Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Windsor Park Spa Rumor!

You now won't have to leave the neighborhood for spa services, as Signature Touch day spa is opening next to Randall's. I always knew that Windsor Park needed a spa, especially after a long day of mowing the grass or nailing up plywood after those guys broke in my house.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Nomad

This is going to change Windsor Park as we know it. For the better. The much, much better.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Brunch

One significant thing happened yesterday: we had a brunch date. It was the first social engagement we've had since Christmas Day, and before that? I can't remember. It's been so long. We met David and Lisabeth at an awesome Thanksgiving feast my brother and some of his friends put together in Keene, and since they were visiting Portland they got in touch, and we had a great visit. (Food highlight: pea sprouts in the omelette, and very salty butter on the English muffins. Good coffee, too. Local 188. Remember that one.) There's so much to learn, because we don't know them hardly at all, except that she's from Corpus Christi and they met and married in Austin, Texas, before moving to New England in the late 1990s, but they felt like more intimate acquaintances. Plus we, or I, was hungry for social interaction. Misty and I are mostly hunkered down together, which has been a lot of fun & good for The Relationship, but brunch reminded me not to go too long or believe I can go too far without social time. What constrains me is a sense that, why meet anyone we'll have to leave? And building a social circle -- even a social dot -- can seem like a distraction from the work we both know we need this time to do. It's an old tension. But as it's familiar, it's workable. And as we're not overwhelmed with social opportunities, the tension remains productive and in balance.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Portland Rave

This guy raves about Portland:

Besides the good feeling I got from the conference, the charm of Portland Maine was the icing on the cake. Coming from Indianapolis, I am used to the standard set of strip malls, mega discount superstores, and chain restaurants. In fact, a visitor who was dropped in the middle of Indianapolis would be hard pressed to figure out where they were because, frankly, it looks like every other metropolitan city. Same billboards, same neon signs, same putrid grease smells, same everything. Not Portland. Granted, they had a few Starbucks but the real charm of this city comes from the small business owners who take great pride in their history and connection to the people. Walking downtown, I didn't see Office Max, instead I saw "Wigon's Office Supply" - a quaint supply outlet in the heart of downtown Portland. I did not see homeless people, I saw everyday people enjoying the sun and relaxing in the public areas with their well-groomed dogs.


Thursday, January 10, 2008

Bike Box

Portland, Oregon is doing an interesting thing to promote bicycle commuting: making intersections safer by painting "bike boxes" on the road where cyclists can wait for traffic lights to change.

Calling it a "bike box" makes it seem really involved. Folks, it's paint on the street. Which is to say, 1) it's cheap 2) you don't have to physically change the road and 3) enforcement against auto drivers is going to be tough. Still, I don't see why Austin couldn't do something like this on its existing roads.

That said: apparently cyclists in Portland can be pushy, mean, and rude, just like drivers anywhere. But I'll never stop believing that cyclists are just more enlightened than auto drivers.

I believe that any one who wants a driver's license should have to spend 1 month riding a bicycle, so they can learn to give the proper right of way when they're driving their screaming tons of metal deathbox off to pick bluebonnets for baby. This is apropos of nothing; I just wanted to write "screaming tons of metal deathbox."

Friday, January 4, 2008

Food & Place

I'm in Chicago for business meetings and a conference, and food came up twice in conversations. The first one was about Chicago supermarkets, Austin supermarkets, Portland restaurants; the second was about the new word "locavore," or "eating around one's place," which is the Oxford University Press's new word of the year. On that theme of food versus place as a cultural focus of the moment, "locavore" blends the two -- though notice that it's the food that's chosen, not the place. And I fell asleep trying to think of the inverse word, where it's the place that's chosen for its food. I didn't get far -- I was tired -- but will continue thinking.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Another Windsor Park Blog

You might enjoy this Windsor Park blog: http://the-grackle.blogspot.com/

I am nearly certain that I used to walk the dog by these folks' yard and admire their plants.