Tia and I have been house hunting of late, though hunting seems to focused a word for what we are doing. House browsing perhaps? House window shopping? Maybe house wish listing is most accurate.
Deciding where and how to live is an interesting new phenomena in my life. I have pretty low standards honestly, or have until recently. Heat, roof, kitchen, and preferably quiet when it is supposed to be. Ideally situated somewhere not too far from my place of employment. On my own, I have little enough to fill most spaces, so a one bedroom domicile would have been sufficient (2 would have seemed opulent). Of course, that has changed as I have gotten older and gotten married. Part of getting married is acquiring things, something I have not heretofore been exceedingly proficient in on my own. I don't mean to shine a bad light on it, I just have never owned much more than could fit in my car.......and driving a Rabbit doesn't allow for much.
When seeking a new place to live, nothing about combining the likes and dislikes of two people with moderate means and, therefore, a moderate budget, is simple. 1-2 bedrooms becomes 3. 1 bath becomes 2. Kitchens need to be expansive enough to house gadgets used for specific purposes instead of the catch-all utilitarian pieces I am most acclimated to, room for myriad glassware designed to accomodate a diverse range of beverages must be arranged, and wire baskets of some aesthetic value need to be procured to house something called 'fresh fruit' (which is frequently displayed prominently on the counter). Closets must be capacious enough to accomodate more than my own meager accumulation of clothing (made more robust with Tia doing a majority of my shopping) as well as her own abundant (though not necessarily by the standards of her peer group) array of apparel. Plus, one room with a TV (formerly known as the living room) creates a difficult compromise during football season. Oh yeah, and finding a place that isn't either: A. a dump, B. out in BFE, or C. wildly overpriced seems about as likely as Mensa extending an invite to Jessica Simpson. On top of all of this Tia has critters that require a space that meets their specific environmental requirements while being far enough away from the living space to drown out their nocturnal play and allow me to sleep.
Suffice to say, we aren't having extensive amounts of fortune locating places that we would feel comfortable owning. So, for the time being, Wilsonville apartment dwellers we remain. With the thought of moving from one apartment to another fairly unpalatable, it remains unlikely that renting nearer to Portland seems a possibility either. Maybe next summer, once the rain dries up and the sun peaks out again, it will seem like an alternative worth pursuing. Or maybe by then the house of our dreams, and means, will finally be available.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
It has been awhile
I have been having the most difficult time writing lately. Is writer's constipation coined as yet? If not I would like to do so now. I find myself often sitting down to start writing and then drift off to something else. Or, worse yet, I stare at the blank screen straining to think of anything to write and then quickly stumble off into incoherence. Its tough when life is just life, and not some interesting set of new adventures. Common travails don't often make the best blog fodder.
Speaking of life, I am maintaining my equilibrium. Work continues well, though I remain just on the cusp of the long learning curve. Every time I think I master some skill or idea, another one pops up. But, the positivity of the workplace makes it easy to digest. Plus, now my former classmate and current friend Kelly is joining me amongst the ranks of the allergy and asthma employed. It will be fun learning alongside of her.
Tia and I still hem and haw about our living situation, vacillating between remaining renters and owning our own place. Of course, it isn't that we can afford to make that big a change in our situations (and aren't willing to put ourselves in that position when the housing market is less stable than a two-legged chair), so we are talking condo/townhome not stand alone home. So, we won't necessarily escape the very things that make apartment living less than desirable necessarily such as hearing your neighbors television/footsteps/conversations. However, there is something to be said for ownership, even if it is only a tax write-off. Tough call.
The most difficult thing about deciding on a place is that we cannot afford to live in the location that we would ideally like to live. Wilsonville has been nothing if not pleasant, but it isn't exactly near to anything except Wilsonville. The idea of moving into another apartment, even though it may be approximately nearer to our respective jobs isn't appealing either. Whats the point unless we are patently unhappy and we aren't. Just kind of unsatisfied.
I am proud to annouce that I ran my first 5K today. The Race for the Cure Portland. A history of asthma has frequently made the idea of 500 yards daunting, so I was not exactly optomistic about my ability to run it. I cannot say that I was an unabashed success, but I did run the first 2 miles and then the last half or better and finished well under the time limit that I had mentally established pre-race. Now I will need to soak my legs for the next few nights and get a lung transplant, but other than that I feel great!
