Suburban Dreams

I've been talking a lot about Scoob and I moving at some point, and while we've had some debate over where we will move to one thing we've always been in agreement on is what type of place we will move to. We know we want cultural diversity, culture and arts, open spaces, and all those wonderful things, but we also know we want to live in the 'burbs. And while we technically already live in a suburb, the Bay Area metropolitan sprawl has really engulfed it.

It seems so strange to say we want to live in the 'burbs because the suburbs have such a negative connotation. That's why when I ran across this article on subrubiphobia in the Walls Street Journal, it caught my attention. (I don't know if that's even a word, maybe I should copyright it.) The short, short version of the article is that American art portrays the suburban experience as somehow inauthentic and homogeneous, being neither urban nor rural.

When I think of suburban portrayals in pop culture I think of The Brady Bunch, The Stepford Wives, Bewitched, and the like, images typified by late-1950s and early-1960s suburbia. (So sue me, I've never seen Desperate Housewives.) But Scoob and I wouldn't want to live in that version of the suburbs. So something doesn't match here; Either our perception of the suburbs is way off, or the suburbs have changed.

After a bit of Googling, I think it's the latter. The suburbs of today are not the homogeneous cookie-cutter developments of an earlier era. In fact, The Economist goes so far as to say the 'burbs are beginning to resemble city centers.

This article at USA Today seems to think that gas prices are driving this shift in the suburban landscape. And while I'm sure energy prices are a contributing factor, these new suburbs didn't just pop up overnight when fuel hit $4.00/gallon. I think it's been more of a matter of technology and convenience. I see this with Scoob.

He's been telecommuting for a few years now and I've seen the change in his habits. When he worked at the office, he used to go out to lunch with co-workers or take break at the coffee shop. He would swing by the bicycle repair shop and talk shop with other cyclists. Or he would just hang out at the bookstore.

Since he started telecommuting, he doesn't get together with co-workers as much as he used to even though they're also telecommuting and living nearby. When they do get together for lunch, the quality of restaurants they have to choose from is much lower. Their coffee shop option is pretty much limited to Starbucks. And the nearest bookstore is another behemoth chain and is clear across town.

As more and more people telecommute either part or full time, I think they're finding the same situations and more people are pressuring city planners for multiple use developments and sustainable communities. I think we'll continue to see this as we find new ways to apply technology.

I think another shift has been employers moving out of the city cores. In the Bay Area we've seen employers move out of high real estate areas and into the suburbs as a cost saving measure. We've also seen companies, like Sccob's, outsource so many jobs that they don't need to keep as many office parks open, and those that they do keep open don't need to be in such high rent areas. In addition to seeing tens of thousands of jobs from his company go overseas, he has also seen whole departments relocated from a first tier metro area (like San Francisco) to a second tier area (like Atlanta or Albuquerque).

This new American suburb is so popular in fact, there's growing demand from overseas, which is a good thing for builders given the current slump in new home construction.

An interesting cautionary article here, on the dilemma of repurposing suburban space once the landscape changes. I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more of this issue as the housing market shakes itself out.

Preparing to Leave

Well, we're headed out tomorrow for mom's. While we're there, I'll only have access to a dial-up connection; so don't be surprised if next week is just as quiet as last week.

Poor Sweetie, he's actually feeling much better but he just can't seem to shake the cough and it's been keeping him awake at nights (me too, but I'm not as miserable). He's tried the Quils, both Day and Ny, and cough syrup, and lozenges, but he's still coughing. So today I tried looking up remedies online and found a doozy here, and they got it from Herbally Yours by Penny C. Royal, 3rd Edition. I had all the ingredients in my spice cupboard, so he decided it was worth a shot. It seems like it took 30 minutes to an hour to kick in, he's still coughing but the fitful bouts seem to have stopped:

¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. ground ginger
1 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. water
Whisk together and take by the teaspoon-full. (He took 3 teaspoons of the stuff and said it tasted a bit like Tabasco sauce, but sweet.)

This weekend has been mostly about getting ready to go. Mom had a list of things for me to bring up to her, the biggest of which were some shelves from IKEA. We have two IKEA stores here in the Bay Area and these are the nearest stores to her. The shelves mom wants are only $25 each but apparently IKEA wanted over $200 to ship them to Oregon because they're over-sized packages. The challenge for me was figuring out how to fit them in the Subaru for the trip up. At 75" they fit, but just barely, and Sweetie will have to ride in the backseat on the way north. Love you mom.

