De Gustibus Est Desperandum

Although I have limited experience in book design, I appreciate handsome books. I have a reasonably good eye but no creative imagination, so I especially admire creatively designed books. Conversely, I am dismayed by poorly laid out books (often self-published). As a copy editor, I similarly deplore evidence of lackadaisical editing: typos, misspellings, errors in fact, and so on. But I realize that I can’t take responsibility for all the books that are published.

I often think that architects must feel the same way, appreciating beautiful buildings and sighing over or cringing at ugly ones. Some buildings are just ugly from the outset; others become ugly through injudicious alteration, and it is the latter type that I see a lot of. Many of the houses in my neighborhood are examples of design by accretion, and our house is among them.

I will readily admit that our house is hideous. Originally built as a vacation cottage, it had front porches upstairs and down. When some previous owners enclosed these porches, they tacked on a new front porch—not much more than a stoop really, of brick steps covered by a roof supported by incongruous “iron lace” pillars. They or some other owners built a concrete patio onto the back, then later enclosed it for a screened porch. The people from whom we bought it had added on a master suite above that porch. The porch, which extends to the west side of the house, continues to the east as a single carport. In order to provide covered parking for two cars, some other owners had added an aluminum carport onto the front of that. The end result of all these additions is a monstrosity, but at least it isn’t our fault (except to the extent that we haven’t done anything to make it better).

The ugliness of our house was a fait accompli when we bought it. But when new improvements are made to a house, it seems reasonable to assume that the current owners view them as an actual improvement. Though some of our neighbors have in fact managed to add on tastefully and unobtrusively, many other changes make one wonder, “What were they thinking?”

For example, there is a house around the corner that, when we moved here, was basically a big two-story box except that it had a large uncovered front porch stretching the width of the house. This was basically just a large slab of concrete, with no railings or roof. The front door opened directly into the living room, which also stretched the width of the house, and at some point the owners decided they needed a covered entry, so they built a little box in the middle of this expanse, tarted up with fancy woodwork, including a broken pediment over the door, but still looking very much like a wart on the house. This alone was bad enough. Then an artist bought the house and decided to add on further, constructing a studio area over part of the porch (and existing foyer), adding columns and railings to the now-covered porch. The result was what one local wag dubbed “the sky box” (see photo below). Note the clumsy way in which the existing roof was extended to cover this addition (in case it’s not obvious from the photo, that’s copper roofing used to extend asbestos “slate” shingles). When I asked an architect friend (whose sign was in front of the house) to reassure me that he had had no input into the design process, he hastened to do so, adding, “And the worst thing is that they want to put the vinyl siding back on.” (The siding covers existing clapboards, I believe.)

There’s a house a little farther afield that we had viewed as having delusions of grandeur. It’s a modest brick ranch, long and low, too low for the windows that have been crowded into it, especially the would-be-elegant Palladian-style window (flanked by two sidelights) whose proportions are quite ruined by being truncated and overpowered by heavy woodwork . As if this weren’t bad enough, the owners have now built what can only be described as a wooden deck onto the front of the house. You probably can’t tell it from the photo, but the posts supporting the gable (which is also new) have decorative “gingerbread” brackets, further incongruous with the style of the porch.

There are times when form should follow function, but it’s hard to say what function this porch will serve. People don’t do much porch sitting around here (too many bugs). Perhaps the owners are preparing for the day when their back yard falls into the gully on which it perilously verges (we’ve been watching for some time as the owners added onto the back of the house, moving ever closer to the precipice).

There are, however, some home alterations that must make architects (and everyone else) smile. My friend the artist Dean Mosher has been working for the past 25 years to transform a plain crackerbox tract house into a fantastic fairyland castle. It’s still a work in progress because he has limited time and funds for the work (most of which he’s doing himself), but you can see from the photo below what a charming and unique home and studio have resulted (it has been featured on HGTV and in many print media).

Spoilsports

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to explore houses under construction. Unfortunately, just when they begin to get really interesting, it usually occurs to someone to start locking them up. Sometimes this happens surprisingly late in the game, though. I personally do no harm; I wipe my feet carefully before entering and tread lightly, touching nothing except an occasional doorknob of cupboard handle. But I have often wondered why tramps and teenagers don’t discover these conveniently open shelters.

A locked door is usually the end of the adventure, though often they’re secured just enough to keep them from being blown open by the wind or brushed open by animals, and the security is easily defeated. Still, sooner or later, I have to give up.

