Beautiful Things We Saw On Neighborhood Walks

uncleboatshoes · Post by **uncleboatshoes** » Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:22 pm

Just got home from my daily constitutional.

On SE 139th I passed a house where a woman stood in the front yard holding 2 sticks of bamboo maybe 4-5 foot each. They were connected by a piece of rope forming a circular loop between the two sticks. She then proceeded to dunk the top of the sticks and rope in a cooler. When she removed her beautiful contraption from the cooler she made a bubble large enough for me to stand inside. It existed for 2 seconds before it popped but it existed. She made more bubbles and they were good.

It was really beautiful.

uncleboatshoes · Post by **uncleboatshoes** » Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm

Clarification: I did not actually stand inside the bubble. Just making a point about the size of the bubble

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:28 pm

This is a great thread!

Today we scaled a hill in our neighborhood we didn’t even know existed and saw many divine, slightly rundown midcentury modern houses. The air is clear now so we could see the snow on the San Gabriel mountains. Not all the houses had pristine landscaping so there were lots of shaggy green hills covered in yellow sourgrass flowers and sage. I saw a housecat scramble very carefully up a hillside. One house I liked was built of old Redwood and had that 70s Northern California mountain house energy, vaguely Japanese architecture, and an old slate-roofed garage that was romantically overgrown with moss.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:27 am

uncleboatshoes wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:22 pm Just got home from my daily constitutional.

On SE 139th I passed a house where a woman stood in the front yard holding 2 sticks of bamboo maybe 4-5 foot each. They were connected by a piece of rope forming a circular loop between the two sticks. She then proceeded to dunk the top of the sticks and rope in a cooler. When she removed her beautiful contraption from the cooler she made a bubble large enough for me to stand inside. It existed for 2 seconds before it popped but it existed. She made more bubbles and they were good.

It was really beautiful.

Jesus, lord above. If this had happened to me, I would immediately run home and start this thread too.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:23 am

My neighborhood is entirely too abuzz with walkers, joggers, bikers, children, etc. to feel very good about taking constitutionals. People are kind of avoiding each other, but there's just a LOT going on. Why can't they stop going on walks so that I can go on a walk?! Rude!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:11 am

Walked around Schaerbeek for an hour today. Delivered some homemade undies to a pal. Nothing to report except a wholelotta cherry blossoms. Passed by a bakery and bought a loaf of bread, a mini chocolate-chip brioche and a not-so-great tiny prune pie.

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:18 am

Yes, this is a primo thread idea. Well done Uncle.

Just down the road from us is a pasture with 2 extreme cows in it. In that little window of twilight after dinner and before kid bedtime we frequently walk down to say what's up, goodnight to the long horn cows. They come snorting to us in the almost dark, expecting grass clumps that we pull from outside the fence, beyond the reach of their tongues.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/40805829 ... portrait=0

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:27 am

those long horns looming in the dark are COOL

rcnederveld · Post by **rcnederveld** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:35 am

@Phil - Can Agathe get her own account (or maybe we can just FT soon)?

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:48 am

Good cows, dark looming Texas longhorn vibe

Steve I really liked thinking of your neighbor creating a bubble around you, for your mutual pleasure

My favorite thing about my walks these days is seeing everyone’s epic giant gardens getting started. This is spring business-as-usual here, not covid-related, and while it’s always nice I think the timelessness of it at this particular time, the cyclical regularness of seeing the same piles of compost and mulch, the same raw freshly turned earth, the same wheelbarrows and tomato cages, in the same yards, now as in every spring beforetimes, is deeply comforting and beautiful to me.

I love seeing what everyone is growing and I love keeping tabs on it all as the season progresses. One person has a small pear orchard and another grows hops all up the side of their house. One person has an unlicensed greenhouse made of old doors that fills up with seedlings. One person has a grape arbor! One person fills up every single spot of ground on the grassy strip next to the road with kale. Some people have the sun and the space for a nice blackberry bramble, a thing I covet but we don’t have the sun for it. I like to see these things in my neighborhood!

uncleboatshoes · Post by **uncleboatshoes** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:40 am

THOSE ARE EXTREME COWS

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:22 pm

I live in a funky mixed industrial-residential area. There are no sidewalks and high speed limits, so I walk around the backyard or drive in the car.

