Filled 'N' Gard

Once upon a time -- just a few days ago, in fact -- there was a delicate and dainty, most agreeable Young Lady running around to every grocery store in her local area. She was on a quest, for beets to pickle with onions and eggs, and it was a challenging quest to say the least. But she eventually succeeded, and along the way she picked up a few other things.

One of the items she accumulated in her travels was a can of chocolate-filled hard-candies -- like those her grandmother, and her great-aunts, and all of the Old Ladies she used to know, would set out in their homes at Christmastime. Like these:

(Only not these. But we'll have to make do with this image because said agreeable Young Lady was too fluster-headed to remember to take a picture of the can she bought, before Her Johnny put the can out with the recycling. And then all of a sudden -- poof! -- the can was gone):

This was some days ago, and when Agreeable and Delicate Young Lady eagerly showed Her Johnny what she'd found, he expressed his fond approval. But when she moved to open said can and put the candies in a dish, Her Johnny did protest.

"They'll just get all gross and stuck together," Her Johnny importuned. "At least wait until we're finished canning, so there won't be steam from giant, boiling pots floating throughout the house."

"Okay," Young Lady said. And then, when Her Johnny ducked into the bog, she did it anyway. He knew she would, and he emerged shaking his Irish head.

"So?" Young Lady said. "I wanted to, and so I did. You're not the boss of me. Besides, look how pretty the candies are in the bowl your sister gave us!"

His sister had indeed given them that bowl, as a wedding present after they eloped. Waterford cut crystal, it is, direct from the Old Country. And does it not look like it was made to hold these candies?

Well. Young Lady and Her Johnny went ahead and canned those pickled beets, and Young Lady enjoyed selecting candies from the crystal while they did. Some days went by thereafter, in which Young Lady all but forgot about the candies and the dish -- what with some excitement going on regarding hot chocolate and Christmas Peeps. But eventually, returning home from work one early Friday afternoon with a hankering for something sweet, she remembered, and reached out for, her old friends.

They were stuck fast. So fast, in fact, that our Young Lady could turn over the Waterford and not a single candy would drop out.

They are still pry-loose-able, but if Young Lady does not remove them soon she may find they'll yield to nothing short of Girlie Screwdriver -- an act which would be verboten by Her Johnny, and which Young Lady dast not disobey.

Why? Because this...

...if you turn it rightways and zoom in...

Reads:

Garda Championship
2005
Group Three Winner

So the moral of the story is: If you're going to recycle tournament trophies as wedding presents, make sure you're Irish when you do it. Because then it's hysterical and it makes Young Lady love the present even more. It also doesn't hurt if Young Lady once spanked said Gardaí's ass at snooker -- a game which, to that point, she had never played -- so she can pretend she won the trophy from him fair and square. Even if she suspects he really won it playing golf.

Oh, and also: If you are this Delicate and Agreeable Young Lady, listen to your husband when he tells you about candy. It is yet another thing about which he knows whereof he speaks.

Wowza!

Johnny finished the shower!

On Wednesday night, when Johnny was supposed to be putting the second coat of caulking on the shower, after which we were supposed to be embarking on our "other kitchen project," John B. showed up at the door. With a twelve-pack of Bud Light. For himself.

John B. is in the process of buying a house (cue the violins). It's not his first house. He bought his first house with his first wife. She still lives in it. He still pays the mortgage. After something like fifteen years. There is no second wife. And he's been renting.

When did I turn into James Ellroy? Gag.

Anyway, First Wife is getting married in a couple months, which means John B. no longer has to pay her mortgage, which means he can finally-finally-finally get A House Of His Own. Yay, him. He found one for something like $240,000, in somewhere like Abington. He's supposed to be closing in a couple weeks and he is all excited.

Now, Johnny and I have a policy when it comes to friends of ours buying property in general: we mirror their moods. We offer no advice, no opinions, no dampers on their enthusiasm or encouragement towards same. If they're happy, we're happy, and if they're sad, we're sad. If they're overwrought and suicidal, well, we won't tie the noose but we do let them know they're always welcome for a beer.

John B. was ready to hang, but he was tired of drinking Johnny's regular-old Budweiser and so he'd brought his own. (Me, I tend to avoid the entire Anheiser-Busch milieu, but I'm always surprised by what snobs Bud Light drinkers are -- they're always like "Bud? Why are you drinking that crap?" As if Bud Light is the goddamn champagne of beers or something. Hey, wait a second...)

Turns out the seller is splitting the property in half, and John B. didn't know that. He thought he was buying a big old yard and he was making plans for swimming pools and everything. Of course, the intent to split was probably disclosed at some point -- if nowhere else, then at least in the square-footage of the delineated property. But if he didn't read the fine print and just assumed the yard attached to the house when he saw it would be the yard he got, well, let's just say he wouldn't be the first. And they're asking $180,000 for the other half-a-yard.

Now, since he's been paying the mortgage on First Wife's house and rent for himself for whatever, twenty years, he hasn't exactly saved up a down payment. He borrowed $15,000 from his mother for it. Which, I haven't asked too many questions, but I have to assume he's signed the P&S already, in which case he won't be able to get it back. Not if the intent to split had been disclosed, which I have to believe it was.

What it boils down to is he'll be moving about forty-five minutes away, to live next door to a construction site and an eventual next-door neighbor whose house he'll be able to lay hands on from his own. Yay, him. So Johnny sat with him in the living room while he got drunk on Wednesday night, and I sat in my king-sized bed watching "Pushing Daisies" (my new favorite show) and sulking about my shower.

Hey, when I said I mirror their moods, I never claimed to swallow any tantrums of my own.

So yesterday, on my way home, I ran into Johnny on his way up the street. When he told me where he was going I got really-really mad, and I may or may not have peeled rubber away from him when he asked me for a lift. Then I got home and found his note:

"Hello Love,
Your shower's all set and dinner's ready to go. I'm going for smokes and a quick pint. It's 4:00. I'll be back in an hour."

He wasn't. He stayed for two. But can you blame him?

I Guess the Answer Is No

I awoke this morning at 5:45 and I don’t even have to be at work till noon. I don’t work out anymore since I hurt my ankle, and I’ve given myself a vacation from the writing till the end of the year (not everybody knew that; now they do: Hi, Everybody!). I don’t have anything to do.

The only reason I was up so early is that the stupid radiator in the bedroom – now that it actually, finally gets hot – has a water hammer that it never had before. And I thought steam radiators did not get water hammers.

(Water Hammer, for the uninitiated, is that loud BANG that happens deep inside the pipes. The noise is made by water – hence the name; clever, eh? – and apparently it can cause damage over the long term. Yay.)

This one is not that loud, not yet. But, like I said, I thought steam systems didn’t get them.

In our last apartment we got water-hammer super-loud – loud enough to (seriously) wake the neighbors. And I didn’t care, because that’s the beauty of paying rent: not having to give a hoo about anything that’s not a direct threat to your life. That place had hot-water heat, and I was under the impression that the hammering was caused by air bubbles trapped in it.

I gather I was right as far as that went. Yay, me. But now I learn that hammers are also caused by water-bubbles caught in steam. I didn’t know that. Now I do. Yay, me.

I’m still confused about a lot of other things, however, steam-system-wise.

For example: I’ve been told by actual, honest-to-god plumbers (who had been called here, and were inches from getting paid for, this express purpose) that steam systems don’t need to be bled. That was years ago, when we were trying anything we could think of to get ourselves some freakin’ heat. But now that we’re warm I wonder: if one does not bleed the system, how does one get rid of water hammer?

Also, all those years when I was wearing hats and scarves and ski parkas to bed each night for six months of the year, lots of people told me I could regulate the system by dialing certain rooms down to lower levels and other rooms all the way up – thereby “forcing” the steam out to the desired radiator. It never worked, but once I set it that way I just left it, because at least it didn’t make things any worse.

Now I read that steam radiators are supposed to be either all the way on or all the way off. I read that terrible things will happen if I leave them in between. I’ve gone around now and turned them all up in the meantime, but which is it?

Except I haven’t technically turned all of them all the way up, because plus also? The other radiator in my bedroom? (There are two, the big one hammers and then there’s this little one.) If I turn the knob all the way to “open”? The entire knob-piece comes off in my hand.

See?

And then – it wasn’t on when I took this picture, but when it is on – hot steam shoots up through the hole and you have to push the piece back in like the Little Dutch Boy. The Little Dutch Boy, that is, with his hand-skin coming off in sheets.

Finally, there’s these air-vents, or air-valves, or steam-either thingmabobs.

I don’t know what to do with them. If I turn them to “open,” steam hisses out – which I’ve read should not be happening. But I’ve also read they should not be turned to “closed.”

What I need is a tutorial on this entire thing, but I am not calling the Kid back here (or his mysterious, supposed-father) and I don’t want to wind up paying somebody else to do nothing but walk in the house and fiddle with some knobs.

Johnny says I should call the gas company and see if they’ll send somebody out, but the last time they sent somebody out he showed up in a suit, with dollar signs where his eyes were supposed to be. Plus I’m flat-out tired of dealing with the farty old gas company.

I think what I’ll do is stop off at the plumbing-supply place on my way home this afternoon, see if I can’t get those air-valve screws I was looking for a month ago. I’ll ask those guys up there if they’ve got any pointers regarding this whole mess. And if they don’t, then I guess I’ll have to try my luck with national “lower case’ gridspan.

Of course, any pointers anybody wants to leave here for me would be appreciated. In fact, let’s turn it into a GAME – and let’s make up some rules. I can’t police it, but we’ll go on the honor system:

You’re not allowed to read anybody else’s comments before you post your own. Just tell me what you think, or what you heard, or what you found out when you googled, and then you can go back and see what other people had to offer.

Let’s see whether we come up with a list of corresponding advice I can trust – in which case I’m the stupid one, again – or if we get a list of contradictory ideas like I’ve come up with so far. In which case, I guess, that proves that I can read. And if we don’t get anything, then that proves nobody loves me after all.

(Oh come on, how can you not play after such a naked grab for the heartstrings?)

However it shakes down, I’ll turn the results somehow into a (hopefully) funny post.

So be warned.



Oh, and bonus points for anyone who wants to explain the title. This one should be easy…

Here Is What You Have To Do

Step 1: Get yourself some Christmas-edition, peppermint-flavored Peeps. You can’t see it here, but instead of sugar on the outside, they have what tastes like very finely crushed-up candy-canes. I know there are two schools of thought on the whole "Peep" issue, but as far as I’m concerned, if you don’t like them, you are un-American.

