The sustainable sit

Furnish any color scheme with green

So you’ve got organic milk in the fridge, you just installed energy-efficient windows, and you recycle everything in sight. If you’re looking to take the next step in green-ing your home, investing in sustainable furniture may be a way to start. We talked with Paige Mattson at the Blue Ridge Eco Shop to get some advice about what to look for when buying green.

You can’t tell just by looking, but this sofa—part of the E Collection by Precedent, sold locally by The Artful Lodger—is more earth-friendly than your average couch.

Mattson says she defines sustainable as "not depleting anything." So, that means choosing wood products that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as being from sustainably harvested forests. These forests are continually being re-grown instead of being clear cut, and trees aren’t cut until they’re mature, meaning that more wood can be harvested. Beyond the wood, Matteson suggests being careful about what else goes into a piece, making sure that all the materials are organic—that means no toxic stains, paints or glues. Lastly, she advises, "look for quality—things that will last and withstand time, so that you won’t have to re-purchase"—and so that your new furniture won’t end up in the landfills after only a couple of years. 

Matteson has seen the trend of starting a sustainable furniture collection with children’s furniture, choosing to buy green when new purchases (like cribs) are needed. If you’re looking to start your own sustainable furniture trend, the Artful Lodger has a collection of FSC-certified wooden pieces, and starting in January will offer E Collection by Precedent, a new brand of all-natural upholstered furniture. Likewise, you can find mattresses made from all-natural latex as well as a line with cushions made from all recycled material at Kane Furniture.—Lee Vanderwerff

Easy Being Green

5 ways to reuse paper in the season of wrapping

The whole world’s getting papered, but you can spare some trees with a little creativity.

Trees must be quaking in their boots (roots?) at this time of year: Not only are humans apt to come at them with rusty bowsaws while singing about something called a tannenbaum, but the holidays are prime time for paper use. How to cut down on your contribution to a sea of crumpled red and green?

1. Instead of store-bought cards, send homemade cards made from cereal boxes and decorated with collages made from those catalogs currently stuffing your mail slot.

2. If you size your cards appropriately, you can send them in the envelopes you already have—the ones that come inside credit-card offers. Hide the corporate logos with stylish stickers. 

3. Wrap gifts with brown paper grocery bags, and dress up with raffia, real holly or mistletoe.

4. When you throw a party, opt to use real dishes and cloth napkins—sure, there’s more cleanup at the sink, but you won’t be tossing a bag of garbage to rival Santa’s sack.

5. When someone else gives you a gift, save the wrapping paper and use it next time around for gift tags.—Erika Howsare

Seal it up

The new benchmark: guaranteed bills

How would you like to have your monthly heating and cooling bill cut by two thirds, then guaranteed to boot? Here’s more proof that area builders are stepping up their sustainability game: Local green builder Lithic Construction (540-718-3990) is offering guaranteed energy bills on new houses built according to specs from Texas-based engineering firm Energy-Wise, which will recommend insulation and HVAC systems guaranteed to heat and cool a 3,400-square-foot home for no more than $74 a month. The initial agreement is for two years and can be renewed with maintenance requirements such as changing heat pump filters every two months.

Lithic Construction’s Ned Ormsby shows off soy-based insulation that’ll help this new home stay energy-efficient.

One major key to structural energy efficiency is the insulation. Fiberglass products are cheap at the outset, but those loosely packed fibers let a lot of bucks filter through. Newer foam insulation costs more up front but with a consistency more like angel food cake than angel hair, it’s much more efficient at trapping heated and cooled air inside where you want it.

You can go one step further and cut out polluting petroleum products by using soy-based foam that does not come from imported oil. Anchor Insulation (295-9675) installs BioBased insulation and has partnered with Lithic in the production of two recently completed EnergyWise certified homes. One, at 604 Monticello Ave., is currently under construction and boasts a number of green features, from salvaged materials to Marmoleum floors.—Cathy Clary

Planet Now

Follow the yellow brick road

Plan a trip to Oz Wednesday, November 28, and skip on down to Richmond’s Science Museum of Virginia where the James River Green Building Council is sponsoring a trade show and exhibition that features all things green. "Building an Emerald City," which is free to the public, will be held in the museum’s Rotunda 2-8pm. The gathering brings together industry experts, businesses, government agencies and nonprofits to help you find your way through the maze of environmentally friendly products and services that has sprung up thick as poppies in the last few years.

