the warmth

I was driving out to the east side Friday night and kicking myself for not having a camera to take photos of the double rainbows over the steel mills and rows of trains covered with amazing graffiti.

There will be many days this summer to compensate for that.

And the new Janelle Monae is rocking my world, doesn't sound like anything else, and in a perfect world she would be a worldwide pop star and not Lady Gaga... it's bouncy, literate, and epic, never thought I'd see a mashup of epic classical intros, renaissance sounding folk interludes, Outkast-esque beats, Fela meets Radiohead meets Prince meets... damn.





It's week two of housesitting and dogwalking and so far I've met the Puerto Rican guy around the corner with a pit bull/yellow lab mix, the older Cambodian man the next block over with a pair of shih-tzus, loads of little kids, bored teens, and a girl named Sugar who's lived here three weeks.

It seems like people get more social if you've got a pet because even if you have nothing else in common, you still have something to talk about.

And this weekend ended up making up for the annoyances and frustrations of the last few and I somehow ended up on the east side for everything... girl time over falafel and Indian style coffee, art museum, hippie watching at the Hessler Street Fair and exploring the Cultural Gardens, and then more good conversation and good people, playing with babies and eating biryani before going back to let the dog out again and put more of the garden in.

I've never really been a huge gardener because I hate being out in the sun, and I find a lot of these urban gardening people a little overbearing, but we had about two feet of unused space next to the parking lot that was overgrown with weeds.

I experimented with some sugar snap peas and those are growing on the other side, and today we put in squash, watermelon, and cucumber seeds. I have no idea if this will work but it's worth a try.