As you may have guessed from the frequency and focus of the photojournalism, Hans and I spend a lot of time looking out the window.
We overlook a busy intersection of two one-way streets. Some days we see people try to turn the wrong way. Sometimes they succeed.
Almost every day we've watched the parking lot monitor cruise the lot where we park,† and have determined a lot of valuable things.‡
For one thing, if you came in after, say, 11:00 in the morning, you could get away without paying 98.75% of the time.§
For another, you can leave your car overnight for two nights¶ even though the big sign at the lot and the parking receipt both clearly say "no overnight parking" and it's printed right on the receipt that your ticket expires at 11:59 pm the day you buy it.
There was the bus incident.
And the various changings of billboards.
[SUMMARY: Holy shit, we spend a lot of time looking out the window.]
Friday last, we looked up in time to see a lone window washer setting up on the building right above our billboard.#
He unhooked from the side facing us and re-installed his anchors on the west side of the building,†† then over he went.
It took less than five minutes for him to shimmy down the first column of windows.
See him? Here, let me help you...
We were dying to see if he went into the building and took the elevator up or if there was some sort of ladder or winch to bring him back to the top, but we never saw him again. Once he was off the very closest edge of the building, he was out of view.
[SUMMARY: Life is fleeting. People go away. Live for the moment.]
Spending so much time looking out the window,‡‡ we notice subtle changes in our environment. Like these things on top of the 1999 building.
Friday was lovely, as you can see, and some kids set up a four-square court on the alley between parking lots. While I think it's a piss-poor idea to play in the street, it was kinda charming. It also sparked an in-depth conversation on the rules of four-square, and it turns out Hans and I play an entirely different game of four-square.
It also turns out both of us really wanted to go stand by and get in the four-square rotation.
[SUMMARY: We really do work sometimes, even if you wouldn't guess it by this.]
At one point, I went into Hans's office to see if I could get a better shot of the four-squarers. It turned out I needed to go the other direction into our supervisor's office. Fortunately, she was taking a long weekend and was not there to see this.§§
Someone came by and asked what the hell we were doing, and I told her I was trying to get an action shot of the four-square game.
Then Hans poked me and said, "Get an action shot of the ugly-ass orange car."
So I did.
[SUMMARY: I'm a people pleaser.]
Saturday was lovely. So lovely that after Angel-eek,¶¶ Bag Lady Kathryn and I had brunch, Ange and I decided to walk home.
Along the way we stopped at the cupcake store.@ And the new card store.^
And to view the exotic new real estate that was experiencing an open house.
And we heartily agree that, while it's good for our housing values, it's a damned sight pretentious to have a $749,000 "house" that shares walls with other people. Oh, and the attached garage? You have to go outside and down a flight of steps to get to it.## Oh, and 1927 square feet? My ass.%
It was a good thing we walked Saturday, 'cause this is what I saw out my window Sunday:
[SUMMARY: Welcome to spring in Colorado.]
*************
Let's give the pig a little slurp as we go by, shall we?
I learned something linguistics-wise I never knew before today and I know how y'all love it when I drop the knowledge on you.
Did you know that when you say you are loath to do something, it is 1) spelled without an ultimate "e," and 2) pronounced with a "th" sound as in "thin," rather than a more vocalised "th," as in "there"?
If I've ever written it, I wrote it as "loathe," and if I ever spoke it, I spoke it with a there-esque dipthong.$
[SUMMARY: You really do learn something new every day. And by "you," I mean, "I."]
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If the guy knew how much we knew about him and how intently we watch him, he'd file a TRO on us.
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Not the least of which is that we apparently have way too much time on our hands lately.
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I did actual math to come up with that number.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): And by "you," I mean, "Hans."
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): We are endlessly enthralled with window washers. Catching one in his naturaly habitat was like going to the circus in a limo on our birthdays and eating pizza and ice cream while our favourite band played.
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): We were convinced he changed his mind about which side of the building he was going to wash first -- we decided it must have something to do with the wind. In retrospect, he probably finished the south face and was just moving over to the west. Nobody wants to admit someone was swinging from the building across the street all morning and they missed it.
‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): And photographing many of them for blogging purposes. When Hans and I noticed the weird arms on the 1999, I flipped back through the blog and found photographic evidence the weird arms weren't always there. In fact, if I took a picture today, you'd see the weird arms have moved to the left side of the roof. And I would have a trail of photographic evidence. Don't ask me to what end. It's just comforting to know I could prove it if I needed to.
§§FOOTNOTE (curly and whirly like a spring Saturday): Though I've gradually indoctrinated her to the general weirdities of me, so she might not have batted and eye. Kinda like she didn't when she walked in on me photographing yarn on a file box this morning.
¶¶FOOTNOTE (puppets!): A nickname I dearly love but didn't make up. Ange did that herself.
@FOOTNOTE (atted): For baby shower treats.
^FOOTNOTE (careted): Which I would love to link here, as it is run by Jo, one of my favourite shopgirls ever from The Perfect Petal, but she's so new I can't find her on the Innernets yet.
##FOOTNOTE (pounded like a sheetrock nail): It's attached, but only just technically -- hanging by an architectural thread, if you asked me.
%FOOTNOTE (percented): Those of you who may think you're funny can just stop the 1927-square-foot-ass snickers right now. It was an expression of extreme doubt, not butt specs.
$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): Yeah, it's an awkward construction, "there-esque dipthong," but for some reason I didn't want to say "th" as in "there" again. I winged it. I may have dorked it. But at least you got what I was talking about, and isn't that the purpose of language? How profound, Mr. Wizard...
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