Breakout sessions on recycling, landscaping, energy use and building materials will take place throughout the afternoon. More enticing for most average homeowners? Architects, builders, cabinet makers and home products retailers will also be on hand to display their work and services. First-time home builders and owners as well as businesspeople, builders and designers all should find something useful. Richmond’s Style Weekly hosts a reception 6:30-8pm where it will recognize local people and businesses that have taken initiatives to build and use energy in responsible, nontoxic ways.

For more information, contact jrgbc.org (804-288-2950) or the Science Museum of Virginia at smv.org (804-864-1400).—C.C.

Deep heat

What’s the deal with geothermal?

Isn’t it appealing to think of warming your house with the heat of the planet itself? Geothermal power is an increasingly popular technology that uses the constant temperature of the earth to heat homes and drinking water. Curious, we talked with Mike Hall at Airflow Systems. As a contractor who installs both conventional air-to-air systems and geothermal heat pumps, Hall is very enthusiastic about the latter. He explains that geothermal pumps are very quiet and contain no outdoor unit. They can be installed just as easily in existing homes as in new homes, as the system connects to conventional duct work. The way it works: loops of pipes are installed below the frost line and transfer energy from the earth to a heat pump.

Hall says that the only downside of installing a geothermal system is the initial investment—he declined to quote a price range, but other research indicates that a geothermal system for an average-size home typically costs around $3,500 more than a conventional one. But, Hall says, "That’s not really a downside because in the long term, it will pay you back." He estimates that it takes about 10 years to receive a full payback through lowered energy bills. Plus, Hall says, a geothermal heat system will last you about twice as long as a conventional one.

Many states even offer tax breaks for greening your home with geothermal energy—Virginia isn’t one of them yet, but as consciousness grows and realtors, builders, and homeowners become more geo-savvy, our fingers are crossed that the incentives to invest in geothermal will grow.—L.V.

By The Numbers

"Life-cycle-assessment research reveals that most significant environmental construction impact is not from the production of materials but from the operation of the building. Roughly 98 percent of a building’s energy is consumed in operating it."

—Patti Flesher and David D. Shepherd, in the October issue of Eco-Structure

Leaf out

Bag ’em up—they’re headed for the mulch pile

Lawn feeling littered? If your oaks, poplars and maples are spreading a thick carpet of color all over your grass, you might be trying to find them a good home. If you’re a Charlottesville resident, look no further than the clear plastic bags passed out by the city: These are the official vessels in which to gather fallen leaves and set them out for curbside pickup. Holly Criser, an employee of the City’s Public Works Department, explained that you should have had an allotment of leaf bags tossed onto your lawn, but if a neighbor with a wooded lot snatched yours, you can always get more bags at City Hall or at 305 Fourth St. NW.

Charlottesville’s leaves are falling, and if you bag yours up in City-issued bags, they’ll wind up as mulch.

Once your bags are stuffed, don’t tie the tops; just fold them over. Leaf collection is separate from regular trash and recycling pickup. First, check charlottesville.org for a map of scheduled leaf pickups between now and late January (or call 970-3830). Then, put out bags of leaves on the Monday of the week that pickup is scheduled in your neighborhood. They’ll be collected sometime during the week.

Where do they go then? To Albemarle’s Panorama Farm, where they are turned into mulch. That’s a lot better than the landfill. If you don’t want to bother with any of this, you can also compost your leaves—saving a few plastic bags while you’re at it.—Erika Howsare

Fa-la-la-la-farm it out

Is your wallet all you need to decorate?

‘Tis the season to be jolly. (Well, almost.) But ho-ho-hoing is probably the last thing on your mind when your holiday to-do list already resembles a Tolstoy tome. There’s all that shopping and cooking, and don’t get us started on decking the halls.

Actually, you could get Joey Strickler started on those halls. Or that staircase, mantel or dining table. A designer and the co-owner of Charlottesville’s Floral Images, Strickler’s the guy who comes to your rescue when you realize you’d prefer a pap smear to facing all those boxes full of sparkly holiday decorations.

Short on time, but not on spirit? It is possible to hire a holiday decorator.

