the doorway

Last night our side basement door mysteriously got too big for its frame. We're not talking the swollen effect of humidity, I mean by a quarter inch side-to-side it wouldn't close, when a few hours earlier it had been fine. The frame seemed completely tight and connected even though it had changed size.

I wondered if there had been another earthquake, and Allie worried whether the house had shifted so dramatically in an hour and it meant we shouldn't stay in it. Corrigan suggested this was beyond his physics knowledge, that it indicated a gap in the time-space continuum. We looked at the little foyer structure over the stairs and between 5 of us could not identify which dodgy details had always been there unnoticed until we got suspicious, and what might look different. (This was all after 10:30 at night so the light was against us.)

Then I thought, "Wonder if Andrew Cone's moving crew hauling random furniture in and out of our driveway where he'd "stored" it has anything to do with this?"
I called Ben and asked, did you hit the entryway alcove doorframe with a large piece of furniture, or, say, Andrew's truck?

There was silence.

"Because the door doesn't close anymore," I prodded.

"Um, yeah, there was something," Ben said. "When we couldn't start Andrew's truck, two of us were pushing it out of the driveway, and the drivers' side door was open and it hit the east side of the entryway. But that was only the strength of two people pushing."

And the weight of a truck, Allie pointed out when I relayed the news.

So I decided to take a piece of lumber and hold it against the east side of the door frame, and hit it with a sledgehammer. The frame jumped a bit. Several knocks later - probably much appreciated by sleeping neighbors - the door was able to close.

I was glad to have the seemingly instinctual knowledge to use a piece of lumber to distribute the power of the sledge hammer, and somewhat disconcerted that 1. our entryway can shift on its foundation like that 2. someone ran a car into the house and didn't check for damage. (I made Ben promise to change his policy next time.)

That's Haymarket: The house is out of square; was it an earthquake, or Andrew Cone?

scenes from the season

Dec 9 - Rachael seranades BJ with a melody she wrote in ode to his awesomeness.


New Years Eve - Parisian Keith tends to the ice bar on our snowy front porch.


New Years Day - parade for brunch at Valois.

our gift

At our Board meeting Corrigan and Ciara presented on NASCO Institute and the incredible energy stirred from exchanging ideas, stories, and resources with co-opers from around the country.

"It was heartwarming and affirming," Corrigan said, "to see that we aren't just a clever coincidence. There are more places and people like us, and it works, and we can help educate and finance to build more cooperative sustainable systems. It is a gift we can give to the community."

dressing room, revisited

Andrew Cone: a man who once lived in the leaky apartment closet of Texan drug dealers to save cash. (And score hash.)



I should note that Andrew no longer sleeps in a closet. Or rather (there are always "or rathers" when struggling to describe Drew) he does once again now (another story), but for most of the past year he acquired a nice apartment once he moved out of Haymarket.

However... apparently in addition to keeping a stash of clothes in our boiler room to bike over from work and change every morning, he had whittled down an even more efficient routine.

He would come to our house, peel off his underwear, wash it in BLEACH, iron it to dry crispiness, and re-don the jocks. This pair of ironed bleached undies would be worn two days rightside-out and two days inside-out to get the most use out. Like an old frat boy joke.

One night at mealtime this routine was revealed to us; revealed narratively, in the third person, not literally revealed - thank your deity of choice. Depending on how well our diners knew Andrew Cone, this little tale produced a variety of reactions from shock, disgust, to resigned shrugs and doubt about ever letting our clothing touch the community ironing board again.

Corrigan, however, happily celebrated validation:

"I told you!" he shouted. "I told you I saw Andrew Cone ironing his underwear!"

commuter computer

Brian suggested we watch footage of the first solely machine-operated commercial demo flight, with not a soul on board, as it gracefully flew its route to the commentary of its inventor, came in for a landing, angled itself, and kept on going right into the trees before exploding in an "oh no oh no OH no no no"-soundtracked fireball. A masterpiece of comedic destruction, science and technology gone wrong.

"I don't know if I'd get on board a plane with no human back up," I said cynically. "Even before YouTube footage."

On European airplanes, Corrigan & Lauren explained, a computer actually takes over from the humans in the case of an emergency. On US flights the scenario is opposite: a robot is flying unless there is drama, at which junction a human retakes control.

I questioned the notion of a computer taking the helm in unfamilar emergency circumstances. What if it screws up and we all end in an "oh no no no" fireball?

"That's why there are TWO computers," Corr said. "The emergency back-up, and the super computer for the emergency back-up back-up."

Even dumber, says I. "Why not just build the plane out of the black-box material and pilot it with the super computer to begin with??"

"Yeah," agreed Brian. "If you have a capable super computer, why do you bother to employ dumb computers?"

Which Corrigan duly explained...

"They're non-union."

bangled spangled tangled and spaghettied

Check out this rockin' photo of Corrigan (and his hair) back in October. Imagine another seven months without haircuts and you'll understand why even our Finance Officers look like dirty hippies. In fact at the board meeting last night when I was voted as the third check signer, it was also suggested I adopt the scraggly facial hair and wily-locked aesthetic of Corr and Mark Peopolis. Maybe... Glenn said I looked good in my Wild Thing whispy facial hair... or maybe not.

I work at the same office as Corrigan.

We support system tech administrators and users of a software that analyzes lifestyles and media consumption habits. Heard of Nielsen sweeps week or ratings? We assist people who want to use this in combo with qualitative research to target a certain demographic with particular viewing habits and a fat wallet.

Corrigan and I are good at our jobs, but we try really hard not to look at the reports cataloguing the number of minutes we've spent coaxing, coaching, getting cursed at, and empowering the commercial part of the media industry that is ugly to the sort of person who lives in a co-op & doesn't shave. We work on different floors and actually don't interact frequently. (During my interview I was told almost apologetically that I wouldn't be able to sit next to Corrigan. Gosh, it was almost a deal breaker.)

Although Corr and I work with different sets of people, folks generally know that we are roommates. So today Sandy said to me laughingly, "So the big discussion upstairs is all about Corrigan's hair. I didn't see it in person yet."

"Neither did I!" I exclaimed. "What about his hair?"

"He cut it all off," Sandy said. "Carrie is really upset because she loved it. Everyone at the desk in the lobby is discussing it."

I don't know if Corrigan will lose his strength to topple columns now, but I confirmed a few hours later that he was both clean shaven AND given what my mom would call a tennis ball cut. (Like my irish roommates used to give themselves - they all know offhand what number blade they use on the shears, and I was consistently shocked that during Rehoboth summers a hair cutter was second priority, above food and after beer.)

It might be a shocking aesthetic shift, definitely not top secret, but I was slightly surprised to think that my co-worker (who doesn't really even know Corrigan) more or less moved the monkey regarding a Haymarketeer. Huzzah!

PS Corrigan it makes you look more like a canteloupe than ever.

corrigan's retirement plan

"When I become feeble and senile, I think I will write headlines for the Red Eye."

(above: playing Scrabble with Zoe, Corr, Sam - Corrigan's dad)