An example of what we have but don't appreciate?

Cleveland seems to have a sort of inferiority complex and acts like it has nothing going for it. To me, this seems like a shame, because I think Cleveland has a huge amount going for it. I think Cleveland just needs an attitude adjustment and maybe needs to look at what it has that you can't get in other places.

There is an old Victorian house in Medina that is being sold for $1 to a man who is going to spend $100K to move it to California. This is still a bargain for him, because 2-bedroom bungalows in, say, Oakland, go for a half million easy. Obviously, an offer of a Victorian house for $1 if you can move it away is not a normal thing here in Northeast Ohio, but still. My point is that we have cool old houses here that people in other parts of the country would go nuts for. And they don't cost anywhere near half a million.

Here's an article from the Plain Dealer about it:
California or bust (feelin' blue)

Suburbs lesson and Parks and Rec info

Outside of Cleveland is a ring of suburbs called the "inner ring" suburbs--which, after living in the sprawling Austin, TX, seem to me more like "neighborhoods" of Cleveland (and, according to Yahoo! maps and yellow pages, it's all just "Cleveland")--that are the cool places to live, with older houses with lots of dormers and cute yards and wood floors and little neighborhood shopping areas with restaurants, etc. This is as opposed to the "outer ring" suburbs, where the new houses and McMansions are. (hisssssssss!)

Anyway, at least some, if not all, of these inner ring suburbs have their own parks and rec happenings. Unfortunately, lots of them aren't listed online, but here's a link to the pdf of the City of Cleveland Heights Parks and Recreation Brochure for Spring/Summer 2005. The South Euclid/Lyndhurst brochure has tons of dance classes and home repair classes, but I can't find it online.

But the Cleveland Heights one should give you a sample of the bounty that awaits you, too, in lovely Cleveland, O.

Aladdin's Eatery

After the bike ride and garden centers yesterday, I spent the rest of the daylight hours raking and moving rocks around, trying to make sense of what's in the yard so we can decide what to do with it next.

As it was cooling down and getting dark, I picked Dr. Jay up from work, where he'd been all afternoon, (ick!) and we went over to Aladdin's Eatery for dinner. We were so hungry from our ride and his work and my work outside, and the food was soooo good. We ordered an appetizer, which was basically Aladdin's version of the meat pie at Amir's (see past posts), that we made short work of, and then he got chicken shawarma and I got beef shawarma, and it was so delicious, too. But we weren't quite full, so we ordered some hummous. So creamy and delicious and beautiful with a little olive oil drizzled on it, a cucumber slice, a tomato slice, and an olive and some parsley. We scooped it up with the nice soft pita. Finally full, we came home and went to bed. What a good day!

We actually go to Aladdin's pretty often, but somehow it never made it into the blog until now. When we were in town for 2 days last May looking at houses and deciding if Cleveland was somewhere I thought I could live (not necessarily in that order?), we went there after our first day of house-looking. We spread out all our papers and maps and flyers on one of the tables and got out the laptop to download the pictures we'd taken and narrowed down the houses we liked the best and made a plan for the next day. Fond memories, but am I glad I don't have to do that again any time soon!

Gardening: first foray

I've never lived in my own house before where I had a yard to garden in, but I've often fantasized about growing vegetables in my yard, so now's it's time!

Yesterday I went to Heights Garden Center on Cedar between Lee and Taylor for seeds, seed-starting supplies, and advice. I talked to a woman there who was really helpful, but a line started behind me and by the time we finished discussing my lawn, I felt like I had to let her help someone else, so we didn't even get as far as raised beds or vegetables.

Then I went over to Petitti's at the Richmond Mall, where they were also very nice, and got some supplies there.

I got seeds for collards, Beefmaster (!) tomatoes, parsley, Brussels sprouts, Waltham butternut squash, and zucchini, plus some Genoan basil that my mom gave me when they were here recently. Keep your fingers crossed!

The Beachland Ballroomhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Waaaaaay back in January, we went to The Beachland Ballroom to see The Sadies ("not your average surf, garage, country, rock band"). Oh. I guess we actually went to see Neko Case, who was very good, but we were totally taken with the Sadies. They opened and also backed Neko Case up, so there was a lot of Sadies, and it was great.

