Good Bye October, Hello November

The calendar changed, Halloween became All Saints day, the clocks fell back an hour and as if on some hidden que the sky turned gray and the leaves began to change colors. 

The cooler weather has made my walks easier. But I was hoping to pop into the coffee shop for a nice hot chocolate and for some reason they were closed. They are usually open on Sunday afternoons, but not yesterday. I was disappointed by that. 

There were raptors circling the skies and I tried to get a photo of them in flight. But the pictures I was able to get were disappointing too. Some people can capture beautiful pictures of birds in flight and even the moon with their cell phone. There must be a trick to it that I do not know. The pictures I take are never even close to what I see. 

My brother called just as I was unlocking my door when I got home. There was no reason he called, he just wanted to talk. He seems settled in his retirement. Maybe not happy, but at peace with it. 

While I was talking to him, I got texts from a friend and from my kids as well. I wondered what it was that suddenly had me on everyone's mind. 

Three of my neighbors moved out this weekend. They all took advantage of the extra day supplied by the first day of the month falling on a Sunday and the office being closed. One of the U-Hauls didn't roll out of here until well after mid-night. The website has four apartments listed that will be ready for occupancy at the beginning of next month. Apartments never used to sit empty that long. I wonder if they are doing some level of renovation on them. Or maybe they are just holding off to see if they won't get another offer from a developer. Who knows? 

Instead of standing in front of my window and watching my neighbors load up their trucks, I decided to make my first batch of chili and cornbread for dinner. It turned out pretty well for a sauce pan full. I will be freezing half of it and the cornbread as well. But I am getting better at cooking for one. It distracted me from becoming Gladys Kravitz in my old age. It also distracted me from the urge to start hanging Christmas lights and putting up the trees. I'm not sure what it is that has me in a hurry to decorate this year, but I think about it a lot. I won't even let myself go get the Christmas box out of the closet for fear that I will be too tempted. I'm going to wait at least until the week of Thanksgiving before I declare it the holidays. But I have started watching the bake-off shows. It's a sick obsession, but not as bad as Hallmark Christmas movies. The poor single mom is just going to have to wait until December to meet the billionaire of her dreams. 

Hot Chocolate while Knitting

I have started knitting again. It's rather late in the year for me. My urge to knit usually wanes around the middle of May and I get the itch again when the weather starts to cool in September. But this year the weather didn't cool in September. It only confirms my long standing suspicions that my will to knit is tied to the weather. It also has a great deal to do with my stress levels, which have been over the roof with the thoughts of moving. But the weather has turned now, and my stress levels are lessened and I was fascinated by a picture I saw on FB. It had a fingerless mitt that was knit flat. I don't usually knit flat, but I thought that I would try it. I found a simple free pattern on Ravelry and gave it a go. I had the first mitt almost completely knit when I decided that I hated the yarn and knitting a mitt flat was just insane. So I grabbed a circular needle and different yarn and tried again. The circular needle reminded me of all the reasons I hate magic loop knitting, and once again I was not impressed with the yarn. Once more, I frogged the piece that I was knitting, chose different yarn and a set of double pointed needles and tried again. I was at the point where I took the thumb opening off the needles when I realized that the free Ravelry pattern that I had been using for dimensions had it all wrong. I frogged the mitt one last time and started over using what made sense to me. I am almost done with the first mitt and I am finally happy with the result. I think everyone may be getting a pair and maybe a matching hat in their stockings for Christmas.

Shaquan came with a moving truck on Friday and seems to have moved most of her things. But she left a pile of moving boxes and trash on the porch. I would prefer to not have it on the porch for Trick or Treat tonight, but I may not have a choice. She was a good neighbor, even if she was a mess. 

I sat in my reading chair yesterday without the television, music or other screens and contemplated where I want to be. I looked over my living room and my kitchen and I just feel at peace here. It took me a long time to warm up to this place. But it happened. This is my home now and I really just don't want to leave.  Sometime, and probably in the next year or so, I will need to move. But right now I don't have too. This apartment works for me. This community is open and friendly. I'm just not ready to leave. So I think I have made the decision for now at least to stay. I will sign short leases. They are offering 2, 4, 6 and 12 month leases to those of us who have been living here. I will probably go for the 4 month option to protect myself from being stuck here waiting out another long term lease if the situation should change. The cities that I have been looking at aren't going to go away. They have a lot to offer when I do need to move. But my heart is saying stay.

