High Holy Mass of Contradictions

I walked to Zackie's for a veggie dog at lunch, and although it was drizzling and although I am miserably sick, I was safely under an umbrella, so I took it slow and snapped a few glistening pictures of the neighborhood. I'd like to show some to you.

High on our list of criteria for a livable neighborhood when Karsten and I were house-hunting was that it had to have sidewalks. Some cities take this attribute for granted, but many of Nashville's neighborhoods don't have extensive sidewalks, so this truly was a limiting factor in selecting a location. In moving to Germantown, not only did we get sidewalks, we got charming brick sidewalks:



One of the best things about this neighborhood (and maybe it's to do with the culture of the South in general) is just how much gardening goes on. There are some beautiful gardens just on the blocks we walk the most, and we never take them for granted.

Here, the lilies seem to be peeking up over the hedges. If you could only take a picture of scent, I could have let you smell how deliciously wonderful these smell.


Even a simple decorative purple border of petunias looks better when it's drizzling:


And this? This is the best garden in Germantown, if you ask me. A whole side lot dedicated to a lush, gorgeous garden, filled with what must be hundreds of varieties of flowers and other plants.


I love living here.

Went to Metro Archives over lunch to meet with a woman named Debie Cox. Karsten was put in touch with her by someone at a party when he mentioned that we’d had little success in tracking down info about our house. After Debie found out which house was ours, she apparently got intrigued. Normally, she says, she doesn’t do research for homeowners — she’ll just tell people how to do the research themselves. But she got intrigued and dug up tons of good background info about the house.

Long story short, it looks like our house was probably built around 1849. It was probably built by a fellow named Pritchard, and he probably lived there for a few years before selling it in 1855 to someone named Collette for the whopping price of $2000. It probably is the oldest house in the Germantown neighborhood, but it is almost certainly not the oldest brick house in Nashville, as we’ve been told. It is, of course, one of the oldest houses in Nashville, period.

So anyway, we saw lots of maps and deeds and whatnot, and Karsten’s going back to make copies of it all for our own files and to pass on to the next homeowner whenever we finally decide to sell it (which won’t be for a long time, I don’t think).

This stuff fascinates me. I’m glad we found our way into a mystery house; it’s been a fun adventure.

Originally published at Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed. You can comment here or there.

Gardens Gone Wild!

Originally uploaded by Kate O’

Our garden has gone almost all summer without maintenance (darn my
pesky thyroid), and it really shows. We haven’t been too concerned
about it, figuring my health us more important than a perfectly
manicured front yard, and anyway perfectly manicured was never our
style, so it’s been sort of a Darwinian exercise in garden tough love.
But next Saturday our house will be on the neighborhood homes tour, so
it was high time to give the garden a quick cleanup.

Karsten’s up on an extension ladder cleaning the top windows (he won’t
let me take a picture of him, though), so I tried to muster the
stamina to do the yard work myself, but I only got as far as weeding
(LOTS of weeding, actually), pruning, and trimming the established
plants, and loosely digging around to position the new plants.
Tomorrow, if my energy is right for it, I may do some mulching. But
just at this moment, I think the rest of the planting is up to
Karsten, and all I have any energy left for is, well, posting this
here picture. Enjoy.

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

Drinkhaus - our new neighborhood coffee shop

Originally uploaded by Kate O’
Very excited about this cool new coffee shop with tasty drinks and a
lot of style.

Check it out: http://www.drinkhaus.com/

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

At the North End Night Out Against Crime: S-townMike, me, & Hutchmo. This is picture #2 because they wanted to suck in their guts. Of course, my own gut looks unjustly large in this shot, but I'm going with it because that's just the kind of crime-fighting neighbor and friend I am.

That's not me making the bunny ears, by the way. I'm being framed!

Not much has changed in the past week or so except for the new copper downspout to the right of the porch, but it's hard to see in this picture. I'm looking forward to the handrails, the spindles, the rest of the trim detailing, and the caps for the posts, but above all I can't wait for the new doorway and door! That should be happening in the next few weeks or so.

Would you be more inclined to translate "little disaster" as "kleine Katastophe" or "Katastrophchen," since our intent is to use it as an affectionate term (as in "Unsere kleine Katastrophe" oder "Unser Katastrophchen")? Or is there a better translation altogether? I wouldn't want to miss out on getting the best humor value out of it.

Fence dude says it'll be six weeks before he can get started. Bleah. Anybody want to place bets on what'll be the next plant to disappear? Daylilies? Wintercreeper? Lavender?

