Tonight the call came out over Discord for a spare cooler so that the Democratic Socialists of America might have more cold water on hand for this Saturday's NO KINGS rally and march. I turned on the garden hose, grabbed a microfiber cloth, and got to work cleaning up the camping cooler that has been languishing unused behind Mom's art studio for a year or more and headed over to the neighborhood south of the tony area but north of the teaching hospital.
This area has hilly street after street lined with those pre-WWII bungalows with which I am so enamored. To think we once owned one! Little did we know that shotgun cottage Mom paid $40K for in 1972 would one day be worth $350K. We can't afford to buy it back now, so I dream as I drift up one sidewalk and down another. There is something about these little Craftsman era jewels with their incorporated porches and tapered posts that captivates me and will not stop doing so no matter how often I preach at myself about not coveting others' things--a Sunday school lesson that echoes in my head and won't leave me be.
Whether I am ever meant to own one, I can still enjoy them from the sidewalk and through rolled down car window when driving past.
This walk started at an upscale Japanese restaurant where white-clothed tables under garden string lights awaited diners.
The first house to catch my eye was peeking out from behind a most interesting hydrangea bush.
Can you read that colorful sign behind the lusciously deep orange zinnias?
This raspberry colored trim caught my eye. I love seeing those original double hung sash windows with muntins dividing the upper sash into four or six sections. So pretty!
Here's another flag signifying that the people of this city do not, as a majority, vote the way the rural rest of the state votes. Whew! I'm in a little progressive pocket, a little oasis. I deposited the camping cooler on another bungalow porch, and just as I was pondering whether I had the right address, I saw the top of the current issue of Jacobin poking out of the mailbox. Yep, socialists live there. (That house not pictured.)
This one is interesting just because it's different from the others. Look at that stonework.
I wonder what those flowers are called. Maybe Angelonia?
Ever since I was a child, I have loved walking through neighborhoods adjacent to mine at dusk looking for the glow beyond parted curtains.
What an interesting roofline this one has! Nothing boring here. And look at the mullions on the upper window sashes. Swoon.
The Craftsman porch offers the perfect blend of shelter and openness—letting one savor earthy petrichor before a summer storm, sit with feet up on the railing while enjoying tea and a good book, and feel cradled by nature. It's an outdoor room, by golly!
This one is just mysterious! I would love to learn its story.
This!
Well, what do you know! Seeing that flag kind of made my day.
This family's flowers made me happy.
Heading back to the restaurant where I parked my car, I spied this public means of transportation waiting for the next pedestrian who has run out of steam.
Oh, look! A secret garden gate atop a stone staircase. Neighborhoods like this, ones with moss growing between the flagstones, are to be cherished and preserved, and my heart leaps with joy when I see that they are being saved. The new cookie cutter subdivisions can't compare; they have no soul.
Mature oaks might be the bane of insurance companies here in tornado alley, but they are irreplaceable treasures in my eyes.
Oh, there's trusty Sophie waiting for me.
Bye!
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