 

Do I Stay Or Do I Go

The weather has been beautiful lately. I feel that I must say that as I did so much pissing and moaning about the heat dome that lasted all summer long. But the heat dome broke, and the heat wave that followed it was not as intense, and has now moved out, We are having normal temperatures for the season and it is positively delicious. The mornings are cool, the days are pleasant and the evenings have a tinge of coldness to them. Standing on the porch tonight, I could smell the wood smoke from fireplaces in the nearby neighborhoods. 

I brought the caladium into the house for the winter. It was probably too soon, but I'd rather be too quick about it than let it die out because I left it out in the cold. Mums like cold, so it is outside with the pumpkin.  I'm still thinking about getting the yellow and purple mums to add to the arrangement.

My neighbors have started moving on. It was subtle at first. One morning I noticed that I had not heard the loud orange muscle car in a while. Sure enough, they are gone. I'm not sure how I missed them  moving. They usually parked right in front of my bedroom window. The old man from across the parking lot left a week or so ago. I heard his daughter came to take him to live with her in Texas. Gradually, about a third of the apartments have become vacant. Shequan started moving on Friday. She had a U-Haul then, but this evening tried to tie her couch to the top of her Kia. I don't know, but is seems chaotic to me. She did spill some interesting tea for me. Apparently she was offered the opportunity to renew her lease without an increase in the monthly rent. And they have begun allowing new leases too. Apparently the development company read the socio-financial tea leaves and decided that they don't want to proceed with the purchase of the apartments presently. So once again, I am thrown back into the dance of "Do I Stay or Do I Go?" There are good arguments for both. It cost me nearly two grand to move in here a year ago. I've hardly gotten my money's worth if I do decide to go. And it will cost me at least that much to go somewhere else. If I stay, I can save up for the move and be better prepared. But I'm not getting younger. Moving is getting exponentially harder with the passing of time. It isn't just the physical work of it, which is a major consideration. But I will have to learn a new oven, a new apartment, a new town... I will have to find a new church, create a new community... In the long run I will have to do all of that anyway. It will be harder a year from now, much more so if I stay longer. But the holidays add a time crunch to being able to look for an apartment and it will be better to not have to move in the dead of winter. Maybe I can extend the lease for just a few more months and move in April or May. 

Duped

I noticed that my teeth were getting really sensitive lately. The ad on the television said that the really expensive toothpaste was clinically proven to rebuild the enamel on teeth, so I purchased a tube. I've been using it for a while. Then one evening while I was brushing my teeth I decided to see what was in it that was rebuilding the enamel. The only active ingredient is stannous fluoride 0.454%, the same as in the Colgate Total that I usually choose, the same as is in the regular Colgate that I could go to the Dollar Tree and buy six tubes of for the same price I paid for the expensive "special enamel rebuilding" toothpaste. Okay, I was duped. I should have read the label before I bought into the hype. I worked in marketing, I should know better. The lies aren't in what we are told, they are in what we aren't told.

The apartment that I had been looking at has been leased by someone else. I was sad to see that I had missed that opportunity. I was actually upset enough by the loss that I had even started to look at other communities in other states. And I started to see a pattern. All of the renter sites have the same four or five reasonably priced apartments, usually not in the most sought after neighborhoods, and usually not very well maintained complexes. Then the prices all start rising substantially for more sought after apartments. And this would be a normal practice if all the apartments in all the different areas didn't all have the same price ranges. The less sought after units range from $750-$950, the mid-range from $1200 to $1600 and high end rising into the $2000's no matter if you are near a larger town with a higher earning potential or if you are a small cross-road in the depths of the booney woods. It reeks of price fixing. 

So I tried a different tactic, I went on to sites like FB marketplace and Craigs List and got addresses for the town I want to live in. It was an eye-opening experience. There were some probably real listings that aren't on the renter sites. But then there are a whole slew of listings like a four bedroom, three bath house with a bonus room and a garage for $450, all utilities included. Do people fall for that? That rent won't cover the utilities for a house that size. Anyway, I got a few addresses that I was interested in and plugged them into the renter sites. And behold, a whole world of rental units that the sites weren't showing me appeared. And some of the rents are substantially less, not $450 for a McMansion, but we are talking serious money here. There is a two bedroom house in the same neighborhood that the apartment I wanted going for $150 less a month. And I think I might know the house. If I'm not mistaken, it's one that my aunt and uncle lived in when I was a child. It's older, small, doesn't have a dishwasher and the closets are miniscule. But if it is the house I think it is, it has a lot of character and my aunt loved that house for the rest of her life. There were a lot of other possibilities that the renter sites didn't seem to want to tell me about. I also found out that while the apartment that I was eyeing was leased, there are three others in that complex that are still available. 