Step 2: Make yourself a really, really giant cup of cocoa. Johnny insists that this isn’t, in fact, cocoa. He says it’s hot chocolate. I don’t know what the difference is. He is un-American.

Step 3: Ta-Da!

Step 4: L.L. Bean flannel pyjamas aren’t such a bad idea at this point, either. Hi, Sister!

I wasn’t going to do any of this until much, much later tonight, but I wanted to make sure you all got the message before you left your desks, in case you need to stop for Peeps and cocoa on the way back home. Plus I’m having post-dental traumatic owies -- again -- so I’ve decided to eat cocoa-’n’-Peeps instead of my main meal.

It’s so good, tomorrow I might just have to go buy up all the Christmas peppermint-flavored Peeps that I can find, so I can have Peeps-’n’-cocoa all year long.

Johnny sez I better get more cocoa, too. I sez there’s always cocoa, but pep-peeps are only here for a limited time. Check with your local retailer and buy your supplies now!

Pickled Beets & Eggs!

I know you probably think that title is some kind of joke -- like a new swear-word I made up or something -- but it isn't. It's what Johnny and I did with our yesterday. And by "we" I really do mean both of us, and by "yesterday" I really do mean that it took all freaking day.

See, a couple years ago, the Lady I work for mentioned that her mother used to make pickled beets and eggs when she was little, and she loved them. Said Lady is in her mid-sixties, not a big fan of "things" around the house, and rather fond of Mother Earth and All Her Creatures. So, when she mentioned this particular gustatory madeleine, I filed it away in my trusty noggin. Every year for Christmas since, we've given her a thing or two out of the Heifer catalog, and a quart or two of pickled beets and eggs. She loves it.

Except we've never managed to grow the beets ourselves. When we try, we get acres of beet greens and a couple bloody-looking peas. So we have to buy them at the grocery store -- and, if you've never noticed, fresh beets are apparently not the biggest sellers. At least not at this time of the year.

Remember the other day when I said I went to nine different stores in search of shower curtain rings? Well, that was not 100% true. I was also looking for beets. I went to four different grocery stores looking for beets (I checked for the rings while I was there, so I'm not completely lying), and I came up with exactly two bundles. Eight beets. So yesterday I tried three more stores, and came up with another two. Bundles, that is. But that would have to do.

Onions aren't so hard to find.

Or eggs.

Unfortunately, when we were ready to begin in earnest, I realized I forgot to check if we needed vinegar, so I had to go back out.

And when I got back with the vinegar and read the recipe again, I realized it said cider vinegar, so I had to go back out.

And then we didn't have enough brown sugar. Argh.

So from here on it was Johnny's job: cutting up the onions...

cutting up the beets, with the inherent bloody aftermath...

(Johnny insisted I wanted a picture of his bloody hands with the cut-up beets, to give it context. I didn't, but here it is anyway, because I'm all into marital harmony these days.)

I measured out the spices and put them in the tea ball -- you're supposed to use a cheesecloth, but who knows where the hell the cheesecloth ever is? -- while Johnny measured out the sugars, vinegar and water.

And then we remembered we hadn't sterilized our jars. So we had to put everything aside and sit and wait for the giant pot to come to boil.

In the meantime, I read Johnny a New Yorker article by Peter Hessler about why Chinese people are such terrible drivers. He laughs about this all the time, and it used to make me nervous that he did. I thought it was a racist thing. But this article explains -- humorously, but factually -- that nobody over there had cars until about ten years ago, and the driving schools are allowed to teach essentially whatever the hell they want. So they turn out nervous, awful drivers. Apparently, it's true.

(Another thing about Chinese and Johnny that used to make me nervous is that he says "Chinee" -- as in "where did that Chinee learn to drive?" Only about two years ago did I figure out that, to a dyslexic Dubliner, "Chinee" is the singular: one Chinee, two Chinese. It's not right, but it's not racist, and he's been saying it for 47 years so I just let it go.)

Eventually the water boiled, and Johnny packed the jars.

Then he poured the syrup into them, and for some reason it was my job to place them back in the hot water bath. Probably so that it would be my fault when one of the lids turned out to have a pinprick in it and that jar had to come out for an emergency lid-switcharoo.

The recipe said to process them for thirty minutes, but that sounds excessive (doesn't it to you?) so we process them for just fifteen. We've done it every year like this and no one's keeled over yet.

Ta da! (Those little white spots are where the eggs are touching the sides of the jars; they'll turn purple as they pickle.)

Except, the whole reason I started taking these pictures as we went along in the first place was because I wanted a shot of the shite sink with all the bloody beet juice in it.

(That's supposed to say "white sink" but I like the typo so I left it in. Actually, it's not a shite sink. It's pretty almost new. About a year and a half. When we did the beets thing last year my heart stopped a little bit, but it turns out that the beet juice washes easily away. Which leads me to...)

I forgot to tell Johnny I wanted to get that photograph, and he drained the beets and cleaned the sink while I was out getting the vinegar. Or the other vinegar. Or the brown sugar. I forget.

All that remained of gore-mess in the sink was this one fingernail-sized bit of stupid skin, which doesn't even look as meagerly disgusting in this picture as it did in person.

Ah well, it's finished. And tonight we have a whole new Christmas-related kitchen project to embark on, but I can't tell you about that one because the person we're making it for might actually be out there reading this dreck. If you can imagine.

Oh, yeah, and it probably won't be tonight after all. Because I have another dentist's appointment today and I'll probably have to come home and crawl in bed with my pop ice and my Dirty Boy.

Pickled beets and eggs!

Seriously...

...how am I supposed to write like this?

And here's the same picture with explanatory notes, just for s&g:

Not Even He That Hath Her

He did it. I nagged and shrieked and generally shrewed myself into a Katharina frenzy until he had to do it just to shut me up.

I’m talking about the caulk.

He said the stuff we had was probably not good enough. I said “Is there silicone in it? Then it’s fine!”

He said the marine caulk he was talking about was specially made for just this sort of thing. I said “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as marine caulk!”

He said John B. told him that some showers aren’t designed to be caulked, and that we’d best be sure that this one was or else it might just wind up trapping moisture. I said “Oh yeah? You think there’s meant to be booger-strings of mold creeping down from behind the plastic when I’m in the shower?”

He said – oh my god – he said I should remember that I also had to clean the shower, that maybe the mold I was talking about could have been prevented with a little, you know, elbow grease. I said “I only didn’t clean the shower because I was waiting for you!”

And then I said:

“If you’d done what you were supposed to instead of pissing around and talking to everyone about it, it would be done by now and we wouldn’t have all these asshole opinions to consider!”

He said fine, he’d do it. But if it turned out, next week or next year or later, to have been a bad idea, then I should take note of this moment and remember: Whatever damage happened after this would be entirely my fault.

That gave me pause. For a moment. Then I remembered Kate and shouted “No! You’re the one who told me that it should have been done in the first place! Two years ago! And you’re the one who said we had to do it now! You’re the one who said you would do it – on Saturday! All I’m responsible for is trying to make you keep your word!”

Well, you don’t impugn Johnny’s word-keeping integrity and get away with it, so at this point he shut up and caulked the shower. And while he did, Muskego Jeff left a comment here telling me that there was, in fact, such thing as marine caulk, and that he’d heard it was particularly good for use on shower pans – by which I assume he means (although I haven’t looked it up) the floor part of an insert, standing shower.

The job took Johnny all of twenty minutes, and when he came out the fight was over. Not only had I won, but I’d also eaten a bowl of his homemade turkey soup while he was in there (I’d been hungry when I shrewed him – is anyone surprised?), and I had been proven ever so very slightly wrong. He didn’t know this yet, and with any luck he never would, but the combination humbled me enough to hug him and thank him and tell him I was sorry, that I loved him, and his soup was really good.

He said he'd put another coat on it tomorrow morning (which is now, although technically right now he’s still asleep) and then it would have to cure three days before I could start to use it. And then he sighed and, when gently prompted, confessed his fear that when I did start to use it – as soon as I should set foot in the shower – the floor part would separate instantly from the wall.

I said “Oh.”

I said “I think it’s called a ‘shower pan.’”

And I said “If that happens, we’ll get the Special Marine Caulking that you wanted.

“Okay, hon?”

Isn’t Katharina just the best wife in the world?

He Didn't Do It.

He says "somebody" told him to use "special marine caulk" if he wants to do it right. He says "special marine caulk" costs $28 a tube.

He's going to get a tube of special marine caulking right ... through ... his ... skull.

He's got it coming.

He's got it coming!

He's had it coming all week long.

I'm gonna do it.

And when I've done it,

You'll all agree that it was not wrong.

Like Flynn

I hear Dirty Boy is working on a novel. I wonder if I'm in it!

If not, I'm sure I could still see clear to put aside my cameraphobia and pose with him for a bodice-ripping cover. With him, I said. Not freaking Fabio. Cuz yuck.

Oh, also, I know that this will shock and awe you, but Johnny did not, in fact, caulk the shower yesterday. He spent the whole day on the couch watching stupid tv. I made an apple pie, I folded laundry (which may also shock and awe you), I swept five bags of leaves up off of the sidewalk.

Johnny watched Men in Black. He watched The Librarian. I think I might have even caught him watching Happy Gilmore. Considering that Johnny never manages to spend an entire day doing nothing like this, it didn't really bother me too much. He's not working this week. He can caulk tomorrow. What's one more day, in the grand scheme of things?

But then at 8:05 p.m. he managed to pry his ass from the couch to run in and tell me that "It started!"

"It did?" I said, gathering my water bottle, soda can, and coffee cup. "It's not supposed to start till 8:15!"

"Not the game," he said. "A Christmas Story!"

Now, Christmas Story happens to be my favorite Christmas movie. They also happen to show the thing a thousand times between Thanksgiving and New Year's, plus, if I'm not mistaken, we own the DVD. It was not time to watch A Christmas Story right now. It was time to watch my boys issue their weekly display of utter domination.

But, being the big-hearted woman that I am, and not wishing to introduce disharmony this far into what had been a fairly lazy and good-humored Sunday, I decided to let him watch his movie on the couch. I could watch the bloodbath from the bedroom.

Except the massacre was cancelled and there was a game instead. More interesting to watch, for certain, but come on -- we almost lost! The blame for which I place wholly on my husband's head.

