Top-down, bottoms up

Ha! In your face flooding/thugs with guns/suicidal neighbors/crappy renters/burglars on bikes! Two blocks away (across the train tracks) is the #19 neighborhood in America to retire to in 2007! For those of you who wonder why/how we stick around, this must be the answer, brought to us by Money magazine. Rub off on us, Riverside property values!

In other soft news, I ordered on clearance four top-down-bottom-up roman shades for the bedroom. Our house is very near its twin next door, and a little bit higher, so its kitchen window and deck view is our bedroom. Sometimes I am ashamed our pillows get pressed against the windows since we lack a headboard, or wish for privacy when reading on the bed in the sun. These shades are great, and well worth the year I waited to find them at a good price. At night I can look wistfully up at the moon and the stars, and no one can see me and think I'm cracked.


















The shades haven't been through the 12:15 AM barbecuing ritual yet, when our bartender neighbor gets home and sets up dinner on his deck with a 1200 watt camping lantern. I can always cover the backsides with Blackout. His house has been for sale for a year. Perhaps he will move sometime?