I couldn't just give up there. I decided to give it another try using a different tactic. I went on Google Maps and started roaming through the area looking around. There were loads of apartment complexes. I got the addresses and searched them too. And I found out that there is a whole world of apartments that aren't even listed on the renter sites. And those rents are extremely reasonable. I can be in the same neighborhood and save a lot of money from the units that are listed on the renter sites. It really feels like those sites are attempting to price fix the housing markets. If we don't know that there are better values out there, they don't exist. The lie isn't in what you are told, it's in what you aren't told.

I began to think that I might be better off hiring a realtor. But they are only going to show me their listings, and probably only the ones they want me to see. Those renter sites are fueled by the same realtors. I have cousins who live in the area and I decided to reach out to them and see if they knew of any options. I haven't wanted to do this because I don't want to feel beholden to their suggestions, but seriously, I don't know what else to do. I don't want to be duped into paying a price for an apartment that is only building a neighborhood price fixing scheme. A couple of my cousins got back to me and said that they will ask around. I am grateful for that, but I still want to make my own decision.

I'm trying to not let outrage build over what I feel I have discovered. The housing market in this country is driving people to homelessness. I saw it in the Pacific North West and I saw it as I was on the train travelling through West Virginia. I see it when I visit my daughter in Chicago. On one side you have employers refusing to pay living wages to their employees and then you have corporate greed circumventing laws to rig the housing markets. There seems that there should be some kind of equalizer, but there isn't. How many people will be living on park benches before we as a society demands better? I can't see the answer to that.
 

Pumpkin

I waited until yesterday to walk into town and get the pumpkin, mostly because I knew I'd be curious about the storm damage after the hurricane passed through. While I was out I bought a mum to go with the pumpkin. I got a red one because it caught my eye. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to get a yellow one, though, they were kind of sickly looking. With both the caladium and the mum being red, the mum almost goes unnoticed.

I think the arrangement is a bit awkward. If I had to make my living as a landscaper, I would have starved. It's just not my talent, but my neighbor likes my attempts to dress up our shared porch. The caladium will need to come in next week as it will be too cold for it to be outdoors. I'm thinking of getting yellow and purple mums to replace it. That may even out the asymmetry and give me the look that I was hoping for.  

Most of the damage that I saw while I was out walking was just small twigs and leaves. I did see a fence that had been damaged by some kind of limb fall, but the limb had already been cleared away. 

My door is the most fall like thing around here right now. The trees have not begun to change. The birds have not even started flocking yet. Tomorrow the temperatures will go back up to the high 80's and stay that way all week. Then they are supposed to fall into the 60's and not see the 80's again for the rest of the year. 

While I was out, I bought the candy for Halloween. I have no idea if the kids who live here Trick-or-Treat or not. I assume that at least the latch key kids will. I was shocked at the price of candy these days. It has been a while since I have bought any and in the mean time, high fructose corn syrup seems to have become gold. Halloween only happens once a year, so I shouldn't mind so much, especially considering the amount of joy the day gave me when I was a kid.  

Dodged

Isaias came aground near Destin, then headed up through central Alabama. As expected, we were just to the east of the majority of the storm. We had a lot of wind, and I'm sure when the sun comes up, we will all be out looking at the damage. I would be shocked if there aren't downed trees. I will be more shocked if there is not a lot of damage to the facade to the apartments. It was already in bad shape. 

I brought the caladium inside. I had not appreciated how big it had grown over the summer. I made sure that I had flashlights, batteries, candles, cooked food that could be eaten cold and candles enough to last a few days if the storm was worse than it actually was. I am glad that I did not need the things that I prepared. 

The electricity flickered a few times, not enough to affect the internet router. And it went out for about 10 seconds. As far as I know, the water has not been affected. It is still raining. There is minor flooding, but not enough to reach the doors to the apartments. 

The storm is like so many of the hurricanes that come through here, a bad storm, but not much real damage. Still, it doesn't hurt to be prepared. 
 

Isaias

We've been hearing about it for a few days now. At first it was a minor disturbance that might become a tropical storm, but probably not. It has progressed to a category 2 or maybe 3 that is heading toward us. Yesterday the weather stations were saying not to panic. Today they are essentially telling people to panic...not in so many words of course, but be prepared, know your evacuation routes, know where your emergency shelters are. 

