Beer + Asheville = Wonderful

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It's late Friday afternoon. Which way are you headed?

Tag, you're it: Part III

Somewhere in West Asheville

Anyone know where 15...

Never mind.

Tag, you're it: Part II

Haywood & Brevard
...Kind of

If you can't find a street in Asheville, don't worry. Just keep driving until the name of the street changes into the one you're looking for, or some close proximity.

It's magical!

For example, if you head north on Brevard (191?) and cross Haywood -- before it spans the French Broad River and then goes all Sybil on your ass, turning into Clingman, then Patton, then College, then Tunnel, then maybe Haywood again -- you're now on Dunwell Avenue looking at cool graffiti.

Did I just say cool graffiti?

Oh yeah, don't forget that Haywood is also either 19 or 23. I think.

Should it stay or should it go?

The big question

I had to work through more city withdrawals early this morning. And some career-envy insomnia regarding Seth Meyers' move to Late Night.

But after the sun rose, my wife calmed me down, and we hit 60 degrees, every little thing was alright.

So let's get to the real subject of today's post: Our 70-foot tall pine tree.

But I love you...

Jim, our neighbor, dropped by the other night and talked to us about cutting down the pine tree in our back yard so he can install solar panels. Seems he's had an estimation done that says our tree blocks 30 percent of his sunlight.


Cutting down trees? Not cool. Putting up solar panels? Cool.


Maybe. 


When I told my new friend Ryan -- an 18-year-old computer whiz -- he started laughing.


"Solar panels?" he asked. "He should put a Tesla coil in his basement and never pay for electricity again. I could show him how to do it."


"They'd come for him in the middle of the night," I said. "Not a good idea."

Jim is a cool dude who is actually a botanist for the state of North Carolina, so he offered to pay for the removal and help us plant some native trees as a replacement.

"I know, it's ironic," Jim laughed, "the botanist who wants to cut down trees."

We're torn. Our wonderful tree -- which Barb kind of hates -- is blocking a green project. And there are other aspects to consider, which my attorney, Dr. Skalpien, has advised me to stop talking about immediately.

So let's focus on how well it fits in with the canopy of Malvern Hills Park in the background! And when spring really pops, all that green is going to going to be sweeeeet.

Well, we're waiting...

Cricket doesn't seem to care either way. 

Here he is relaxing near the tree after finishing a chase in the yard next door with Clover (not pictured), his new dog BFF.

Rollin' in the sunshine

I took the dogs for a walk in the park to think it all over. On the way back, our neighbors stopped us and gave us some eggs their chickens had just laid. 

Eggs!

You'd think with that kind of bond forming, I'd remember their names.

Wait. What were we talking about?

New bird feeder!

She's a beaut!

Approximately 10 trillion birds call Asheville home.

Okay, I made that up. But there are a lot of birds here. Like the two cardinals below, who won't go near the bird feeder at this particular moment because an asshole squirrel keeps coming back after we chase him away.

Little did we know it, but once darkness set in, asshole squirrel was going to knock the feeder to the ground and gorge himself.

Why? Because squirrels are assholes.

Hocus, focus

Meanwhile, back at the office...

Get out of the way, I'm comin' in!

Snow Day Pot Luck

I'm melting...
but the kids die first!

Around four o'clock on Wednesday, our neighbor Robin knocked on the front door.

"Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood," she said. "Since it's a snow day, we're all going to meet up at our house for a pot luck dinner. Any time after four thirty."

We were kind of flabbergasted.

What a fun word. Let's all take a moment to say it out loud:

FLABBERGASTED!

After living in the same condo building in Chicago for seven years - more than 2,500 days - we hadn't invited any of our neighbors over for dinner. Not once.

0 for 2,500.

And vice versa, as we attended "zero-nickelo" dinners in our condo, as my friend Rich would say. Even when snow shut down the entire city.

We were all busy. Making our way in the world today, which takes everything we've got. Stuff like that.

You know: Go, go, go! More, more, more! Up, up, up!

Seven years later, as our demonically possessed condo repeatedly warned everyone to leave or die, we realized we'd accomplished everything we'd set out to when we returned to the Chi back in 2006.

So, once again, we set out to find a place on earth that would facilitate the kind of life we wanted to live.

Like taking some time to play in the snow, even though it's not going to contribute to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Because sometimes you need to make sure you're contributing to Gross National Happiness (GNH).

It might sound cliche, but the wonderful people and "southern" environment of Asheville are helping us slow down and enjoy life. That's part of the reason we came here. Madeline Avenue Snow Day Pot Lucks and such.

And we could do worse than learning from the kids who are having fun sledding late into the night in Malvern Hills Park, because they know even six inches of snow won't last to through the weekend.

Tag, you're it

Ashecasm

Back in Chicago, whenever I saw graffiti, it made me angry. Usually because the tagging was based on a gang turf war, which you tend to think about when walking the dogs at midnight.

It was like graffiti magically showed up overnight on something that had just been freshly painted.

Or something brand new.

In Chicago, tagging is like 

a dog marking territory
though I give this a 6 for its clean, simple style

Here in Asheville, the graffiti tends to be more light-hearted.

"Smoking cures ham," for example.

Simple. Clean. True.

Potosi, Wisconsin likes to have some fun too. You know, calling itself out and such.

Potosi-style

Even better, the British Virgin Islanders really know how to do it right.

Taggers there cut to the chase.

Tortola, BVIs

This isn't a slam against Chicago. It's more of my own personal cultural awakening. To graffiti.

I've always been affected by graffiti. I think we all are.

But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that graffiti - artistic graffiti - may be a dying "cultural artifact," that's needed in some communities as more and more people focus their efforts toward online pursuits.

Maybe we should embrace it to encourage the positive aspects of it.

Clearly, it's time to have a graffiti category on this blog.

In other news
While I was writing this, my wife noticed that Asheville ABC news was interviewing the guy we bought paint from on Saturday.

"I love this little town," she said.

I agree.

And I have the spray paint to prove it...