Neighborz

Just a look at the neighborz in the rental neighborhood.

We have a love seat under the front window when I like to stretch out with my computer on my lap and I can look out the big front window and watch the world go by.

Across the street is Visor Woman. She wear a visor each and every day even when it's cloudy. She one of those skinny old lady types with a cane who mows her lawn every other day. She was even mowing IN THE RAIN with her visor and her ELECTRIC lawn mower. She has a dog, a reddish colored doberman who must be incredibly old or terribly depressed. I have never seen a dog so listless. Anyhow Visor woman... perhaps she should be Vizor woman, doesn't like her next door neighbor Broom Guy. She's always flicking bits of who knows what onto his grass. I'll get to broom guy later. Vizor woman dusts her car each and every day and one day when it was raining she was watering her tree..... her tree's leaves. Yep there she stood, in the rain, hose nozzle raised and, what I can only suspectm was cleaning the leaves of her tree.

Then there is broom guy. I sat there and watched him walk up his walk, unlock his door, set his groceries inside and then spent who know how long, picking who knows what off the bottom of his flip flops. Now the door is open, he's standing in the middle of the door frame flicking stuff off the bottom of his flip flop onto his porch. Once that was done and anything in his bag that was frozen defrosted, he set his clean soled flip flops beside the door, returned outside in a pair of shoes and then swept the bits of whatever off his porch, then off his step, the down the side walk to the gutter where he then swept all the leaves and grass clippings down the gutter and around the corner where he picked up the leavings and dropped it all on HIS next door neighbor's lawn... Invisible Guy! Then Broom man goes back to his porch, where he takes off his shoes puts his flip flops back on and then picks the blades of whatever off the soles of his shoes. Holy mother of god. Yes I sat and watched simply because I could NOT believe it. And just this past Sunday, he apparently couldn't get the whatever off the bottom of his flip flops and became exasperated and threw the both of them into a bush which meant he had to go back into the house to get his shoes.

Invizible guy is just that. His shades never go up or down, I rarely see a light on tho I did see him leave the house once and he cut his lawn once. Other than that INVIZIBLE GUY!!

The next door neighbors of ours are clean freakz. My god, all they seem to do is clean. The old folkz next door on our left wash down their deck and gave us some kind of bleach thing to use on our cement because one of the dogz poop there and who knows what germs with erupt. The younger woman on the other side had a day when everyone was out of her house and she spent it CLEANING!!! There's not so much as a blade of grass out of line. We cut our rental grass but I don't bother weeding the flower beds hoping that Kali and Charlie will run through them enough to wear the weeds down to nothing. Then the household next to younger neighbors has one of those solid prefab white fences that she washed down with soapy water and then rinsed with a hose.

Now, I am not the greatest housekeeper in the world. In fact I wouldn't even consider myself good so you can imagine that these neighborz give me the creeping ghoulies. I want to shout at them to get a life. To do something for themselves that deosn't require bleach or scrubbing or ammonia. Read a book, have a beer, do anything. I think if they ever saw my true lawn at home with the waist high grass, they would faint dead away. Well, maybe not. That would just clutter up the place.

We visited home yesterday to see how far they have gotten on our rebuild. Plumbing is in and has been inspected by the county. We now have a tub only the water hasn't been turned back on. We have a bathroom sink but it's in the dumpster with a big chunk broken out of it.

The electrical boxes are up and most are wired. the doodads for the ceiling fans are in the ceiling and ready for the fans. The rooms are roughed out. The closet in my craft room is going to be much smaller than what it was but it gives me more room. The basement seems larger than upstairs and Josh will have two big rooms, a full bathroom and an ell where he can put a bar if he wants. In face the plumber has run a pipe to that area so that if Josh wants to install a wet bar the pipes are there. Upstairs there is the piping for our automatic ice maker refrigerator. Also the opening for the new sliding doors is cut and ready for them to build our deck.

so that's it from my neck of the woodz.

The Bluez

I was doing so well with this whole house thing but suddenly this morning I am so down in the dumps there's three miles of garbage piled on top of me.