I’m philosophical about this, but I have to say I was a bit taken aback when the sign pictured here appeared on a utility pole in front of one of the houses I’ve been watching. I meant to take a photo before it was damaged (by vandals or a storm, it’s hard to say), but the sense of it wasn’t any clearer before it was broken. Why would contractors who are not working on the job be coming to the site in the first place?

I’ve pretty much lost interest in the house itself, anyway, but I’m still curious about the “watchtower” in the front yard. As can be seen from the photo, it’s a square two-story tower. The first floor is windowless, but there is a small window on each side of the second floor—or what would be the second floor if there were a floor. So far, it is completely open and empty inside, and I’ll be interested to see whether a spiral staircase is later installed or what. My best guess is that perhaps it’s intended as a fort/playhouse for visiting grandchildren, but I suppose only time will tell.

Color Shift

The house painting mentioned in my previous post got me to thinking about house colors. When we moved to our present neighborhood in 1980, most of the houses that were not brick were painted white, including ours. Ours is still white, but it is in a distinct minority. As I was walking yesterday, I took an informal survey and realized how few white houses there are left; most are now grey or cream or some pastel earth tone (ranging down to a light brown), with a few pale blue or yellow and a few dark green, grey, or brown. (Of course, it’s also true that a lot of the formerly white houses are themselves gone, demolished to make way for larger, more colorful replacements.)

The first time we had our house painted, I tentatively suggested a color, with white trim, to accentuate the modest ornamentation of the trim. My husband balked. The painter declined to express an opinion, saying it was our house and our decision, but after my husband put his foot down, the painter expressed relief, saying that, as far as he was concerned, “That’s a white house.”

Meanwhile, our neighbors on one side painted their house a deep barn red. The neighbors on the other side went with royal blue. New owners with saner heads have since prevailed, and both houses are now grey. When we give directions to our house, we say, “It’s the third house on the left, a two-story white house with a red mailbox on the house.” In those days, though, it was even easier: “We’re the two-story white house between the red house and the blue house.”

So what is it with all this color? There was a time when one might have green shutters on a white house. More daringly, one might have a red front door, like the bright-red tie setting off a man’s conventional starched white shirt. Which brings back memories of a time when all dress shirts were white. When, in fact, all linens (sheets, tablecloths, even towels) were white, a time when the term “White Sale” was literal. Women’s clothes were colorful, men’s drab. Carpet colors were bland and “neutral.” The preferred interior wall paint color was “Antique White” or “Eggshell.”

Have we become a more colorful people? Or are we more desirous of distinguishing ourselves from our neighbors? Or perhaps paints have improved? Or air conditioning? Many of the original houses in our neighborhood were built as vacation cottages, used only in the summer. Since they were cooled only by natural ventilation, it would have been practical to paint them white to reflect as much sun as possible (perhaps no one noticed that the dark roofs were defeating the purpose). It might also have made sense not to waste thought or money on a color when white paint was perhaps less expensive and certainly easier to match for touch-ups.

Rumination on the whole idea of color, though, suggests other lines of exploration. A few points:

• Our remote ancestors dressed very colorfully, or at least as colorfully as they could with existing technologies. In a time when vegetable dyes produced mostly “earth tones” that faded quickly, the most prized colorant was “Tyrian purple,” derived from the glands of the Murex (a marine mollusk). This deep-red color was so valuable that it was reserved for royalty, nobility, or elected officials in ancient civilizations.
• Color continued to be used lavishly throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but during the period of the French Empire, when fashions harked back to the classical era (ancient Greeks and Romans), most clothing was white. The reason for this was that most of the models of classical garb were statues that, though once colorfully painted, had faded to their natural marble color, giving the impression that the ancients had worn only white.
• The discovery of aniline dyes, which were more permanent than vegetable dyes, allowed even common people to wear brightly-colored garments, including printed calico.
• The paintings of the Old Masters depicted people in richly colored garments. With the advent of photography, the colors of clothing were reduced to black and white. I suspect that this creates an effect similar to the faded marble statues: surely our grandparents and great-grandparents wore colors other than black and white and grey, but who can tell?
• Color photography returned color to our lives, but many early color prints are now faded and yellowed, giving us, again, a false sense of the colors we wore.
• Black-and-white TV again reduced us to grayscale: when I first met my husband, he wore nothing but black pants, white shirts, and black ties. Ironically, TV news anchors were wearing pale-blue shirts because these looked better on black-and-white TV. Color bloomed again in the 1970s when color TVs became more common.
• HD TV is taking color appreciation to new highs. Will this result in more color or less? I would be inclined to think it might actually be less. When color TVs first came out, they were such a novelty that we turned the color dial up high and enjoyed the richness. Later we realized that faces didn’t need to be orange and dialed the color back to a more reasonable level. As HD allows us to appreciate subtler colors, these may rebound. Time will tell.

