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Happy Halloween!
Photo: “Kabocha” (pumpkin) in Japanese. Kore wa Takeda Sensei ni agemasu.
Last weekend we invited some friends to view the renovations to the east wing of the estate. After the tour, we gathered in the Indian drawing room. While tasting a “little, shy wine like a gazelle,” we nibbled Bath Oliver biscuits, and discussed the arrangements for All Hallows Even.
One friend warned me that squirrels had taken to eating neighborhood pumpkins. She had lost her jack o’ lantern to a scurry of hungry Eastern Grays. I must admit I thought the woman was mad. I had never heard of squirrels eating pumpkins, but I laughed politely and gestured to my majordomo to pour her more wine.
To my dismay, this morning I find it is true. When did this start? Have squirrels always defaced innocent pumpkins? Upon further investigation, I found that pumpkin abuse is the least of squirrel crimes.
One little slip like that could cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by.
ETA: A recipe for squirrel cacciatore from the Backwoods Bound site. You’ll need “2–3 squirrels cut up in pieces.”
Photo: Planet Wine on Mount Vernon Avenue in Del Ray, Alexandria.
We had a clear vision of the neighborhood where we wanted to live. After living in great neighborhoods in the past, we knew what works for us. The streets would be walkable, with small, older homes and apartments. Main street would have local shops including a butcher, a cheese shop, a bakery, a wine shop, some cafes—dared we hope for a farmer’s market?
Photo: Evidence of wine tastings.
People would say hi on the streets, assuming you were also a local, and introductions would quickly lead to statements like, “We just bought the place on X Street. You’re on Y?” You could walk almost everywhere, and to where you couldn’t walk you could easily take a bus or the metro.
Photo: Bus stop on Mount Vernon Avenue.
The vibe would be old-fashioned, small town, but in general the people would slant towards progressive values. It wouldn’t be too precious. There would be people who had lived their entire lives in the neighborhood and they would transmit the history.
Photo: On Mount Vernon Avenue.
All of our notions by coincidence follow the principles of “new urbanism.” In contrast to a newly developed suburb, we wanted our neighborhood to have history and to have grown organically. No new development, no matter how well planned according to new urbanist principles, could feel as legitimate, as authentic, as a neighborhood with 100 years or more of history.
We wanted a prewar (as in La Seconda) house with quirky but solid construction. We wanted that house to be located in a neighborhood as old as possible. We wanted the neighborhood to function now; we didn’t want to wait for the promise of better things to come.
We found all this in Del Ray, Alexandria. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.—The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V, Scene 5
Photo: Salteñas from Don Arturo, a Bolivian restaurant in Arlington.
We closed on our very first house. Falstaff the mortgage broker will lend us a penny, indeed quite a few pennies, and we shan’t retort the sum in equipage. The key to our little salteña of a house was handed to me quite casually as we signed papers that committed us to debt. A key in exchange for—I can’t write it. As Carlos keeps repeating cheerfully to vex me, “Wow, we owe more than half a million dollars!” It’s just wrong, but it feels so right.
There were a moments of elation as we entered the house for the first time using the our key. The our fridge hummed and made ice. The wood floors glistened and asked for our rugs. The walls wondered about our art. The rooms no longer seemed empty, now they buzzed with the phantoms of our belongings. We toasted ourselves at the bar around the corner and returned to the house to slap three paint samples on the master bedroom wall. Our first house! Yippee!
In our giddiness, I had forgotten the List. The list of things to do, fixes needed to make the house ours, to correct imperfections, to honor the house’s history. Friends tell us our list of fixes will change when we move into the house. Things that we are sure must be changed immediately will become livable as other priorities intrude. Exhibit 1: the guest bathroom.
Photo: Guest bath decorated with wine crates and corks.
You, my friends, who will soon grace the throne, will be polite. I can hear you already, emerging from the bathroom, returning to the party, “The bathroom is interesting.” Or “I like the decor, very creative, are those real wine crates?” Or “Early Napa?”
It’s on the list, but I can live with it. So, first painting the bedroom, then receiving the household goods, then fixing the air conditioning/heat pump system, then deciding what to do about the fish in the little pond (seriously). Well, maybe we can just keep feeding the fish. The house is our little salteña to fill as we choose.
Photo: Some house, what’s it to me?
Larry: Excuse me, but what the hell’s going on out here?
Crash Davis: Well, Nuke’s scared because his eyelids are jammed and his old man’s here. We need a live… is it a live rooster?
[Jose nods]
Crash Davis: We need a live rooster to take the curse off Jose’s glove and nobody seems to know what to get Millie or Jimmy for their wedding present.
[to the players]
Crash Davis: Is that about right?
[the players nod]
Crash Davis: We’re dealing with a lot of shit.—Bull Durham
We’re not buying a house. No siree, not us. We may have signed a lot of papers and removed a heap of dosh from our mutual funds, and perhaps we ordered a new mattress yesterday, but nope, no house here.
Sure some people insist on notifying us about a closing date, but that’s their problem. We’ll be out to dinner not thinking about tankless water heaters or zoning setback rules or paint chips or mowing the lawn or buying patio furniture or ductless air conditioning systems or isolating electrical circuits in the backyard. No, I am not excited, why would I be excited?
You may ask me about the house, but I shall have no idea what you are talking about.
Until I turn the key…