I have no patience, I never have and this whole house rebuild, while speeding along isn't speeding along fast enough for me. I've been in the row house for more than a month and it STILL feels as if I'm in a hotel someplace. It's not mine. Not the furniture, not the pictures, not the pots or the pans or the silver or the shower curtain or the rugs on the floor. None of it is mine and it weighs on my mind whenever something gets scratched or dented or spotted and I suck at housework.

I want to go home. To my little little blue house where I can be me and can relax. Where I can have what little I have around me. I want it NOW! In my best Baruca Salt manner. I want to go home. My home. NOW

Is it July yet?

The builders are galloping toward finishing the house in July. Of course, we then have to have the county come in an inspect and who knows how long that will take. I'm trying to NOT get too excited for fear that something will happen and I won't be in my house in July. That would bruise an already broken heart.

The row house is nice. The neighbors are nice. The little boy next door just thinks I am the greatest thing since pizza mostly, I think, because I use the word poop and he thinks that hysterical. Of course, he's only about 2 but it is nice to have a fan.

I think the reason I don't like the row house is because I can't make it mine and I am itching to make something mine. I've poster tac'd things to the wall in the craft room and have my table there so messy it looks almost like home except for those Pumpkin eater walls. I put up some removable wall stickers downstairs which helps a bit. I never realized before this how important it is to me to put my stamp on things.

I found some great fabric that I want to use in the house. I'm thinking of making my own bed head board using that fabric, stuffing and some beading but I can't even work on that, because I don't know how big a bed I am getting. The bedrooms are small at home and so I thought a full or maybe a twin, but a twin might be too small and I'll spend the rest of my life falling out of bed.

Speaking of falling.... sigh... gravity will never be my friend. I was being silly Friday night and making fart sounds with my bare feet on the wooden floors when suddenly I'm face down on the floor with no sensation of actually falling. Michael AKA the old Poop yelled "Oh my god!" and then he and Charlie were there each trying to push the other aside. I managed to get myself up but OUCH!!!. So I was hobbling all weekend nearly in tears when I had to climb the stairs in the row house. Even my hands hurt to the point where I had to cancel claying with my neighbors, something I was looking forward to for days, nor could I walk well. So despite the holiday I went no place for those three days and I still hurt. I have promised the oLd Poop and myself that I will make no more floor fart noises. I make no promises however about any other fart noises.

I think I have the house colors chosen. I'm talking interior. Old Poop says Josh can pick the siding color and, knowing Josh, he'd pick purple. I'm still waiting for Ikea to send me a catalog so I can look at furniture. Hey, I'm ready to get moving and don't want to wait until the last minute.

What will I do when house fire/rebuild is no longer in my head, when all is done and we are settled again? I suppose I'll have to find another obsession. I obsess so well.

So that's it for now. Thanks for coming along on the ride with me. As bumpy as it is.

Tuezday

We stopped at the house yesterday to see what had been done and when I walked into the door the place seemed oddly bright even tho the only light coming in was from the opened kitchen door. yesterday, however I could see everything right to the back of the house. All the interior wood had been sprayed with something white and I'm sure that helped along with the fact that there are no walls except the exterior ones.

I stood there for the longest time, my mind trying to tell me something but failing and then the old Poop speaks up and says "It's so small".

BINGO! Was my house ALWAYS that small or perhaps it was only to be dry cleaned and it shrunk under the weight of the water pumped in by the fire department? This house is smaller than the town house, much smaller. Do I care? I've lived in it for 30 years and never noticed it was SO SMALL but the yard is SO BIG plus there will be a deck and we're getting someone to dig up the bamboo rapidly approaching the house and then will spread wildflower seeds all over the churned up yard for next spring. Imagine me sitting on my deck overlooking the wildflowers and the dogs with enough bamboo left to make their life interesting as they explore the yard each morning.

So now I'm thinking I've been getting myself all topsy turvey over refurnishing the house for nothing. The house is small so how much do I need? Whew.. one thing off my mind. Now if only I had an ikea catalog then I could have my house furnished at least in my head. Of course, I have to wait till the insurance company pays off, hopefully it won't be too long.

So that's it for the Tuezday catch up on the great house rebuild of 2012. What will I have to angst over once it's done? I'm sure I will find something.