"For some homes, we start [decorating] outside at the mailbox and continue on to the front door and then do the staircase, all the fireplace mantels and every table," he says. "But we’ll also come in and do a single mantel." The key to successful holiday decorating, says Strickler, whose fee depends on the job, is to work with "a few larger, focal pieces instead of several small things."

And to save you a few bucks, he always attempts to decorate around what you already have and "dress it up for the holidays." But there’s one thing he won’t touch: the Christmas tree.

"I’m an advocate of family time and I don’t care how much a client offers to pay, I think it’s taking away from a family tradition if I come in and decorate the tree."—Susan Sorensen

Live from the Chocolate Festival…

Easy treats for all those looming parties

As chocoholics already know, chocolate is a magical, mood-boosting food. It promotes both relaxation and euphoria—two things we experienced as we strolled through last month’s Chocolate Festival in the blissful Autumn weather. Sponsored by the First United Methodist Church, local organizations got together to present their homemade goodies. Somehow we missed the "imported chocolates, chocolate fountains…and BBQ ribs with a hint of chocolate" that a press release had promised, but a less-exotic confection did please us: Jackson-Via Elementary School’s chocolate-dipped spoons. We sampled a dark chocolate and peppermint variety that tasted delicious when stirred into a cup of coffee.

It’s almost as easy as stirring a pot: Make chocolate spoons for your next group of sort-of-important guests.

Next time we have a gathering for people we like, but who aren’t exactly mousse-worthy, we’re going to remember this recipe. These chocolate spoonfuls—festooned with white chocolate drizzles, sprinkles, toffee, or marshmallows—are pretty and easy to make. Jackson-Via’s teachers used dark and milk Ghirardelli chocolates over plastic spoons, though you can also use real silverware to make them fancier and impress the appearance-conscious among your guests. Whether melting the chocolate in a microwave or a double boiler, be careful not to cook the chocolate above 100°F, as it will result in a whitish-gray coating that is safe to eat, but not as nice to look at. Get festive by covering them in your favorite holiday candies and adorning with some colorful cellophane and ribbon. Hand out with cups of coffee and you’re done.—Carianne King

"If necessity is the mother of invention, then a budget is the muse of the good, cheap house."
—Kira Obolensky, Good House Cheap House

Moving the roof

For 13 years, Under the Roof has been a fixture on W. Main Street (and on the hearts of C-VILLE readers, who voted it Best Furniture Store this year). Now, because of a coming redevelopment, it’s moving—to W. Main Street in Waynesboro.

"Customers will drive long distances to get good prices on furniture because it’s such an important purchase," says Deborah Henshaw, who owns Under the Roof with her husband Jeffrey Grosfeld. She promises they won’t raise their delivery prices and says that the Waynesboro location (400 W. Main St.), set to open in January, will boast more inventory and lower prices. Meantime, get your mitts on some of the liquidation-priced goodies at the Charlottesville store.—E.H.

By The Numbers

3,471

[number of houses on the local market]

Every three months, when the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors (CAAR) releases its quarterly market report, we at ABODE scan it eagerly for the latest official take on the housing market. (Of course, we—along with lots of other locals—also like to scan the not-so-official reactions that inevitably follow, in places like Realtor Jim Duncan’s blog at realcentralva.com.) This time around, the big news is inventory. As of the report’s release, there were 3,471 houses for sale locally, which is three times as many as three years ago (when the market was, by anyone’s account, booming).

The sign has been there for ages: Local properties are hanging around the market longer, and in greater numbers, than several years ago.

According to CAAR, this is "possibly a record" and definitely related to the long stretches of time that many properties are staying on the block. A quarter of homes currently for sale have had those signs stuck in their front yards for 200 days or more—certainly not happy news for sellers, but possibly a boon to potential buyers. The CAAR report practically begs househunters to take the plunge; in particular, says CAAR CEO Dave Phillips, first-time homebuyers are needed to kick-start sales.

So what’s all this mean for prices? Well, they’re not climbing as fast as they were in 2004 and 2005, but they’re still going up. Here’s another number for you: The median price of local homes is up to $329,000.—Erika Howsare, with reporting by Scott Weaver

Wouldn’t it be a nice world if you could restructure something like a prison sentence? "Hey judge," you might say, "I can give you 10 years, but I really need to be out in time for the 2018 Super Bowl—what about sticking me in solitary for a year or so instead?"

