Decaying beauty

june 1st! another month has gone by, its theme day and our apartment is empty... this months theme is the "beauty of decay". i actually have quite some pictures of abandoned places (i like to visit those), but currently we are busy to "abandon" our apartment... so, heres another picture... :) its all i can think of right now....

we sold the dinner table and chairs on thursday. since we had some boxes left, tim immediately set out to make us another table, as you can see (compare with the original situation here!). today we also got rid of our bed and couch. we got the couch out really easy, and also carrying it down 2 flights of stairs was not too bad (it was horrible getting it here when moving in, so we were a bit worried about that). while getting that all done i was also doing laundry and baking bread as we had a goodbye BBQ this afternoon; when we had gotten the couch down one flight, i had to run back up, just to check on the bread.... not to rest, ofcourse.... ;)

we went to goodwill to drop off the couch, only to find out they didnt want it... it has a small tear and the guy accepting "donations" said he only takes things he would want to buy himself. having brought numerous itmes already over the past days, that really pissed us off. moreover, now what to do with that huge couch??!! certainly the soaring heat (35C!!, around 95F) did not help to cool us down... after some ideas of where to secretly drop the couch, some weirder than others, we finally figured out that we could bring it to the "solid waste station". i was very sad to see our couch being brutally dumped into a huge, disgusting, smelly pile of waste.... it didnt belong there at all!! buhuhuhuhuh. moreover, we had to pay 6 dollars and 40 cents, as dumping goes by the pound, and we dumped 160 lbs of couch.... :(

for more beauty of decay, go here!

Empty apartment....

nooooooo.... this is not from today!! its from xactly 3 years ago... i actually intended to look for a picture of tim looking like a doctor (see yesterdays comments; the tim doctor post will have to wait a bit), but then thought; hmmm, lets look what pictures i took 3 years ago (i.e. during our first months on boston). and this is what i found..... isnt that a sign.. somehow? here we had already signed the lease and all, the place was "ours" (oh, how excited we were!), and it would be waiting for us until july 1st, 2010. they painted 2 walls for us for free, so the wall to the left is now actually light purple.

the apartment now does not look like that just yet, although a LOT of furniture has disappeared over the past few days. basically, the living room now only has the couch and dinner table left (im so disappointed nobody wants our table, its the nicest piece of furniture we have! :) ) there is a lot of random stuff standing around, and everything we want to ship is now in boxes (or so i hope). tomorrow the moving company comes to pick them up. it makes me so very nervous!! did i pack it all right?! arent the boxes too heavy? wont they fall apart during the move? will everything left really fit in my suitcase? is it enough...? did i make the right choices..? did i pack something essential (which i now wont see for the coming 8-12 weeks)? did i forget something? it goes on and on and on in my head like that. i know, i know, there are much bigger worries in the world, but currently those are my worries.... pffffttt.... 

ok, i guess its time for bed..... good night!

More snow!

well, this is from last weekend, after the blizzard.... normally there is a road between the 2 traffic cones, but not last weekend...... we got some more snow today, very strong winds, and its very cold! in fact, its so unpleasant that we decided to stay home. we baked bread, cooked, watched some soap series. nothing special... somehow its now 1 at night and really time for bed! hope this time i can sleep despite the crazy winds....

Removing snow

this is the main street in our apartment complex, sunday afternoon. as mentioned, the snowplowing crew started their work when the snow just started coming down, they worked when the storm was at its height (the harsh wind blowing snow in your face wasnt the most fun part when we walked around friday night to "experience the storm"), they were still working when we went to sleep around 1 in the night.... i dont know whether they worked through the night, but i do know they were already working while we were just waking up.... they worked the entire saturday, sunday, and this evening i saw the bulldozer still being operated. our complex has 550 apartments, not small, but not huge either. imagine the amounts of snow and the huge amount of work being done so that we could just open the front door and walk around without sinking deep into the snow. one of the perks of apartment living, not having to shovel yourselves!! :) the least thing i could do was baking a cake for the crew, but then we broke the cake in 2 (it didnt want to come out of the bundt pan in one piece), so i baked another one..... not much work compared to what the shovellers did!

above they were removing the huge mountains of snow they had made the day before. it was loaded into the truck, and moved to the little snowfarm at the end of our complex; i guess that himalaya of snow will be there for quite a while, even though it was relatively warm today and yesterday (and even raining today). because of all the salt and other bad chemicals, the snow cannot just be dumped into the ocean, as was being done years ago. so... its piled up high, and being a pedestrian can be quite difficult... :) you have to check were you can cross the street, is there a gap on the other side too, or do i have to climb the snow? and as its melting, large, deep, muddy, salty puddles have formed. but no! im not complaining, the snow was great and now i get to wear my real snowboots that are meant to sink into the mess and still keep my feet dry!! 