At least my life isn't boring but, to tell the truth, I think I would enjoy boring, if just for a bit.

Boredom, bring it on.

Yet another rebuild update

According to Josh, aka oldest son, the interior of the house no longer smells like the inside of a grill. Some kind of gray substance has been sprayed onto the existing wood and new sub flooring is down and the wall studs are in waiting for insulation and dry wall. Do they put insulation between dry wall and the exterior, I don't know, all I care is that the stud beams are a good sign.

Today is the plumber who will replace all the pipes, which have already been stripped from the house and then the electrician. I just cannot believe how fast this is going. I've picked counters and counter tops, no stone, thank you, and most of the room colors and have figured out the we want a water thing and an ice maker on the door of the fridge. Maybe I should be more particular but a fridge is a fridge and a stove a stove and the lest I have to fart around with it the better. Same for the washer and dryer. Unless the washer gathers up the clothes it washes then hands it off to the dryer and then the dryer folds and puts everything away then the simpler the machine the better.

I also do not care what kind of knobs are on things or finishes or the grain in the wood. All I care about it the colors. I have some screwy color ideas too but I wouldn't want to drive the men crazy with girly decorations and colors.

If the workers keep up this pace and things we need to order come in time, we may be in my mid-july as the builder is saying now.

I've just turned in the corrected inventory and a running total of our paper receipts. Now we wait and see how much they gave us. Serv Pro gave us a list that added up to more than we are insured for so I am hoping for that full amount. We need everything.

This has been an adventure, not one I wish to repeat. Good things have happened too. Friends have gifted me with so much craft stuff that I am as happy as a pig in slop. If I could get inspired that would be great but maybe that has to wait until I get back home. Just Saturday, I was in my favorite store ARTWAY in Damascus and the wonderful clerk there... we always chat away like two old friends... heard my tale of woe, gave me a hug and slipped a little something in my bag... a gift certificate for $55.00!!! Hotchie Mama! I'll wait till they get into their new premises and then go spend. Cashiers in MIchaels have given me a small discount, other people have offered anything I need. It's hard to accept, since I am always trying to give, I suppose I have to learn to receive as well. It's just too danged hard.

Speaking of pigs reminded me that we passed a sign yesterday that offered lambs for sale (pigs, lambs, farm animals) and I could just see the look on the neighbors of the rental house's faces if I came in carrying a lamb. It is a cute idea and would give Kali something to herd but sheep are really rather dim and I don't know if the cute factor would outweigh the dumb factor. Still.... lambs. Something to think about. baaaaaaaaa

Thurzday

This morning, those guys who come around every week to steal your trash showed up. Charlie was having none of it. It is HIS trash goddamit so leave it alone. He made his intentions known, however, the fierceness was somewhat muted by the catfood can he had in h is mouth and refused to put down. Charlie likes to eat al fresco and especially likes to lick the juice from a cat food can. kali likes cat food juice as well so whoever gets the can first holds onto it. despite the fact that the slowpoke to the can gets a bit of catfood instead of just juice, the juice is the prize. Idiot dogz.

And speaking of idiotz. I was watching Toddlers and Tiaras last night. Yes I know, little girls parading around dressed like miniature hookers and shaking their money makers in inappropriate ways for four year olds. Anyhow, there was one family who, or is that whom, I wanted to smack silly. Not only did they have no idea of the use of apostrophe esses, as if "she MY daughter" but their english was so bad, they had to close caption it so we could understand them. Oh no, they weren't emigrants, they were americans but dumb americans. Ok so if that wasn't bad enough, the theme of the pagent was around the world and the girls were supposed to represent individual countries. Al little four year old had Portugal and part of her skit involved bull fighting. There is bull fighting in Portugal, in fact they don't kill the bulls only really piss them off. I wondered then, how many people knew that there was bullfighting in Portugal and was rather impressed that the mother knew. But then we got to She my daughter and can you guess which country she chose? Africa. AFRICA as in the continent of and I'm guessing that She my DaughterAXually thought that Africa was a country. Good god in heaven. MOm... spend some of that time you wasted by arguing with your sistah as to who's routine was the best and get you some EDDICation. Africa, my dear god.