While mortgages aren’t prison sentences (or so some say), they do offer you the chance to renegotiate terms and structures. What a world. But with the credit crunch still squeezing and the Feds trying about anything to goose the economy, is now the best time to refinance? As with most real estate questions, the answer is a definite maybe.

>After climbing at the beginning of October, mortgage rates dropped and have evened out in previous weeks. That’s good, right? Again, maybe. Mike Platt, a local mortgage refinance specialist, says that homeowners need to look past interest rates and ask themselves two questions. First, how long are you going to be in your house? Second, what are your goals with refinancing?

Rule No. 1 is simple: If you’re already halfway out the door and planning on moving within, say, the next year, refinancing probably isn’t going to save you any money. In fact, it will most likely cost you. Once you factor in the closing cost of refinancing against a reduced monthly payment that you’re going to leave behind soon, you might end up with a net loss. And nobody likes net losses. They’re just terrible.

That said, if you’re staying put, now is definitely the time to consider refinancing your mortgage. Rates are stable, and if your house has a nice chunk of equity, a cash-out mortgage could bring down monthly bills even if your monthly mortgage payment stays the same, or even increases a little bit. Here’s how: By pulling some cash out of your home, you can pay off other bills with the lump sum and say goodbye to other monthly payments.

"If a person has enough equity in the house," says Platt, "they might be able to do a cash-out refinance, get rid of mortgage insurance, especially if a person has a first and a second [mortgage] or they have one loan with mortgage insurance, they could pull some cash out, and actually lower their monthly payment slightly or keep it the same but also pay off $300 or $400 a month in debt."

Sounds great, no? Especially if you’re one of the millions of people who have an adjustable rate mortgage that is set to readjust (a nice way of saying "blow up") soon. But hold on, Mr. and Mrs. and Miss and Ms. ARM. By keeping a close eye on local mortgage rates, which are currently low and stable, you might be able to squeeze more money out of your low, low introductory rate.

"If somebody is a year away from a five-year ARM starting to adjust, and they might be at 5 percent right now, and they know they’re going to be in the house for six more years, what I’d say is that as long as rates are staying stable, and it’s just a straight rate-term refinance, I would watch the rates," says Platt.

"As long as rates don’t start going up, you might as well take advantage of that 5-percent fixed rate. When you have a lower interest rate like that, two things happen. One is that you lower your monthly payment. But the second thing is that if you look at the amortization schedule, more dollars per month are going to paying off the principle." So if your rate isn’t set to adjust for another year, try to squeeze as many low-rate months out of that sucker as you can while keeping an eye on rates, ready to refinance if they start to climb again.

Good old Thoreau once wrote, "I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." He was writing in a time when many still believed in spontaneous generation: no nasty sex involved, just the miraculous appearance of perfect little plantlets out of the blue. Botany has progressed, but we humans have not shed our penchant for magical thinking.

Here at the dawn of the 21st century, with our second major drought in less than five years, many people still believe in infinite water and cannot quite wrap their heads around the idea that if the water table and reservoirs are drying up, we might need to rethink our priorities. This fall, failing a lucky soaking with some good Gulf moisture behind it, we’ll be going into winter very dry indeed.

But there are ways other than blind faith in unlimited resources to mitigate this harsh season. Improving soil quality with compost, replacing water dependant plants with drought tolerant species and finding ways to recycle household water will see us a long way towards a landscape that can sustain itself. Autumn gives a cornucopia of fallen leaves, expired vegetables and frosted annuals to harvest for recycling.

Vivid colors reveal the sugars and starches leaves have been producing under their green cloak of chlorophyll all summer. As microbes and worms digest the decaying leaves, nutrients are released back into the soil for roots to take up as well as adding spongy texture that conserves moisture. This is the natural way plants sustain themselves, as woodlands have done for millennia, a genuinely miraculous cycle of death into life. The fallacy of the chemical solution, which can create dandy nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium just fine in the lab, is that it bypasses the living soil. There are no lively organisms feeding and excreting in a bag of 10-10-10.

Collect dead plants and leaves in a pile or barrel that can be turned to keep them aerated. The more finely you chop them up and the more often you turn them, throwing a little dishwater in to keep it moist, the faster they’ll rot. Use the resulting compost as mulch or amendment in planting holes. Make chicken wire cylinders in the midst of shrub beds where you can inconspicuously deposit plant debris. In the spring, lift them up and spread the decayed matter as mulch.