The other day was low clouds and indirect light that made the lots of stacked pallets, abandoned factories, and crumbling hoarder houses look almost bucolic. A family was very nervously biking together past the railroad tracks, dairy warehouse and shuttered GOOD TIMES bar (where bad things happen). I pondered the simple poetry of Queen's "We Are The Champions" as it came through the radio.

And bad mistakes‒
I've made a few.
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:56 pm

After dinner this evening, we hopped on our bikes and rode through Molenbeek and Koekelberg and through the empty city center. At 8:00 people clap to thank the medical zubs here. We passed a building with ladies in hijabs banging pots with spoons out their windows in the same building. Then they started interacting and playing a rhythm with each other. We rang our bike bells at them and waved.
Then we rounded a corner and people were cheering out their windows all down the street. The cheers turned into a roaring round of Happy Birthday to Julia, who was a little girl of maybe 8 or 9, in one window on the block looking very proud and shy. We rang our bike bells and waved.
Then we rode by this soccer field and on the other side of it are three giant social housing project buildings. Over there you could hear this roar of pot and pan drum circle sounds and cheering coming from all of the balconies. We didn't ring our bike bells at them because we were far away. But a girl above us was blowing her plastic flute hard, so we rang our bike bells and waved to her instead. It all felt very good and real.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:42 pm

So nice

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:35 pm

Really sweet.

Also LOL'ed at "medical zubs"

Closest equivalent we've seen in Los Angeles were two thirtysomething white ladies sitting on camping chairs in front of our local mini-mart holding signs that said YOU HONK WE DRINK and waving at passing cars while drinking 40 oz beers in foam coozies. We were across the street and we were walking so we just yelled "HONK" at them while we walked by.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:52 pm

I love your story, Molly. It is the best of times AND the worst of times, both happening simultaneously.

Every time I see folks clanging their pans, I think of the sweet, surprising Chilean film Gloria (2013).

willowowow · Post by **willowowow** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:21 am

Yesterday walking down and alley we spotted through fence slats a GIANT and ANCIENT tortoise mowing the grass with his mouth! We peered at him, noses pressed to planks, for ages, making many spontaneous laughs and exclamations of wonder. His tongue in particular was a delight to me, as was his hearty appetite for grass. My companion was tripping on the geometry of his shell.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:50 am

What!!!

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 10:26 am

People get them as pets! Which is insane, because they are huge and live to a very old age, and aren't an animal that I think really should be a pet. My person's brother had one for a long time, his name was Huckleberry and he pissed all over the lawn. Still, a cool old guy.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:44 am

You guys have seen the video of a giant turtle cumming, right? Jona has it memorized

Post by **joni** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:49 am

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:44 am You guys have seen the video of a giant turtle cumming, right? Jona has it memorized

Made a new thread for it

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 12:14 pm

BLOCKED

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:43 pm

It's a tortoise. And I'm sure that tortoise would be truly embarrassed if he knew we were all making fun of his intimate, private, health matter.

Abe · Post by **Abe** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:18 pm

This a cactus near me. It is getting ready to bloom, and then it will die.
It is really rare for this kind of cactus to be able to grow in Portland.
I can't remember the name of it - but I know it is not the kind that you can make mezcal from. #ImportantFacts

alexshred420 · Post by **alexshred420** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:28 pm

@abe wow! i wanna look! location?

Abe · Post by **Abe** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:41 pm

alexshred420 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:28 pm @abe wow! i wanna look! location?

It is on SE Gladstone between SE 28th place and 26th, on the N side of the street. Hard to miss.
If you bring gloves, there is a laminated info sheet you can pick up and read.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sat Apr 25, 2020 10:50 am

Went to a faraway park with my bro- and sis-in-law and 5 year-old niece and 2 year-old nephew for a social distance run-around, kickin' the old soccer ball. It was a plesant long bike ride along the canal.
At the park, the 5yo girl got really busy collecting sticks to "make a fire" and the 2yo ran up to a huge wild patch of nettles and pointed and shouted, "PAIN!!" So I think the new generation is ready for apocalypse living.