Have been watching the show Weeds lately.......catching up on it really. Not sure what to think of it. It has definitely changed wildly in tone through the first 2+ seasons. It is entertaining for sure........but in a scattershot sort of manner.
I should really sketch out some ideas before I start typing......I swear I had a grander vision for the post, but if I don't publish it now, god knows when I will. I hope everyone out there is well.
Speaking of life, I am maintaining my equilibrium. Work continues well, though I remain just on the cusp of the long learning curve. Every time I think I master some skill or idea, another one pops up. But, the positivity of the workplace makes it easy to digest. Plus, now my former classmate and current friend Kelly is joining me amongst the ranks of the allergy and asthma employed. It will be fun learning alongside of her.
Tia and I still hem and haw about our living situation, vacillating between remaining renters and owning our own place. Of course, it isn't that we can afford to make that big a change in our situations (and aren't willing to put ourselves in that position when the housing market is less stable than a two-legged chair), so we are talking condo/townhome not stand alone home. So, we won't necessarily escape the very things that make apartment living less than desirable necessarily such as hearing your neighbors television/footsteps/conversations. However, there is something to be said for ownership, even if it is only a tax write-off. Tough call.
The most difficult thing about deciding on a place is that we cannot afford to live in the location that we would ideally like to live. Wilsonville has been nothing if not pleasant, but it isn't exactly near to anything except Wilsonville. The idea of moving into another apartment, even though it may be approximately nearer to our respective jobs isn't appealing either. Whats the point unless we are patently unhappy and we aren't. Just kind of unsatisfied.
I am proud to annouce that I ran my first 5K today. The Race for the Cure Portland. A history of asthma has frequently made the idea of 500 yards daunting, so I was not exactly optomistic about my ability to run it. I cannot say that I was an unabashed success, but I did run the first 2 miles and then the last half or better and finished well under the time limit that I had mentally established pre-race. Now I will need to soak my legs for the next few nights and get a lung transplant, but other than that I feel great!
Have been watching the show Weeds lately.......catching up on it really. Not sure what to think of it. It has definitely changed wildly in tone through the first 2+ seasons. It is entertaining for sure........but in a scattershot sort of manner.
I should really sketch out some ideas before I start typing......I swear I had a grander vision for the post, but if I don't publish it now, god knows when I will. I hope everyone out there is well.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Alexander is gone
Tia seems perpetually involved in charitable causes ever since I have known her. By extension now, I too am involved (albeit to a lesser degree). It is really a nice feeling, and sadly one I would not get to experience without her. I don't consider myself an uncaring or unkind person, but I seemingly lack the ability to turn the concept into anything tangible because I remain largely incapable of committing myself to the obligations necessary to be a good volunteer. Hence, I do things like help with Meals on Wheels during the holidays, took part in painting the cat shelter, helped clean the children's museum, and adopted a family during last year's holidays. The warm fuzzies without the commitment.
The only commitment I have been able to muster in a charitable regard is helping Tia with foster cats/kittens. It is nice to see the animals get adopted off into, hopefully, loving families. Generally they consist of litters of kittens, but this last one was an adult foster named Alexander (though we often just called him Bubba.......no idea why, it just seemed to fit him). He is a hefty cat with diabetes who had lived at the shelter in a small cage for about a year. He doesn't much like other cats, which limited his options for play outside of the cage. He also requires a twice daily dose of insulin and is middle-aged for a cat which, for all intents and purposes, makes him nigh unadoptable. So, we took him in for the foreseeable future to save him from being in the cage (while allowing us the benefit of a pet). Today, he was adopted. It is both a happy day (the new owners seem like a wonderful couple who really want to make the situation work) and sad (he was kind of like one of the family at this point and, despite his limitations, is extremely personable and playful). We will definitely miss having him around, but hopefully another cat will come along that we can also take in. In the interim, I have to get used to being pet free for awhile. Kind of a bummer really.
I went to the volunteer appreciation event for the shelter today with Tia and I am consistently amazed by the wonderful things people have the capacity to do. The gentleman who started the shelter was there (it was his place after all) and talked a bit about starting the shelter some 10 years ago. It has evolved to a point where, not that long ago, they adopted out their 10,000th cat. Truly amazing. Some people donate hundreds of hours a year to their cause. If you are ever out here in Oregon, you should check them out: http://www.catadoptionteam.org/
Time to get my curmudgeonly self to bed. I loathe the idea of Monday morning, but am feeling good about today.