Think about replacing a water-hungry border of impatiens, hydrangeas or roses with drought-tolerant annuals like tassel flower, lantana and zinnia, perennials like sage, sedum and plumbago, or shrubs like Virginia sweetspire, vitex and the vast array of crape myrtles. Study your catalogues and garden books this winter and learn a lean palette of plants suited to dry conditions in Zone 7.

"Xeriscaping" began out west a couple of decades ago and people often associate it with lots of cactus and pebbles, but it simply means using drought tolerant plants, often native species, instead of trying to sustain exotic plantings, such as emerald green lawns in Arizona (or Albemarle County in August). The County Extension Service (872-4580) offers a water stewardship program that teaches specific methods of conserving and wisely using water in the landscape.

Even if a tropical drenching gives us a temporary reprieve, or winter mercifully covers us in a slow-melting mantle of precious snow, remember what experience is trying to teach us and plan your garden for more droughts. We may have a penchant for self-deception and a dangerous infatuation with Technicolor turf, but aren’t we also supposed to be the adaptable ones?

November in the garden

Compost leaves.
Plant drought-tolerant species.
Learn about xeriscaping.

Garden questions? Send them to Cathy Clary at garden@c-ville.com.

Weaving history
www.historicwoolenmills.org/

Here in Charlottesville, we love history. We have to, in order to justify our insistence-beyond-all-reason on the TJ connection. There are other historic sites here, though, as this site about the Woolen Mills area amply proves. With a detailed chronology stretching back to the 1700s and plenty of stories and old photos, this site is like flipping through your great-great-(great?)-grandparents’ scrapbook. The blog portion reads almost like a novel, telling the story of specific families who lived and worked in the neighborhood. To fast-forward a couple hundred years, click on the News page to read up on current zoning issues facing the residents of Woolen Mills.

Life’s a beach
http://dreamhome.blogs.nytimes.com/

Alison Davis and Paul B. Brown are a pair of writers who are building a second home in Florida. In their blog about the process, while they’re obsessing over their new kitchen and a potential $7,000 brand-name range, they also call each other, and themselves, crazy for doing so. The husband and wife team write alternating posts about the perils of building a new home and how they balance the huge project with their jobs and daily lives in New England. It’s an interesting read if you yourself have ever gulped at rising construction costs, waded through decking materials, or felt the impatience of delayed completion deadlines. Or, you know, if you just wish that you were building your second home with a pool and three levels of decks on an island in Florida and want to live vicariously through this surprisingly-not-obnoxious duo.

The source
www.zillow.com

Founded by the guys who started Expedia.com, Zillow is a user-friendly real estate site that takes a grassroots approach to advertising and searching houses for sale. Buyers can search for property in a broad area, or by specific sets of characteristics, from price to square footage to zip code. Once you’ve found homes you like, Zillow gives you a list of comparable homes as well as a Q&A option that lets buyers directly ask sellers specific questions. If you’re not a buyer or a seller, but are curious about how much people would be willing to pay for your current home, Zillow’s "Make Me Move" feature lets you post your house with the magic number that would convince you to bid your perfect 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath farewell. While the insistence on Z-words (Zestimate, Zindex) may get a little zannoying after a while, Zillow’s detailed home postings and helpful discussion boards make it a good first stop for anyone entering the real estate game.

To the dogs
www.chowhound.com

What’s the difference between a foodie and a chowhound? Apparently, foodies eat where they’re told, and are more concerned with being hip than with really finding the best eats. Meanwhile, chow- hounds are always sniffing out good food, no matter what restaurants or neighborhoods are hot, and no matter what Zagat has to say. Guess who’s more welcome at this site, a spunky collection of searchable recipes, food and entertaining articles, and message boards with serious ‘tude. Traveling to a new city for the weekend?  Browse lists of restaurants that Chowhound gives a thumbs-up. Want to make your own pancetta, ginger beer, or veggie burger? Search through recipes organized by course. Dying to know the dish on founding fathers’ whiskey brewing? Check out Chowhound’s "story" section for a wide range of articles. Spending an hour on this site will leave even the snobbiest foodie ready to ditch the Zagat and chow down.

