Just stuff.

I'm not blogging from my phone today, so maybe I'll spell things correctly and use correct grammar this time. Maybe.

Life has been chugging along at a nice pace. We've been doing stuff (I'm not going to say that we're busy, because we are, but we always are so why dwell on that. And I'm not even sure if busy is a bad thing anymore. I think that it just is.). I mentioned in my last post that we had friends over for a end-of-season cookout, and you saw the remains of the beverages consumed. What's funny is that I don't think I had even one glass of wine or a sip of beer all night. I was spending my time talking, or eating, or swatting mosquitoes. Man, oh man, the mosquitoes are still deadly, even this far into October. Another effect of global warming that we have to contend with.

After our cookout two Saturdays ago my family came up to visit. We went on a walk in Boston and then ate dinner along the Boston Harbor. I am amazed at how little Doug and I go into the city. Even when we lived in Allston we rarely went into the city. However, when we're there, we ask ourselves why we don't spend more time there. We complain an awful lot about it, but what do we really know about it? For example, there was a movie being filmed right outside the Old State House. A big-budget flick, too, with Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Bacon. Who knew? Probably people who spend their time enjoying their city rather than wishing they lived anywhere but here. So we are going to change our mindsets a little and we are going to start saying things like, "I like Boston," and "What a nice place to live," and we are going to see how this goes.

We learned that Maria, my youngest niece, wants to live in a city when she grows up. And she wants to be on Broadway. So this means that she wants to live in NYC. She is pro-city and knows this with 8 year-old certainty. I like that.

Maybe this will be our backyard someday; the Boston Harbor.

It fills Doug's requirements of being near the water. It could fill the requirement of being near a public transport line that runs more frequently than the commuter rail. It could also fill the requirement of allowing for a better commute. If the Boston Harbor were in our backyard, do you think we'd actually go on a cruise of the Boston Harbor Islands?

Dreams of water views and twenty-minute commutes don't stop us from keeping things alive and cooking at home. In an effort to live our values, we rearranged some of our living spaces. I don't have many photos to share with you because I'm waiting until the rooms are "complete" to show you the final product, but here's a photo to give you an idea of what we're doing:

Where's the giant TV? In the basement. Where's the bookcase? To the left of the plaid armchair. Where's the computer and table? Out in the sunroom again. Now we have a more formal living space, but I hesitate to call it a formal living room. We are not the kind of people who have "formal" spaces. It is really more of a library, or a study zone. I have been sitting in the armchair to study. Doug has been sitting in the vinyl chair to read. And, without the couch and TV in the living room, we are eating meals at the dining table. The change has been good for us; helps us to structure our time better. We aren't watching less TV, either; we just have it on more infrequently. We use other things, like the radio or record player - or nothing at all - as background noise. There's something very civilized and natural about this arrangement.

But there's nothing natural about Sherman's arrangement with his cone. He has a new one now, because he destroyed the cone he came in. Scratched it to death. Last Saturday when one of our friends came over to our house, he took one look at Sherman, who he had never seen before, and said, "Ew." Maybe it was the ratty cone that elicited that response. Maybe it was the crinkly ear. Or the runny eyes (which are runny because he can't wipe them, thanks to the cone). Regardless, the poor guy needs help. And we just can't decide if we want to pay for it, because it seems that the kind of help Sherman needs is expensive.

Decisions, decisions. Life is all about decisions. Here's one decision that I just made and it was so terribly easy to make - I'm going to bed now. I wish they were all this easy.