Friday in Asheville

Replacing the door thingy

Chicks fixing stuff?

Sexy

"We" did it!

Exactly

Sunset from downtown

Fairyville, USA

"You're going to keep bees? 

I can help you with that!"

Our good friend Carrie recently told Barb, "I think you guys live in Fairyville."

I agree.

Example
Yesterday Cricket, Lula, and I walked around the block to Malvern Hills Park. Being the super-social guy he is, when Cricket saw two dogs running around in the tennis court, he had to go meet them.

There we met Auggie and Fred. And Auggie and Fred's parents, but this story isn't about them.

Because we also met Lauren, a 10-year-old who lives in the hood who absolutely loves dogs.

Within about a minute, Lauren asked me, "Can I pick Lula up?"

Of course you can.

While we were all hanging out, mostly watching Cricket and Auggie play fetch, Lauren told us that she just made cards for her dog walking business. She checked her jacket, but was kind of shocked to realize that she couldn't find any.

They must have fallen out while she was sledding on the half-inch of snow! Three inches if you ask my wife - who clearly hadn't been outside before making her estimate.

About 15 minutes later I was back at my desk, working diligently. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door!

After a decade in a condo, we're still getting used to that.

Cards: Found
It was Lauren.

"I found my cards!" she said as she smiled at me.

I couldn't help but notice her confidence. She's awesome.

"They were in the inside pocket. Nice to meet you again!"

With that, she was off. Probably to get in the last few sledding runs in the park before the snow is gone. All three feet of it.

In Fairyville.

The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

Hot veggies, hot chix; alphabetically

Published in 1959, The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening is "a wealth of useful info on gardening the natural way," according to google. 

Whoever he is.

Barb picked it up at the Asheville Goodwill for $2.58, based on its weight. 

Goodwill is sweet here. Remind me to post a pic of the building, it's really nice. Barb was going to take a pic the other day, but... never mind.

EOG is filled with goodness. For example, page 243:

CURLY PALM: (Howea bolmoreana) see PALMS.

Awesome!

And there's 1,145 pages of organic goodness. With over 300 illustrations and more than 1,490 gardening topics, as well.

Before...

Barb and I are super pumped about growing our own food. And the season should start pretty soon. Woo hoo!

We're hoping to be out of boxes by then.

Well, one of us is. No one else cares

Meanwhile, back in the office...

The roof is not on fire

Big thanks to Pop & Kat Skupien 

for the new metal roof!

Though our house is still a massive work in progress, I had to get out and take my first bike ride in Asheville today. I hit two trails within 20 minutes! The hills here are amazing.

Unfortunately, minute 21 sucked, because it ended in a flat tire. So we're going to leave bike riding for another day and talk about...

Our new roof.

We love it! And it's metal. How about that?

Take that Metallica! ...Kind of

When Barb and I decided to move to Asheville, we came back down to look for a house and fell in love with 54 Madeline Ave. Unfortunately, we found out it had roof issues and needed new windows. We sadly watched it float into a price level above our means.

Fortunately, I have the greatest parents in the world. After they grilled us about the house for a few minutes, my dad basically said, "If it's the right house, we'll buy you a new roof and new windows."

Are you kidding? Talk about removing roadblocks.

So here we are. A few leaks later, we can mark this project "Complete."

New roof: Project complete

We've never had a metal roof before. We think it's pretty cool.

The heights of horniness

Is that a yellow sign in your pants

or are you just happy to live here?

Almost one week in, I'm going out on a limb: Moving to Asheville is one of the best things we've ever done. I love it here!

One might even say I'm horny for my hood.

Unfortunately, the big move may never be able to take the coveted number one slot on the list of things Barb and I have done. That will probably always be the old "quit our jobs, sold our shit, traveled the world" gig.

That was kinda fun.

You should try it. You'll love it.

But enough about me, what location on Earth makes you horny? Where have you always wanted to move? Or visit?

Let's hear it!

Asheville craftsman extraordinaire

Marty Poirier

Owner/Craftsman

Nature's Knots

Meet Marty, the craftsman extraordinaire who made our bed.

We've had a Sleep Number mattress for about seven years and we love it. It's like a part of our family, though now I'm realizing it doesn't have a name and no one has ever said a word to it.

I've never thought about that. Do you think I should say something tonight? Do you think it thinks we're rude?

Anyway, when we realized our existing frame wasn't going to fit in our new bedroom, Barb searched for a local craftsman in Asheville, NC and found Marty.

Marty's originally from Florida. But as he told me, "No one in Florida is from Florida anymore."

So he moved to Asheville.

Now he lives in an awesome place and can join the rest of us as we all make fun of Florida.

I'll be straight-forward, if you're looking for a woodworker in Asheville, Marty is your guy. Not only is he really nice, he creates works of art that are also functional pieces of furniture.

For example, our bed - which is made of cherry and will darken with time - has 12 drawers underneath because we don't have that much closet space. 12 of 'em!

Note the professional-like photography

I'll admit, reading about someone else's bed probably isn't that riveting. Unless you're moving to Asheville, looking for a great woodworker in Asheville, and you care about SEO.

Asheville.

But I like Marty and I wanted to give him a shout-out for crafting us such a fine sleeping vessel.

Your reward for making it this far

Sleep tight, y'all!

54 Madeline Ave

Home

Wow. I was pretty emotional today. It was the most emotional day I've experienced in a long time. 

It felt like I was trapped in a Cure song.