By 11:00 (Patriots 24, Eagles 28 -- and halfway through A Christmas Story for the second time ) Johnny was fast asleep. I crept out and watched the fourth quarter sitting on his toes. Thanks to this, mostly (and a little help from the YACman), the boys in blue managed to pull a final touchdown out of their collective heinies.

(Actually, they pulled two, but there was this guy in garish black-and-white who made believe one of them didn't count.)

So they won. And they've made it to the playoffs (surprise, surprise). But from now on, I don't care if God himself is talking straight to Johnny through the TV in the living room. I will not be going through that agony again.

And he's caulking that g-d shower stall today, or else I'm cancelling the cable.

So there.

This Is Just Plain Silly

As far as longest place-names go you’ve got a few to choose
First there’s Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoau-
(which continues) –aotamateaurehaeaturipu-
(and then goes on to say) -kapihimaungahoronu-
(and finishes) –kupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu!

They say it means “The place where Tamatea, with big knees
“Slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains – the land-eater, if you please –
“Played flute for his loved one,” but I don’t know who she was
Or why he played the flute for her, I guess it’s just because.

And then there’s Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerych-
(take a breath) –wyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch
I know you’ll be surprised when I tell you that it’s in Wales
Where apparently they buy their vowels just in close-out sales.

This one is like a map, telling you where to find a church.
St. Mary’s by the white tree there – the hazel, not the birch –
Near the rapid whirlpool, the one by the red cave
Owned by St. Tysilio (I’ve never heard that name!).

So you see by comparison Chargoggagoggmanchaugg-
Agoggchaubunagungamaugg is only half a hog.
I grew up right next to it, Muskego Jeff did not
But heard it on the radio and he never forgot!

The translation has something to do with where the Nipmucs met
To share a truce and cast a line and get their sore feet wet
Some think a syllable or two refers to perfidy
By so-called “English knifemen” – but this is news to me.

I grew up thinking that the name meant “You fish on your side
“I will do the same on mine and – if we both abide –
“Nobody fishes in the middle.” It’s a perfect plan!

Too bad that it was fabricated by a silly man.

At any rate, this is the pun that I was playing on:
I’ve got the master bathroom – also known as the suite en –
Johnny has the other one (he keeps it really clean)

And, if we’re very lucky, no one pisses in between!

Seeing Red

I did put plastic on the windows yesterday. Johnny did not caulk the shower. I did have a screaming-yelling, foot-stomping, temper-tantrum in the house all by myself when I discovered this. I tore up the note he left and threw the bits in the air and everything. And then, when I calmed down, I sheepishly picked the whole mess up.

Here’s what happened:

The plasticing (plasticking? Plasticification? Plastifying? Plastation? Plasting? I can’t find a word for this that spellcheck doesn’t underline in red. But then, I just noticed that spellcheck underlines “spellcheck” in red, so what does it know about anything?) the wrapping of the windows went by without incident. I even took the opportunity to put up an honest-to-god, made-for-the-purpose, curtain rod on the rotten windows in my office. It’s just the white-metal, cheapy-cheap kind, but it’s much better than what used to be there. Which I didn’t take a picture of while it was still up on the window, but here it is waiting to go out with the trash:

See? It’s not even really “it.” It’s really “they” – as in “they” are not even really curtain rods but just some pieces of bamboo and metal that we found to help us hide the ugly windows temporarily, and then "temporarily" stretched into three and a half freakin’ years. “They,” as in “they” needed one another because neither piece was long enough to stretch cross the whole window, so the metal rod held the left side curtain and the bamboo held the right. And yes, I had the cheapy metal proper item in the attic all along.

Cheapy: underlined in red by spellcheck. Moving on.

So I put up the new curtain rod. See?

And so what if the curtains are tied back with thumbtacks and baling twine?

Then I hung the plastic wrap. See?

Well, okay, so you can’t see, because it’s plastic and it’s clear. And because when I took a picture anyway, the sun shone through and whited the whole thing out (whited: also underlined in red. Damn spellcheck). So you’ll just have to trust me.

And now begins the saga that would, eventually, induce the temper-tantrum.

I had intended to busy myself around the house while listening to NPR, and then run errands when my shows were done at 4:00. I asked Johnny to, at some point, check whether he had enough caulk to do the shower, and if not I’d pick it up when I went out. At 4:00.

But at 2:30 he decided he needed to make a bread – like, now – and there wasn’t any yeast, and when was I going out already anyway? I should probably remind you all at this point that Johnny doesn’t drive. And I’d also like to mention that This American Life (my favorite show) starts here at 3:00.

Now, Johnny doesn’t sit around doing nothing very well. I could have told him to just wait for ninety minutes, but he was getting yantsy (which spellcheck underlines in red but which is not a typo; I think it’s a Dublin thing), and I was afraid that if I insisted on waiting until 4:00 to run my errands, he might decide he needed to “go for a little walk.” It’s not like there’s not a radio in Chuck (TFT) and besides, if I hurried, I might even make it back.

But he hadn’t checked yet for the caulk. And when he went downstairs to look for it, he wound up shouting up for me to check under the bathroom sink. It wasn’t there, of course. There’s nothing there, not even a cabinet: why did he make me look?

Well, when he came up he made fun of me for not knowing which bathroom sink he meant. I was looking under his, and he found it under mine (where, apparently, it has been waiting patiently for going on two years, laughing at me every time I turned on the stupid shower).

Then we noticed that the tube has a sort of stain on it.

Which led us both to wonder if there’s a leak under that new sink in the new bathroom that we heretofore had never noticed. We agreed, unspokenly, to worry about that another time (unspokenly: underlined in red).

Now, Johnny didn’t know this, but the errands that I planned on running included the finishing touches on his bathroom. It was going to be a surprise. I was going to grab him a black bathmat, new shower curtain, black curtain rings and switchplate (underlined in red), and then set them up in his bathroom while he was caulking mine. So, even though we didn’t need the caulk, my first stop was at Blowe’s.

This post is plenty long enough already, so I don’t think I’ll enumerate the next eight stops I made in my fruitless quest. Suffice to say I missed most of my favorite show and didn’t get home until three hours later, with exactly half of the items on my stupid list, only to find a note from Johnny saying that John B. had shown up and they’d gone out for a pint. Excuse me, let me quotate that: they'd gone out for “a” pint.

(Quotate: underlined in red. Listen Spellcheck, I know, okay? I’m being colloquial. Der.)

I should probably mention at this point that stop number three, out of the nine I made in those three hours, was back at the freaking house to drop off his freaking yeast so he could make his freaking bread while I continued to chase around after the freaking geese.

So, yeah, I tore up the note and stomped and cursed his Irish name. I also threw my three-hours worth of purchases down on the kitchen floor and swore to leave them there till he got home, even if that meant the post-Thanksgiving, on-sale turkey started to grow fur.

But just then my dad happened to call, and he talked me off the ledge. I hung up the phone, picked up my mess – including the torn-up bits of note – and dealt properly with the items that I did manage to find.

See? Switchplate.

Bathmat.

Turkey.

Then I watched a couple episodes of Dirty Boy on demand while working my way through the final-markdown Halloween candy that I had so thoughtfully brought home from one of my nine stops for the husband I'd assumed was hard at work. And finally, feeling good and sick, I went to bed.

Johnny reports this morning that he had a grand old time last night. The place they went turns out to be owned by an old friend he hasn't seen in donkey's years, which is why they wound up staying out so long. That's great. I'm thrilled for him. But today, so help me god, he’ll caulk that shower.

Or I will underline his jackeen ass in red.

Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Okay now finally it’s time for me to write about the shower. Again.

If you remember – which there’s no reason you should because I’ve changed the subject like twelve times since I mentioned it, but – this is the shower in my bathroom. And when I say “my bathroom,” I mean the master bathroom which, except in an emergency, I am the only one to use. As opposed to when I say “the bathroom,” by which I mean the public one that's sometimes also known as “Johnny’s.”

Got it?

In other words, this time, I’m talking about my super-duper, en suite, pod-bay shower:

Which never got caulked up completely when it was installed and I didn’t know that when I started using it and Johnny (let’s be honest) didn’t have the sack to tell me. So the water was getting in the cracks between the pieces, and therefore in the wall behind the pieces, making all this yucky mildew slime that would come oozing out the creepy cracks when I was in the shower.

Yum.

So I stopped using it for a week or so. To let the nasty thing dry out a bit. Then Johnny, as he says, “bleached the piss out of it.” And I would like to state for the record that there wasn’t any piss in it. Not when he bleached it, anyway. I’m not going to swear I’ve never.

Oh come on, are you seriously going to claim you’ve never?

Fine.

Neither have I.

Ahem.

Moving on.

Apparently, however, I was wrong to disparage Johnny’s gonadal dimensions. Because when he finished this chlorinated task – and I don’t know the details of how he got Chlorox in all the cracks, but get it there he did – he had the sterile balls to come out and say to me: “You know, Love, you also have to clean the shower sometimes.”

Ahem.

Moving on.

No, you know what? Not moving on. I have to say in my defense, that this bleach job had been imminent for weeks before it happened, and I saw no sense in scrubbing the shower before he climbed all in it with his boots on. Plus he was going to be spraying bleach all over! Why not see what that takes off before I get on my hands and knees?

It’s also true that we were caught in a sort of catch-22. I say “sort of” catch-22 because it’s not really a catch-22, and I hate when people use that phrase for things that just don’t qualify at all. Like, I heard somebody say “I’m hungry but – catch-22 – if I eat now I won’t be hungry at dinnertime.” No, not catch-22 (also not a concept I can understand, by the way: ruining dinner). A catch-22 would be if you don’t eat now you won’t get dinner later. See?

Anyway, we were caught in a sort of conundrum whereby he needed me to stop using my shower for a few days before he’d bleach it, but I needed to know for sure he would bleach it before I’d stop. And since I couldn’t be sure he would until he did, and since he couldn’t do it till I stopped, we sort of circled the wagons round each other for a couple weeks. Hence the soap scum about which Johnny’s sack so prissily complained.

And then the shower broke. So that solved that problem.

The stupid hand-held nozzle for which I never installed the hanger-thing because I didn’t want to put a screw-hole in the wall and risk getting shower-water in there (you decide whether that’s irony or not: no way I’m going there). It had been hanging headfirst by its hose this whole time, occasionally getting dropped and banged around, and this time when I went to turn the jet-adjuster thingy (and I don’t remember why I went to turn the jet-adjuster thingy, but it had nothing to do with Dirty Boy, I swear) it just came off in my hand.

