Life on the Fourth Floor
Late last summer we finally moved out of our charming but woefully space restricted apartment to a much larger place. Our new domecile is in a gated community, the multitude of units identical. The idea of this never appealed to me, but after nearly 6 months I can say that we've settled in nicely. More space is a good thing. Our kitty must feel like he is living in a penthouse by comparison.
We live on the fourth floor, which has more benefits than debits: no chance of flooding from storms, and it's quiet. As any freshmen physical science student knows, heat rises, but a/c management has been easier than expected. The bill is certainly higher than at the previous pad, but not prohibitively so. We can see the clubhouse and pool from our living room window, and also Interstate 95 beyond it to the West. Sometimes at night you can hear the roar of semis if you have the windows open, but nothing too distracting.
Cutting right past our apartment building is a street on which the other side and beyond are a collection of attractive and distinctive homes. They are not carbon copies of the ones next door, though there are a few McMansions. Mostly, there are imaginative and tasteful places (some of which date back to the 70s) that I wouldn't have expected beyond the gatehouse. The road runs a few miles to the other guard gate on the southwest end, the sidewalk providing a nice jogging trail that I use a few times a week. Folks are friendly, too.
Our apartment building has a very diverse cross section of residents of varying ages and ethnicities. We have not gotten close to anyone but have met a few. One morning as I was changing a flat a guy came out to offer help, even. My wife met several people one afternoon after an elderly couple two floors down forgot to turn off their stove burners and caused an incident, sending everyone out to the lot. I missed all the excitement as I was visiting my grandmother across town.
Guests? We had some family spend a weekend in October but otherwise, sadly, no one else. Our fault. We're often so tired during the week from our 10-12 hour workdays that we don't do much cleaning until the weekend. We've also had several stages of furniture bequeathals, retrievals, and deliveries that have rendered the living room *almost* impassable, but we're working on it. We were trying to get rid of stuff! Oh well...
More later. Just wanted to update you, invisible audience. We will now return you to our regularly scheduled cinematic blathering.
We live on the fourth floor, which has more benefits than debits: no chance of flooding from storms, and it's quiet. As any freshmen physical science student knows, heat rises, but a/c management has been easier than expected. The bill is certainly higher than at the previous pad, but not prohibitively so. We can see the clubhouse and pool from our living room window, and also Interstate 95 beyond it to the West. Sometimes at night you can hear the roar of semis if you have the windows open, but nothing too distracting.
Cutting right past our apartment building is a street on which the other side and beyond are a collection of attractive and distinctive homes. They are not carbon copies of the ones next door, though there are a few McMansions. Mostly, there are imaginative and tasteful places (some of which date back to the 70s) that I wouldn't have expected beyond the gatehouse. The road runs a few miles to the other guard gate on the southwest end, the sidewalk providing a nice jogging trail that I use a few times a week. Folks are friendly, too.
Our apartment building has a very diverse cross section of residents of varying ages and ethnicities. We have not gotten close to anyone but have met a few. One morning as I was changing a flat a guy came out to offer help, even. My wife met several people one afternoon after an elderly couple two floors down forgot to turn off their stove burners and caused an incident, sending everyone out to the lot. I missed all the excitement as I was visiting my grandmother across town.
Guests? We had some family spend a weekend in October but otherwise, sadly, no one else. Our fault. We're often so tired during the week from our 10-12 hour workdays that we don't do much cleaning until the weekend. We've also had several stages of furniture bequeathals, retrievals, and deliveries that have rendered the living room *almost* impassable, but we're working on it. We were trying to get rid of stuff! Oh well...
More later. Just wanted to update you, invisible audience. We will now return you to our regularly scheduled cinematic blathering.
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