The Tree House

A couple of years ago, my apartment building was purchased by a new owner.  There was a lot of discomfort at first amongst the residents here because of the trend in our area towards turning tenants out with 30-day notice, gutting the building, and then doing a complete renovation.  Much to the credit of the new owner(s) and management company, that did not happen.  In fact, they have bent over backwards to work with all of us, and two years almost to the day, the renovation is done and everyone is resettled without too much of a struggle. 

In my case, after chatting with our wonderful building manager, I was given a chance to take an apartment on the first floor (with a deck no less) while my former apartment on the second floor, where I had lived for six years, was renovated for a new resident.  Now, I loved my apartment on the second floor and felt some ambivalence, but once I saw these, I never looked back:

Oh yes, a real live tree canopy right outside the deck.  It reminded me of a tree house at first, but I also realized how lovely the shade from two big trees would be (shade was paramount at the time because I moved into the new apartment over the 4th of July weekend, the first days of our hottest weather), plus they provide excellent shelter for the various urban animal friends that I enjoy so much to come and visit:

As the year deepened into autumn and winter, I felt some sadness at losing my perfect tree house canopy, but have also found interest and beauty in all the tree changes:

Like I said, those changes are beautiful in their own right, but still, fickle girl that I am, this is really what I'm glad to see right now:

Those pictures mean spring is here, summer's not far behind, and maximal time can be spent in the outside tree house with my two favorite deck pals:

Of Trucks And Medical Transcription

You know, trucks are overall something we don't think a lot about.  Either parked or running up and down the roads, we generally don't pay attention to them a great deal because they're such a fixture of our lives (unless one gets in our way, THEN we pay a lot of attention).  At least that's the way I'd always thought about trucks until I started working from home and placed my desk near enough the deck window to find lots of trucks parked quite literally right underneath my nose.  And then trucks became a way to take a quick break from the typed medical word (what the heck are they delivering now!) or as a form of escapism when a doctor starts to drone (hmmm, are they delivering that for me???)

The best regular trucks are those that pack some kind of punch:

This particular truck/trailer/lifting machine (cherry picker??) was great because it was a rainy day and allowed me a nice chunk of time to take a break and watch the fun as it was parked on a narrow busy street and then said cherry picker was taken across the street to do its job. 

Some trucks are good for a cursory glance and thought about what they might be delivering and then right back to work:

Other trucks rate a slightly longer than cursory glance and thought of "hmmm, pizza, yum, maybe I should order that for dinner"?

However, these are the trucks that sent me into flights of fantasy last summer:

Notice how the sun gleams and creates a lovely halo over the top of the most heavenly trucks of all.  I mean, seriously, doesn't this send your mind into flights of fantasy? Yes? No? OK, I guess it's just me, but here are some of my flights of fantasy from last summer that I posted on Twitter (it was really hot and I might have been influenced by that ((or maybe it's really just me)):

OMG, a Haagen-Dazs truck is parked right outside my deck, what a dream!

Maybe if I hook up a fishing pole, I could cast for ice cream bars.

Nice thing about Haagen Daz ice cream trucks is that they don't play oddly irritating circus-like songs.

If I had the proper pole, I could vault over the deck railing straight to the top of the truck and leap on the unsuspecting driver and steal the goods.

Oh rats, there the ice cream truck goes.  Farewell, sweet ice cream, I'll savor the memories.

So, there you go, that's what happens when trucks and medical transcription cross paths underneath my nose and active mind.  I admit not exactly Lewis Carroll or other far superior fantasies than mine, but still entertaining enough for a quick escape.