Lookit:

So I started using Johnny’s shower and Johnny, eventually, bleached mine. That, I believe, was this past Tuesday. I’m going to see if I can get him to caulk it up for me today while I spend nine and a half frustrating hours blow-drying plastic wrap onto all the old windows that need replacing.

Then I’ll go buy me a new shower nozzle for my bathroom, and some black curtain rings for Johnny’s. And he wants a black switchplate, too, if I can find one. And bathmat. So it will be full-on, come-up-and-see-me-sometime, bordello décor.

Hey, he's the one who's going to be pissing in there. If he’s got the sack for it, why not?


Anybody out there? Want to explain the title to me for a POEM CONTEST? Don't just google and define it, tell me what stupid pun I'm making...

The Sub-Prime Mortgage Massacree

This post is called The Sub-Prime Massacree, and it's about the Sub-Prime, and the Massacree, but Sub-Prime Massacree is not the name of the Massacree, that's just the name of the post, and that's why I called the post the Sub-Prime Massacree.

You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!
You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!
Walk right in there’s beer in the fridge,
Just a half a mile from the damn drawbridge.
You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!

Now it all started four Thanksgivings ago, was on – well, actually was on Groundhog Day, when my Johnny bought himself a scratch ticket. Johnny didn’t live in the scratch ticket store but he lived nearby the scratch ticket store, on the second floor, with me and Him and Her, the two cats. And livin’ nearby the scratch ticket store like that, we got a lot of tickets where our bank balance used to be. Havin’ all those tickets, seein’ as how we had no money, we decided that we didn’t have to be responsible adults for a good long time.

But we got up this day, this Groundhog Day, we found a down payment in one of them tickets, and we decided it would be a friendly gesture to take the ticket down to the Lottery Commission and trade it in for actual cash dollars. So we took the scratched-off ticket, put it in the back of a red Cadillac Sedan DeVille, took passports and licenses and implements of identification and headed on toward the Lottery Commission.

Well we got there and there was a chain along the wall and a big sign saying “Welcome to the Mass State Lottery” and there was Fox News on the television. And we had never seen Fox News on the television before, and with tears in our eyes we cashed that ticket and went looking for a safe place to dump the money.

We didn’t find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was a fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was a credit union. And we decided that one big pile is better than lots of little piles, and rather than empty the credit union we decided to throw our money in there.

That’s what we did, and we drove back to the cats, had a piss-up that could not be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next year, when we got a phone call from the universe. It said “Kids, we found your name on an account at the bottom of a ton of money, and just wanted to know if you had any intentions regarding it.” And I said “Yes, sir, Universe, I cannot tell a lie. I intend to ignore it for a little while longer.”

After speaking to the Universe for about forty-five days on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and put that money to some Practical Use. So we got in the red Cadillac Sedan DeVille with the passports and the licenses and implements of identification and headed on toward the realtor’s office.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that the Universe coulda done at the Realtor’s office, and the first was it could have given us a medal for having avoided homeownership for this long, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was it could have bawled us out and told us never to be seen sittin’ on a wad of money like that again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the Realtor’s office there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately bamboozled. Bemused. And I said “Universe, I don’t think I can invest that money with these here blinders on.” Universe said “Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.”

And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to quote Houses For Sale unquote. I want to tell you about fixer-uppers, which we looked at here. They got three kinds of poison, two infestations, and one major structural issue, but when we got to the AssVac there was five kinds of poison and three major issues, being the rottenest house of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted us to get in on the action around her. So we set to taking twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs or our bank accounts, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence against us.

After the ordeal, we went back to the Realtor’s Office. Universe said he was going to put us in the red. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the red, I want your wallet and your belt." And I said, "Uni, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend while I'm in the red, but what do you want my belt for?" And it said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "Now there’s an idea," and I handed it over. Uni said he was making sure, and friends it’s a good thing he was, cause what we went through next I wanted to hit myself over the head and drown, and ‘bout the only thing I haven’t done with toilet paper since is roll it out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape.

But first we had to get a mortgage.

We walked in, sat down, with twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures of our bank account, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. Universe walked in, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, and we presented our twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the broker walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog. And he sat down, we sat down. Universe looked at the seeing eye dog, then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog and began to laugh, as we came to the realization that it was a typical case of Undocumented Lending, and there wasn't nothing we could do about it. The broker wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. We was given 5% fixed for ten years and had to pick up the garbage in the AssVac, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about foreclosure.

They got a final step in buying a house, called Closing, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my Closing one day, and I got good and drunk the night before so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from Townville. Man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from Townville! I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said: "Kid, sign this sayin’ you’re not poor."

And I went up there, I said, "Bank, I’m poor. I mean, I’m freakin’, I’m freakin’ poor. Poor. I eat soup three days a week, I reuse my tea bags. Eat dead burnt hamburgers for breakfast. I mean poor, Poor, POOR, POOR." And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, "POOR! POOR!" and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "POOR! POOR!" And the banker came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall, skippin’ all the injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they wasn’t doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly papers I didn’t understand and I was just having a tough time there. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man after that whole big thing there, I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question.

"Have you got a down payment?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Scratch Ticket Lottery, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that - and he stopped me right there and said "Kid, did you ever cash it in?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Cadillac Sedan DeVille and the Fox News on the television, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Undocumented .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there. Undocumented’s where they put you if you may not be qualified to get a mortgage after spending all your money, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Single mothers. Immigrants. Single immigrants! Single immigrants sitting right there on the bench next to me! And the singlest, immigrantest mother of them all was coming over to me and she was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and she sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?"

I said, "I got 5% fixed for 10 and I have to pick up the garbage."

She said, "What house did you buy, kid?" And I said, "AssVac." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and gave me the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "I’m gonna fix it up and sell it." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about money, real estate, bein’ poor, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Banker came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-we-wanna- know-details-of-the-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-I-want-to-know-names-and" and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out about the scratch ticket with the four part harmony, I wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil. And I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

("KID: WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU’RE A LIAR?")

I went over to the bank, and I said, "Bank, you got a lotta damn gall to ask me if I’m a liar, I mean, I mean, I mean I'm just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Undocumented bench 'cause you want to know if I'm stupid enough to buy a house, burn money, hit myself on the head and drown myself after winnin’ the lottery." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your mortgage application off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my mortage application. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the bank wherever you are, just walk in and say "Bank: You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!" And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't notice. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think it’s performance art and they won't notice them either. And if three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin’ a bar of Don’t Need No Documents and walking out? They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in, singin’ a bar of Don’t Need No Documents and walking out? Friends, they may think it's a movement.

And that's what it is, the Sub-Prime Mortgage Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.

With feeling.

So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!
You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!
Walk right in there’s beer in the fridge
Just a half a mile from the damn drawbridge
You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents

That was horrible. If you want to avoid recession and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been writing this post now for three and a half hours. I could write it for another twenty minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing. And while we’re waitin’ we’ll say hello to LadyScot, if anybody out there's still reading. Because she knew Eugene O’Neill and I promised her a poem for that today but I spent all my free time doing this instead. I meant to work her in here somehow, but I got carried away with the circles and the arrows and I just, well I plum forgot. So now she just gets this here chatter while we wait for the chorus to come around again.

And now here it comes.

You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!
You’ll wish you didn’t
You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!
Walk right in there’s beer in the fridge
Just a half a mile from the damn drawbridge
You can get anything you want, and you don’t need documents!

Da da da da da da da dum
You don’t need documents!



For those of you who know and love me, you should know that, although everything I've said is true, I am not in danger of foreclosure or anything. Not yet!

And for everybody else, if you spam me with email or comments about refinancing, I will post your email on the template of this blog, permanently, for all to see and counter-spam.

Oh, and apologies to Arlo. Somehow, I think he'd understand.

Da da da da da da da dum
You don’t need documents!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

Today. Not For the Faint of Heart.

And definitely not for the housebloggers. Here's the rundown:

1. Three hours in the dentist's chair.

2. Verdict = yes, on the hoped-to-be-avoided "gentle shaving away" of the jawbone (and if anybody out there says "of an ass," I'll killya).

3. Plus I also need a little something new called "pocket elimination." Translation? Well, let's say you've decided you no longer want the back pocket on your jeans -- how would you "eliminate" it? Yeah. Exactly. Except this pocket is in my gums.

4. A whole new cavity has been discovered, which has to be dealt with pronto, before above two surgeries can occur.

5. And I need two more appointments that I didn't know about, both of which come after surgery but before I'm done.

6. Plus of course there's still the four I knew of.

By then it will have been five months since this whole ordeal began. Do you think they'll give me permission to skip my six-month checkup?

I don't care if they do, I'm skipping it anyway. So there. Poo on them.

No. No, I'm not. That's how this whole thing started in the first place. Dammit.

I swear to god, my teeth are healthy. I know you all are picturing some English Yuckmouth or something, but I swear that they're my proudest body part -- or, the part I'm proudest of, I mean. I have no idea how proud they are of themselves. Why don't you ask them?

Look!



Oh, whoops. I forgot. Taking picture of me, have to point camera other way. Hi, toilet paper!

Okay, now look for real this time:

Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still...

It's not the greatest picture because my camera's (say it with me) ass -- plus there was the whole couldn't-see-the-shot thing -- but those are me, I swear to god. Mine. My never-spent-a-day-in-braces pearly-whites. Real pearly, too, not bleached and capped and polished. Beautiful, like Doctor German said. And virgin.

Well, not all of them. Not anymore.

But if anybody out there says they're sluts, I'll killya.

Well-Learned Politesse

Back in August, when the plumber Kid was here, he had a little incident with an abscessed tooth.

Remember?

I was slightly less than sympathetic towards him then. I seemed to think I could be -- here, at least -- because I knew he'd never read this. Because, even if he did, I never once referred to him by name.

And, in a cosmic case of karmic whup-ass, I have been in the dentist's chair every Tuesday ever since.

I'll be there this afternoon, in fact. If I'm very lucky, today's work will take only three or four hours and leave me with only three or four appointments left to go. If my luck runs out (because lord knows it's been holding steady so far), then it's the surgery and the bone-shaving and the gum-removal and the black flies in my goddamn chardonnay.