I tell you what: it better not be the resurrection lilies I dug up from my parents' yard the day my dad died. I'll personally hunt down the creep who takes those.

Of course anyone who wants to come pull up weeds is more than welcome. There are always about 20,000 hackberry seedlings scattered around the yard from all the trees. I can spot those things from across the yard now. I find myself absentmindedly plucking hackberry seedlings out of neighbors' yards as we chat, just out of force of habit.

All this garden drama reminds me I was going to mention here that one of our next-door neighbor's friends referred to our yard as "Cheekwood Jr." I really liked that.

I backed out of the backyard into the alley this morning -- naturally, we're parking out back these days -- and was detoured when I got to the end of the alley by Morgan Park Place construction blocking my normal route out to I-65. So I didn't drive by the front of our house, as I like to do each morning.

Ten minutes later, I got a call from Karsten asking if I'd driven by the front of the house this morning. Strange that he should ask, I thought. No, why?

Well, apparently, someone nicked seven boxwoods from our front yard garden.

Let me just repeat that. Some clever burglar determined it worth his or her while to yank boxwood shrubs out of our garden. Small ones! I mean, have you seen our garden? I'm definitely not claiming it's the most splendorous garden in all of the South or anything, but it's got some pretty nice plants in it. The underwhelming hedge we've been attempting to grow with a bunch of young boxwood plants is pretty much the least appealing thing in the yard. And this wasn't just a random act of boredom -- someone took the time to grab seven of these things.

Now of course after explaining all of that, I'll admit that I'm now dreading the disappearance of nicer plants in the garden -- they're sure to be the next to go.

Karsten and I have been told by folks who've lived in the neighborhood for a while that plant thefts used to be more common when some vendors at the Farmer's Market used to buy plants from folks off the street to resell them, no questions asked. We've heard that this practice has been discontinued, so I have no idea what the boxwood thief is planning to do with the young shrubs. By ripping them out of the ground as he or she apparently did, the thief probably shocked them enough that they won't do well when replanted (especially since pretty much all vegetation is still in recovery mode from the Great Easter Freeze), so if the idea was to plant the boxwoods, it's not likely to be a happy outcome. Maybe I'm mean-spirited, but somehow that makes me feel a little better.

Also worth noting is that, a few weeks ago, someone apparently stole a young but still pretty large tree from the front yard of the house next door (which is for sale -- the missing tree was noticed about an hour before they were having an open house). Earlier that day, I'd seen a guy riding by on a bike carrying a shovel. Not to say that's related, but it could be. Apparently it wouldn't be the first plant theft in the neighborhood involving a getaway bike, believe it or not.

We were already planning to install a period-appropriate iron hoop-and-spear fence, but all this makes me want to get right on it. (We already have enough motivation because of the bird feeders that keep getting stolen.) Karsten's calling the guy today to see when we could get started.

Good news – we got our loan to do our front porch / entryway work! Yay! What’s especially cool about this is that when we went into the banks to start the application process, we told them what we thought the value of our house was but we aimed pretty high, knowing that the appraiser would most likely be coming in to say “yep, it’s worth that much” or not. Somehow the numbers got mixed up, though, and the mortgage guy gave an even higher figure to the appraiser, who came back saying it wasn’t worth quite that much, but placed it almost exactly at the figure we originally gave. So in just about two years’ time, our house has increased in value by over 60% of what we bought it for. Not too shabby! Some of that is directly attributable to the appreciation of home values in our neighborhood overall, of course, but the new windows and some of the other work we’ve done were factors in the increased value, as well, so that feels good.

Anyway, this means that our front porch and entryway work can begin in the next few weeks, and the bulk of it should be done by late spring. The only part that will probably have to wait is painting, which will likely happen in the fall. And for the next little while, we’ll have to use our back door only, which will be weird. But I think it’s going to look great. I can’t wait.

( Wanna see what we're doing? )


Anyway, so Karsten will be outside today preparing the front porch for demolition (he's removing the old bricks that were laid over the concrete so we can save them for patching up bricks on the house).

In the meantime, there’s a lot of movement in our neighborhood: our next-door neighbors just moved to the Waverly-Belmont area a few weeks ago; we’ve learned that some friends of ours in the Werthan Lofts are moving to Shanghai for three years, but when they come back they’ll be moving into a new development a few blocks down and over from us; and some other friends in Werthan are selling their loft and buying a single-family home on the other side of our block.

As for us, we plan to be here for a while. Despite how much work this place is, nowhere else has ever felt quite so much like home.

