New digs
Todd and I are thinking of moving into a cohousing project in Denver. We’d end up with less of our own space (probably half as much) and a bigger mortgage.
Insanity, you say?
Maybe. Who knows what form and size the mortgage will take. We don’t even have a unit design yet.
But I spend Sunday at a seminar designed to rectify that situation. We came up with the most pie-in-the-sky ideas you can imagine: a greenhouse, graywater incorporated into the project even though it’s illegal in Colorado, safe places for kids and dogs to play just a few minutes north of downtown Denver. I can’t even remember it all. The architects will take this list and turn it into condos and apartments.
Todd and I could end up with a space designed more for our needs instead of the needs of a family. We could end up with 360-degree views from a rooftop deck and a location a block from the Platte River and a decent walk or bike ride from downtown. Those thoughts make me happy.
It’s part of a new development called
Taxi, in the River North district. Yesterday we were tossing around names for our part of it. Ted had suggested Cab, which I didn’t like, but then we came up with CaBooty, which we thought might be family-unfriendly, and Loco (you know, “Loco near Lodo”?).
The idea of leaving my garden makes me unhappy, however.
A new skin
My house is dim today because of the brown paper taped over the windows.
Dami, who may be the first person from Mongolia I’ve ever met, was here prepping the house with his crew. I love the way he talks: his accent is definitely Asian, but his native language sounds more like Navajo to me than Chinese or Japanese, and he speaks very deliberately.
They painted the base color today, and I snuck out before dinner to look at it. It seemed quite blindingly white. We had a gray-based white before, and this time I thought I was going for more of a creamy white. I’m not sure if I like it yet. I’ll go out in the morning and look at it again, when the light is better.
Then tomorrow they have to paint the trim. Right now all the gutters are wrapped up—I asked them not to paint them because they’re new and it would void the warranty. The house looks quite ghostly, appropriate for Halloween.
The company doing the paint job is
Eco Handyman. I heard of them from Boulder Green Building Guild.
They’re expensive, but so far they seem to be good.
The company that did the gutters is
Accent Windows. They're a Westminster company that actually manufactures windows in Colorado. They claim that the gas in double-paned windows manufactured at lower altitudes expands at a mile high and may actually escape the window. Don't know if that's true, but it sounds possible. They also do gutters, siding, and doors.
I’m on my usual pre-Christmas kick of buying holiday music. Found two CDs that seem pretty unusual, American Indian Christmas and Sacred Season. Get the info at
Southwest Indian Foundation.
Recyclemania!
Check out this
blog for purses, belts, and jewelry made from recycled items!
Do androids...
I’m a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, the new version—I never saw the original series. I don’t suppose that the “Androids got out of control and tried to destroy humanity” theme is all that original, but maybe it was when the series was conceived. I love what they’ve done with it, though. It’s cool that humanity has gone back to believing in multiple gods and that the Cylons, who at one point were trying to destroy humanity, believe in one god. It’s cool that their superior “air power” doesn’t enable them to prevail completely. One could even make the argument that the definitions of hero and antihero, terrorist and defender are turned on their heads in this series. I think, for example, of the moment when Sharon, a Cylon, is asked about being downloaded to a new body. She says, “Death becomes a learning experience.” And her point is, why wouldn’t anyone want that?
In the latest episodes, the Cylons have showed up on new Caprica and tried to do something, though it’s never clear quite what, with the remnant of humanity living there. It’s obvious to any viewer with half a brain that they’re the Americans and the humans are the Iraqis. The difference, of course, is that the Iraqis don’t have starships waiting to try to evacuate them. I wonder if they wish they did?
One of the blogs I read regularly is
Baghdad Burning. In one of her last posts (dating from August) she said that everyone who can leave Iraq already has. Since she hasn’t posted for more than two months, I wonder if she left, if she died, or if she’s in hiding. Maybe her family got one of the bullets in the envelope that she mentions and had to leave their home. Or for all I know, she hasn’t been in Iraq for months or years. It’s difficult to know what’s behind any blog.
