Lucky for you, I devoted this past weekend to home improvement projects. And by home improvement projects I primarily mean clearing a path in my room so that I can walk through it without slipping on glossy New Yorker covers and getting stray pieces of thread and clothing articles wrapped around my ankles. Anyhow, after two months in these northeast digs it is beginning to look like we are settling in.
This weekend we installed this slick pull-up bar in the door that leads from the backyard into the basement. The door/pull-up bar is also a direct shot from the kitchen, which means when I’m waiting for my macaroni to boil or my chik’n nuggets to bake, I bide my time either hanging from the bar or jumping up and wiggling my chin to the top of the bar. So, hopefully I can lose the 15 lbs I’ve packed on in the last year. Between this and my spontaneous windmilling and punching-bag simulations, I should be able to whip my arms into shape.
In other, slightly related news, it appears that at some point in between last summer and this summer I have developed an ass. It wasn’t until the Big Freedia concert a couple months ago that it became apparent (though I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person that has had this revelation at one of her concerts—because, seriously, AZZ. EVERYWHERE. omg). My profile used to drop distinctively straight from my bottom vertebra to my femur, but now there’s some undeniable cushion happening. I think it might be from all of the biking I do, or the fact that I climb up and down my stairs at least 20 times a day.
Anyways, back to the tour.
This is the hammock we installed on our front porch. Here we drink apple cider, eat ice cream sandwiches, consume other foodstuffs, and hope that our neighbors aren’t going to blast the Wicked soundtrack again.
This is why you don’t go outside without shoes on.
And this is why you don’t (and couldn’t anyways) break into our house if you’re a zombie. Note the stake, Undead.
I edged around these steps this weekend. Where there used to be overgrown dandelions and unruly grass, there is now only cold hard cement—just the way we like it.
This is our exterior bathroom. It’s not an outhouse though. It was for the servants, for when they had servants in 1910. On the left is the miniature door that we wonder what we can stuff with, and on the right is the mysterious brick that we found inside the toilet, which still flushes btw.
I installed these shelves this weekend. Mar, in case Genevieve asks, I got the brackets from IKEA, they’re metal and they’re called EKBY. And the wooden plank I got from the Rebuilding Center for a dollar. There’s a bunch of wood glue on the bottom of it. But it was a dollar.
Kombucha, just fermentin' and doin its door stop duties. It’s been brewing for 3 weeks now. I think I may let it go for another week yet. It’s starting to get tart, but doesn’t have any carbonation for some reason.
And so ends the tour of improvements. Beyond working on the house, I’ve been schooling myself. The other day I walked out of the library with a chocolate chip cookie in one hand and two Scholastic books under my other arm, one called ICELAND, and the other called FINLAND. They have captions like, “It is unusual to find a dark-haired Icelander, except among some teenagers who dye their hair to be different.” Which gives me the sense that these book were not made with my 23-year-old self in mind as a consumer. However, in the absence of college, I’m finding I’m regressing to my lifestyle as a 10-year-old in the months of summer, when I would assign myself report papers on Neil Armstrong and the Taj Mahal.
But! I will say, this research is not without a purpose; I’ve become really intent on applying for a Fulbright scholarship. Tomorrow I have a phone meeting with an adviser at the University of Oregon, she’s going to answer some questions I have about the Fulbright, and give me some advice. As maybe you can tell by my scholastic picks, I’m really narrowing in on the Scandinavian countries. But I’ll keep you posted. I've also been teaching myself Italian, and being pretty serious about it. I've been watching an Italian movie nearly ever night before I go to bed, and maintaining a vocabulary list of new words. I don't want to do a Fulbright in Italy, but I've been itching to master a foreign language, and Italian is what I have the strongest foundation with. So here I am.
TTFN
-J
-J
P.S. I'm just realizing I still have the weird wide dimensions on my camera. oops. I got really excited for a while that my photos looked like film stills, but obviously it's not really an appropriate camera setting for things like fermenting kombucha.