Presto, Change-o

Regular readers of this blog (yes, there are a few) will recall that I am not noted for my keen powers of observation, but I was still rather startled, on today’s walk, to see that one of the rental houses around the corner from us was suddenly pale lime green. There are two of these houses, both fairly small cottages, both stucco, and they do tend to change color occasionally, but I could have sworn that, as recently as yesterday, this one was still indigo (its mate is still salmon-pink).

Yes, the house is small, and the relatively smooth surface, which can be painted with a roller, makes painting a relatively simple job, but it’s still hard to believe this was an overnight transformation. Admittedly, I didn’t walk past the house Thursday or Friday (though I did drive past), and I do vaguely recall that when I passed yesterday my attention was diverted by some people from the management company in the driveway (I thought perhaps they were showing the house, which is currently vacant), but I just can’t believe that the change in color, which was so dramatically remarkable today, could have been overlooked all those other times I passed, even if I was lost in thought.

It is experiences such as these that make me wonder how much else I am overlooking on my walks (and in life).

Dem Boidies

Der spring is sprung
Der grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies is?

Given our mild climate, we have an abundance of birds year-round. Some may winter here, while others—mockingbirds, mourning doves, blue jays, cardinals, a variety of finches and sparrows, and of course the ducks, geese, seagulls, and other aquatic types down by the bay—can be seen anytime. I doubt that any make this their summer home, but some species can be seen briefly on their way to more temperate regions in the spring. One of the most thrilling and memorable events of my life was seeing a huge flock of indigo buntings massed in my neighbor’s driveway. It was what a writer friend of mine calls a “haiku moment,” and in fact I wrote a haiku about it:

Chicken Little’s Prophecy Fulfilled

The sky has fallen.
Bright blue pieces on the ground—
Indigo buntings.

Even before we moved over here from Mobile in 1980, we noticed a sign on the way into town declaring Fairhope a bird sanctuary. Presumably there were ordinances on the books protecting birds in some way, but nothing seemed to be done to actively promote them. A few years ago, however, the City put up several purple martin “apartment houses” on the bluff overlooking the bay. More recently, a string of bluebird nesting boxes was mounted on trees along the bluff. If you build it, will they come?

Despite reports that these domiciles were being used, I was dubious. I’ve seen birds “catching their breath” on the balconies of the purple martin houses, but none that appeared to be purple martins (the one I saw today looked a lot more like a starling). But this morning as I walked down the street along the bluff, my attention primarily on the two small boys working to get kites aloft in the stiff breeze, a flash of color caught my eye: from the brief glimpse I got, it was almost certainly an Eastern bluebird. I believe this may be the first time I’ve ever seen one, which is satisfying enough in itself, but it does also offer evidence that perhaps the City’s efforts are not wasted.

Walking vs. Treading

A few months ago, a nearby church (the one with the chimes) opened a new Christian Life Center that houses a wide variety of meeting and recreational facilities. Among these are a walking track (on the second floor above a gymnasium with a full-size basketball court) and a fitness center. Both are free and open to the public, and the church is eagerly pursuing greater awareness and use of the facility by the community.

It had occurred to me that this might be a useful alternative to walking on rainy days, as well as those when it is “too hot” or “too cold” to walk. The walking track does not appeal to me. It is, in effect, a featureless circular corridor, and I would have to make 35 laps around it to equal the 2.1-mile scenic route I traverse daily. It’s hard to imagine anything more mind-numbing.

The fitness center, on the other hand, intrigued me. One of my friends recently lost a substantial amount of weight at least in part by exercising on elliptical machines. The fitness center has this type of equipment, as well as treadmills, stationary bicycles, a stair climber, and a variety of weight machines. So I visited recently to check it out and fill out an application/registration to use it. Since then I’ve been back a several times to try it out.

On these visits I’ve learned a number of things, and I’ve had a chance to think about the differences between using “exercise equipment” and just walking outside.