Actually, the town I live in is just a hair to the left of the cone, and a couple hundred miles away from the coast. Hurricanes blow through here, quite regularly. And until Helene hit Asheville, I would say that being inland protects us from the worst of it. Now I'm giving that thing the side eye. I will bake a couple of loaves of bread, boil some eggs, have the water pitchers filled, bring my plant in off the porch, If it looks like it will move to the east a bit, I might fill the bath tub with water. I will probably sleep in the back bedroom, as it is a safe spot in the apartment from tornados. My neighbors have all been hitting the grocery stores. They say that Walmart is an insane asylum. 

Today is beautiful. I got out and walked for a long time. The fall colors have not started here yet, but it won't be long. Tomorrow will be as nice as today, but the weekend will be interesting;

I have tickets to see "Imagine a Dragon" at the community theater tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to it, as I enjoyed "Spitfire Grille" done by the adult theater of the same company. I don't think I should have any worries that I will be walking in the rain to get there. Nothing is supposed to start happening until the next evening. 

The storm should herald the final change into fall. The temperatures have been much cooler, bearable, but still above average. The storm will push them down into seasonal norms. 

I might walk into town tomorrow and buy a pumpkin.

Barriers: Poking the Bear

I made a pound cake last night. It was a feat for me because in my mind pound cakes were expensive, complicated and infinitely touchy. I think the perception comes from the fact that I had grown up hearing my grandmother say things like "I spent the whole afternoon baking a pound cake for the church supper tomorrow." or "Don't y'all run through the kitchen. You'll make my pound cake fall." Or my favorite, "Don't you be opening my oven door. You'll make my pound cake fall." even though the possibility that someone would open the oven door didn't really exist until she suggested that it might happen. My mother's special Christmas Eve cake was a seven flavor pound cake. She divided the batter, flavored each of them with a different flavor from a bottle and then put the batter section by section into a tube pan. The problem was that there was no way of knowing until you bit into the cake which flavor you got. You could be hoping for lemon and end up with butter rum. It all seemed so complicated. So for me there has always been a mental barrier to baking one. 

It turns out that a pound cake might just possibly be the simplest cake to bake. Just cream the butter, egss, sugar, flavor and cream together, then slowly add the flour. Put it in the oven to bake and take it out when it is finished baking. 

I think my cake turned out kind of pretty. I had a piece of it last night while it was still warm and thought that I really need to do some work on the recipe. It just didn't seem quite right to me. But today when I ate a piece of it cold, it was more like I remember my grandmother and mother baking. Mine wasn't quite as good as theirs, but definitely worth doing again, somewhat regularly. It was good enough that I had a second piece with some ice cream.  I enjoyed it immensely. 

It's funny how things throw up mental barriers isn't it? Like if you live with someone and they always leave their clothes in the washer and dryer, it puts a mental barrier to you being able to get your clothes washed. Or if you have to clean up their coffee mess and fight their cats off to enjoy a fried egg for breakfast, you might just give up and eat peanut butter toast all the time,  And if you have to transverse through someone's bedroom to get to he vacuum cleaner, it is a discouragement to using it. All of those things are just minor things to overcome. But they do throw up motivational barriers that become a drag on effort. 

My son gave me a nice board that is meant to sit over the top of the stove. It's been in a few of my posts like the one about baking bread. The intention is that it will be added counter space in a small kitchen. It can be placed across the sink when the stove is being used. But when I'm cooking I use both the stove and the sinks. The board was just in the way. It was becoming a barrier to me using the stove. I was opting for the peanut butter toast again. 

My oven is a Hot Point; the back right hand burner has an opening that lets heat from the oven warm a pan that is set on top of the burner without turning it on. If you are roasting a chicken in the oven, you can set your pan of potatoes on the burner and the heat from the oven will cook the potatoes, or green beans or whatever side you have. It's a nice feature if you cook that way, but I don't. So I didn't think about it when I was drying the salt dough beads I made the other day. I left the board covering the stove, and the heat dried the board out and it started to crack. I noticed it when I picked it up to heat something. I was able to apply some wax and restore the board, but it gave me the reason I need to expel the board from the kitchen. It is now making a nice tray on my couch. I am enjoying it so much more there than I ever did while it was in the kitchen. Of course when guests come over, it will be in the way again. But for now, the barrier is removed.

Just What I Need, A New Hobby

Have you ever worked with salt dough? It was a thing back in the 80's and I really wanted to try it. But my ex was always dismissive of my crafting ways. Every new project was met with a miser's grudge. So I just didn't try it. 

But now I don't have anyone to pout and sneer about what I do. What I do have is a Christmas tree that my son gave me and very little in the way of ornaments to hang on it. Two cross country moves has me pretty much a minimalist in that category. And Christmas is coming all year long.