Also on mom's list was some sesame oil, seasoned rice vinegar, and daikon radish sprouts. Because of all the Asian grocery stores here, we can get the oil and vinegar for way less than she can. And the diakon sprouts are something new. I'd tried them and told her about them, so she's curious to try some. I'm not sure if they're still in season. We'll stop at the vegetable stand on the way out of town and see if they still carry them. It's the only place I've ever seen them.

The last item on mom's list was my Christmas lights. They were hers to begin with and became mine with one of her moves. She has had some clear lights strung in a Japanese maple tree on her patio but they recently flickered their last. And since I don't decorate for Christmas (I can't see the point since we don't have children and we're always traveling to somewhere else for the holiday) she wanted them back.

I was positive I knew where I had those lights stored. Dead positive. So of course I waited until the night before we leave to go dig them out of the garage. Oh yeah, you guessed it. I can't find them. I've found every other ornament and Christmas related item I've ever owned, but the lights? Forgeddaboudit. I have this little voice whispering in the back of my mind that tells me I already gave them back to her when she lived in San Jose and needed to replace the lights on that patio.

Oh well, give it a month or so and all the holiday decorations will be on clearance anyhow. BTW, Target is a great place to go for marked down and clearance items and not just Christmas decorations either. I have it on good authority (my cousin's hubby works for them) that they do not return items to the warehouse from the stores, so they keep marking it down until it sells. If it doesn't sell, they give it to Goodwill.

With the economy being so tight and holiday shopping upon us, I thought you might find that tidbit useful. Oh, and not from my cousin's hubby, but most Target stores follow the same mark down schedule (your local store may be different so checking with an employee wouldn't hurt):

Monday - Kids Clothing and Electronics
Tuesday - Women's Clothing and Domestics
Wednesday - Men's Clothing, Toys, Health & Beauty
Thursday - Lingerie, Shoes, Housewares
Friday - Cosmetics, Housewares, Automotive

Also, all clearance items have orange tags. In the top right corner of each tag you'll see a number, 15A, 20A, this is the percentage the item has been marked down. So if you're on my list this year, don't be surprised if you find something from Target under the tree.

I'll probably have lots of shopping posts and tips as we head into the holidays because, you guessed it, I haven't started my shopping yet. Last year I was finished by Halloween, this year, oh well. We'll start with this one, if you have a kid on your list that loves to know how things work or is otherwise a bit geeky, any one of these 17 items (prices range from $15 to $150) might be just the ticket. Well, maybe not the cutesy guitar for Guitar Hero or the Darth Vader t-shirt, but the other 15 ideas sound good.

Speaking of Star Wars, during my web surfing today I ran across an excerpt of Carrie Fisher's new autobiography Wishful Drinking here. I thought I would just skim through it, but I found myself really reading it. I like Star Wars and all, but I wouldn't call myself a "fan". I do like Carrie Fisher though. Wishful Drinking is due out on bookshelves December 2, but Amazon already has it in stock.

Last thing and then I better start dinner (we're having Kahlua pig fried rice and lots of fruit to clean out the fridge before we leave), I mentioned in yesterday's post that we're planning to do some casual house hunting while we're up north. Sweetie would really prefer a newer construction (10 years or newer), but we're willing to look at remodeled older homes.

One of the things we're noticing as we look is that, unless the developer left trees standing on the lot, very few of the newer homes have any mature trees. It's not as if this is a deal breaker, but trees absolutely add to your home's appeal and value. Not to mention the potential for saving you money while you still own the house and the environmental benefits of more trees. J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly talks more about the benefits of adding trees to your property.

Fall is the perfect time to plant a tree, but there is a lot to consider before you run out and purchase a tree. Check out the Arbor Day Foundation's database and try the advanced search.

You'll want to consider the soil on your property, vegetation zone and sun exposure; you'll want to determine how tall and wide you want the tree to be at maturity so you don't plant too close to your home or to power lines; you'll want to think about any leaves and seeds the tree may shed annually that will require clean up; you'll also want to consider the tree's root system among other things.

Some trees have tap roots that sink deep into the ground and other trees have shallow roots that spread out underground making it next to impossible to grow anything around them. The house mom purchased has trees of this last variety and since she's an avid gardener, it causes her no small amount of trouble.