The trip back from SLC involved a cancelled flight, puking in the airport, and lost luggage, but it's all over now and I'm simply happy to be home. I very nearly kissed the ground when we landed. Of course, I'll soon be off again, bound for NYC, but let's not think about that just now, shall we?

It doesn't take much travel these days to make me appreciate being home. I worked from here yesterday, which was really nice. It gave us the flexibility to meet up for lunch at Baja Fresh with some of my former coworkers from the music technology gig, and that was a total blast. Aside from the ridiculous delay on one person's one measly taco, it was an entirely wonderful experience. I really miss them, but I'm relieved that we're actually staying in touch.

Karsten and I also dropped into a few banks after lunch and got some ideas on financing our front porch work. That's looking promising. It's going to look seriously great.

And then around sunset, Karsten and I walked downtown to the new H.G. Hill Urban Market to pick up some mushrooms for dinner. I'd read CeeElCee's appraisal and basically agree with it, except that I'd add they did a great job with the vertical space. (And Smiley, if it were up to me you'd be a Metroblogger already.)

On our way back home, we stopped in at the Germantown Cafe to have a drink at the bar. After all this time, I still get a little thrill out of being able to pop in for a drink at such a great place.

And, oh yeah, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. *yawn* Although actually, rather unusually, I bought Karsten a present this year. I can't tell you what it is in case he sees this before his gift shows up, but I think he'll like it. As for me, I don't need any gifts -- I already have the love of my life -- what more could I possibly want? (All together now: awww.)

I've got one more party to attend this weekend, and if you count them all separately, it will have been 9 parties in 3 days.

But you can't really count them all separately: the first three were Official Company Party, Non-Official After-Party, and Very-Non-Official After-After-Party, so those were more like one 14-hour long party.

Yes, ( 14 hours )

After all that, I woke up super-early yesterday morning to pull a double shift of monitoring the new systems for work, and then went to a fun ladies' brunch at our neighbor's house complete with gossip and champagne.

Then it was off to the costume shop to get wigs for one of the parties last night, but the costume shop was closed! Shoot!

Back home to get showered and dressed for the ( Blogger Meat-Up )

It was really awesome and tough to tear myself away, but we had two neighborhood parties to get to. And as it happened, we only got to one of the two Germantown parties. It was pretty subdued and sophisticated, which was kind of amusing to me and Karsten after our last 36 hours. We made the rounds, had a few drinks, toured the historic house, chatted with some neighbors, and exchanged a few party invitations for a few weeks down the road, but then we said our goodbyes and headed off to the ( wig party )

Anyway, now that I've done my weekend recap, had my coffee, and relaxed a bit, I should go get ready for the next party this afternoon.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful mid-December weekend!

S-townMike over at Enclave reports on a lock-down that occurred last night during the Salemtown neighborhood meeting (and then updates the story to clarify that the robbery actually took place on the edge of Germantown).

John H & Lynn mentioned the lock-down when we saw them a little while ago, and we were all talking about how many sirens we've been hearing the past few nights. There have also been a lot of police helicopters (cop-copters?) flying overhead with searchlights and all. It's not unusual to hear a siren every so often, but in the past two evenings sirens have been more like our constant companions. And those searchlights are definitely weirding out the cats.

Can't tell if it's all related to the one robbery, or if there's more.

Strange that it can feel so peaceful and relaxed in this neighborhood (like walking around taking pictures of holiday lights) while all this crime-fighting is going on.

Karsten got our lights up, and I think they look great, especially with the new windows. We saw John H & Lynn headed for home while we were setting out on an evening walk, and they kindly complimented our windows, too.

We saw a few other houses in the neighborhood with lights up already, so in honor of Sista Smiff and her holiday light fetish, I took some pictures.

Isn't this gorgeous? It's a block and a half from our house, but I somehow didn't catch it when it was in peak color like this. Photography is a wonderful thing.

Well, here it is: the day I've been dreading. It's been one year since my dad died. I thought I would have a lot to say about that, but I find myself oddly quiet on the subject. The only thing I'll say is what I wrote in an email to my sister this morning:

I still miss Dad very much, of course, but I'm also amazed at how much healing happens in the course of one year. Then again, I'm equally amazed at how much still hurts after a whole year has passed. It's almost like time and healing can be measured in two different dimensions, on two different scales, with one exceeding my expectations and one falling so very short. Or whatever. I guess that's why it's easier just to say "life is funny." ;)

Shawn Colvin already summed it up for me, anyway, with this song:

( One Small Year )

Yesterday, the Race for the Cure came through our neighborhood, and I stood outside with a cup of coffee and watched them, thinking of my dad, and how he lost his race. But it was encouraging to see how many people turned out to help raise money for the cause, so maybe someday cancer will be a thing of the past.