The only commitment I have been able to muster in a charitable regard is helping Tia with foster cats/kittens. It is nice to see the animals get adopted off into, hopefully, loving families. Generally they consist of litters of kittens, but this last one was an adult foster named Alexander (though we often just called him Bubba.......no idea why, it just seemed to fit him). He is a hefty cat with diabetes who had lived at the shelter in a small cage for about a year. He doesn't much like other cats, which limited his options for play outside of the cage. He also requires a twice daily dose of insulin and is middle-aged for a cat which, for all intents and purposes, makes him nigh unadoptable. So, we took him in for the foreseeable future to save him from being in the cage (while allowing us the benefit of a pet). Today, he was adopted. It is both a happy day (the new owners seem like a wonderful couple who really want to make the situation work) and sad (he was kind of like one of the family at this point and, despite his limitations, is extremely personable and playful). We will definitely miss having him around, but hopefully another cat will come along that we can also take in. In the interim, I have to get used to being pet free for awhile. Kind of a bummer really.
I went to the volunteer appreciation event for the shelter today with Tia and I am consistently amazed by the wonderful things people have the capacity to do. The gentleman who started the shelter was there (it was his place after all) and talked a bit about starting the shelter some 10 years ago. It has evolved to a point where, not that long ago, they adopted out their 10,000th cat. Truly amazing. Some people donate hundreds of hours a year to their cause. If you are ever out here in Oregon, you should check them out: http://www.catadoptionteam.org/
Time to get my curmudgeonly self to bed. I loathe the idea of Monday morning, but am feeling good about today.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Vegas baby! (now updated with rant.....and flavanoid crystals!)
Just got back from Vegas and had an absolute blast. Not sure when (if) I will find myself there again though. But, I am sure my tacky quotient will dip low again at some point and I will need to replenish myself at the mecca (or hit up Orlando.........its a coin flip). Vegas is the only place I can think of where an ultra trendy upscale mall like the one at Caesar's Palace where stores that I can't afford to even browse in sit alongside of a frozen Daiquiri store and has animatronic shows on the hour (including one character brandishing a sword that was engulfed in real flames). Only ended up down about 50 bones, so not bad overall. Up $50 would have been nicer still.
Vegas is a city of dichotomies in regards to prostitution as well. Despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Henderson county, advertisements abound promising "girls to your room in less than 20 minutes" through moving billboards and an ungodly amount of pamphlets and various other handouts that festoon the walkways. What reason do these scantily clad (if not entirely unclad) women have to come to your room with such rapidity if not for an exchange of currency and services? I don't know why, but I find the lack of pretense amusing. They at least don't pretend, like in south Florida, that they are running a perfectly legal massage parlor that, oh by the way, happens to have no windows you can see in, a door buzzer, and is open at 3am on a Saturday. Still, how in the hell they can so brazenly advertise without authorities getting involved is beyond me. I personally could care less either way, but either have a law or dont and move on.
It is the same kind of blatant hypocrisy that surrounds other vices in this country. We allow gambling in Oregon, but only certain kinds and only then under the auspices that you are 'helping' some cause or another such as the lottery and the 'assistance' they provide education (a blatant untruth as it often displaces other monies earmarked for education funneling those monites elsewhere and leading to a zero sum gain for education overall) or Native American owned casinos which ostensibly is our belated apology for taking their lands and leaving them a largely destitute community. In other states some version or another of the same thing exists. One of the more amusing things is in the paper every week: the line for football games (and other sports). For what reason, other than gambling, would you need to know that Indianapolis was favored this weekend by 6pts? If you weren't betting on it, would you really need to know anything other than who the person in the paper thinks might win? Yet, you can only gamble on sports legally in a very few places in the country.
Drugs are another vice that we can't seem to find a stance on that makes any sense. How, for instance, can something that we know has no positive health association, cigarettes, be legal whereas something that has some positive effects (pain relief, increasing appetite in cancer patients), marijuana, be illegal? How can we sell liquor all week, but not on Sunday (in Florida at least, with other states having their own curious laws) until noon? How can we tell people that drinking is ok, but not until you are 21 years old because they aren't old enough for the responsibility while, at the same time, asserting that those same people are adult enough to go to war? To kind of tie it all together, how do we manage to say that prostitution as a whole is illegal, while pornography, where 2 consenting adults (or more) are being paid to have sex on camera, is completely legal?