ah, and, something really important; it was officially a blizzard. the national weather service said so. the past days this wasnt certain yet, so i am glad it is a fact now...... ;)

Cleared roads

no public transport this morning, and we were lazy anyways..... ..... later this morning the MBTA announced that they would resume a little bit of service from 2 this afternoon. however.... and i quote their message directly; "Unless necessary, customers are encouraged to stay home and use service sparingly." that little sentence just made me laugh all day. use it sparingly? are they checking whether you really need to take the subway or its just for fun...? ah well, as said, we were lazy, and just cleaned our apartment a bit, sorted stuff out, etc, and then went for another snow-walk. as you can see here, the main roads are clear again (after hours and hours of work), but for pedestrians that wasnt the case everywhere. here there was some sort of path to the right, but there was still enough snow left to make  for quite a tiring walk. at some places, the sidewalk wasnt cleared at all and we had to walk on the streets. not much fun, cars just sped by without even looking at us..... on  the news i saw that 1also in boston the main roads are mostly clear again, but the side streets, where people actually live and have parked their car, arent, so they still cant go anywhere.
we just wanted to have a walk on the cemetery but, although it was being plowed, turned out to be closed, and so we just went home again.... 

Secret entrance.....

while walking to the subway, we saw this alternative entrance.... we thought of trying it, but then realized we already paid our fare by having a monthly ticket, so it wasnt really necessary. was really surprised though that there was no sign, or a police officer or whatever to protect you from falling down or so.... as is usually the case.

today we discovered that 11 break-ins have occurred in our apartment complex about 2 weeks ago. they all happened within one week, in 4 different buildings. in none of the cases there were signs of forced entry, and in some cases residents even found their apartments locked.... we had been informed already about 2 break-ins, and had been left in the dark as to how, what and why. it was suggested then that those residents had forgotten to lock their doors and we got a nice letter reminding us to always lock our doors, to not give away our keys or write our address on the keys. of course, we had questions already then. on top of that, last week we were suddenly informed that ALL locks to all 550 apartments were going to be changed, and still no answer why that would be necessary since they had labeled those 2 break-ins as "isolated cases".... but now we know. 11 break-ins. in some cases they even locked the door after they stole stuff, and then we have to believe to no one has or can have a key that fits on all our doors??! can you believe it?! its really quite scary and very weird to leave our apartment, double-checking whether we locked it but at the same time thinking that that does not matter anyways right now..... who knows, perhaps they already have been in our place! good thing that we dont have any ipads, iphones or other fancy electronics..... (apparently thats what got stolen).
during the "meeting" we had today with a police officer and the management team residents came up with the weirdest questions, suggestions and theories as to how this could have happened, and how this can be prevented in the future. yet nobody asked whether there might be a secret entrance somewhere......
im rather mad that the management kept us dumb and didnt inform us right away that 11 break-ins occurred, ALL without any signs of forced entry (and who knows, maybe even more?!), we only found that out because we attended that stupid meeting where we just went out of sheer curiosity, as we were wondering what the hell a police officer could tell us about 2 break-ins.....

Pretty white!

to me this seems to be in a forest somewhere far away, but in fact its just the ditch next to our apartment. its pretty in fall and when snowing.... but can be quite ugly too at times! its interesting how much the water level can differ....we had some snow yesterday again, but today it wasnt that cold and its melting away... :(

our apartment complex changed owners very suddenly around august last year. we were informed after it had become a fact, just as we were informed that from that moment on dogs were allowed in the complex. nowadays whenever we walk the stairs (or someone else),open our door, or sometimes it seems even when we breathe inside our own home the neighbour's tiny dog barks like he is squeezed by paris hilton (or something like that). tim got into the habit of barking back (very convincingly), so i guess they think we are doglovers too..... theres more to complain about, but lets leave that for another time... ;)

Freeze alert

while yesterday it was pretty warm (above 10C for sure), today started out quite cold. predictions are temperatures wont get above 0C (i guess thats 32F). and.... we started this evening with some light snow! 2-3 feet some weathermen say for tomorrow.... so, above another picture of our first snowstorm in the usa, january 2011. we got up and before they could clear the paths we "walked" through the snow at our apartment complex. we literally were in it till our knees! it was so cool!! (and cold!).

today we even got a "freeze alert" from our apartment management (weather forecasts say it will be well below 0C, maybe even -15C some nights this week). we are supposed to keep our thermostat at 60F to prevent freezing of the plumbing. every now and then our apartment gets to 50F (10C, during the night or when we have been away), and well yes, then we switch on the heating. but keeping it permanently on 60F (15C) seems a bit too much for me? i dont think we need that to keep the plumbing from freezing... we are even supposed to let the office know if nighbours are away, so that they can "protect their home". what do they do? they go in and switch on the heating without permission? i think thats a little odd....  well... lets see whats going to happen. we now at least know that management is not responsible for any disaster in our apartment....