Speaking of raising money for good causes, last night, we went to two fundraisers. The first was for the Nashville Humane Association: Anipalooza. Heh. We went to the one last year, too, and I'm sorry to say that this year's wasn't as good as last year's. Last year they had doggie speed dating, which was just about the cutest thing ever, but that was gone this year for whatever reason. The music in the main tent was also too loud, meaning you could barely hear someone shouting next to you, and you sure weren't going to casually mix and mingle and get to know new people.

On the plus side, there were kittens inside the shelter, which just about makes up for any shortcoming in event planning. Just like last year, Karsten was in one of the cat rooms playing with kittens most of the time we were there, and drew a crowd watching him get the kittens all excited. You should have seen these kittens crawling all over Karsten. I took pictures but they only hint at the stinging cuteness of it all.

After that, we went to back to our neighborhood for the "Heart and Soul" benefit at Werthan Lofts, for the American Heart Association. The contrast was stunning: someone there must be a professional event planner or something. They gave out wine glasses to each attendee, along with maps of the building showing the lofts that were open for the event. And then they had signs up on the hallway walls and balloons marking the entrance of each open unit to help people find their way through the somewhat confusing layout of the building. Plenty of volunteers, plenty of wine, plenty of cool people, and plenty of music ensured that it was a great party. A lot of folks were there from the Germantown neighborhood, too, which was fun.

A Vietnamese coworker of Karsten's used to say: so much good, so much bad. I think of that a lot, and I consider it a victory when the bad doesn't overshadow the good. Right now, as much as it still hurts to miss my dad, I know the good in my life -- like loving and being loved so deeply by someone as wonderful as Karsten, and having a job I enjoy, and being part of a community of great people, and living in a home we have the ability to enjoy and improve, and having good friends, not to mention that I was lucky enough to have had a dad as wonderful as he was -- all that good is as bright as sunlight and nothing can overshadow it. And I guess that should be enough to get me through another small year.

Lest anyone think all I write about is whatever John H writes about at Salem's Lots, I really did make a mental note to write about this last night, but forgot about it until I saw his post.



Dude! A coffee shop! Coming soon! Mere blocks away from our house! Close enough to shuffle sleepily to on weekends!

This is at the Summer Street Lofts building facing 5th Avenue at Madison. Karsten pointed it out to me when I met him for dinner at the Germantown Cafe last night. What a great new development this will be!

Oktoberfest looks to have been a big success for the Historic Germantown neighborhood, and our party was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came and partied with us, and my apologies to anyone I may have offended by suggesting they patronize the beer vendors while the festival was still running. We bought plenty of beer from the beer vendors ourselves. Yessir, plenty of beer. Yowch.

We probably had 80 people come through our house on Saturday. Bunches of people from the neighborhood, scads of coworkers and some former coworkers, quite a few songwriters and musicians, and some random good friends from who-knows-where. And 2 dogs. (Luckily, the cats were locked up in the office/studio/cat room for most of the day.)

We had drunk people climbing the scaffolding, but no falls. We had people from across the political spectrum, but no brawls. We had over a dozen people on our front stairs, and they didn’t collapse. All in all, a good day.

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

Oktoberfest looks to have been a big success for the Historic Germantown neighborhood, and our party was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came and partied with us, and my apologies to anyone I may have offended by suggesting they patronize the beer vendors while the festival was still running. We bought plenty of beer from the beer vendors ourselves. Yessir, plenty of beer. Yowch.

We probably had 80 people come through our house on Saturday. Bunches of people from the neighborhood, scads of coworkers and some former coworkers, quite a few songwriters and musicians, and some random good friends from who-knows-where. And 2 dogs. (Luckily, the cats were locked up in the office/studio/cat room for most of the day.)

We had drunk people climbing the scaffolding, but no falls. We had people from across the political spectrum, but no brawls. We had over a dozen people on our front stairs, and they didn't collapse. All in all, a good day.

So it's decided: I'm staying on at my job. Maybe you didn't know I was debating this, but yessir, it's a big part of why I haven't been writing much lately: because so much of what I wanted to write was somehow linked to the decision and I didn't want to talk about it openly.

But anyway, I had a really nice offer at a really nice company and I took it very seriously indeed, but several key people at my current employer made really nice gestures to convince me to stay and so I did.

Now that that's all done, I can get back to obsessing about other things, like Oktoberfest and getting the house ready for all the people who are going to be there. Yikes!