Some of their lyrics, well, they're creepy. But in a kind of American Traditional Bluegrass "I took her into the woods and killed her" kind of a way. I might say the cumulative effect, at least on the album we bought (yes! we actually bought an album! That's how much we liked the Sadies!) is sort of mysogynistic, but Sadie is one of the people who dies, so and they seem to identify with her, so...wait this is supposed to be about the Beachland Ballroom. Oh, but one more thing about this. We found a site about murder ballads which is pretty funny the way it has the synopsis of the key points of each song at the beginning.

ANYWAY, the Beachland Ballroom. It was nice, reminded me of places in Austin. Smokey, but what are you going to do? Seemed to be a refurbished fraternal society's building. And not very refurbished, as it still has painted scenes from (I assume) a European country on the walls. To be honest, I can't remember, I think it was an Eastern European country. And I guess there are two venues at the Ballroom, and I guess we were in the less intimate one. Of course, the show didn't start till after our bedtime, which made it very hard to stand up and stay awake.

Bike Ride in the Emerald Necklace

This morning we got up early and went to another park in the Clevelend Metroparks, this time the North Chagrin Reservation (I've never heard of parks called 'reservations', either). We went for a bike ride the length of the park, which turned out not to be wicked long, but from one end to the other and back was plenty after a winter of not much exercise. It was sunny and warm and cool in the shade. Another beautiful spring day!

Then we went for a little .75 mile hike to the Squire Castle on the reservation, which was cute and interesting, at least for a stone and brick building with nothing in it. But there was a description of what it was like when it was in use, and it was pretty cool to imagine it back then with plaster on the walls and furniture, etc.

We wound up the trip with a visit to Corky and Lenny's, where I got some corned beef hash and poached egg that really knocked my socks off. The hash was light on the potatoes and sort of pureed, unusual but delicious. We got some corned beef and stuffed cabbage to take home with us!

Another beautiful day!

Ate lunch fast today and yesterday so I could go outside for a walk in the sun during lunch.

Spring definitely feels different after a long, cold, snowy winter.

And the daffodils! You should see them. Everyone's got the bulbs goin' on.

Baseball?

Ahh! Baseball season started yesterday, but, as I was just informed my a co-worker, yesterday's game didn't matter because it was the Red Sox and the Yankees. It really starts today, because the Indians are playing.

I've never cared at all about baseball. I've been to a few games and always concentrated on the hotdogs, etc. But it's a pretty big deal here, so we'll see if they can suck me in.

I don't want to be a bad sport, but I have to say, that once I really looked at that Cleveland Indians logo, I was shocked.

Time change fever

Last night after dinner, the weather had cleared up, the sun was shining, the snow was melting, sky was blue, and the breeze was cool. We threw the dog in the car and went back to the Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Creek Reservation where we skiied a while back (see previous post). It was muddy and snowy, but we had a great time. We explored a part of the park we hadn't been to before, and tried to get the dog to catch snowballs and go down a slide. My favorite part was that Dr. Jay and I took turns on some swings, while the other held onto the dog, who was decidedly agitated by the swinging. At first he hopped around like he wanted to play, but finally resorted to barking insistently.

Hurrah for DST!

"Cleveland sets snowfall record with spring storm"

Oi, vey. It's disgusting out. All day it seemed like slush was falling from the sky. Anywhere I went there was about 4 inches of slush to slog through. And then the temperature started falling this evening and it got bone-chillingly cold and damp. Ick. Much better in the house.

Winter Wonderland

I got up today, and Dr. Jay, who had been up for a while before me (he's preparing for the time change by getting up 15 minutes earlier every day--he's not very good at getting up early), was like, "Surprise! It's a winter wonderland outside!" and I was like, "Haha, very funny," and he was like, "No, I'm not kidding."

And he wasn't. It isn't even below freezing, and all this snow is sticking everywhere. It seemed to me, that back when it was technically winter, nothing would stick unless it was really cold.

Whatever. This probably won't last long, right?