Category: Personal

Tenement Symphony, Second Movement

How could I forget? There’s one more addition to my Tenement Symphony:

  1. The regular after-midnight pickups by the recycling trucks. Since we live near so many restaurants, there are always LOTS of glass bottles to dump into the trucks. It makes a uniquely grating noise.

Tenement Symphony, First Movement

It’s after midnight and fourteen floors down, the raccoons are fighting to the death. Just another in a long string of bizarre noises that plague us at our current address. In addition to the duelling coons, we have:

  1. ongoing construction: first, a complete retrofit our our balconies that involved concrete drilling and cutting for over six months, and now construction of a twelve story building about twenty feet from our bedroom window.
  2. neighbours across the hall who, literally, SLAM their door every single time. We started to document the times until it became silly.
  3. plumbing that hums and drones like a cathedral organ.
  4. some rather shoddy weatherstripping on our balcony door that catches the wind on blustery nights and sounds, according to Brooke, like a chainsaw. I think it sounds like someone making a farting noise with their mouth, but either way, it’s annoying.

But you know what? We love our apartment. I think we just need earplugs.

The Honeymooners

Well, we’re finally nailing down our honeymoon plans. We’re spending a week in San Francisco, from October 6-13. We’re going to be staying at Rick’s Bed and Breakfast on Haight Street near Buena Vista Park for the first two nights, then the Sonoma Creek Inn for two nights, and then back to the B and B for the final three nights. It’s hard to believe our wedding is less than six months away!

Back from Virginia!

Back from Virginia! We had a great time, visiting Monticello, five other plantations, five wineries, the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, the Museum of the Confederacy, and Colonial Williamsburg. Brooke didn’t like my idea of standing outside the restrooms at Monticello selling T-shirts that say “I took a crap at Monticello!” but I thought it was hilarious.

On Monday afternoon, after we’d visited Williamsburg, we decided to drive a little further to Newport News for dinner. After so much “quaintness,” we were in for a rude awakening. Although it’s right on the water, and a big shipbuilding town, Newport News is pretty much an ugly suburb of Hampton, which is an ugly suburb of Virginia Beach. Unable to find a decent restaurant, we ended up speeding down a street called Mercury Boulevard, 12-16 lanes wide (wider than all the highways we had driven), lined on both sides with endless chain restaurants (Denny’s, Arby’s, Chi-Chi’s, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Waffle House). It was depressing. When I saw my second Waffle House within a quarter mile, I knew I was in hell. When we settled on The Olive Garden, we realized we couldn’t get off in time. We had to overshoot, turn right, turn around, turn left, turn left again, turn around, then turn right, then turn right again. Oh the convenience!

Overall, though, a wonderful trip, to a (mostly) beautiful state. Our only regret is that we weren’t able to get together with our favourite Virginians, Mike and Dineen Wasylik, for dinner. Next time in D.C. guys!