House update, the badly burned joists at the back of the house have been replaced and a floor is in. A plumber comes out Monday to run the pipes, followed by an electrician. Josh was at the meeting with Michael and the builder and filled me in on some things. the basement door will be steel because it will cut better to install the doggie door, the BIG doggie door. We had the dogz with us when we first met with the builder and now he knows how big they are.

We area almost done with our inventory and the tallying of the receipts and I am trying hard to keep my patience in explaining things over and over again to the old Poop. but really... three times in one short conversation. Maybe I should send him an email.

I got a little panicy last night thinking about all we have to get for the house, plus we need to give the sons the money for their losses and I desperately need dentures (hence the pig pic on my Facebook page) and the old Poop wants to go to the ocean in the summer and us with no vacation money. Old Poop tells me that I'll worry myself into an early grave. I don't do this to myself on purpose. It's as if I'm going along all nice and cheery and a nasty little gnome creeps up on me, whispers dire things into my ear, bops me on the head and runs off... giggling and cavorting while I lie sleepless, my gut in a knot. I'm going to catch that creepy gnome guy one of these days and squash him flat. All I need is a gnome gnet. Anyone have one they want to use or should I maybe order one from that country known as Africa.

It's a wonder I can still pass for sane.

Tra La

Going to post house newz here from now on. I don't want to be a pest to my big list. So here goes.

The house may be rebuilt sooner because Michael and I have our minds made up on what we want and don't want and aren't nitpicking over knobs and grains and the like. In fact, I have already picked out my kitchen cabinets as well as the color of the counter tops. I don't want stone, laminate is fine with me. Josh and a buddy will be doing our floors so I don't have to pick the color right away but I know what I want. I also have the kitchen wall color picked out and I thought I had the rest of the rooms but Michael didn't like the green I chose for the living room and wanted the bedroom peach instead. So I'll put the green in my bedroom and Michael can choose the color for his. (we both snore terribly and keep each other awake so separate bedrooms work for us) Michael said he wanted maroon walls. I told him it would look like living inside a mouth. Add white valances on the top and bottom and they would look like teeth and he'd really be living in a mouth.

There will be ceiling fans in all rooms and a deck, that we never had before and will have to be built at an odd angle to accomodate the outside steps to the basement. There will be a new roof, but we have to pay for that but we should have money left over from contents. There will be a dog door in the basement and a bay window for them in the living room because the dogz have fallen in love with the bay window in the rental house and sleep sprawled across the sill like gigantic cats.

I get a BIG closet in the craft room and the builder will even build me some shelves. I'm thinking a light turquoise for that room but haven't decided for certain.

Oh and did I tell you that the front and back will be landscaped close to the house? Can you imagine? Now I just have to wait for it all to be done.

Another bit of good new is that the builder said that the tear it all away in the interior guys who dismantled walls etc, worked faster than he had planned and that is why we may be back home sooner. Good. My dogz need to run

We took the dogz home on Saturday to let them run and, hopefully, poop them out. No sooner were we in the yard when the little dog next door told his people that the dogz were here and he had to GO!! Eventually little dog next door came over with his mother and he was beside himseld with joy. Little dog next door is a shi tzu mix and has always seemed undoglike to me. He seems a solemn little soul who would rather view life than jump into it and get his paws muddy. Boy was I wrong. Little dog next door teased Charlie into playing iwth whimpers and that upraised butt posture that means come on and play. Little dog next door had never been in my yard before, nor in our bamboo and he had a grand time. Then when he was done, he simply went home, with me following him so no one hit him with a car. Besides, I also had to open the gate for him. We're thinking now that we should but a gate in the fence between us, so the dogs can visit back and forth. Kali was so excited to see the next door neighbor that she peed herself and Charlie used his girl voice as he proclaimed his love. Yep, a gate ought to do it. So that's where we are now. I'm not going to get my hopes us about us getting into the house sooner than we thought, tho it is hard to not get excited. All I know is that I want to go HOME.

I wonder why...

things that happen to strangers affect me so. I remember reading in a newsletter from Animal rescue about a man who had lost his job and was to become homeless. He made arrangements for his beloved cats to go Animal Rescue and then the man killed himself. I suppose he felt that he had no other options. I can understand that. I've felt that way myself at times so maybe I just empathize with the total hopelessness of it all.