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Sat Apr 25, 2020 3:36 pm

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have been lurking the sidewalk gardens of Sunnyside and came across a patch of unfamiliar flowers I later identified as snake's-head fritillary. apparently it is mostly found in the hay meadows of England and is less common these days, not sure how it came to be planted along a nondescript chain link fence in Queens.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sat Apr 25, 2020 3:42 pm

Wow, these are beautiful! They're like sad surrealistic tulips

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:50 pm

The pattern...

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 3:52 am

Wow!!!

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 9:32 am

fritillaria! it's soooo beautiful!

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 10:03 am

The first dandelions opened up today.

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 12:49 pm

We have been having an unfairly early spring here--normally there would be a few late snow storms making most of April and early May a slushy muddy mess, but I guess nature was feeling wicked this year and decided to make the weather amazing starting in mid April so all of the snow melted overnight about a week ago. The trees are all still bare but I bet within a few weeks all of this will be green again.

Because it has been cold till recently, we have not been going out on walks as regularly as we probably should. Plus Edmontonians are not exactly taking the whole pandemic thing that seriously and it's really stressful to be the only people wearing masks and the only people trying to stay 2 meters away from other pedestrians. But we had to recover some stuff from our offices on campus this weekend so we decided to brave the outdoors, hoping that getting a relatively early start Sunday morning would be a bit more relaxed. We were right! It was very nice to be outside and feel the wind and sun and all of that again. Still the only people with masks but it was less crowded than going out in the evening so that helped.

This is the view of downtown from our walk to the university--in normal circumstances this would not be an unusual perspective at all, but having been shut in for weeks and having just come out of winter it was definitely a welcome sight. Also spotted a couple of friendly chickadees in the brush but could not get a good picture.

Coming to terms with the fact that this is where we live now has been a process with a lot of ... ups and downs... this year more than others to say the least. But days like this make me feel a lot better about living up here.

tim · Post by **tim** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:06 pm

really love this thread. thank you for sharing, everybody.
pretty aggressively cooped up so it's great to see/read about these moments.
also, @infopetal, wow — in OUR queens?!

what i wouldn't give to be in a couple of acres of forest right now.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 5:09 pm

We have a good window for watching rabbits while washing the dishes. I saw the fresh, meadow-like grass, yet untouched by the blade of diesel, sprinkled in low yellow blooms... The hot pink light of the setting sun highlighting every budded branch... And Mr Bunny, who ruffled the grass with his hands to find his favorite kind.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 5:20 pm

i am moved by this scene

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:22 am

Evan.V.N.S.J. wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 12:49 pm This is the view of downtown from our walk to the university--in normal circumstances this would not be an unusual perspective at all, but having been shut in for weeks and having just come out of winter it was definitely a welcome sight. Also spotted a couple of friendly chickadees in the brush but could not get a good picture.

That's a great view. Look at those clouds!
Living in a place with a real winter sounds so hard. I have lived in this grey wet place for almost 11(!!?!) years and I still am like barely half a human for 6 months a year. And it's hella temperate here. I mean, it is basically Portland. FORGIVE ME BUT I AM OF THE DESERT.

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:44 am

m o l l y wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:22 am Living in a place with a real winter sounds so hard.

Weirdly, I think 6 months of bitter cold and occasional heavy snow (that never goes away) is preferable to somewhere that is just grey and rainy constantly all winter. The weirdest part is just getting over the mental hurdle of knowing that unless you wear warm enough clothes before you go out you will get physically injured or die. But once you become adjusted to that routine it's not that big a deal.

I think I dislike the muddy times more than the snowy times actually, and I'm glad we seem to have been spared that this year.

Another weird side effect is that I get these weird cravings for heat. I've never enjoyed hot weather particularly, but so many places I've lived before this have had really hot summers, and I think a lot about how the quality of intense summer heat is different in all of those places. Based on I guess like humidity and dryness and all of that. It never gets that hot here even in the middle of the summer. It is more comfortable overall but I miss the feeling of walking outside and just feeling like attacked by the sun.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:17 am

Evan.V.N.S.J. wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:44 am It is more comfortable overall but I miss the feeling of walking outside and just feeling like attacked by the sun.

