Welcome to the neighborhood, us!

The Duckpond

Nestled in a neighborhood a short walk from downtown Gainesville you'll find a world-reknown mathmatician, lawn-care extremists (and not), countless professors, NATO employees, a local developer who refuses to live in his own local development, conductors of symphonies, a pastor, same sex couples, someone with 1,000,000 frequent flyer miles, bearded fixie-riding 28 year olds, bearded 60 year old skateboarders, a herd of orange cats, two playgrounds, an actual duckpond (complete with controversial ducks) and now...the four of us. It took a while to get here and it feels like home. There was some hemming and there was some hawing. Old Wire Road (OWR) was a beautiful and strange experience and looking back I sometimes ask myself, 'Was it all a dream?' and short answer is, 'hell. no'.  It was long hard work. OWR required hours/days/weeks that were not available with my full-time on-call position as co-captain of this powerful inertia-guided sleep-deprived ship. The level of exhaustion that Moss and Giles created brought us to the brink once and the additional work that OWR required was not compatible with maintaining our sanity. A nicer way to write that is: Moss and Giles brought us to the Duckpond. 

Giles at Roper Park.

Lunch with Nana and Papa.

Before we determined this would be our next home we looked at Seattle, Cape Ann, and Boston.  We kept a little joke to ourselves: All this searching is fine, but Gainesville will be great, and so it is.  Finding a house was not easy. The Duckpond is a small community with only a few houses appearing on the market every once in a while and they sell quickly. Some were overpriced, some were inhabited by semi-delusional real estate spectres, some were being eaten by termites and some were all of the above.  We watched for months and when our home appeared we both self-loathingly thought the same thing, 'Oh, that's too nice for us'. Then, our realtor demanded that we take a look.  On the day Cymande looked at it, a film crew was filming a Swedish jeans commercial in it (it was where the “normal people" lived). Cymande went by herself while I worked and she called and said she was ready to move in. To make it happen a string of events needed to occur in a tidy abreviated timeline and it all came together.  We sold the Airstream, sold the highlander, traded the mini, I got a job at UF (5 minutes away), Cymande was provided ample job security, the boys got into a nice Waldorfesque daycare, the house got a great inspection report and it all happened fast and smoothly. It was a sign.

Mark of the Driveway

There was also another sign.  As you may know, my sense of humor has deterioriated (or improved depending upon your perspective) to vaudvillian physicality, jokes about poop and jokes about the number 666 (especially scrawled across some famous person's forehead). So, when we pulled up to our newly purchased house and sunken into the concrete were those 3 little numbers you can maybe imagine the sensation. Cymande stood mouth agape, "No. Way. No. That's not real!" We still don't know what it means except that it all makes sense and it's really quite funny.

Moss with his Strawberry Birthday Roulade.

Cymande, Giles and Moss read while the Polish hens preen.

Giles drawing

The house is a roomy, minty-Czech-Republic-green, Neo-Classical (Georgian to be exact) brick house built in 1936 which is pretty damn old for Florida (more about the house's history in the future). Its bricky-ness provides a couple advantages: it prevents the termite invasion and it quells my anxiety disorder related to severe weather (OWR would have blown to pieces in a tornado and we had two close calls). It has a very small yard that is dominated by a brick patio which was precisely what we were looking for.  The previous owners put much time and effort into the gardens which are lovely. Moving into a much larger house has also provided Cymande with countless hours of interior design.  We had it painted before we moved in and never has a man complained so much about what he was getting paid to do. 'Oh, these walls...', "Oh, this color...', 'Oh, these University people...' OK, you are a painter, you paint, I work for the University, I'm paying you because the University pays me. It seems like a good relationship. We are also getting a bathroom retiled to prevent a leak, and our tiler has decided to go on a bender. I should have predicted this. The first time I met him he backed his truck over our curb while waving to me wildly and then never stopped talking for about 3 hours. He's nice enough though. I just wish he would come back and finish the floor. 

The Thomas Center

Giles on his way to the Turtle Fountain

Moss fleeing the Turtle Fountain

A short walk down our street is the Thomas Center.  It was once a house for the Thomas Family and then it was a 94 room hotel and now it is a cultural center.  W.R. Thomas served six terms as Gainesville mayor and did nice things like bringing paved streets, sidewalks, sewers and electricity to the city.  He also spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan's criminal activity in the 1920's when the police chief and local politicians were condoning it.  After this the Klan was relatively inactive in Gainesville.  We find ourselves at the Thomas Center most evenings.  

Cool down on the steps

Sort of across the street from our house is the Sweetwater Branch which drains into the Duckpond. The Duckpond is currently enduring a duck-related debate: should there be non-native ducks living in the duckpond? There are residents recounting horror stories about a hundred ducks filling the pond with stool, attacking the innocents and driving the natural fauna towards extinction. Then there are people that can't get past the cute factor of ducklings. My experience of caring for chickens on OWR has made me less sentimental. When the poplulation exceeded my ability to care for them the coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and humans ate them.  Perhaps we could run a small urban duck husbandry project and if we raise more than five ducks we eat them. Living on OWR we watched the clear cut of 200 acres adjacent to our property.  There were countless native gopher tortoises, deer, foxes, coyotes, bobcats and birds and it was all gone in 2 weeks and that was truly sad. We could have used some of that pro-duck energy a few miles up the highway. Anyway, I certainly don't feel too bad about relocating a few non-native ducks.  That's about as far as I'm going with the Duckpond duck controversy. However, I do have a joke: How many liberals does it take to relocate a few non-native ducks? That depends on how many are left after the fist fight between those belonging to the Audubon Society and those who read about Buddhism once. Interestingly, my father has declared himself pro-duck, but that is a story for another day.

Nearby mimosa tree

Giles drawing, again

Which brings me to the next topic. My parents arrived for a much anticipated relief from the parenting pressure cooker. They arrived in mid-May and have announced a departure date in September. We started them off with a three-week full-time babysitting job as the boys transtitioned to their new daycare. My parents and the boys escaped without major physical or mental injuries.  We have been able to go on a few dates. The most generous babysitting was a 4 day and 3 night stint when Cymande and I went to a conference/vacation in Sarasota. I'm not sure my parents (my mother specifically) ever recovered from that. We on the other hand went swimming, completed entire sentences, slept the entire night, had dinner and used profanity. My parents have been sick or injured for 1/3 of their trip and I've been telling them that we are tuning up their immune systems. They don't seem impressed. Giles has become very attached to his Nana and demands to look at her belly, after which, inexplicably, he cries. Papa has provided numerous cars, drawings and meals. When Giles gets upset he occasionally cries, "mac and cheeeeese! mac and cheeeeese!" Nana and Papa pick them up everyday from daycare in "papa's truck" which they love. I hope they will return someday, but I fear that after this experience they may decide to move even further away.

Magnolia in our front yard 

Giles rides. Papa watches.

Local Announcement: Nature Fun Show! 

 Day trip to Salt Springs with the Scotty

Post-spring, Pre-nap

Salty! (something about an ancient dried-up seabed)

So, this is the first post.  Apologies for the delay. We will try to post at least once a month henceforth (as I did with Old Wire Road). Thanks for your patience...