So what made me think it was a good idea to express anything less than utmost sympathy for the Bossman here this morning?

He just called. He went to the doctor yesterday. He has diverticulitis. So badly that they sent him in this morning for a catscan to see how far gone his bowel was, and whether or not any of it would have to be removed. He just got out, but he doesn't have results yet.

And he's picking Johnny up for work this afternoon.

Please, Hammer, if you have to hurt me, can I take gum surgery for $1000 and leave it there, at that?

I don't want to have to wear a bag.



I toyed with whether or not to label this post "houseblogs" or not. This one's not house-related, of course, but it seems only fair to the Bossman that anyone who read this morning's ought to get a chance to read how it turned out. Plus, they do say you get a 30% cushion of non-related poop.

So let's call this one that.

If I Had Any Nerves

Johnny bleached the shower yesterday. Because –

Hey, speaking of which, can I tell you what is worse than hiring an unreliable contractor? Working for one.

I mean, it’s unpleasant and all to live in a construction site for weeks or months while a fella you hired in good faith is in absentia. But how ‘bout if you wake up every day and get ready for work, only to be told to stand down because “something came up”? Or how bout if you’re not even told, just never picked up when you’re supposed to be? And how ‘bout if, when you finally do get to go back to finish, he screws off, and you’re the one who has to listen to the homeowners complaints?

Fun, huh? And that’s not even to mention the paychecks that don’t just automatically arrive in the mailbox every Friday.

So anyway, Johnny bleached the shower yesterday, because here’s what happened:

Last week, Johnny wasn’t feeling well. Very not well, in a manner he would neither want me to disclose, nor would you want to read. (Or, rather, nor should you want to read – judging from my responses to yesterday's post, some of you people are sick, sick, sick.). Let’s just say his euphemism was discomposing.

He worked through it, hoped it would go away, and when it finally didn’t he asked me to make a doctor’s appointment for him on Saturday morning.

Coincidentally, Bossman started feeling poorly in the exact same way on Thursday afternoon. So poorly, in fact, that they quite simply had to knock off early on Friday. And trust me when I promise you that discomposing euphemisms aren’t contagious.

The plan was for Johnny to see the doctor Saturday morning, then call Bossman and go to work to finish what they were supposed to have got done the day before. But when Bossman heard the result of Johnny's examination, he exclaimed “Oh my lord, I have that?” -- and took promptly to his bed. Well, first to the internet for scare-mongering, and then to bed.

(I’m still not telling. Suffice to say we don’t know how it happened, he’s on antibiotics, and it’s not an STD. And, if Bossman really has it, he most certainly did not catch it from Johnny.)

So Johnny recommended that, if Bossman genuinely believed he had the same condition, he should see his doctor right away and start a course of Cipro his own self (no, it isn't Anthrax, either). If he did so, Johnny was sure, they’d both be well enough to work on Monday morning.

Monday rolls around, Johnny's up at five and ready for the Bossman to pick him up at six. Six o'clock, no Bossman. Six fifteen, no Bossman. Johnny calls, no answer. 6:45, 7:30, same.

At 7:45 the phone rang. It was Andy. Sober! He was getting out of work in fifteen minutes and needed Johnny’s help picking up a piece of furniture. Johnny said he didn’t know if he could help or not.

Andy arrived at 8:00, they waited until 8:15, called Bossman one last time, and left. Two hours and fifteen minutes after Bossman was supposed to be here.

At 8:30, Bossman called. I gave him Andy’s cell phone number. I hoped perhaps he’d be picking Johnny up at 9:00 or something but, I found out later, no. He had “a lot of things going on,” he said, and would not be working that day after all.

Like what? I asked Johnny later, when I heard.

“I don’t know,” says Johnny. “Maybe he’s going to see his doctor.”

Yeah, well, maybe.

I don’t know whether Bossman saw the doc or not, but I do know he was supposed to be here at 6:00 again this morning and I know, again, he ain’t. I won’t go so far as to say I hope that Bossman’s euphemism dries up and falls off.

But I do hope it discomposes him a little.


Huh. Remember the shower? This was a post about the shower. I guess we’ll have to wait for it to come around again.

In the meantime, anybody want to finish that quote in the title? For one last pre-Thanksgiving POEM CONTEST?

Hey, Housebloggers!

So it turns out that not everyone at Houseblogs.net wants to read about my poop and dental problems. I mean, my dental problems and my poop -- not my poop problems. Not my poop, either, actually, but all the kinds of poop I manage to find myself in the middle of before I know what hit me. Well, not in the middle of, exactly. Or hit me, either, for that matter.

Not everybody wants to read this garbage, if you can imagine.

So the good folks at Houseblogs.net have set up a program (not just for me; apparently there are other folks out there posting on poop and dental problems) whereby if I type the word "Houseblogs" waaaay down at the bottom of the post (you see it down there? it's green), then the post will show up on their website. If I don't, it won't.

And I'm only allowed to do that if the post is somehow marginally related to my actual, you know, house. Or, not necessarily my house, but houses or housing. Or anything related to it like heat or gas or oil. Contractors or insulation. Stripping paint off woodwork for two freaking years. Even the President of the United States of America if he happens to mention any of the above. But not if he mentions poop, or dental problems.

So.

For those of you who come here from Houseblogs.net and are relieved by this development, I deeply apologize and humbly bow from the waist.

For those who come from Houseblogs.net and actually, due to some old head injury or something, sincerely want to read about my poop and dental problems -- if you get a kick out of my silly poems, stupid pictures and etcetera -- may I suggest that you subscribe (using that big orange button over there --->) or else bookmark me for perusing at your own discretion?

And for those of you who come to me from elsewhere, carry on. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Or his poop.

Or dental problems.

Are You Tired of Hearing About My Heat Yet?

There’s this rebate program out there, offering folks up to a thousand dollars to convert their heat to gas. Technically, it’s supposed to be incentive – for, you know, folks who haven't really thought about changing over yet. And, technically, I didn’t hear about it until after we were done. But, technically I don’t give a holy hoo. Money’s money, right? So I printed out the form.

Oh, I’d say about a month ago.

What follows are my thoughts on trying to fill it in this weekend:

1. Oh balls, they want my account number. Well, I’ll fill out the rest and just hold onto it until next month when the gas bill gets here. And if you think I’ll still know where this form is when the gas bill gets here — oh no wait, I’ll thumbtack it to my wall! There we go. I is so or-gee-nised…

2. Oh, balls! You have to have bought the equipment after September 1? When did we buy ours? How will I ever figure that out? Oh wait, hang on, I’ll check the blog archives… August. Damn. Well, it can’t hurt to call and ask. Do I call Keyspan or GasNetworks? GasNetworks, phew. Will anybody answer that number on the weekend? Yes, and huzzah! He says ignore what the instructions say, they go by installation date – I’m still in!

3. Model number? Balls! Where’s that old email from Keyspan from when I couldn’t find the model number to fill out the warranty? Jeez. You’d think I might have written the damn thing down somewhere. I hope I didn’t delete the email permanently. How many deleted emails are there in this g-d file? Oh good god, I am a chatty little devil, ain’t I? Blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah… Aha! Forty minutes later, here it is!

4. Wait, what does ECM mean? Did we buy a “Natural Gas Furnace ≥ 92% AFUE” or a “Natural Gas Furnace W/ECM ≥ 92% AFUE”? I don’t freakin’ know. I don’t know what AFUE is, either, but since both choices are the same on that, I’m assuming I don’t have to. The manual doesn’t mention any of this. Keyspan could probably tell me what I bought. If I asked. But I’m getting tired of this. Let’s just keep moving forward for now and come back to this question later.

5. Huh. I always thought “furnace” and “boiler” were different words for the same thing. Maybe – did we actually buy a “Natural Gas Steam Boiler ≥ 82% AFUE”? At least I know I can rule out the “Natural Gas Hot Water Boiler” – at ≥ both 85 and 92% AFUE – but why doesn’t the owners manual say any of these words in it anywhere? I mean, it might, actually. But there’s no index, and I’m getting tired of flipping through the g-d thing. It appears to just keep saying the same three things in thirteen different languages. Anybody out there speak Mandarin?

6. Keyspan could probably answer all these questions for me. I’ll just call them real quick. Yeah. Real quick my ass. I'm out of practice with this. I forgot about their phone system. And the fact that, on the weekends, they answer their phones but can’t actually answer any questions. Plus, when are they going to admit they’ve been bought out by national “lower case” grid, in some way other than the logo on the Ho Chi Minh tank? Whatever. I hang up after being on hold for twenty minutes. I don’t have the patience for this. Maybe I’ll send an email.

7. Hey, could we get a rebate on the water heater, too? Probably not. That was definitely installed before September 1st. But how would they ever know?

8. Receipts? Oh. Balls.

Well, that’s enough of that work for one weekend. Maybe, if I’m feeling industrious, I will send national gridspan a quick email this morning.

Then I can consider that enough of that for the entire week.

For the Worms

Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird

And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.

If you’re a bird, be an early bird—

But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

—Uncle Shelby

I was only supposed to be playing picture games on Friday, but some folks were apparently having so much fun with it that the requests are still coming in. Never one to let my bleaders down -- especially when it comes to gratuitous humor -- here are a few lazy laughs for Sunday morning.

Whoops, afternoon.

For Jolie (not Angelina):

For Charlie (and even she might not get it):


For Everyone Who Asked:

A picture of me, holding my cat, who thinks he is a human baby and insists on being carted around the house on my ample hip.

You see? I do look like Chloe Sevigny. Exactly. And my face is always flawlessly made up, even when I'm braless in my held-up-with-baling-twine, two-sizes-too-big-for-me cK overalls.

And, finally...

For Robert:

Sir, your comment proves
Even if you don’t see them
Orange peels exist.

See More Glass

This...


... is the setting sun shining through the old glass in the windows in my office and settling on the otherwise not-so-very-pretty wall. Those colored things are thumbtacks. You can ignore them.

Unfortunately, this...


... is what the window-casing looks like. You can't so much tell by this picture, but it isn't just a paint job that it needs. They're rotten, and they've got to go.

It is for to weep, because when we first moved in here everybody, everybody, everybody told us that we had to put in all new windows -- there was even some sort of government grant program to pay for them -- and I refused, refused, refused. We wouldn't have qualified for the grant program, anyway, as it turned out. And we've paid the price in heating bills (though we've had bigger problems than this with heating bills, to be sure). But I just could not, could not, could not be responsible for ripping out that wavy glass.

