Close Quarters

I live in an apartment complex. Trust me, this is not something I ever thought I would do. I'm a house person by nature, and having a yard and being close to it is in my genes. But, when we moved to the "big city" the cheapest place to go was a complex.

It has it's perks.
For instance:
1)We live on the top floor, so if you sit on the carpeting or in the low orange chair, all you see are the tops of huge, old, pine trees. We can pretend we live in a tree house.

2) There's a pool

3) In the winter, heat rises, and so our heating bill is lower than our lower-floor neighbors (this may not be true, but I'm convinced it helps)

And right now, my favorite perk is that I'm smelling the wafting of my neighbor's cooking all around me. From about 5-10pm I can expect to play the guessing game of 'Who's-eating-what-for-dinner'. Usually, this is somewhat painful for my partner, 'cause the smells generally make reference to something involving the carcass of an animal. But for me, it produces fantasies of the soy-bean kind.

I find you can take almost any meat dish and substitute with soy or gluten products (I say almost because I've never tried Tofurky, and I've vowed not to). There are lots of dishes that are easily converted into veggie style (sloppy joe, bourbon marinated chicken, lasagna). I'll get into all that eventually.

For now, I'm thankful that my apartment complex is full of dinner smells, that my next-door-neighbor has food to eat tonight, and that my downstairs' neighbor's daughter came inside from her parking lot tantrum.