cats + porch [#move2014]

We continue to feel so lucky in finding this apartment, particularly on sunny Sundays in June, when our back balcony is a breezy, cozy sanctuary; a liminality between in and out, private home and neighborhood society.

We enjoyed brunch together last weekend, along with a little light reading.

Repotted some happy plants...

... and got creative drying the week's laundry in the fine weather.

The porch is a new experience for the cats, who are practicing giving their mother attacks of the nerves by exploring the top of the (second floor! far from the ground!) railing without a net. We feel they should could equipped with safety tethers.

Geraldine seems largely content to chill in the shade or sun and survey her surroundings.

The clean laundry is obviously the best place for a black cat to settle in for a nap.

Meanwhile, our next door neighbors M and J have gotten a head start over us in the gardening department, with lots of promising seedlings that spent the weekend drinking up the sun and water they were afforded.

Hope y'all are finding ways of being in this early-summer moment. Happy June.

blizzard of '14 [more photos]

Today was a slump-y sort of day. We woke up to yet another round of emails announcing the cancellation of our flights home (scheduled for tomorrow) and no further updates re: when we might actually be able to head Eastward.

(my digital camera somehow did this, and I have no idea how!)

It's not that we're in a bad situation -- we're warm and fed, and have a stellar group of friends and colleagues holding down the fort in Boston -- but it's hard, harder than I would have anticipated beforehand, to adjust to repeated new plans. Just as we adjust to plan B it's snatched out from under us and replaced with plan C, which in turn ... you get the idea.

Hardly the worst thing that's happened in the world since New Year's, but kind of draining.

And we miss our kitties.

(We've been here long enough now that Toby will grudgingly share the blankets...)

So I tried to soothe my grumpy soul by taking photos of some spectacular snow, more snow and colder temperatures than my parents have seen since the late 1970s.

Hope College, where I did my undergrad and where my father works, has delayed the start of classes for (if I recall correctly) only the third time in the past quarter century.

This has been a self-soothing update from the Clutterbuck-Cook expedition of January 2014. I hope that wherever you are tonight, you are warm and well and with those you love.

snowbound in michigan [an update with photos!]

Since last Thursday's post, our flights out of Michigan have been cancelled twice more due to weather, and now we're scheduled to return to Boston Tuesday evening - closing in on a full week longer than we anticipated being away! 

We're thankful to be safe and warm and not paying for hotels or on stand-by at the airport. It's also wonderful to have parents/in-laws we get along with, a flexible cat-minder, and understanding co-workers.

This afternoon, following the third postponement of our departure, Hanna and I were feeling a little punch-drunk and decided to walk down to New Holland Brewery for lunch. I took the camera, so here are some pictures from my snowy home-town!

The obligatory couples' portrait-taken-at-arm's-length on the front lawn. The new knit hats from my mother-in-law have really come in handy!

Hanna bundled up outside the church on our block.

The wind and snow-blowers have combined to make intriguing drifts around the trees.

The iconic Dimnent chapel at my alma mater, in the snow.

The brewery, as one of the few gathering places open on a Sunday downtown, was hopping. The snow was very picturesque from inside the pub!

Hanna and I have been admiring the Christmas decorations on main street this year, which depart from the usual red-white-green spectrum.

There wasn't enough traffic out and about to keep the snow off the roads. This is a view across the intersection of River and 10th, looking toward Centennial Park (dedicated in 1876).

The snow-melt network under the sidewalks was only keeping up with the snowfall under awnings, like here in front of the Park Theatre. No one had been out to brush off the public benches.

And this a view of the Holland Museum, where I got my start in public history twenty years ago. When I was a child, the museum was actually housed in what is now a B&B on the other side of the park, originally Holland's first hospital. The building pictured here was our post office until the late 1980s, and now houses the museum and archives. 

When I was twelve I used to deliver the daily paper to a very sweet, elderly Dutch couple who lived in this house. I doubt they live there any longer, but Hanna and I both agree that its location directly across from the public library can only add to its charm.

Wish us felicitous weather for safe travels Tuesday afternoon as we are scheduled to fly home to Boston!

from the neighborhood: autumn sights

A few photos I took last weekend.

Afternoon sunlight on the fresh flowers we bought to put in the flower vase / tea pot brought home from the Thormoto wedding.

Shortly after I took these photos, of course, Teazle discovered the flowers and the vase had to be removed to higher ground.

Geraldine, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less. Why should she, where there are laps/pillows available to sleep upon?

The house with the abundant garden on our walk to Coolidge Corner is settling in for the winter season.

The Hubway bikes will soon be put into storage to make way for snowplows and snowbanks, but for now they're still available to take out for a spin!

A couple of months ago, Hanna and I realized that the central marquee on the Coolidge Corner movie theater often makes amusing found poetry. This is the latest iteration.

Enough said.
All is lost,
Don Jon:
12 years a slave.

from the neighborhood: sledding & sunshine [blizzard of 2013]

It's sunny this morning in Boston, a brief respite before tomorrow's predicted rain. Teazle is excitedly (and vocally) watching birds fluffed along the branches of the trees outside, and Hanna and I are sitting on the couch reading and writing and listening to the BBC classical music stream while watching cars get stuck in the snowdrifts on our corner.

Yesterday, the hill outside our living room window was turned into a sledding hill until the travel ban was lifted at 4pm.

And a couple of still photos by Hanna ... 

This morning, the sun was out but the snow remains.

Some streets are clear, but the sidewalks are piled high with snow that has nowhere else to go.

Gerry and Teazle are finding all of the excitement outside quite entertaining as "kitty TV."

Stay warm, everyone, and wish us luck as we slog to work in the rain tomorrow!

from the neighborhood: blizzard of 2013

I promised photos to several people yesterday from the "snow emergency" here in Boston, so this morning while Hanna did yoga in the living room I tumbled into my boots and winter gear and re-learned how to hike through knee-high drifts in order to bring you some pictures from our snowy neighborhood.

As a baseline, here's what the view from our window was like around two o'clock yesterday afternoon:

Shortly after I took this picture, the poor red car had it's rear bumper sheared off by a neighbor's car that skidded through the intersection.

Thankfully, no one was hurt!

By the time we went to bed around 9pm, this was the view out that same window (note the red car, sans bumper, now half buried in snow).

Waking up this morning, it was difficult to see outside, so I decided to venture out.

You can see I was perhaps the second person to leave the building on foot this morning; with the snow still falling and blowing, and a travel ban in effect state-wide, few people are bothering to dig out.

We have no sidewalk currently!

And these cars aren't going anywhere soon...

Above, wind whips snow across a nearly-deserted Commonwealth Avenue (this was taken about 7:30 this morning).

Snowplows were out in full force on the main roads, trying to stay on top of clearing the fallen snow.

But most apartment buildings showed little signs of activity.

I saw a few people out on foot who weren't municipal workers, but the lack of traffic was eerie, particularly at usually-busy intersections (below is Harvard Avenue looking south from Commonwealth).

Side streets had higher drifts, and as I made my way back home through Brookline's residential neighborhoods, I saw a few people out trying to clear snow from their sidewalks and cars.

These cars aren't going anywhere soon!

The playground was deserted.

I was the first pair of feet to walk up our cul-de-sac on my return journey.

... and then I had to climb over this to get to the back door!

Now we're enjoying breakfast and planning to nap the day away inside. Stay warm and safe everyone!