MetaChat - what's outside your window?

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

06 August 2008

what's outside your window? →[More:]

me:

- a guy in a cool-looking straw hat, mowing the front lawn in a "baseball field" pattern on one of those big commercial zero-radius riding mowers.

- a girl volunteer walking one of the Humane Society dogs (they're our next door neighbours), which looks to be some kind of shepherd / akita (or chow?) mix owing to the donut tail.

- a mourning dove roosting in the huge ponderosa pine.

post by: lonefrontranger at: 10:43 | 26 comments

I can't see because the boss closed all the shades and turned the lights on. Grr.
But I imagine it's the same view as usual: the brick building across the street and the multiplex on the lower level with a huge scrolling ad banner for all of the crappy movies they show. It would be awesome if they showed good movies instead. Ooh, or foreign films.
Since I can't see out, I will pretend they just changed the theatre into one I like. Maybe I'll go see a movie at lunch!

posted by rmless2 06 August | 10:49

Foreground: Tomato plants tangled up with lots of green tomatoes.

Middle ground (?): Grassy lawn, whitewashed fence.

Background: Tippy top of the neighbor's house, power lines topped with two robins, I think, lone palm tree, light blue sky.

posted by occhiblu 06 August | 10:49

tomato plants! i srsly need to put mine in cages :/

posted by lonefrontranger 06 August | 10:57

Rain. Tons of rain. Again.

posted by Melismata 06 August | 10:59

No window as my office is in the basement. If I go into the kitchen I will see the 8-ft wall between us and next door, next door's cat staring at me from the wall, and a bit of the garden if I crane my neck.

If I go into the living room I see the world going by, though this is a quiet street so there's not much world.

posted by altolinguistic 06 August | 10:59

- A 25-story construction site, where pulleys and a big red bin are being used to ferry supplies from the ground floor to the top. At first they were just building walls around the cistern on top of the building, but then they just raised the cistern up a story; now it seems they're refurbishing the whole facade. I think they may ultimately be building a penthouse apartment with an incredible roof deck. Watching those guys work makes me dizzy and a little fearful. They're sending down a metal flight of stairs via pulley right now.

- A little church sits directly below me, a holdout among highrises. It's right next to the entrance to the garage under my building, and every time I leave the building through the garage to avoid various street-level construction messes, I admire its old bricks and stained glass.

- Uptown and New Jersey fade to blue in the distance.

posted by Hugh Janus 06 August | 11:01

The parking lot, a street, and then another parking lot. There is a small grassy lawn right outside where I sometimes see birds and squirrels running around, but today is windy and unpleasant, so they are all hiding. There's also a wild turkey and a possum that like to stop by, but he's not here today, either.

posted by muddgirl 06 August | 11:02

- Across the street I get to look at the shiny new research center that has been under construction since I started here 3.5 years ago.

- Under my window is the main entrance to our building so I can see people coming in and out

- In between is Morris Pk Avenue, and I see the Bx21 bus going by every 10 minutes or so

posted by gaspode 06 August | 11:04

a train! it has six diesels on front! and wildly graffiti'd boxcars!

I love graffiti on trains, is that wrong?

Hugh that construction site sounds fantastic, I'd probably never get anything done if I had that to watch.

posted by lonefrontranger 06 August | 11:05

- A empty brownfield where an abandoned steel mill was until a couple of years ago

- The rusting hulk of an old corrugated steel warehouse.

- Some joggers running along the bike trail between the brownfield and the warehouse.

- On the other side of the river: two long trains of double-decker shipping container cars running in the same direction

- Lots of trees, they'll take over the city if you don't fight them back.

posted by octothorpe 06 August | 11:09

Pygmy date palm, ligustrum, Indian Hawthorne, Pentas, caladiums, two lizards, edges of green shutters, lawn, my neighbor's camphor tree, sidewalk, road, a gray house across the street.

posted by LoriFLA 06 August | 11:10

One of my coworkers cars, a shrub, and an awesome flowering shrub that is something like 10 feet high with tiny purply-pink flowers in poofs on the top. It's an awesome plant and I smile every time I see it.

posted by sperose 06 August | 11:18

...pulleys and a big red bin... HJ, I saw a rig like this recently working one of the many hi-rise loft construction sites in LoDo; the fun part was that someone had spraypainted "NO TRASH THIS MEANS YOU!" in huge bright white letters on the side - which to my bizarro brain made for a rather interesting visual pun as it danced and dangled above the city.

posted by lonefrontranger 06 August | 11:20

Train graffiti.

posted by Hugh Janus 06 August | 11:27

The backside of Boston Ivy leaves.

posted by arse_hat 06 August | 11:55

-freight train switching cars around (sans graffiti today)
-trumpet vines on the back fence, putting out their final blooms with the little green antenna things and bulb doodads
- a thirsty maple tree
-two giant oak trees beyond the tracks

posted by chewatadistance 06 August | 12:08

Patio with chairs, then a lawn with a blue shark baby pool, then a stretch of trees covering an embankment, and then the river. It's so nice to look out my kitchen window and see water, even if it's a minor river which is pretty low right now. Sometimes it gets really high and we get nervous thinking it might come over the berm into our yard. So far it hasn't. We see deer a lot, and sometimes coyotes, raccoons, a fox once in a while, lots of birds, chipmunks and squirrels. And no, we don't live out in the country - we're in a northern Chicago suburb. It's nice, for this former city girl.

posted by Kangaroo 06 August | 12:13

My neighbor's forest of grapevines and pyracanthus.

posted by mudpuppie 06 August | 13:48

I think I just saw Jamie Gertz float up. Wonder what she wants.

posted by rainbaby 06 August | 13:55

Don't have a window. I have to go the bathroom if I want to look out of a window. From that window I see some grass and a street.

posted by govtdrone 06 August | 14:39

When I go to the bathroom, I open up a window to my soul.

posted by Hugh Janus 06 August | 14:51

That's not your soul, that's your prostate.

Mine threatens with burning toxic sunlight.

posted by ethylene 06 August | 14:58

Parking lot, mostly. Two decorative license plates: 'God is Faithful,' airbrushed, and 'I'm Bossy,' stick-on letters.

posted by box 06 August | 15:03

This thread is worthless without pictures.

I have 3 windows in my den. I don't have much; I don't have a blackberry or a cell phone or an xbox or cable tv, but I do have this at least.

≡ Click to see image ≡
Decaying fence and backyard beyond.

≡ Click to see image ≡
Looks out on more decaying fence, black raspberries, and neighbor's cornfield.

≡ Click to see image ≡
Flowerbed, currently with daylillies and similar. Farther out is the vegie garden and the woods.

posted by DarkForest 06 August | 16:03

Well, I could never top that, DarkForest!! Gorgeous!!

Right now, I have three or four hummingbirds chasing each other around while they stock up on nectar for the night. Some neighbors taking evening strolls around the neighborhood. And nodding sunflowers in the twilight of dusk.

posted by redvixen 06 August | 18:58

Field of lettuce to the east.
Apple orchard to the northeast.
Hummingbirds and petunias to the south.

That is when it's not dark.

posted by netbros 06 August | 23:02

← Solomon Burke || When a three year old is asked about monsters →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN