Een’s Neighborhood

• Ben and I rode our motorcycles south and east through a bit of Amish country. Hills and curves OH MY!
  
• Finished painting front door "wild currant" - but still to tacky to hang back up.
• Finished painting the halls, the guest bedrooms, the offices, the kitchen, the sun room and entry. (thanks to Pat, Carol and Pete)
• Ordered new office furniture for Ben - I'll be pulling pieces from his office to make mine work better.
• Wired more of the house for TV cable and internet (thanks to Andy and Steve).
• Tomorrow I pick up the last of the family room furniture and talk to the carpet folks about new carpet for Ben's office and all the bedrooms (Ben gets brown, bedrooms get beige)
  
• Put together one of two side tables for our bedroom (they match patty's lights) and have another for living room
• Have an order holding on Overstock for the "couples" guest bedroom - holding out for the bed frame I want.
• Cleaned up the kitchen from the 4 days of painting and home projects
• Fixed the lighting in the entry, sun room

And when all done, I was able to cook dinner and eat with Benny! I have decided to "master" the electric cooktop before pulling it out and replacing it! I did not burn dinner! Hurray!

So you know, I miss

• My kids
• My girlfriends
• Whole Foods (especially the soaps and salad bar)
• Sushi
• Trader Joes (especially the frozen foods)
• San Francisco (in general)
• The beach (even through I did not get there often)
• My kids (again, because I really really wish they could come visit my new home!)
• And all our CA friends - Too many to list y'all - but you know who you are.
  

I'm headed back to CA to see Cas graduate in Dec and spend time with my girlfriends - then bringing Aaron back here with me for a bit. I am looking forward to it!

Boy, for a couple of teetotaling vegetarians, CarrieNation and Dabysan throw one hell of a party.  I mean, I knew it was going to be a good time, but yesterday went above and beyond my highest expectations.  I'm so unbelievably happy for the both of them, and even though it's been said plenty, I'd like to offer them my public congratulations one last time.  I am deeply honored that two people I care about so much asked me to be a part of their special day.  I'm just thankful that I only flubbed my toast in small ways that nobody seemed to notice.  I was so sure I was going to screw it up.

Yes, I am taking time to enjoy the new house.

Right now I am in the family room, on the new leather sectional  with Abby on my feet watching TV - drinking a fine chardonnay (from CA) and enjoying the peace and quite this space brings me. Ben is with his friend John in his office (next to the family room) but with the doors shut I can't hear them.

It snowed a bit 2 days ago - Ben and I ran into this room and watched the flakes fall. We hugged and kissed and wished for a bit more to fall, but then it warmed up. It's been sunny and warm since. We would go riding, but too much to do to the house.

Today I brought home carpet samples - we picked and they come to measure on Monday.

Ben and his buddy's spent hours under the house rewiring for TV and interent. I hear the crawl spaces are carpeted and well lit!

I think the most amazing part of our being here is having people come to help us . Ben's family was here for 3 days helping us paint. His friends came today to help wire. We are going to an early thanksgiving at Ben's uncle's home. My mom drops in to see what's new and I stop in to her home and take her with for shopping and lunch. My sis and her husband have helped us set up the washer dryer, moved the freezer down stairs etc

We are nesting and I love it.

I think the thing that haunts me the most about my trip to New York back in June are these:

Giant, monolithic housing projects.  On the train from Manhattan to Brooklyn, they dot the landscape.  One after another after another.  Sometimes, in big groups.  It's one of the most depressing things I've ever seen, and somehow, this is acceptable in the United States.  I understand low-income housing is shitty, but this seriously gives me the chills ever time I see it.

I'm also really curious about them.  What are the people like who live there?  How many people live their entire lives in these?  The next time I'm in New York, I want to photograph the projects.  Now, I don't want to get too too close, but I'm thinking that I can get some pretty good shots from train platforms and such.  I especially like this photo because of its Holga-ness.  It makes it look even worse.  Coney Island looks pretty dingy on its own, but this photo succeeds in making it look even worse.

How many rappers are from these housing projects?  Hmm.

In my search for acceptable photos, I came across this site (which is where I snagged this photo from):

Depressing Housing Projects

Now if I could only manage to develop the photos from my last New York trip...    

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I have other stuff I should be doing right now.  But I made the mistake of turning on my computer when I got home.  Then I re-read Dabysan's excellent post about getting married this weekend.  Then I started thinking about my toast, which I thought I had completed last night.  Then I started going back through some - okay, most - of our posts about Karaoke to the Death.  Then I started listening to the audio from past years.  Then I started thinking about how great all my friends are, and how much I'm looking forward to this fantastic celebration on Saturday - despite the fact that I have to give a toast, which I definitely don't want to do.

I have other stuff I should be doing right now, but you're going to have a hard time convincing me I wasted my evening.

One of the nicest people I know is Cathleen McLain. I went to her birthday party this year, and people who have known her for month or decades all said the same things: "This is how you helped me out Cathy, this is how you supported me, this is what a great artist you are" Oh yes, they also said she was a crazy woman in the nicest possible kind of crazy, which is even better as far as I'm concerned. :P

Someone was very not nice to Cathy today. That offends me, especially as she took time out of a day when she was tired and busy to help me out. She's helped me out in so many ways - introducing me to the best shows in the state, paying my way for some of them as I got established living in a new place, and getting me into some very good shows at the last minute last year. She's bailed me out financially when I got into a bad space, and gave me groceries this week because I'm struggling a little in this transition time between the two jobs, and after the furlough I had to have last month in my current job.

Apart from everything else, she just makes the most gorgeous art. I love her paintings, and I swear I'll own some of her jewelry one day, just as soon as I get promoted into a better paying position at my new job.

For the moment though, the best thanks I can think of is to show you her amazing work. You should head off to her etsy shop and see what she has around. If you are in Connecticut, we'll both be at Open Studio at the Hartford ArtSpace November 14 and 15.

Especially check out her wonderful pins with the converter to change them into a pendant. They are just awesome!!!!

So if you're a pretty nice person, and ever had someone be unjustifiably horrid to you, take your revenge right now. Support the wonderful, generous, fantastic artist (and beautiful friend) - and buy some of Cathy's jewelry, or just leave a comment here telling her how great she is (she drops by this blog, she'll see it). :D