Tag Archives: RVA

A Week of Affirmation

6 Aug

One of the reasons I moved to Richmond was for a greater sense of community. I loved living in DC and had a strong sense of pride for the city, but at its heart, DC is transient. Most of my friends slowly migrated out of the city – first to nearby suburbs when they had children, then more farther afield as jobs carried them and their spouses to other cities and states. For those who stayed in DC, the addition of vacation homes meant they weren’t around as often.

In any case, as I started to see retirement creeping up in my (verrrrry) peripheral vision, I realized that I wanted to be somewhere that had a hopping cultural scene AND a rich, stable friend group. I also realized that making friends later in life wouldn’t be as easy as it was in my 20s, so if I wanted to be surrounded by good friends before I’m using a walker, I’d need to start actively working to meet people NOW.

I say all of this explain why, Wednesday night, as I sat in a lawn chair listening to a porch concert, I had an overwhelming sense of satisfaction with my move. Let me tell serve up a summary of this past week so you can see why I’m so happy here…

Sunday, 4pm: I met up with my dear friend Kelly (whom I originally met through the Georgetown coaching program back in 2014) for what we thought was going to be a Jazz Concert in Byrd Park… but it turns out I had the date wrong (by a week!) so we just ended up tossing a blanket and catching up for an hour.

Sunday, 8pm: I ran over to Dogwood Dell, where – as part of the annual Arts in the Park program – “Something Rotten” (a Broadway musical that I first saw at The National in DC a few years back) was playing. I didn’t know how long I would stay (since 8pm is often my bedtime!) so I didn’t bother inviting anyone to join me. Not to worry – I was seated next to a nice couple who chatted with me until the curtain lifted. It was a quality production that rivaled the touring company I saw in DC!

Monday, 9am: I met up with friends at Bryan Park to play pickleball for an hour before work.

Tuesday, 6pm: I stepped out onto my front porch and saw my neighbor, Paige, out rocking her four month old baby. I went over to visit with her. Within minutes, we were sitting there with her husband and neighbors from two other houses, sharing a bottle of wine.

Wednesday, 7am: As I finished watering the flowers on my front porch, my next door neighbor returned from walking her dog. We had a quick visit and I offered to babysit her son next week so she and her husband could go to a concert. As we were talking, another neighbor walked up in his pajamas with a mug of tea for a morning porch visit.

Wednesday, 8am: I went to Bryan Park again to play pickleball with two new people I met a few weeks back. At 9am, my other pickleball friends, Paula and Roxanne, showed up to join us.

Wednesday, 6pm: I walked to Byrd Park for my tennis clinic with Coach Victor and two other women who were new to me. We all traded numbers so we could meet up to play some other time together. (I started lessons back in March and have met a dozen women who I see off-and-on twice a week for Doubles and Clinic. A few of us have met up for concerts and pool time outside of tennis.)

Wednesday, 7:30pm: I went to Michelle and Roxane’s house for a porch concert. I originally met them a couple months back at a Coming Together Virginia meeting and invited them over one night. They repaid the favor by inviting me to their porch concert – a really talented musician (Gabriel Wheaton) who is touring the US giving concerts. Check out this video:

Thursday, 7am: I walked over to Byrd Park with my neighbor, David, to play tennis with his friend Rob, and him. While we were playing, completely uncoordinated, Coach Victor showed up to offer some encouragement.

Friday, 6pm: I walked over to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for “Rhythm on the River” – a weekend-long festival celebrating music in Richmond. This event was held in their outdoor Sculpture Garden, and I joined my friends Roxane and Michelle and their friends who were down from Fairfax. While there I also got to visit with two neighbors from my block who stopped by with their dogs.

Saturday, 9am: Tennis at Byrd Park with Coach Victor and three women I’ve played with before.

Saturday, 5pm: Alan arrived for our regular Saturday night date!

OK. I realize this is NOT a pithy post and is more like an accounting ledger, but I’ve had a lot of friends ask me what Richmond’s like and if I’m meeting anyone. Here’s hoping I’ve answered THAT question!

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This (Scary?) Old House

21 Feb

Last Halloween I bought a new (old) house in Richmond, VA. By row house standards, it’s small (3 BR, 2BA, around 2000sf) but since I’m coming from 20+ years of condo-living in DC, it feels huge for one person. It might technically only be one bedroom larger than what I left, but it’s more than twice the square footage. It’s also a bit intimidating to move from a low maintenance condo to a 110 year old house that still has the original coal-burning fireplaces and a dirt crawlspace in the basement. But I’m adjusting.

Because it’s so old, what should be small projects end up turning into Projects with a capital P that take twice as long as they should, due to unforeseen complications. We had a string of unseasonably warm days (we’re talking 70s in February!) so I decided it was time to get the screens out of the basement and pop them into the windows so I could get some fresh air in here. Simple, right?

Wrong.

First, the screens needed to be washed because they had cobwebs and old leaves stuck to them (presumably from when they were taken down last fall). I dragged them into my backyard (yes! I have outdoor space now, which was one of my big reasons for wanting to move!) to hose them down. I lined them up against the fence, stretched out the hose, and turned on the spigot – and NOTHING. Nary a drop of water.

I checked the valve in the basement where I had turned off the water during a cold snap to keep my pipes from freezing: it was open, and yet, there was no water flowing. Head scratcher. (I’ve since googled it and it sounds like maybe I need the aerator replaced inside the faucet?) Who knows? I guess my plumber will be able to afford his vacation after all!

I didn’t feel like wasting time, so I grabbed the screens and dragged them into my downstairs shower. (A side note: in this house, all the bedrooms are upstairs, along with a full bath. On the main level, I have a kitchen, living room, dining room and a bathroom with a shower. I couldn’t think of any situation in which a main level shower made sense – except as a back-up – until I needed to hose down these screens.)

Once the screens were cleaned, the next task was matching them to the correct windows. No two windows in this house are the same size, although most of them look like they would be. It felt like one of those toddler games where you have to push a specific shape through the matching hole. Except I was running around my house with 16 rectangular screens.

By this point, I hope you’re starting to understand the “complications” I mentioned earlier. Nothing is straight-forward.

Now for the actual POINT of this story. (I know, sorry it took so long to get here…)

For some reason, there was a ton of dirt caked on the sill just outside each window. It would’ve technically been inside the screen/my house if I didn’t clean it, so each time I installed a screen, I would first open the window (from inside) and wash out the frame.

When I was installing one of the screens in my upstairs office window, in addition to the regular dirt, there were also leaves stuck to the top edge of the frame, connected by a few cobwebs. I took my rag and went to wipe them out – and ended up in a horror film.

Apparently a spider and her very fruitful egg sac were lurking underneath one of those leaves, because as soon as I dislodged it, there was an explosion of spider babies every where – blowing in through the window, scurrying across the windowsill, dropping to the sidewalk below. Reader, I screamed. Spiders freak me out. I’ve gotten to a place where I usually try to relocate them rather than kill them – but that’s when I’m faced with ONE spider, and that’s assuming he’s not a fast-moving spider.

In this case (and I’m not proud of myself), I just started smacking as fast as I could, playing whack-a-mole to kill as many spiders as possible so they wouldn’t run straight into my house. Fortunately, I was wearing gardening gloves, which gave me a bit more bravery than I would’ve had bare-handed.

My assault on those poor spiders was probably the equivalent of an Air Arachnid flight going down in terms of body count. But even more disturbing (at least to me) were those that I missed. How many spiders were there? For the rest of the night I kept scratching at my head, convinced that stray baby spiders had found their way into my hair.

I’m beginning to think that buying a house on Halloween might have been an omen. Oops.

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