My own views on all these things is the same: I view them all with a libertarian bend. So long as you aren't affecting me, I don't care. We all view things through our own moral lens. One drink a night might seem excessive to some, while to others it is part of a healthy adult lifestyle. Same with weekend bingers. Some will view a person who has three or four beers a night to be a functional member of society unwinding after a long day, while viewing the same person who smokes a joint as shameful. Is it really ok to buy lottery tickets and scratch offs but not ok to bet on the winner of a football game? If so, why? I don't have an answer, but I cannot help but laugh at our inane attempts to continue to have our cake and eat it too, all while trying clinging desperatively to the idea that there is an acceptable measurement of just how much cake is enough.
Got together with some old classmates who, serendipitously, moved to Portland. It is so nice to catch up without the spector of classes hanging over us one and all. Plus, both are just pleasant to be around. It will be nice to have some fellow travellers on the road as we all begin to navigate the profession here in town.
Off to another early sunrise.
Vegas is a city of dichotomies in regards to prostitution as well. Despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Henderson county, advertisements abound promising "girls to your room in less than 20 minutes" through moving billboards and an ungodly amount of pamphlets and various other handouts that festoon the walkways. What reason do these scantily clad (if not entirely unclad) women have to come to your room with such rapidity if not for an exchange of currency and services? I don't know why, but I find the lack of pretense amusing. They at least don't pretend, like in south Florida, that they are running a perfectly legal massage parlor that, oh by the way, happens to have no windows you can see in, a door buzzer, and is open at 3am on a Saturday. Still, how in the hell they can so brazenly advertise without authorities getting involved is beyond me. I personally could care less either way, but either have a law or dont and move on.
It is the same kind of blatant hypocrisy that surrounds other vices in this country. We allow gambling in Oregon, but only certain kinds and only then under the auspices that you are 'helping' some cause or another such as the lottery and the 'assistance' they provide education (a blatant untruth as it often displaces other monies earmarked for education funneling those monites elsewhere and leading to a zero sum gain for education overall) or Native American owned casinos which ostensibly is our belated apology for taking their lands and leaving them a largely destitute community. In other states some version or another of the same thing exists. One of the more amusing things is in the paper every week: the line for football games (and other sports). For what reason, other than gambling, would you need to know that Indianapolis was favored this weekend by 6pts? If you weren't betting on it, would you really need to know anything other than who the person in the paper thinks might win? Yet, you can only gamble on sports legally in a very few places in the country.
Drugs are another vice that we can't seem to find a stance on that makes any sense. How, for instance, can something that we know has no positive health association, cigarettes, be legal whereas something that has some positive effects (pain relief, increasing appetite in cancer patients), marijuana, be illegal? How can we sell liquor all week, but not on Sunday (in Florida at least, with other states having their own curious laws) until noon? How can we tell people that drinking is ok, but not until you are 21 years old because they aren't old enough for the responsibility while, at the same time, asserting that those same people are adult enough to go to war? To kind of tie it all together, how do we manage to say that prostitution as a whole is illegal, while pornography, where 2 consenting adults (or more) are being paid to have sex on camera, is completely legal?
My own views on all these things is the same: I view them all with a libertarian bend. So long as you aren't affecting me, I don't care. We all view things through our own moral lens. One drink a night might seem excessive to some, while to others it is part of a healthy adult lifestyle. Same with weekend bingers. Some will view a person who has three or four beers a night to be a functional member of society unwinding after a long day, while viewing the same person who smokes a joint as shameful. Is it really ok to buy lottery tickets and scratch offs but not ok to bet on the winner of a football game? If so, why? I don't have an answer, but I cannot help but laugh at our inane attempts to continue to have our cake and eat it too, all while trying clinging desperatively to the idea that there is an acceptable measurement of just how much cake is enough.
Got together with some old classmates who, serendipitously, moved to Portland. It is so nice to catch up without the spector of classes hanging over us one and all. Plus, both are just pleasant to be around. It will be nice to have some fellow travellers on the road as we all begin to navigate the profession here in town.
Off to another early sunrise.
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