Now that we've been here for a while, though, I've had time to look around and make a rational decision. Such as it is. I mean, we have met one another, right? And the conclusion that I (by which I mean we, sort of) have come to is:

The ones in the living room are staying, because they're beautiful and I spent a little time stripping the paint off them. I don't remember how long, exactly...


And it's curtains (so to speak) for all the rest.

This is not as heartless as it sounds: of the twenty-one windows in the house (not counting attic or basement) only twelve are actually old.

Three got replaced before we moved in.

Six were in the rotten room.

The two in the dining room have already, inexplicably, had their original, antique, beautiful casings replaced by ugly nondescript stuff. Not by us.


These two in the office are, like I said, rotting clear away.

And the two in the kitchen -- well.

When we half-redid our kitchen eighteen months ago, somebody -- who shall remain nameless but who does happen to live here and who isn't me -- took it upon himself (see? not me) in the absence of the nominal, official Owner (c'est moi, though I try not to play that card to often -- like, at all), to decide that the two windows in there would be replaced. Said "Somebody" tore out a good bit of the casings before Moi saw and stopped him, and then the torny bits got left out in the rain. They are really, most sincerely dead.

The reason there are still gaping holes there, however, which I cleverly insulated with packing tape last winter -- and by "reason" I mean aside from the fact that we are equally lacking in both money and motivation -- was that we (meaning I) hoped to be able to salvage trim from somewhere else and piece it in. But that's just not going to happen. There isn't anywhere else in the house to take it from. Ah well, one of those windows is mostly useless anyway. Plus, someday when we win the lottery again we're going to get around to finishing this kitchen, and then a few new shiny windows in there will make much more sense than the patched-up, not-actually-wavy and mostly-useless old ones.

In other words, Somebody was right.

But you will not, will not, will not tell him I said so.

For Sparkle

Really I'm going to bed now.

PS

Just cuz I wanna:

Happy weekend!

¡Adios!

Si Te Quieres Algo Más

¡Hasta mañana!

Fish Shootin' #3

For Muskego Jeff:

Fish-Shootin' #2

For Ladyscot:

Don't get it? Read this. And play, or you may be next!

For SWAC*

Don't get it? Read this. Now play!

*Who may have never even been here, but still. Fish-shootin' has begun!

For Courtney

Don't get it? Read this. Now play!

For Khurston

Don't get it? Read this (and this). Now play!

For I Love Upstate

Don't get it? Read this. Now play!

I have to run an errand. I'll be back in an hour or so. Give me lots of things to play with when I get back, or I'll start shootin' fish!

For Jen

Don't get it? Read this. Now play!

For Leslie

Don't get it? Read this. Now play!

You Say Silk Purse, I Say Sow’s Ear

Last week or whenever it was – when I posted the pictures of the giant freaking tree that had come to rest on my beloved clothesline – someone came to this blog by searching Google for “how to make a curtain rod out of a tree branch.”

It struck me as funny at the time, because of course I was in the middle of the whole bathroom-dual-curtain-rod-buy-and-hang debacle. I actually considered trying something out, just for funny’s sake. To post a picture of and pretend it was what I had really decided to do.

But then I thought “Nah.”

I’m generally too lazy to do things that actually must happen, so why would I waste energy doing something that is totally unnecessary?

Well, if I thought it would make people really, really laugh, I might.

No, I’m not posting pictures of a tree branch as a curtain rod. First of all it’s really raining out and second, I’ve ruined Johnny’s paint job badly enough already, thank you. And I don’t think he knows it yet, and I don’t think he ever will. Because now that the rod is up and the curtain’s up, the window frame is hidden away behind it. With any luck, he won’t know I did it until we move out, at which point the one buyer we'll be lucky enough to find will want to knock $5000 off our asking price because of the bollixed paint job on the bathroom window, and Johnny will get all offended and tell them to feck off because he’s a professional, goddammit, and he does not do shoddy work! Hm. Maybe I should show it to him sooner than that after all…

Where was I? Oh right, gratuitous humor.

I had fun making picture-jokes for Khurston and Jen the other day. And since I find myself with an unexpected day off from work and nothing to do but avoid folding that pile of laundry in my bedroom, I thought it would be fun to make some more that would be a little bit less abbondanza.*

So let’s play a game.If you’re bored, too – and who isn’t? it’s Friday, and it’s raining (even if it’s not where you are, you can still pretend) – then leave a comment giving me something to work with. A couple random words. A link. A name. Or just say “Me, me, pick me!” And I’ll make something useless and funny out of as many as I can.

It could be about me, about my house or anything, or it could be about you. It could be totally random, or about the presidential election (which is not totally random, not at all). Say anything, and we’ll be off.

See?

If nobody plays, I’ll start picking people out of the comment-pile. Which is not a threat. Not at all.

But you may consider it a warning if you’re so inclined.


*I meant this in the “pizza for one” sort of way, but I just found out it means “abundance” in Italian. I thought Mama Celeste just made it up. So maybe I want these jokes to be a bit more abbondanza. Whatever. Just play.

Wrong. Wrong-wrong. Wrong In So Many Ways. Just Wrong.

From the National Geographic Christmas catalog (and, by the way, one of the cheapest things in there at nearly $50). All emphasis mine because, my lord:

Remote-controlled Tarantulas
Did you know that not all tarantulas are brown? The cobalt blue tarantula lives in Thailand, and a tarantula with blue-green legs and a bright orange abdomen is found in Venezuela. No matter what color, spiders are one of the creepiest crawlers out there, and now you can control one yourself. Because their eight legs move separately, be prepared for screams when one scuttles realistically from beneath the table.

Included: educational fun fact; two tarantulas, one of each color
Required: 2 AAA and 3 AA batteries, not included
7'' leg span
Ages 6 and up

NO! WRONG!

I wonder is it warrantied against smashing with a hammer?


If you're a right freak and therefore so inclined, you can buy it here. But then don't ever speak to me again.

For Guinness' Sake

Regarding my barely-coherent post this morning about the curtain rod:

I'd like to state for the record that Johnny is and was and always will be very much aware that the proper thing to do would have been to remove the old hardware before painting the trim.

Johnny, in fact, wanted to do exactly that. Johnny, in fact, tried to do exactly that.

But that was like a year and a half ago, when I still was under the delusion that I was going to give a fiddler's fart what the new hardware would be. When he started to remove the old stuff, I told him to "leave it, until we find something we like."

Why does he listen to me?

So eighteen months later it turns out that "something we like" is -- coincidentally enough -- the leftover rod we happened to have in the attic, which I originally bought for the living room but didn't need. Because apparently three plus one is actually four.

Who knew?


I betcha Johnny did.

Whorin' For Hit Count

I entered a contest at this website.

It's a really cool website, and they're really working like mad to promote it, and they're probably a little bit embarrassed to be associated with me because all I do is complain about my house, lust after the Dirty Jobs guy, and post pictures of my dirty swollen foot (and poop, I also post pictures of poop).

I heard about this contest from Amy, who actually accomplishes things around her house. In fact, if all goes according to plan (and for her, it probably will) she's going to have her living room done in time for Christmas. This Christmas! Can you imagine?

So I put a button waaaay down at the bottom of the right side over there. See it? It's orangey and it says "Vote for me" to win the contest at the website. But I linked that button to Amy's page at the contest and what I really want you to do is vote for her.

I hope the administrators (hi, administrators!) will allow this rare burst of altruistic goodness on my part, because you know what they say: if you extend your hand in kindness to a baby bunting and it bites you, well, before you know it you've got a a napkin on your head, you're drowning him in armagnac and swallowing him whole.

By which I mean to say that I am so filthy, self-indulgently rich -- so Louis-XIV-style house-proud -- that I don't need no stinking $5000 to make any improvements to the AssVac whatsoever. My half-finished kitchen is the rage. My sliding door to nowhere is to die. My exposed electricals add a dash of spice to my otherwise dull royal existence.

No, I didn't enter this well-thought-out and professionally-administered sweepstakes with any thoughts of emerging at the end victorious.

I'm just in it for the hits.


Thank you sir, may I have another?

I Accomplished Something!

Okay, so the first thing was to get the sturdy step-stool that was one of three or four things we kept out of the houseload of crap that was included in the purchase of the AssVac.

It's very sturdy. I usually keep it in my closet for stepping up and getting sweaters off the top shelf. But I am barely not-broken right now. I certainly don't need to go balancing on ladders or bathtub-edges, wrenching something and breaking myself all over again. Or do I? There is a little pumpkin bread left and I think maybe a Dirty Jobs marathon coming up this weekend...

No, I was good. I used the step stool. Only to discover that it wasn't tall enough.

Precarious-looking, no? I had better take my socks off. Putting on shoes might have been a better idea, but it was early. And when I say early, I mean like 6:30 am -- not pre-dawn or anything. Note the actual sunlight outside the window.

The first thing I learned was that it's nice when you don't give a hoo about the old fixtures and you can just wrench them around, bend them every which-a-way so as to get at the screws with the cordless.

The second thing I learned is that, when the screws are a hundred years old and covered with a hundred years of coats of paint, you can't get purchase on them with the cordless and you risk making a right bollocks of Johnny's paint job. Actually, this I knew already, but it's been a while since I accomplished anything around here; I guess I just forgot.

So you get your girlie screwdriver:

I'm so glad I waited a whole day to charge the power drill. Ah well. Look how sparkly the tiles are.

This next one was hung up by one screw and one nail. No matter what which-a-way I wrenched it, that nail would not come out.

So I had to go down cellar for a hammer. And now my feet look like this.

(That's the still-slightly-injured one, and she's still-slightly-swollen, so forgive her if she looks a bit clod-hopper-ish. My other foot, a dainty size 5, trips around in Cinderella-slippers. I just chose to show you this one because I know you've been dying for photographic evidence of my big whiny boo-boo.)

When I came back up with the hammer, look what I saw:

A perfectly good hammer, stashed in the scary cubby under the stairs. I mean, it's not a perfectly good hammer. It's actually a perfectly useless hammer for actually hammering things. But for pulling nails, in my experience, even ass hammers will do the job. That's why I'm using this one.

It's not ass -- it is, in fact, the second-best hammer in the house. I chose not to go with the roofing hammer (The Best Hammer Not Only In The House But In The Entire Universe) because it's awfully big and powerful, and I didn't want to slip and make a balls of Johnny's paint job.