When I lived in Vegas, I loved the feeling of surrendering to the all-seeing eye of that radioactive star. Of walking outside into an enormous kiln that made your clothes feel like paper. Getting into a car that could hold 140F air and having no choice but to sauna.

Maybe because I had a lifetime supply of sun exposure, since then I've become a happy goth who lets the sun touch me two or three times a year and turns bright, glowing green like moss in the rain and gloom.

Slightly off topic... I live in a place (SE MI) that is known for being a "not sure if I could bear the long winters" zone... But the winters have been eerily mild in the last few years.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:22 am

I also live in a tough winter zone (though not as tough as MI/CA) that has had mild winters several years in a row. This last winter was so chill, it was alarming. I mean, it IS alarming, of course.

Moving here I realized I had really been missing the POWERFUL four seasons. Living in Portland and in LA there are seasons but their transitions are so mild, comparatively, particularly in LA. Here it's like HOLY SHIT THIS SURE IS AUTUMN and then like WOW I AM SHOVELING SNOW EVERY FUCKING DAY and then like JESUS CHRIST IT'S FUCKING 100 DEGREES and 99% HUMIDITY I WISH I WERE DEAD

I like the extremity of it! Makes me appreciate each of them more, each with their own wondrous flavor profile, set of treats/pleasures as well as hardships/sorrows.

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:05 am

They say the winters have been milder up here too! Except "milder" means "only one week of -40 degree temps per winter instead of a month" so I get that it is bad in the abstract but... I'm fine with it.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:54 am

I have thought about this a lot lately. Like, until I was a woman in my 30s I thought that Spring was this vague conceptual idea. That in fact, you have winter, then about 3 weeks of just bliss and then 6 months of bone dry 100 degree heat. I mean I realized not everyone had the heat, but I didn't get that Spring was like its own WHOLE THING.

It made me think about how what we are taught about the four seasons as the norm no matter where we live in the world because of this Eurocentric idea of western normalcy. The place where I grew up has nothing like winter, spring, summer and fall. It has a long dry summer, a short monsoon season, a long temperate period and maybe a very short wet winter period. But still my childhood classrooms and bulletin boards and calendars had a snowman in January and like orange autumn leaves in November. Tulips in April? What is this leaf?? What is a DAFFODIL? What the shit is "fall?"
There is a big bright beautiful world out there, folks!

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:54 pm

Great point!!!!

I thought about this very strongly when we were in Australia in December and it was Christmastime and all the decorations were snow and reindeers and Santas wearing giant fur coats and mittens, meanwhile the actual humans in that location were sweating their balls off. It was really weird.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:34 pm

One reason I love the Animal Crossing franchise is for its very Japanese focus on the changing of the seasons and holidays. Even when I was in the des in April, my village was filled with cherry blossoms, the chirps of specific crickets, even special fish in the waters... As our Earth changes in predictable and unexpected ways, the sweetness of marking seasonal change is a yearning that will never leave my heart.

I used to think that fall in the desert was marked by the falling of so many crunchy leaves that feel great to step on. But that's just what happens when imported trees freak out by the sudden, dry winter, isn't it?

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:30 pm

tim wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:06 pm also, @infopetal, wow — in OUR queens?!

our very own! here's some more scenes from Queens, mostly in & around Sunnyside Gardens Historic District…

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(sorry the images are so big, if anyone knows how to make attachments smaller in BBCode lmk)

tim · Post by **tim** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:30 pm

infopetal wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:30 pm
tim wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:06 pm also, @infopetal, wow — in OUR queens?!

our very own! here's some more scenes from Queens, mostly in & around Sunnyside Gardens Historic District…

photo_2020-04-27 19.56.22.jpeg

photo_2020-04-27 20.22.18.jpeg

photo_2020-04-27 20.22.08.jpeg

(sorry the images are so big, if anyone knows how to make attachments smaller in BBCode lmk)

keep 'em big!

these are great. particularly love the cat flower.

Abe · Post by **Abe** » Sun May 03, 2020 5:48 pm

Cactus is blooming!!!!!

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sun May 03, 2020 9:28 pm

Omg that’s OBSCENE

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon May 04, 2020 3:19 am

Hot!

Another day, another bike ride, another tiny cherry pie (this time with streusel).