Friday 5.5

This week I helped Jacob move out of our house and into his new place in Cincinnati. Downtown Cincinnati. EEKS! I had/have a lot of trepidation about him moving into the heart of a city but it wasn't my call to make and it's not my life to live, so it is proverbially, what it is.  Helping him move/seeing his place/the city was... interesting to say the least. 

His new place is really nice and it's good sized. The juxtaposition of the conveniences and inconveniences of city living never ceases to amaze me. It doesn't sound appealing to me but I can see how the young and/or those without kids in a household might not mind it. 

The first day that I was there was a beautiful one weather wise (we haven't been having a lot of those) so we walked to lunch. We decided on The Yard, a large restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. The Red's and Bengal's stadiums were in walking distance of the restaurant and you could see how this would be a hopping place on game days.

I'm old enough to remember when sports stadiums weren't named after the highest corporate bidder #sigh#old

I guess we were on the wrong side to read this but I know that Cincinnati is called The Queen City. In the distance you can see one of the five vehicle bridges in the city that crosses the Ohio River into either Kentucky or Indiana

The Yard has a robust spirits and food menu. Food was good! We split a pretzel, Jacob got a cheese steak and I got a pizza and didn't eat much so that he could have my leftovers. He appreciated that!

Back near his place- this alleyway/shortcut (that I told him NEVER to take- dear goodness) gave me major Bruce Wayne seeing-his-parents-get-shot-in-the-alley-Batman vibes

2. I will say that the drive to his place was not bad at all which was a most pleasant surprise!  I can only recall personally driving in downtown Cincinnati two times. I drove to Cincinnati once to see a Bengals game (Donnie was going to take the kids but couldn't at the last minute) and I drove my brother to Cincinnati to see a Reds game (they were playing the Cardinals- my brother is a huge Cardinals fan). I've driven to Cincinnati many times since Jacob went to college at the University of Cincinnati but UC is not downtown. 

I went down to his place two times this week and both times, I arrived in about forty five minutes. I always think that we're an hour away from downtown Cincinnati because normally we are. Traffic is almost always slow in various parts of the drive. However, I guess based mostly on when I drove down there, traffic was not bad at all. The first time there were no slow downs on the interstate and I got there in exactly 45 minutes and the next day there was a slight slow down but I still got there in under fifty minutes. Once in the city, it wasn't hard to get to his place. Parking was a pain and costly but as far as physically getting there it wasn't bad. For someone who cut her driving teeth on rural routes, I will pat myself on the back for navigating in and around cities 😄

Speaking of cities and patting myself on the back, in an effort to know exactly how awesome I was at big city driving (kidding, sort of!) I decided to look up some information about Cincinnati. I realized that my pat on the back need not be so hearty- Cincinnati is not as big as I thought it was. It has three major pro sports teams- FC Cincinnati for soccer; Reds for MLB and the Benglas for the NFL- and I guess I view a city with that many sports teams to be some big time city! Per the internet, Cincinnati is the 29th largest urban area in the US. (I would have guessed it was closer to 20th or even the high teens.) In Ohio, it's the third largest city behind Cleveland and Columbus (I did know that!) Its population is 1.7 million residents but considering its tri- state metropolitan area, that number jumps to 2.25 million. Part of the county that we live in is considered part of its metropolitan area. However, we live in the northern part of the county and are considered part of the Dayton metropolitan area.  

The following two photos are non copyrighted photos of Cincy that I found online. To the left is the football stadium. The baseball stadium is in the foreground and it sure does mog everything else in the photo...

Somewhat similar view but at night

Jacob  drove us into northern KY the second day I was there as he needed some houseware items. The closest Target, Wal-mart, Kroger, many chain restaurants, etc are only a couple of miles away from his place but they're in Covington, KY so we had to cross the Ohio River to get there. 

3. I enjoyed helped Jacob and spending time with him but boy was I glad to be back home in suburbia. I love suburbia! We live in an area close to many small towns, larger towns and then the two cities, Dayton and Cincinnati aren't too far away. It's cliche but I feel like we have the best of both worlds- close to nature and wide open spaces in the country and then amenities in cities should we be drawn to those. 

I just wanted to be home on Wednesday. My brother wanted to get together for lunch- we hadn't been able to do that during the week for the seven weeks that I subbed- but I told him I needed a day at home and asked if getting together later in the week was fine which he said it was. (He had the week off work.)

It ended up raining off and on but mostly on the entire day and I was glad to not have to drive anywhere (my brother and I live two and half hours apart so both of us drive at least an hour when we meet). Some of the time it was pouring rain and I'd rather not drive in that if I don't have to. 

This picture doesn't depict it well but it was raining cats and dogs, proverbially at this point.

I got a lot sorted/organized/pitched at home. It was great!

My kids have long since aged out of the bounce places but apparently we had a number of socks from those places. Aww, it made me kind of sad to see these.

4. This spring has been good growin' weather- we've had a decent mix of sun and rain. I harvested the first item from the garden this week- romaine lettuce to bring to Jacob. It was arguably not quite ready (the leaves should have been a little longer but I tasted the leaves and they were fine!)

Happy healthy harvest!

I planted romaine lettuce seeds in the ground and in containers. So far the ones in the containers are the biggest and, not surprisingly, some plants in the ground have become rabbit food :(. 

This is the romaine plant from which I'd cut leaves two days earlier. 

I only planted pea seeds in a container. The plants get eaten by critters when they're in the ground. Like romaine lettuce, peas don't like hot weather so they'll be ok for at least the next week, hopefully two weeks. And hopefully I'll see some pods real soon!

The garlic may be ready in a couple of weeks. I spy with my little eye the bulb sticking out of the ground. That's one sign that they're almost ready to harvest. 

5. Speaking of gardens, I read in an email that the Farm on Central in Carlisle had a plant sale going on for three days. Several plants were only $1!! It feels kinda like cheating to buy plants rather than sow seeds to get produce in the garden. I do a mix of both. I planted quite a few tomato seeds and the plants are doing fine but they're still quite small. To get taller plants (ie ones closer to producing produce) for this cheap was a no- brainer. 

I'm sure even marked down to a dollar a plant, the Farm made some money on each sale. They very likely use their own seeds though even if they bought them, I would guess each seed is likely only pennies to purchase. So it was a win-win to get these plants for cheap- the Farm got something for the plants and I got them cheaply. 

All of these were only $7

I bought a variety called Abigail.

5.5 It's 80 degrees in our house right now because we STILL DON'T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING. I can't write anymore than this. It's going to raise my blood pressure and my core body temperature is already quite high from the house and cooking dinner. Fortunately, I know a hot lawyer (figuratively and literally) and we may have to go the legal route soon. Warm fingers crossed that the issue gets resolved on Friday but I'm not holding my breath.