First snow!

here a crappy picture i took out of the window from our apartment this evening! look at all that snow!! and its still coming down..... its a bit windy, but not by far as windy as it was during sandy last monday. but its quite cold!

i keep reading about new york/new jersey/connecticut where sandy left a real mess. houses are destroyed, and many people are still (!) without power. this new small storm must be shitty there... when we drove through the state of new york, we were warned on the highway that there were fuel shortages in the hudson valley. we didnt notice anything, but i have seen the lines for gas stations on tv.... (here you can read more about the damage sandy caused in staten island, or here about the rockaways)

Walking home

this is the path we take from the subway (to the right in the back) to our apartment. currently the weather is not that great. a lot of rain and fog.., as you can see. but not very cold. it feels weird to leave the house without a coat, but then when you are walking its actually too warm!!

i hope the weekend will be nicer, but often we have quite a few of these days in a row... (its a long weekend too, monday is a national holiday (for most people))

Very american

to me, this row of houses looks very american. the little fenced off yards, the wooden houses with a porch, the electricity wires...., the fire hydrant.... just as you sometimes see in the movies as well. 

the first 3 months we lived in somerville in such a house (but even bigger, it was divided in several apartments), with a front and back porch. i really liked to look around in that neighborhood. often there were yard sales in the weekend, where people just dump out all of the stuff they dont want anymore in their yard, and sell it for little money (some of our furniture we bought there). currently, no porch and no yard sales. i guess management would go crazy if we would dump out all our stuff trying to sell it to our neighbours... ;) and i guess none of our neighbours would want to buy anything. what does happen every now and then is that people put stuff out in the hallway, with a note that you can take it. although i find it  the ultimate form of laziness, i also profited from it; we now have a fancy set of wine glasses, a water boiler, a popcorn maker (i dont know why i tookt that one), a nice glass dome for pies (how do you call that? in dutch it would be a "taartstolp") and a side table.... thats also very american, i dont think dutch would just give stuff away that easily if they also could get money for it.. :), and at least they would want to get credit for it, not just leaving it in the hall anonymously until someone secretly takes it away.... 

Get out!!!

found this photo in my "to-post-folder". its from the st patricks parade. i guess this street was blocked for traffic and this officer was placed there to make sure nobody would enter.

its extremely hot and humid these days. its so hot that it doesnt cool down much during the night. but... in the weekends there is at least the great prospect of starting the day in the pool next to our apartment!! yesterday, we got there just around 9.15. hardly anyone there yet, and those who were, were just enjoying the morning sun, not intending to enter the water at all. its the perfect time, no children yet, nobody just hanging in the water; the pool entirely empty to do some real swimming! then, when most other people arrive, we have done our workout, had some sun, AND still an entire day ahead of us... but.... just as i was about to get in, the security guard came and ordered us all to leave the pool area! right NOW! because.... it was not yet 10 am, and the pool opens at 10. "yes, i know you are here every weekend, and i never say anything, but head security checked the videos and noticed i dont order you out and told me i have to. so, you have to leave. because... its not yet 10, and if something happens when its not yet 10, you could sue us". really...??!! really?! 

there is no lifeguard at the pool, and there is a huge sign that swimming is at your own risk.... but not before 10, apparently. at 9.50 someone tried to enter; nope, not allowed. one resident just placed herself on the ground in front of the entrance, waiting to be allowed to return again. it was one of those times that what happens is so plain ridiculous, that everyone starts talking to each other... :) we heard that ball playing is not allowed either. there are many green lawns around the apartments, but when 3 adults were calmly throwing a ball around, it was quickly ordered to be stopped by the security guy. 

this morning we did not even bother going to the pool :(( at 9 yet another parent with a young child was ordered away, to come back at 10. it seems we should be "grateful" we are allowed to live here in the first place. as if they prefer not to have any residents! just perfect green lawns, empty of any life, a blue pool, without anyone around it, and certainly nobody in it (perhaps only people with a perfect figure?). beeeehh, oak grove village, im really tired of all your rules..... :( i live here, and you definitely forgot that i dont leave at 5 as you do....

