Springtime in DC: BA and plenty of time on my hands

Well, what is there to say, people? I am living the dream: graduated, unemployed, and living in a city that is at its best after the frost goes away and before the humidity creeps in.

I have been here for under a week, but I already have a daily rhythm. I wake up early, between 7am and 8:30, and make enough espresso to share with Helen. She has a maker just like the Swedes had when they lived down the street from me two years ago. I water the garden with an old-fashioned watering can in the screened in back yard and imagine a whole summer of having the garden that I have wanted for years. Back in Valley City, our backyard is mostly shaded and not the best for a garden, but already we can see growth among the herbs and root vegetables.

It is a bit unreal, how ideal this neighborhood is. Row after row of brownstones strung along streets equipped with bike lanes, with front yards pruned with flowers and old trees tearing up the brick sidewalks and covering everything in shade. Walking to the subway for an interview early one morning, I was happy knowing that I was enjoying this beauty, before it becomes a sauna march in just a short while.

Every night I hear the Turkey in the Straw tune (which I learned recently was popularized originally as a minstrel song) of the ice cream truck and run out hoping to catch it, starting conversations with the neighborhood kids asking if they have seen it. When I can't find it, I walk back to the apartment defeated and am tortured the rest of the night as I hear it circle in and out of ear shot. One day, I will find you, ice cream man.

Most of the day I rotate between being outside - the garden, bike rides on my newly inherited vintage French road bike (seriously, how did I end up with a Motobecane?), and playing in the park - and trying to sell myself to potential employers one well-crafted cover letter after another. Perhaps I will become more productive once the heat wave hits and I will be stranded to the air-conditioned indoors. In the meantime, I will enjoy this while it lasts.