Some of you will remember seeing this picture from last Christmas. I had just moved into my apartment and put up the Charlie Brown tree to give myself a bit of cheer. It had a few strings of lights, some jingle bells and a fake popcorn and cranberry garland on it. It was simple, but it did the job. The tree my son gave me is a five foot tree, not overly large, but I won't be able to match the garland. I've priced it and no, I'm not going to spend that. So I've been thinking that it will be a good time to try my hand at that old hobby that I never got a chance to pick up. 

I think I will keep it simple. I want to do a garland making beads and stars out of the salt dough using cookie cutter stars, snake rolled and cut beads and twine. Only, I don't have any cookie cutters, so I had to buy a set. They are kind of cheap. And the Mod Podge sealer is dirt cheap now. When I was in high school, you would have thought the stuff was gold. But now it's $5 for a whole big jar of it. 

It's probably going to be a lot of work, but if I start now maybe I can have something presentable by the end of November. If all else fails I can buy a bunch of cheap plastic ornaments to go on the tree, but I'd rather give making something better, or at least more meaningful a try. Oh well, I'll have fun with it and see what happens. 

But maybe I should make something like this first...

Happy October. 

Eating Good in the Hood

A week ago I made a quiche. It was really good. I made it with breakfast sausage, cheddar and parmesan cheese and fresh basil. I wish I could say that I made the crust from scratch, but I find that to be pointless. Pillsbury makes perfectly fine pie dough and I can save myself the hassle of cutting in the lard and rolling the thing thin. I ate one piece the night I made it, and another for lunch the next day. It was better the second time around. But two meals is enough, so I cut the rest into slices and vacuum sealed them to be stored in my freezer for another day. 

Later that week I made an Italian sausage and vegetable, pasta dish using more of the basil. It was awesome the first night and again, better the next day. But it made a lot, so I froze three meals of it.

Saturday was game-day, so all the pizza companies were hitting the airwaves hard with advertising. I haven't had pizza in a while and really wanted one. I went online and ordered from Little Caesar's because I like their pizza. They had a pretty good deal on it, but after all the fees to have it Door Dashed and the tip, etc. it ended up costing $25. I was kind of scolding myself for the expense. I have to pay for a move. I can't afford to go throwing my money around. But when it arrive, I realized that it was game-day in a college town. Pizza, Pizza! I got two pizzas for the price of one.  Twenty-five dollars isn't bad per meal when I'm getting 8 meals from it. I won't have to order pizza for a while. I love my vacuum sealer.

While I was feeding my sourdough starter this evening I was thinking about what I could do with the loaf of store bought bread I have before it goes bad. I decided to make it into French toast. 

I should fill my freezer and refrigerator with meals like these. They are easy to reheat with a minimum of pans and utensils, and can be eaten from paper plates while I am packing up to move. It will make packing the kitchen so much easier. 

Then I got a text message on my phone. It was from "Mr. Cary" the property owner. He sent it to all the residents of the apartments. He wanted to remind us that we are under lease agreements to maintain the appearance of the property by not disposing of trash or storing personal items on the porches or in the breeze ways, and that we needed to pick up our litter. That hit the wrong nerve with me. I responded to all, probably rashly, that he needed to consider the tone deafness of his text. That in my opinion he had admitted on public record before the planning committee that he had broken the lease agreements by failing to maintain the upkeep of the apartments. And that he need not lecture the tenants on keeping a lease agreement that he himself had violated. So far there have been 72 thumbs up on my response. Mr. Cary was not one of them, but he has a way of ruining a good meal.

My outburst has me thinking. He really has publicly admitted on record that he broke the covenant. I wonder if we as a tenant group could use that as leverage to get him to release us without penalty from the leases if we find other lodging while our agreements are still current. I wonder if their is a lawyer in town that would answer that question for me pro-bono. 

I cleaned up the kitchen and took the trash out to the bins, then went to the mailboxes to get my mail. The landscapers had been out all day trimming the bushes and picking up the trash. The waste management company had made a non-scheduled pickup of the the trash in the bins. I will bet that Mr. Cary's concern arose either from having a developer coming to inspect the property before purchase, or from a neighborhood complaint to the public safety commission. I think it was the latter as I saw one of their inspection vehicles circling the parking lot. What I received in the mail upset me further. We have all been getting these since the news that we will be forced to move. They are offers for loans, checks that are really loans and pre-approved credit card offers with high limits and very high, predatory interest rates. This one is actually pretty mild compared to most of the ones that come. I have seen as rates high as 55% and I have a decent credit score. The vultures are circling. 

Some humans ain't human...