Today Dooce posted about a tweet she received about a man she follows who may be in serious trouble only to have a follow up tweet sometime later stating that this man, too had killed himself. She posted some of his other tweets and my heart bled for the man. If only he had someone who could have taken him into their arms and told him everything might be bleak but he would get through it. Even it if wasn't true and things would never really get better maybe the hope would have given him strength.

For decades we had been in danger of losing our home. I worked full time for years and the husband tutored but we never made enough and I spent those years scared to death of losing the home and having us out on the street. By us, I mean the sons who were little then and depending on their parents for everything. How much easier it would have been if someone, somehwere would have told me that if the worst did happen, we would NOT be homeless, that there was a place for us to go, it would have made things easier for me. I still would have worked but the fear would have been kept somewhat at bay.

This is why I have always told my sons that when they do move out and if something happens and they need to come back home, they are always welcome. Of course, right now I don't have a real home just a rental one but it is a safety net... just in case.

So if anyone out there in blog reader land ever needs a safety net., look no further. I'm here, arms open wide, ready to catch you.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

Had a wife and couldn't keep her
Put her in a pumpkin shell
and there he kept her
very well.

Yep, the rental house craft room fits this kid's rhyme perfectly.

The orange room as driving me mad. The table I was using in it was too small and I was so frustrated. This weekend we got me a five foot long table, that folds in the middle that JUST about fits the room and makes crafting so much easier. I think I can now stand the room until September, now if I had some inspiration.

Still working on that god awful inventory list. Everytime I sit to go over it again I'm reminded of what I will never have back. The first issue of KIdstreet News that I had written for. The article about Casey and his group that won the International Film Festival in D.C., the Star trek phone prize I won for Josh, and everything I had ever written since I was in the first grade. I wrote my first story the summer after first grade. It was about a kitten who was lost and who ended up being adopted by a mother rabbit and her hairless newborns. The new born rabbits loved the little black kitten. He had fur the bunnies didn't.

I never stopped writing from then on. I realize now it was an escape from a harmful childhood. It wasn't so much physical abuse, tho the belt was taken to me twice, but the emotional abuse that left me feeling as if I am a waste of skin and totally useless. In my writing I could be anyone. I could do anything and so I wrote and wrote and wrote... and lost all of it.

I shouldn't let this loss bother me and it usually doesn't but there are times it hits me so hard that it brings tears to my eyes but I don't cry. I tell myself the people and animals are safe and what more do I want?

So I take a breath and I go on. A bit wobbly but I go on.

On the up side. I looked at all my craft stuff that was sent to me and that which I bought as replacement and have come to a realization. I really don't need any more. Oh maybe a bottle of rubber cement or tape or something like that but no stamps or stamp pads or pape4r and the rest. I can quite happily craft with what I have.

As for clothes I have enough shirts and pants for 6 days at work and enough at home relaxed clothes for about that same time and that's enough as well. Shopping for replacement etc has shown me something I never noticed before. I keep buying the same stuff over and over. Round necked or v necked t-shirt either short or long sleeved and a pair of jeans. I look at blouses and the like but I buy the t-shirts, long sleeved and short. Different colors and patterns of course but the same style over and over. So I am now done buying replacement clothes for summer. No more clothes shopping, something that make me want to jump, ok hobble, for joy! I even have 2 count em 2 pairs of sneakers. one for winter one for summer. I just hope that nothing comes up where I have to be an adult and 'gasp' wear a dress and/or heels. Then I'm lost. For now, tho, it's one less thing I have to fuss with. Who needs the rest of the stuff? the books and pigs and knick knacks and all? Oh yes I liked what I had but now I can buy new, if I even bother. So while m y head tends to drag me down at times, reality pulls me back up and then the oddz bodkinz part of my life steps in and I walk out into the back yard and find Kali sitting in the middle of a bush and grinning like a fool. How could anyone be down with a bush sitting dog? Charlie wisely stays out of the bushes but he does love to sleep in the living room's bay window. Just like a cat only the cat, I do have, doesn't like to sit in the window.

ODDZ BODKINZ FOREVER!