Moving On

Our new house is in a great neighborhood. We can walk to the park. We can walk to a donut shop (Simon has learned about "nummy donuts"). There are lots of couples with kids living nearby, and people are very friendly. Simon and I spend a lot of time walking around, so I've discovered some fun facts:

On the next street over there is a house inhabited by vegetable lovers. So much do they love fresh veggies and fruits they've given over their entire front yard and "sidewalk strip yard" (what else do you call that area of "yard" on the other side of the sidewalk?) to the growing of them. This thriving garden has artichokes, zucchini and other squash, kale, various cabbages, various tomatoes, 7 huge sunflowers, watermelons (some have sprawled over the curb into the street), and other stuff I can't identify yet. One evening as Simon and I walked by I saw a man emerge from the house, walk down to sidewalk strip, harvest some squash, and go back to the house. He was probably preparing to cook dinner. I guess his neighbors are on the honor system.

On the other side of the street is a house that is undergoing construction of some kind--I think the owners are adding on to it. This house is on the corner and is across from a small corner of the park. Behind this house is an alley, right before the intersecting street takes over. Along much of the brick wall in the alley are posted home-made signs of various neon colors. There have to be at least 30 signs. The messages are handwritten and bear some variant of this:

"This is the land of the free. Don't let them take away your freedom and privacy without a fight. The person at [next-door neighbor's address given] is a coward and a sicko! Why does he need 4 cameras--all aiming at you and your family?! This is terrorism! Fight back!"

The point seems to be that this person is taking photos of people (mainly children) playing at the park. I don't know, though. I saw one camera, but it was aimed at the back gate of the alley, clearly for security purposes. There was another one--very small--by the front gate. It was crowded between shrubs and trees, and I doubt it could take decent pictures of people at the park. I'm still looking into this. Either way, the writer of the signs went a little overboard, I think. And it has to be the person who lives at the house on the other side of the alley wall, the house across the street from the vegetable lovers. I'm thinking the wall is his (or her) property, which is why no one has removed the crazy signs. The front yard of this house is interesting. It's mostly full of different kinds of cactus. There are some bougainvillea too. The ground is covered in white rocks. Basically, everything that grows in the yard has nasty, vicious thorns. Odd.

On another street some joker drew a really lame cartoon penis in wet cement some time back. On a street perpendicular to that, someone wrote "Only love can conquer hate" in wet cement.

A few days ago, walking to the liquor store a couple blocks away, I heard a teenage girl screaming to someone on her cell phone, "There are naked pictures of my sister on people's phones! Don't play dumb with me!" I was sad to miss the end of that conversation.

Long Time No Post

How can life become more hectic? I thought life would calm down once Simon got a little older. I'm so naive! I remember congratulating myself on having such an easy baby because Simon was so peaceful and quiet when he was 2 days old! The wake-up call came to me on his third day. My optimism surprises me. Where does it come from? It's nice to know it's still there somewhere. Still, as can be seen in my lack of blog posts, my life is getting busier. With Simon running around, I barely have time to turn on my computer (except for work) these days. In fact, I'm stealing a few moment to rite this while Simon is nursing--yes, I'm typing this with my left hand. Yes, Simon is still nursing.

We sold our house. Escrow closed 4 days ago. We are renting a nice house less than 5 miles away from our old house. It's smaller, but has a nice yard and is just a few blocks away from a park. Simon loves to be outside, especially looking at cars driving by. "Outside" is his favorite word lately. He yells it whenever he's inside. He wants to be outside all day and all night. We go for long walks. Well, usually Simon wants to be carried, which is super fun for my weary arms. He walks a little bit, then wants "up!" And he won't sit in his stroller. He hates being strapped down, I guess.

Simon loves cars. "More cars!" he yells about 300 times a day. We go out to the street and watch the cars. "Many cars!" he yells. "So many cars!" He then catalogs them: "blue truck," "silver car," "black car," and so on. There can never be enough cars for him.

More later...