Whoops.

That top mess was more or less unavoidable. That's where the hundred-year-old paint came away with the hardware. But that ding down at the bottom? That's where I slipped.

In here comes a paragraph without pictures because there was a lot of sweating and swearing involved and damned if I was going to interrupt myself to line up a stupid shot. Here's what:

I decided I wasn't going to use the drill and anchors, because it's going directly into wood, not plasterboard, and it's only holding a shower curtain so there's no weight on it and anyway who cares? Except the screws wouldn't go in to the hundred-year-old wood, and the power drill kept slipping off of them, so I used the girlie screwdriver for about ten minutes -- until the first screw (out of four) got halfway in and stuck. I got it out, then I had to go back downstairs for the drill bits, then I drilled two holes that didn't quite line up with the screw-holes in the hardware, but what the hell. One of the two hardwares are up:

It's straight. Sure it's straight.

Conveniently, the nail-hole on the other side lined up perfectly with where one of the screw-holes were going to go, so I only had to drill one hole there. Except the nail hole wasn't big enough to take the screw, and I didn't figure that out until I'd already put the other screw all the way in, so I had to remove that one and drill a second hole and then, finally, both hardwares were up.

It's straight. Sure, it's straight.

And ta da!

Should I get black rings for that back one, too, or is it bordello-y enough the way it is?

I put the ladder back where I found it, but the rest of the tools I shoved guess where:

Scary cubby under the stairs with the other, assy hammer. Oh, except for Girlie Screwdriver.

She goes back in the bedside table drawer that she came out of.

And I don't want to hear Word One about the condition of that bedside table drawer.

For Jen

There, now don't you wish YOU won the contest so you'd know what was so freakin' funny?

You'll just have to try harder next time! We'll do this again real soon...

Are You There, God? It's Me...

Oh my god this is such an inside joke that none of you are going to understand at all and probably wouldn't think it was funny if I explained it, but trust me when I tell you that Khurston is pissing herself right now.

Jen, I'll think of something silly for you and post it later, but now I'm really going to go hang that curtain rod. Really. Swear to god.

Whoops, PS, the battery on the cordless drill is dead. Guess it's more pumpkin bread and ANTM for me for a couple hours!

I, Um...

...have not exactly hung the curtain rod yet.

I, um, spent the last three hours eating pumpkin bread and watching reruns of The Real World and America's Next Top Model and reading Esquire magazine.

This whole laying-around-the-house thing is a hard habit to break. Too bad my ankle's mostly better so I no longer have an excuse.

Maybe I should sprain something else.

Ow.

I think I sprained my euphemism.

Yeah, well, I dare you to prove I didn't.

The Spare Rod

I found this:

You probably can't tell, but it's the curtain rod that I didn't believe was really in the attic. For the picture's sake, I laid it down on my dining room table, which I didn't bother to clear off. That next to it is the box my Partridge Family CD came in. That piece of paper on the other side is the instructions to mancala, which just turned up yesterday out of the blue and neither of us know from where. That on the top left is, yup, a can of WD-40. And I thought the sparkles at top right were two five-gallon jugs of homemade wine that have been there since, oh, when did we move in? But I was wrong. The sparkles at top right are actually the big-ass glazed ceramic flowerpot that the umbrella tree is in. The umbrella tree is dying, really dying this time, and it isn't my fault any more because Johnny took it away from me when it started dying in the spring. Oh well, at least the pot is nice and sparkly.

What was I saying? Oh yeah.

I didn't believe the curtain rod was really in the attic but it was. I found it. Right at the top of the stairs. Right where Johnny said it would be.

He said he'd hang it yesterday, but he didn't get around to it. That's okay. People are being mean to him these days in ways he doesn't even know about, so I'm just lovin' on him and letting him take lots of naps. Except I didn't let him watch House last night, which is like one of his favorites, but I think it's stupid this season and anyway, I was listening to the Partridge Family really loud.

I should have let him watch his show. He's gone to work already. I'll hang the rod up in a minute.

In the meantime: Did anybody out there get the Judy Blume reference I made yesterday morning, or was that just a private little joke for me? I don't remember which book it was from, I don't even know why I remember the reference in question, except maybe when I first read it I had to look up the word.

Anyway, if you got it, flaunt it. If you can fill me in on what book it came from, so much the better. Anyone that helps me is a real good friend of mine (that's not the reference I'm talking about, that there's the Partridge Family) and I'll do something silly for you later!

Reason #3

Remember how this jackass said Osama things about my dentist?

And then how I reported him for saying such because she was middle-eastern?

And then the person I spoke to embarrassed me by saying she was actually from India?

Well, she was wrong.

We all were.

My dentist, it turns out, is from Toronto.

That's right.

She's Canadian.

Freakin' Canooks.

Reason #2

I can't begin to tell you how happy this makes me.

It's embarrassing, I know, but this is true.

I've been looking for this album since I don't know when.

And I've never found it. But my One Friend sent it to me today.

So I am the luckiest girl in the universe.

And anyone that helps me is a real good friend of mine.

Lots of Reasons Why I Am Not the Unluckiest Girl in the Entire World

Reason #1:

Very Special Package from Jen was pumpkin bread!

Which, since its arrival, we have obviously decimated. Decimated, I mean, in the original, one-man-in-every-ten sense of the word. By tomorrow, trust me, we will have have decimated it in the more modern, nothing-but-crumbs-leftover connotation.

Also, in this same Very Special Package, tea towels!

Because who doesn't need a few or four seasonal towels? Especially when your husband (and this is something I've been wanting to bitch about for a while -- so thanks, Jen, for giving me the opportunity!) seems to feel it's his job to ensure that every single dryrag in the kitchen is not dry when I want one. And I don't mean just somebody-dried-his-hands-here kind of damp, I mean oh-my-god-did-you-drop-this-in-a-bucket kind of wet. I don't know how he does it, but I--

Okay wait, sorry.

Reason #1 why I am not the unluckiest chica on the planet = Jen

!!!!

My Very Special Package came!

I don't have to go pick it up after all!

I haven't opened it yet, but the Very Special Mailman was hunky in a Brawny Paper Towels kind of way -- so there's two bonuses already right there!

And I only just realized when I ran to get the door that my foot isn't hurting me almost at all today!

Maybe, just maybe, I'm not the unluckiest girl in the universe after all...

I'll let you know after I come back from the tooth-torturer.

Johnny CLEANED the Bathroom

He really did! I asked him, now that he was finished in there and since (oh yeah, the bad news is) he isn't working, if he would please, finally, sweep up the plaster dust and mop, since neither of those things had been done since he started to finish this project for real in -- well, I've been saying August but probably September. We had the family over on September 9th, and I can't imagine I didn't sweep and mop before they came. Can you?

I didn't think so.

So he did it!

Oooh...

Aaahh...

(I don't know what that brown line down the middle is. It must be from my camera. Trust me when I insist that it isn't actually in my bathroom.)

He spent all day in there. He was gearing up to start when I left for work, and when I got home he was still at it. It's why he didn't hear the postman at the door and why I have to go to Braintree on my way to the dentist's this morning to pick up my Very Special and Perishable and Fragile package. Braintree, by the way, is not on the way to the dentist's office.

But I digress.

This is Johnny's style. He goes to town on things. If he's making a Chinese stir-fry, he actually coats all the little pieces of pork in cornstarch and deep-fries them first. It's yummy -- really yummy -- but I tend to read that part in the recipe, think "yeah, right," and toss the raw bits in the wok with all the vegetables. And I'm exaggerating when I say I read the recipe.

So when Johnny cleans, he really cleans. Yesterday, I asked him to get the plaster off the floor, and he went and got an air gun to blow the crap out from between the radiator coils. (He had the sterile balls to come out and say to me: "I don't think that place has been really cleaned since we moved in!" and I wanted to punch him in the nose -- until he mentioned about the air gun and then I had to admit that no, I had never actually done that.)

Then he kept going:

Oooh...

Aaahh...

So now it's all sparkly-like from floor to ceiling, both included. I even put up the new shower curtain rod that I bought at Lowe's last week.

It's black. Very classy. Just like a bordello.

Now the last step is to replace this disease-ridden thing that holds the second shower curtain up over the window:

It really has been there since we moved in. One of those things we didn't replace because "why buy something now when we're going to be doing the bathroom over soon enough?"

Johnny says that when I bought the curtain rods for the living room last year (on which more later), I bought an extra one and it's in the attic somewhere. He keeps saying he'll go up and find it. At first I couldn't go myself because I couldn't walk, and now it's started to become A Principle. To be honest, I'm not actually sure that it exists.

But that's the thing: for all the thoroughness of the job he does once he actually does it, it can take a while for him to gear up to kick off. Those chinese stir-fries he makes so yummily? We're usually not eating them until at least ten o'clock.

So yeah, maybe this afternoon, when I come home from the (other bad news) dentist's, I'll wander up there and see if I can't dig it up.

Anybody wanna place a bet?

By Any Other Name

The winner of this ode happens to be Jewish
Yet quotes the New Testament till she is blueish
(Face-wise, that is – not linguistically speaking –
That would be crossing the same line I’m breaching).
But she only went there ’cause I asked for more
(I’ve got to get better at evening the score).
The original quote – which was from the Good Old –
Leslie cottoned to, though she wasn’t so bold
As to feign that she knew it from her ’Braic past
(Trust me that I hang with a much higher class
Than I am – and though I should apologize
I’m not going to. So I’m sorry, you guys).
At any rate, “Branch,” when Isaiah said it,
Was way more metaphorical than I meant it.

Closet Case

Next: an update on the state of this beautiful closet that I ballsed up and Johnny fixed and finished for me.

He keeps asking what I plan to do with it, what I plan to put in there, and I keep saying I don't know but something, that's for sure! And then I keep on not.

He keeps making suggestions, and I keep nixing them. Mostly because he has a gift for filling available space with useless crap and I figure the useless crap may as well be in the attic or basement. I'd much rather fill this handy space with crap that's actually useful.

In the meantime, though, actual crap it is.

Still a kitty loo. Which, on the scale of use-i-ness, I'd have to say leans more towards -less than -ful. But it's getting to the point where I can't imagine where I'd put the cat box if I took it out.

Is there anything that could go in there with it? The only thing that springs happily to mind are tax files. But I'm not that organized. These here are my tax files, I shit you not. This manila envelope thumbtacked to the wall behind my desk:

And they really don't take up a lot of room.