Oh, What a Week

But it's over and I'm done. It's officially vacation time. Woot! I brought work home with me, definitely not woot, but it's for Monday, 12/1, because I'll be working from home. Jury duty. Another not woot. It's my second call up this year because I had to defer the earlier one due to a funeral (obviously not mine).

So I'm mostly back to normal, normal for me anyhow. The digestive system kicked back into gear on Thursday and by Thursday night I was feeling pretty good. I still have some tenderness in the ribcage area where I supposedly bruised my pancreas and if that hasn't cleared up by the time we get back from vacation I'll be back at the doctor's. But dudes, that was seriously the worst case of food poisoning I think I've ever had. It even tops Thanksgiving 2000, and that was a doozy.

Unfortunately, Sweetie got sick with cold/flu just as I was getting better so we've still been taking things pretty easy around here. He said he was feeling a bit better today so I'm hoping he'll be even better on Saturday. It would suck to be out of commission two weekends in a row, and last weekend was b-e-a-utiful here. 80 degrees and sunny, sunny, sunny. Hard to believe it's late November.

So the vacation plan is to hit the open road on Monday and head straight for mom's house in Oregon. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. We'll head to Eugene and do some casual house hunting on Tuesday and do a little shopping (no sales tax in Oregon yo). Oh what's that you say, but all the good sales start on Friday? You won't catch me anywhere near a retail brick-and-mortar store on Black Friday. I won't do it and you can't make me. No way no how. I don't care how good the sale is. In fact, the better the sale, the more likely I am to give your store a wide berth. There is no material thing on this planet worth braving retail on Black Friday.

Anyhow, back to the Tuesday shopping. I think Sweetie is planning to get me my Christmas present early this year, actually, I know he is, because he told me. My digital camera took a dirt nap a few months ago and anytime I want to take photos I have to borrow his, download the photos to his laptop, then email them to mine. Oh, the horror, life is so rough, right? Anyhow, we'll be shopping for a camera.

I've also been thinking about replacing the laptop. I scrubbed a lot of programs off the hard drive and it helped a bit, but it's still incredibly slow compared to what it used to be. I've found it runs better if I power it off whenever I'm not actually using it. Waking it up after a "nap" is when it seems most sluggish. And the fan runs constantly from the moment I turn it on. I don't think I'll replace it this trip, but when I do I think it'll be with a desktop.

When I work from home I need to 10-key webpage node reference numbers a lot. No, really, a lot. I also need to use the number pad for diacritical marks (alt+0225 gets you an á, and alt+0241 gets you an ñ). On the laptop I need to copy paste these each time I need to use them because the numbers on the keyboard don't work for this for whatever reason. And when you're working on guidebooks to Latin America, that's a lot of copying and pasting. Thank goodness putting the guidebooks to Asia and places like Budapest online are way off in the future. At least I know the Spanish diacritic keystrokes by memory.

Dudes, I'm on vacation! How did you get me monologuing about work? That's enough of that.

So between Sweetie and all the people that've been sick at work, I thought I'd check the Google flu tracker and see what the flu trends are. If our little corner of Berkeley is any indicator, the Bay Area should be royal blue on this map. But then again, they're making their map based on search terms, not actual medical data.

Ze Frank launched another photo project following the election for blue and red voters to share messages with each other. It's interesting and just made me feel good about all of it now that the campaigning is over. Then again, almost all Ze's stuff makes me feels good. Especially the duckies.

So Blackwater has been back in the news. In case you've been hiding under a bush since the war in Iraq began, Blackwater is a U.S.-based private security contractor and they're the largest security contractor operating in Iraq. So far they've been the biggest winner of State Department security contracts. Yes, Cheney has ties to them. Anyhow, there have been stories in the past about how Blackwater handles operations, how their security efforts conflict and interfere with our Armed Forces efforts, and even cases where Blackwater operatives have killed our troops in friendly-fire. So now we're learning that weapons shipped to Iraq by Blackwater have found their way to the black market. And again, no charges have been filed.

Two funnies and then I hit the hay.

For all the cat lovers out there, How to Tell if Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You.

And, if you live in the Americas and have ever felt somewhat disoriented, this may have something to do with it. (Save it for future reference when you're trying to explain to someone why you're not one of those people with a good "sense of direction".)