Now that I no longer live in Chicago, I find myself missing friends who left for New York and LA years ago. Or others who still live in Chicago, who I haven't seen or hung out with because of my extreme anti-socialness over the past few years. 

Eh, call it a decade.

I'm definitely going to work on being more social here in Asheville. Hopefully, I won't sweat too much. Those two kind of seem to go together for me.

The thing that seems to be tearing away at me is that the Annoyance and io are going Big Time, and I won't be a part of that. There was a time when I basically lived at those theatres. 

But no longer. Regardless, I'm forever thankful to those institutions and the people who are a part of them. And no one knows what the future holds. Hell, the Annoyance now teaches classes in Brooklyn!

In the meantime, I'll try to slow down, go out into the world of people more, and figure out how to best channel my creative impulses. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Oh yeah, if I didn't say goodbye, well, remember who you're dealing with.

Love,
Scoop

Great moments in history

Snip, snip, snip go the scissors!

In 1967, John Wayne tore the Berlin Wall down with his bare hands.

In 1981, aliens blew up the Great Wall of China.

In 2014, Dr. Skalpien trimmed the Illustrious Wall of Chin Hair.

It's all over kids. History is dead. But I hear hair grows back, even though my head disagrees. Either way, let's take a look back at how it all began.

Why did I grow it? 

Back in early October, after we'd decided to move to Asheville, I figured I might as well wave my hippy flag far and wide as we rolled into town. Even more so than before. Though Barb and I had started using essential oils months ago, I still trimmed my goatee.

No longer.

Why did I trim it?

I blame Trader Joe's. Mostly.

You see, sometime in November - when the color white started competing with the word scraggly for dominance - every single one of the wonderful TJ employees I'd been interacting with for years looked at my lengthening Van Dyke and started referring to me as "sir."

Repeatedly.

It was like I couldn't hear them, wasn't really paying attention to them, and needed help changing my adult diaper.

(Kind of, yes, and maybe.)

The Dude

Where was the "dude" that had been tossed at me so cavalierly for the last decade? The finger point? The "This way to the ripe bananas, broski"?

Ok, no one at TJ's ever called me broski. But here's the big point: I like to get dressed in less than 10 seconds.

That includes everything. That's why I shave my bald-ass head every three or four days. Donezo.

But lately, I felt like I'd been spending too much time taming the unruly, goat-like thing on my face. Of course, for me, anything over 60 seconds is excessive grooming.

I also started receiving unsolicited invites to audition for Duck Dynasty. They wanted me to play a neighbor who was going to run a duck's senatorial campaign.

They kept telling me, "Think Aflac meets the Tea Party."

The final reason has to do with my theory that goes something like this: Don't let your poster be funnier than your show. The natural extension of that is: Don't let your hair be cooler than you. Unless you have really, really cool hair.

So today, off it came.

Waves of mountains

Research

Click it. You'll like it. 

This is right outside of town. Possibly within striking distance on mi bicicleta.

Leaving embellish for the last time

Dream, plan, do
(2008)

On New Year's Eve 2013, after finishing work for the day, I headed up to embellish to do my normal jobs:

• Take the garbage and recycling out
• Bring the sign, dog treats, and water bowl inside
• Climb the ladder up to the storage area in the back room and mutter f-bombs as I crawl on my knees through seven years of accumulated shit searching for god knows what

Then, it was over. I looked around, dumbfounded. I didn't need to do anything.

That was it.

Moving forward

I walked behind the cash-wrap station (technical term) and hugged my wife.

I had no idea I would be as profoundly affected as I was at that moment. We'd been thinking about it, discussing it, and planning it for a long time. But now, the time was here.

We locked the door and took a few selfies. Final selfies (no boobs or butts, though I tried) - because the store was no longer ours.

Suddenly, I started tearing up. And if you know me, that means it was totally over. I held it back for a little bit, and then... Niagra Falls!

Throughout my entire life, those words have always been followed by the classic Three Stooges bit. Not this time.

This time, I was all emo up in there. I cried for at least an hour.

Giving the wife some "props"

Forgive my sentimentality, but my wife really built something special - something that matters to the community. I've never been so proud of her as I was right then.

Not only did she have the guts to start a business, she had the guts to know when it was time to walk away. You see, for as different as my wife and I are, there's one way that we've always been the same: We're either all-in, or we're out.

Barb built a great store because she lived and breathed it for 5-and-a-half years. But as the cliche goes, it took a 24/7/365 effort.

Carrie - one of Barb's best friends - owns embellish now, and I know she'll kick ass. I'm really happy for her to be back doing what she loves to do. And i think she has an "off" button, which will help her preserve her sanity.

Closing the door

Walking out of the store for the last time was weird. But so is life.

And so it goes. 

But let's be honest, we'll probably see embellish Asheville by 2015, right?

The gang's all here

Peanut (AKA: Big P, Master P, Phatty P)

The "Get Everyone Ready To Move To Asheville in Their Cat Carriers Party" (GERTMTATCCP) has been a huge success. Everyone has participated!

Sugs, from Honey's pov

Once again, my wife proves she's brilliant. Before I do anything, I should stop and think to myself, "Is this how my brilliant wife would do it?"

I won't. I'm content to go through life as a stupid, stupid boy.

But it's a great idea, in theory.

Honey, on board since day one

Showers or death?



I can't...feel...my...face

OMG, there's a chance of snow showers in Asheville next Monday!

Meanwhile...

If you go outside in Chicago, you might die.