Whatever you do, do not try to drive through the Orangedale neighborhood around 3:50pm on a weekday. That’s when the Charlottesville High School bus lets out on the corner of Bailey Road and Prospect Avenue off Fifth Street SW, and that’s when Orangedale’s younger residents pour into the streets, communing in the road to chat excitedly and socialize boisterously in that way only people who’ve been forced to sit quietly and study algebra all day can. In other words, you won’t be moving very fast anytime soon. But that’s O.K., because while sitting stranded in your vehicle observing the scene, you get to sort of share in the excitement—to remember what it was like to be young and hang with the neighborhood kids, to swagger down your street like you owned the place.

Built beginning in 1979, Orangedale is mostly comprised of similar townhomes.

And though it may be frustrating to the would-be motorist caught unawares, the pedestrian bravado of Orangedale’s teenagers is probably a good sign—as are their suspicious glances at an unknown vehicle traveling down their main thoroughfare at the most inconvenient of times. Their looks seem to say, "You’re not from around here, are you?" It’s the type of skepticism that comes from folks who’ve had their share of problems with interlopers.

As one resident puts it, "We’ve worked really hard to take back the neighborhood from the thugs who had been here."

That resident is Ann Reinicke, a 2004 Republican candidate for City Council, who moved to Orangedale with her husband six years ago with the express intention to "make a difference." Reinicke’s eldest son had purchased a HUD home in Orangedale four years prior to that, and Reinicke bought the house from him when her son went back to school. Back then she says the "neighborhood was a mess." She says people from outside the neighborhood were selling drugs on Orangedale’s street corners and preying upon its most vulnerable residents.

Some residents feel that Orangedale has made a comeback from earlier days of drug-related crime.

Just what possessed Reinicke and her husband, a middle-class white couple, to move from the comforts of their abode 30 minutes outside of town in Albemarle County to a predominantly black, lower-income urban setting with serious urban problems?

"We felt like it was time to get more involved in the community," she says.

Promptly after moving to Orangedale, Reinicke, who has worked for UVA for 25 years and currently is helping to implement UVA’s Student System Project, enrolled in Charlottesville’s Citizens Police Academy. She then became Orangedale’s block representative to the Quality Community Council and in that role, began organizing regular neighborhood meetings to empower residents to help combat crime and promote safety. Because of those regular meetings and the vigilance of dedicated residents, as well as the work of other neighborhood leaders active with organizations such as Abundant Life Ministries, which targets youth in Orangedale and similarly low-income neighborhoods nearby for tutoring, Bible study and other Christian outreach and after school programs, crime has decreased significantly, says Reinicke, and "kids are out in the streets again," she says. Check that.
 

History repeated

Not that Orangedale youth frolicking freely is a recent phenomenon. Kristel Townsend, a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty whose grandparents lived on Prospect Avenue while Townsend was young, says that back then, she spent many a day running around the neighborhood, cutting through people’s backyards to Forest Hills Park and from there to Cherry Avenue and elsewhere. But that’s before the modern day monument to insecurity and ultimate deterrent to roving teenagers—the privacy fence—made its way to Orangedale, says Townsend. And it also was back when "everyone used to look out for each other" and parents felt safe shooing their kids out the door and saying, "’Come back when the street lights are on,’" says Townsend.

But we’re not talking eons ago here. The neighborhood itself only was built beginning in 1979. It’s the newest part of the greater Fifeville neighborhood (which also includes Forest Hills and the Blue Ridge Commons, a subsidized housing complex).

Orangedale is comprised almost entirely of townhomes save for a few detached homes, including the one owned by Reinicke. Townsend says almost all of the townhomes have three bedrooms, one and a half baths and nearly identical floorplans totaling a little over 1,200 square feet. She says sale prices vary depending on whether the homes have basements, other updates such as new paint and appliances and, of course, a privacy fence.

The popularity of privacy fences, however, is not unique to Orangedale and neither is the tendency these days to order the kids home to the safety of closed doors long before dark. But Orangedale may be unique in that having confronted the thugs firsthand, its residents have had even more incentive than other neighborhoods to recapture the good ol’ days when the kids could, well, play outside.
 

