Nerdy Suburban Mom

I was playing around with “walkability” scores for my current (and some prior) addresses at Walk Score.

• Current House (Columbia, SC): 3
• Indiana Condo (outskirts of Bloomington, IN): 3
• Where I grew up (West Chester, OH): 15 (and that’s much better than it used to be!)
• My in-laws (Salem, OR): 31
• Boston Apartment (Charlestown, MA): 78

This isn’t a completely accurate representation, since we have a vast outdoor mall just over a mile away from us with gobs of things in it — Columbia is far more walkable than our Bloomington Condo (fondly known as “ass end of nowhere”) was. I wouldn’t consider that walkable for everyday “oh gosh I need a cup of milk for that recipe” errands, but it is if you’re planning on doing a lot of shopping. It’s the carrying-things-home that would be a problem!

In any case, it’s an interesting toy to play with, and can definitely be worth looking at if you’re moving and are torn between a few good places.

Earlier this week, our realtor passed on news from another realtor that when she was showing our condo, they had noticed that the glass in the back patio door was smashed out.  This was surprising news to us, since it had certainly been intact when we moved.

We figured there was just something dumb that had happened, like a golfer took a shot directly at the door. It was going to be all annoying to get the insurance figured out, and get a door installed, yada yada yada. But our realtor called this morning with the full story…

Some days after we moved out, a major storm rolled through the midwest.  It was the cause of things such as massive power outages around Chicago neighborhoods.  Apparently, a golfer was on the 18th hole (behind our condo) when the storm broke.  He needed to seek shelter, so he threw a flowerpot through our back door and stayed in there for a while.

When I first heard the story, I was ready to drive up to Indiana and throw a flowerpot at him.  I’ve now calmed down enough to admit he must have been pretty scared by the storm to think smashing a window was a good idea, and to realize he was responsible enough to get in touch and make up for the damage he caused.  (Yes, he is paying for replacing everything.  Except maybe the flowerpot.  Didn’t ask about that.  I also don’t know what damage the glass and flying flowerpot might have done to our hardwood floors.)

Check out a photo from around nine years ago.  Where the hell did Drew find this?  And what the hell is that thing on Brett’s chin?

A sign in my front yard which says, “Yard of the Month.”

Apparently this is an award given by our neighborhood (development?) association.

It makes me want to set fire to my lawn to ensure it is always the nastiest.

Lillian was only very mildly disappointed when Reuven was revealed to be a brother instead of a sister.  In the last month, though, she’s been talking a lot about “her sister”, which is very much the same as the typical Imaginary Friend that a pre-schooler might create.

However, this morning Lillian decided to personify her sister.  Therefore, our CD rack is now an Altschul offspring.  (It kicked a golf ball down the stairs this morning, too.)