to the groomer lately but doesn’t have the affected poodle look. She has the “I am ready for hot days in the cool woods” look. We met a white lab named Red who is just under a year old near a meadow in Forest Park and they played and played and…

We made a critical decision today. We are not going to walk the Portland Half-Marathon in October after all. It costs $250. Most of that goes to charity but still with my medical bills…. And S. doesn’t think she’ll be ready. And on top of that the next week after the race she is off for three weeks in the SW United States and then three weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. She is going to need all her energy for those trips and she’ll be 67 by then. Conserving energy does become a factor as we age.

We are going to do The Race for the Roses next spring. It still goes to charity but is much more reasonable.

Tomorrow sometime I am getting a new stove.

They have slowly been replacing all the original stoves in the building and mine is one of the last. I have had a burner that doesn’t work for about six months but the owners realized that every one of them have a defective thermostat and are replacing them as things go wrong.

It is a drop in stove so I had to move practically everything from half the kitchen this morning and clear a path to the door. The cats are a bit disconcerted and really would like to know what the deal is… thank you very much.

Luckily it is an at home workday.

As disruptions go I am hoping it is on the mild side.