Assisted living...

when we had friends coming over last month, the first thing they said upon seeing our apartment complex was; wow, that looks like an eldery home! and when in the staircase; oh, it even smells like one.... as they are real americans, i was surprised... :) (although we agree with them, haha!).

above the trash receptacle. atually, its better nowadays, but there was a time it looked like this quite often. then we got letters from "management" that we need to put the trash INSIDE the container, not next to it. but... how to do that when its already overflowing? in summer, these things also become inhabited by raccoons who rummage around and throw out quitesome garbage (probably the stuff they dont like). there was also a warning; if they would find trash outside of the container, they would go through it, identify the person and you would get a fine of a 100 dollars (if i remember correctly). never mind the raccoons, right...? they then also put up a sign (barely visible here); "private property, no trespassing", but i doubt raccoons can read....

anyhow. the rent is pretty high and in return theres quite some nitpicking (haha, what a funny word; i hope im using it correctly, in dutch it would be "betuttelen", or "bedillen"). other than the trash; its not allowed to paint the walls of your apartment, there is a door in the apartment thats locked, behind it is the heating system (during a heavy rainstorm water once started to seep out; pretty freaky if you cannot check whats going on!! we thus had maintenance coming over just to show us that the roof was a little leaky jut above the locked door), we cannot (temporarly) leave shoes outside the door, they could block the hallway! (or anything else for that matter, not even a doormat), and today we got the rules for the pool..... there were many, many rules for the pool. i will not bore you with them.. :) but it sometimes just frustrates me so much that i really had to dedicate an entire post about it, sorry.... :) assisted living can be quite tiresome, i now know!

despite all those rules and regulations, management cannot prevent that some *sshole smokes cigars in the garage, nor that one of our bikes got stolen from the garage. yes, the garage is locked, and so was the bike.... (their reaction; oh no, how terrible! we hope you have insurance...). 

good night! (at least i can determine what time i goto bed myself, although tim is complaining that i go too late)

A message...

... on the outside of an abandoned building we visited this weekend. the place was really abandoned and nature had done a very good job at taking over. the buildings almost seemed part of the green grass and trees.... and then suddenly i saw this message somewhere stuck onto a window, which reminded me that someday there were many people there. 

currently i have a huge amount of photos i want to post. but its all so unorganized, and i dont know where to start...! problem right there; i should just start organizing. but theres always something else to do... (like going to yet another great location to increase my photo collection even more, or baking a typical dutch pie i suddenly craved, but took hours to complete (it was something like this; something you will never find around here!!)).

and i do agree; lets make smoking history! i really, really hate for example that most people who smoke dont like to do it in their own home. fine. but then they do it outside, underneath our window. so that it enters our apartment. beeehh. or the person that smokes cigars in the garage underneath the apartments. really, why?! if you dont want it in your own house, why bother other people with it?!

Beach ball

today was such a nice day! very sunny, not too warm.... but i was mostly inside.

lets see about tomorrow!, its supposed to be very good! one more week and the pool at our apartment complex will be opened again... somehow all apartment complexes around here open their pools during memorial day weekend, and they ALL say that right now "they are still figuring out the chemicals and stuff.."

Pretty tulips

buying flowers here in the us is too expensive (probably they are shipped from the netherlands... so they will cost a LOT more and will last less long...). back home i would often buy flowers, and i really miss that here. going to the market and get a huge bunch (not some fancy bouquet, i really dont like those) for less than 10 dollars! i think flowers can really make you feel better, just by looking at their beauty....

but.... last weekend we got flower-plants, they are much more affordable and their (ugly) plastic pots are nicely wrapped in shiny, colorful paper. a yellow wrap for the daffodils, a pink for the tulips and a green wrapper for the... ehhhmm... white huge flowers that smell pretty good (im too lazy to get up and see what they are called). unfortunately i think the tulips are soon done blooming. i tried to take pictures just now, but none was to my liking. maybe they will last till the weekend so that i can take some pics in natural light...

hmmm... i remember now we also bought soil so that i can repot our plants (some are almost 2 years old now, as we are here in boston for 2 years since april 4!). too bad plants dont repot themselves....