The best kind of convenience

Orangedale is also unique in that it boasts a location convenient to the UVA hospital, I-64 and to UVA—where Reinicke often commutes the three miles on foot—but yet it doesn’t have nearly the concern with unpredictable nearby development that often accompanies such conveniently perched areas. Orangedale is tucked in between Fifth Street SW and Forest Hills Park in a way that has insulated it from the annoyance of some of the newer developments along Fifth Street SW ( e.g., Willoughby and Willoughby Townes) which adjacent neighborhoods may have suffered, says Townsend. Moreover, Orangedale’s cul-de-sacs and dead ends curb a lot of through-traffic—as do the after school social habits of Orangedale’s high school set.

At a glance:

Distance from Downtown: 1.5 miles
Distance from UVA Hospital: 1.4 miles
Elementary School: Johnson
Middle School: Walker; Buford
High School: Charlottesville
Median price of homes currently on market: $144,900

That holidays—especially the fall and winter type—can be fraught with anxiety, loneliness or other nasty concepts has become a staple of modern American consciousness. On the loneliness front, I’ve been lucky to have plenty of family support when it comes to major holidays, though, like a lot of people, I’ve experienced at least one exception. In my case, it was a Thanksgiving in 1991, when I found myself adrift with nowhere to go. But here’s the thing: Though 16 years have passed, the memories of that day linger more than all the other "normal" Thanksgivings combined. That’s due a little to the awkwardness and the—yes—anxiety associated with what transpired, and a lot to how being deprived of my comfort zone led to a startling happy ending. In fact, the memories are so acute that my brain can process them on demand like a well-oiled machine.

Step one: Get invited by an acquaintance of a friend to a Thanksgiving bash with seven other "adriftees." Naturally, I am hesitant. Eight losers in one house sounds like a bad reality TV show before such weirdness existed. But I am won over by the incisive and charming instructions from the uberloser, i.e., the host: "Bring anything you want, as long as it’s not a turkey." A nontraditional Thanksgiving meal—that sits well with me.

Step two: The inevitable meet and greet. Though every one of us knows at least one other person, it’s as if eight strangers sitting far apart in a Greyhound bus station suddenly decided to get together and share bits of their sandwiches and candy bars. The meet and greet location—the kitchen, of course—is swimming in manufactured and perhaps genuine kindness. There’s only one big cog: A guy in a black t-shirt and red sweater vest gives off the distinct impression, as strong as the odor of overdone turkey, that he’d rather be lonely.

Step three: Discover the true meaning of the host’s instructions. There is a turkey, and there’s nothing in the air to indicate that it’s overdone. She just didn’t want to end up with eight of them. I am delighted. A nontraditional Thanksgiving meal—what was I thinking? I can feel my loser aura vanishing.

Step four: Who are you, my grandmother? The host begins ordering everyone around before we get a chance to really talk. Obviously because I am a man and shouldn’t be handling the food, even the scalloped potatoes that I brought, I am assigned to set the table in the dining room. Hardly a complicated task. I’m struck by how I’m about to have a nice meal for very little effort.

Step four: Watch from the sidelines as seven people, like seven servants serving themselves, bring in all the food. The variety is stunning. No dish has a duplicate, despite the host’s general instructions. Besides my potatoes, there’s stuffing, grilled asparagus, bread, some sort of mystery casserole (it looks delicious, actually), roasted squash, carrots, and of, course, the turkey.

Step five: Random seating. Or a sinister divine plan. Thanks, God, for putting me right across from t-shirt and sweater vest guy. Thanks a lot.

Step six: Dig in. The casserole, and everything, is indeed delicious, and everyone, including my black and red shadow across the table, seems deliriously hungry and happy to have the cure right in front of them. It’s uncertain what sort of dinner conversation there will be, but right now hearty eating is taking complete precedence over talking.

Step seven: Find myself having a long, interesting conversation with the guy in the cool sweater vest. Satiated hunger, it seems, has wiped the misery off his face. It turns out we both lived for a while in Amherst, Massachusetts, and have an abiding and perhaps unhealthy obsession with Emily Dickinson. And then I have a long, not quite so interesting but very fun conversation with the woman next to me about the virtues of late-night grocery shopping. And then…

Step eight: Discover the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Well, not really, but I’m having a genuinely good time and don’t even care when the host orders us to retire to the living room with her and play some stupid games.