After my first visit, I had these comparisons between walking on streets and sidewalks and walking on a treadmill:

• The treadmill makes it easier to maintain a steady walking pace. You can set a specific speed for the treadmill. Although I can manage 3.5 mph, I get shin splints pretty quickly. About 3.4 mph seems comfortable (though even this is faster than I walk naturally).
• When I’m walking outside, I may be forced to stop (by traffic at an intersection, by a motorist asking for directions), but ordinarily I don’t stop for any reason. On a treadmill, I can stop the machine to catch my breath (not a good idea, though, I’ve found, as even “pausing” it seems to require resetting the speed control when I restart).
• When I walk on the treadmill, I can see how many calories I’m (theoretically) burning. This is actually rather discouraging.
• When I walk on the treadmill, I can be doing something else, namely, reading. Having concluded on my first visit that this would be possible, on my second visit, I took a magazine. I found that (a) the print in Newsweek is too small to focus on, and (b) the economy is not the best thing to try to concentrate on while walking. On my third visit I took a novel with larger print, and that worked out pretty well. There are two TV screens in the fitness room, but, as long as no one else is there, I can turn the TV off.
• When I walk on the treadmill, I can stop any time. In practice, I’ve ended up walking till I hit 100 calories, which turns out to be about 1.2 miles. When I walk outside, I can’t stop till I get back home. On rare occasions, if it starts pouring rain, I might cut my route short, but ordinarily, once I’m out, I have to walk the whole 2.1 miles. Sometimes I don’t really want to walk that far, but I do; so far I’ve never managed that distance on the treadmill, partly because it wears me out faster and partly because it’s boring.
• When I walk outside, I start from my house and return there; I don’t have to drive somewhere else to do it. Although the church is just a couple of minutes away, I do seem to end up spending more time on the whole exercise and less time actually exercising. Moreover, it feels even more strange to be going out without jewelry or makeup.
• Any number of people can walk (or run or ride a bicycle) on the streets at the same time; they mostly don’t get in each other’s way, and they don’t have to be sociable. In the fitness room, there are two treadmills, one of them currently out of order (parts have been ordered, according to a sign on the machine), so if I arrive and someone else is already using it, I have to wait or do something else (admittedly, there’s plenty else to do).
• When I “work out” in the fitness room, as long as there’s no one else there, I can make a fool of myself in private; if there is someone else there, then I’m much more conscious of their presence than of the curious eyes I sometimes imagine behind the windows of the houses I pass when I walk outside.

In addition to the treadmill, whose controls I believe I have more or less mastered, I have tried out most of the other equipment as well. I realized today that the reason the stationary bicycles can be placed anywhere (some are out in the corridor) is that they are pedal-powered (they don’t have to be plugged in). They have an electronic display and controls, but these are not activated until you start pedaling. I haven’t entirely figured out the best way to use the bicycle, but I think that should be a component of my workout. The weight machines (seated biceps curl machine, standing triceps press, and a vertical chest press) are fairly straightforward but probably more targeted toward guys. I’ve tried a few reps on each, using the lightest weights. The Stairmaster is missing its controls and therefore I assume is nonfunctional (I could be wrong), so I haven’t tried it; we have two flights of stairs at home if I want to climb stairs.

The elliptical machine, though, is the goal to which I aspire. So far I have never managed to last more than ten minutes on it (some of that stationary), and I have not begun to master its intricate controls. It is the only one that really makes me break a sweat, though, so I assume it is the one I should be concentrating on.

At any rate, it seems likely that the thoughts I might have while using this type of equipment will be different from those I have while walking. So far, they mostly seem to be along the lines of “Will this never end?” If I ever achieve anything more revelatory, be assured that I will report it here!

It’s a Girl!

Although the ultrasound technicians had very confidently predicted, based on an initial sonogram, that my new grandchild would be a granddaughter, I wasn’t about to buy anything pink until she actually arrived. I’d heard enough stories of surprises (and disappointments) as a result of such predictions. So when my son-in-law called last Monday, March 30, saying “It’s a girl!” I was both thrilled and relieved. And it turns out he wasn’t being entirely tongue-in-cheek, as he and my daughter were privately reserving judgment as well, though they’d only just managed to come up with a boy’s name before they headed for the hospital.

Unlike my labors, my daughter’s was neither short nor easy—twelve hours before she went to the hospital, and twenty-four grueling hours after arriving—and in the end, instead of a calm midwife delivery in a birthing suite, she delivered “in theater” (in an operating room) with surgeons standing by ready for the presumed-inevitable cesarean section. Miraculously, she was finally able to deliver naturally, and, as you can see, the result was adorable.

She has nothing but good things to say about England’s National Health Service, as she received attentive, competent, caring care at every juncture. On the ward after her delivery, as the attendants were about to leave, she said, “I think I’m blacking out.” When she next opened her eyes, her bed was surrounded by nurses, interns, midwives, and residents, including several who were supposed to have just gone off shift.

She is also very grateful for the UK’s paternity leave policies, which have allowed her husband to stay home for two weeks to help her get settled in with their new daughter. As you can see from the photo, they are bonding very well!