Newly decorated

i took this pic in new york, when we were there in october. i guess once this building was newly decorated indeed, but now its merely a ghost sign... it was around the time we had to decide if we would renew our lease at our current apartment complex or not. it was expiring at the end of december, so we had to decide 2 months in advance whether to stay or not. as opposed to the netherlands, here you have to rent an apartment by the year or more (you can rent it with a "flexible lease" but then the rent is even higher than it already is...). so.. once you decide, youre stuck for at least another year. the other great thing is that other apartment complexes do not know 2 months in advance whether they will have something available for you or not. so its kind of a gamble; you terminate your lease, yet are not entirely sure whether the new place will have something available (ofcourse, you can always pay double rent for a few months! they do know whats available right NOW!). we did look for some new apartments, but they were all more expensive (and ours is already too expensive)/were less nice & expensive/ not close to a subway station. the worst experience we had at a similar complex as ours. we had an appointment at 10 in the morning. it was cold and windy, and there was nobody. we had to wait outside as we could not enter the complex. when the "leasing officer" showed up nearly 10 minutes late, she said "well yes, it was 10-ish". no apology, nothing. then we were in her office, she had only introduced herself to tim, and then.. while i was next to him ALL the time, she asked him, and only him: "so... what are you looking for? is it for one person?" i was so surprised i did not say anything..... it was one of those moments where you really should have said something, but just nothing came out. grrrrr...

ah well, in the end we decided to stay where we are. boston is only the third most expensive city to rent an apartment (after new york and san francisco), with rents of 1- and 2-bedroom apartments being 51% higher than the national average in 2011. (1-bedroom being $1665 dollars on average, in boston. i can only say we pay more... and we dont even live in boston, but another small town!! beeegh. it does hurt..). 3-bedroom apartments are even 70% higher than the national average!

Its snowing!!

it started snowing this afternoon. tiny, very very tiny flocks, but many of them. they covered the trees but not the streets.... its still snowing right now, but its mixed with rain, it seems, and still not much on the ground. i do hope it looks like this when we walk to the subway station tomorrow morning... that would be nice! this is once again an old pic from january. i spent quite some time going through old pictures this evening, and not one was to my liking. grrr... so i settled for this one. 

although i have walked this path almost every day now for the past 1.5 years, it was only this time that i really noticed the houses behind the train. suddenly they looked cute, and very american. i guess the snow made them stand out. time for bed now. hope to wake up to a fresh pack of snow....

Lousy parking

when walking to the subway one morning we saw this car... parked like that!! i think the photo does not entirely show how ridiculous this was, and how, relatively, steep.... i guess he/she didnt fit in the normal way you are supposed to park you car, and came up with this solution instead. im just wondering if it was sheer frustration and anger, or perhaps also just for the fun of it...?

we once got a ticket for parking in the wrong direction. something that does not matter (anymore) in the netherlands, you can park however you like, so we were not aware that here that can get you a ticket for that. luckily for us, the ticket never made it to "the system" tim found out when he called to pay the fine (what was it? 20 or 40 dollars or so?), so we never paid... we thus were sure this car would either be towed, or at least get a ticket. but when we got back home in the evening, the car was still parked like this...

around our subway station are 788 parking spots, and they are always, always all occupied (during the week, that is). for some you still have to walk a good 5 minutes to the station, and parking costs you 5.50 per day. i just calculated that that is more than 20,000 parking dollars per week (!!), just for this station. wish that would go straight to me.... !

In between...

julie from taphophile tragics asked me last week about a wider shot of the netherlands cemetery (last week i just showed 2 graves). i took some while we were there, but the sun was so beautifully bright, only the ones from behind turned out ok. as you can see, this small cemetery is literally just in between 2 houses. instead of the next house, there is suddenly a cemetery, you dont even see it when down the street. it just pops up. unfortunately i have no idea what was there first, the residential street, or the cemetery? (the cemetery dates from 1859). i also still dont know why this cemetery is in melrose. i presume it was just a matter of availability, as i havent been able to find info about a dutch settlement or whatever in melrose. there are people buried here from as far as (relatively) worcester, which is an hour by car from here. melrose was a relatively new town, only in 1845 it separated from the city of malden, and became the town of melrose (in exchange for city in 1900). in 1845, the melrose-area got 3 trainstops, and people working in boston in search of a country atmosphere moved here (haha, actually just like tim and me... although it was more that we would never be able to afford the same kind of apartment with all its amenities in the center of boston...), perhaps some of them were dutch.. ?

there is one other pic i wanted to show, but i cannot break my self-imposed rule of 1 picture a day. so, i cheat, and you can have a look here, at my flickr account, for the one grave that was in dutch (and a few more pics of this cemetery). its not a spectacular photo, but the dutch text is just weird, and was hard to decipher, at first. but it reads "hier ligt het stoffelijk overschot van roosje ween", which translates into "here lies the corpse (!!) of roosje ween". i think thats very weird. why not just, here rests, or here lies... why "the corpse"? perhaps their dutch was not that good anymore, and they didnt know "stoffelijk overschot" is not something you use on a grave? (or is this normal? any dutch who knows this?)

for other taphophiles, go here!