Beautiful and Glorious, My Ass

This is what you get in my house when the notoriously high winds blow through the trees.

Although, I should not say in my house. This time, thankfully, it did not go in my house. It has before. Before we bought it, that is.

(Whichmadetheraincomeinwhichrottedtheroomwhichmadeusabletoafforditinthefirstplace.)

I actually did not believe that branch back then couold possibly have punched itself right through the roof, but I'm starting to believe it now. These whoppers just keep on a-coming.

Here are a few more:


This one's bigger than it looks. The entire thing would not fit in my camera frame.


This one came out looking itty-bitty, but that blue tarp stretched out behind it is covering a cord of wood.

What tends to happen is these branches fall, and somehow we don't notice that. But then sometime later, when the wind isn't even blowing or anything, something -- a squirrel, say -- will dislodge it from its resting place and it will come skittering down the slope of the roof and crash into the yard.

Usually at this point I'm lying in bed asleep, or trying to be. And what it sounds like more than anything is a scuffle between two large men up in the attic. It is a testament to the wit's-end nature of our overall experience in this house that the first time I heard this skittering noise, my only thought was: "I wonder how long those two large men have been up in the attic?" And then I rolled over and fell asleep.

I've figured out the reason these punks are coming in such numbers now. See, the first year we were here, Johnny and John B. climbed up into this tree and cut all the punky branches off. I broke them down and we used them for kindling. But it's been three years since that happened, and I guess it's coming on time to de-punkify the beast again.

I don't think it's going to happen before the winter comes. I'm hurt and Johnny's hurt, there isn't any money to go paying anyone, and John B. just went and signed a P&S on a house of his own (we warned him, but he insisted). This time, though, if a branch goes through the roof, at least the old bitch is insured.

We just have to make sure we notice when it happens. Because if I understand my policy correctly, they'll pay to fix any insult to the house caused by a windblown branch, but not for any damage done by anything that might come through the hole.

Oh, and here's why this post counts as an update. That tree branch from another angle:


Got all caught up in my clothesline. And hung there for a week because I was broken and Johnny never got home from work till after dark. It's down now, but my poor line got all stretched out. I couldn't untie the original knot so I just Gordian cut it, but that didn't leave me enough slack to re-tie.

Ah well. I was trying to decide whether I'd be hanging clothes out in the winter, anyway. I don't understand how they get dry if they freeze first -- do you have to bring them in to thaw and then hang them out again? I'm sure I wasn't going to be doing that. So I brought the pulleys in. Well, I brought the pulley in that was hanging from the house. The one up in the tree I left there. I'm going to trust it to still be there in the spring. At which point I will tie on a new rope.

And in the meantime, maybe I'll save some energy by draping socks and things over our newly-toasty-heaty-steamy-hissy radiators.


Contest! CONTEST!
Anyone want to take a stab at explaining the title? I'll write you a poem ... and see you in hell.

Fire Crutch

When I saw Sedaris last week, the self-announced House Manager ("Well," he said, "technically Assistant House Manager") took away my crutches.

"Because they're a fire hazard," he explained. And I assume he meant they would inhibit egress, not that they would, in fact, spontaneously combust.

"Plus," he added, "I imagine you'll be more comfortable without them in your lap."

"Probably," I conceded, "but what if I have to pee?" In my defense, I labored to make the question sound so meek and ladylike.

"She'll fetch them for you," he answered, indicating my date for the evening. Which was not Johnny, as I'm sure you could intuit from the pronoun. Johnny doesn't like people well enough to spend an evening in a room full of them if there's no music-playing, or drinking, on the docket.

"Okay," I complied, more meekly than is usually my wont.

Marie, my date, piped up at this point. "Where will they be?" she asked. He told her. "And what is your name?" Here's where he volunteered, then qualified, his title.

I was in an end seat, and after he left I fretted about having to get up and down for people, but somehow they intuited my temporary disability and went the long way round. Perhaps it was my big-ass sock-foot sticking out into the aisle.

At any rate, there was no fire. And when the show was done, Marie did fetch my crutch.

But it is just now occurring to me: If there (god forbid) had been a fire, how was I expected to get out? Did Mister House Manager imagine I would run and leave my crutches there for others to trip over? Is David Sedaris, in addition to being a Thurber-prize winning humorist, also a faith-healer? Or was the (ahem) Assistant House Manager going to fight the fleeing crowd to bring my walking-aids to me?

I understand he was just doing his job. Or his boss's job. And probably even following the law or some such thing. But I'm just saying.

What the crutch?

Itty-Bitty Screws

It’s finally time for me to start where I left off with the whole little-tiny-screw thing.

Let’s start with this: here’s a picture of the layout of my house, totally off-scale of course -- and yes, there really is a wall in that back corner that I just forgot to draw -- but it will give you the idea:

The teeny-weeny rectangles by the walls in every room (except in the rooms where there aren’t any) are the radiators. It’s the one in the back hall that’s hissing – as you can see by the fact that it says “hissing” with an arrow pointing to the radiator in the back hall.

I do try to be clear.

Now here’s the deal: It’s obvious this is happening because the screw’s not there. When I put my thumb over the hole where the screw should be, the hissing stops. But I can’t squat there all day, and Little Jack Horner and that Dutch finger-dyke kid are both long dead, if either of them ever really existed in the first place. So it’s up to me to figure out a way to plug that hole.

Hence the quest for a replacement screw. Upon the failure of that mission (because why would I follow well-given advice and try a different store?), my next-brightest idea was to steal the screw off a radiator that still had one, one in which the subsequent hiss would bother no one, put that screw in the hall radiator that was hissing, and pretend nothing was wrong.

This is pretty much how I live my life, one eye and one ear buried in the sand at all times, one hand poised for further digging.

Here is where I refer again to the house-map above. Turns out the dining room and office still have the old kind of steam vent, so I can’t use those. The guest room one is just a flimsy wall away from where I lay my head (the wall through which I was serenaded by Snoring Andy last night). And Johnny sleeps in the living room (an odd fact of our lives that I’ve covered already), so taking the screw out of that one would not be very nice.

I do try to be nice.

The best (or only) plan, it looks like, is to take it from the bathroom. If the ensuing hissing bothers Johnny from all the way in there, he can always shut the door against the sound.

Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about the hiss bothering Johnny. Because the door’s been open all this time. And there’s no screw there, either.

Dang!

So I’m thinking my next step is to put a piece of scotch tape over that hole. Or else maybe I can drape a rag and tie it with a bit of string. If my thumb stoppers the hiss, then I don’t see why these low-tech solutions would not work just as well. They won’t be pretty, but that back hall is really just a mud room anyway. Who cares from pretty?

Of course, I have no idea what the effect on the heat system would be. Maybe if I tape the hole closed, the steam will back up, and the brand-new boiler will blow itself right through the roof. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

Or, I suppose, I could try a different store.

Speedy Recovery

Johnny's shoulder is a lot better this morning and he is going to work. Thanks for the "holy moly"s and the silly jokes.

Also, Andy (remember Andy?) got himself too drunk to drive home last night, so he let himself in our back door and crashed out in our guest room. At 1:30 in the morning.

Back door = about ten feet from my sleeping head.

Man walking in back door at 1:30 in the morning = me, peeing myself.

Whose fault was it the back door was open in the first place? Mine. I'll post the pictures later of what I was doing out there. And anyway, I would much rather wet the bed than let Andy drive all the way to Indian Country* in that condition.

(*This is not a racist comment. They are building an Indian Casino in the town where Andy lives. Maybe. If the stupid Governor doesn't beat them to it.)

But also, guest bed = one flimsy wall away from my no-longer sleeping head.

And Andy = big fat snorer.

So I haven't slept a winky-wink. But at least I know that I will no longer be trying to convince Johnny to move his snoring ass off the futon and into the guest bedroom. Someday we're going to build closets along that wall in the guest room, which will accomplish a lot in terms of sound proofing. But there are a lot of days between now and someday, and in the meantime:

Me = ran out of coffee yesterday.

I knew this, but I thought I had a spare can in the hall cupboard (also known as the attic staircse. And yes, I drink canned coffee. So?). But I don't. Have a spare, that is. I guess I only bought one can the last time. Because, oh yeah, that's right, somebody told me she bought me some when she went to New Orleans...

So I'm drinking the ass end of Johnny's year-old Dunkin' Donuts that I dug out of the freezer. This is the pound of coffee that I spilled jelly beans into at Easter (don't ask me how, I don't even remember) and I thought it would be funny to see Johnny's face when he found them in there so I didn't pick them out. And then I forgot I'd done it, and I was away for the weekend when he found them, and he got all freaked out and called Dunkin Donuts headquarters and yelled at them about why were there jelly beans in his coffee, and they sent him a ten-dollar gift card, which I believe we spent on bagels and cream cheese one weekend when we had guests. There might even still be a couple bagels in the freezer from then. Bleah.

Anway, what was I saying? How did I get here? Oh, so the Asian Market where I buy my coffee doesn't open until 9:30 (stupid Asian hours). I was so planning on coming home from dropping Johnny and snuggling back into bed and enjoying what I hope will be my last day of injured reserve in a way I couldn't really enjoy the first what with not being able to walk and everything. But now I have to decide whether being lazy today is more important than having coffee to drink tomorrow.

Which is so not what I intended this post to be about when I began.

I was really just writing to say "Johnny's okay. Thanks. And I swear to god I'll finish the post about the heat later this morning. Not that you probably even care about it anymore. But I do. So there."


Andy's awake. He just walked in here and scared the piss out of me again. He says my typing woke him. Gee, sorry. He says my fingers on the keyboard sound like a rat or a hamster trying to get out of its cage.

Thanks, Andy!

Oh, Boy

I'm still not posting the end of the story about the itty-bitty screws (which is going to be such an itty-bitty let-down when I finally do) because here's what happened when I went to pick up Johnny. Which actually, technically, had already happened by the time I picked him up, but I found out about it when I got there:

The scaffolding collapsed.

A board propped between two ladders (which it wasn't really a board or ladders -- there are names for the parts of the real thing that they are -- but I don't know the name-parts and you wouldn't understand me if I used them, just like I didn't understand Johnny for the first half-hour when he did).

The Carpenter was on the Board, Johnny on Ladder #2. Which, he realized after the fact, was being held together with electrician's tape. Not even duct tape, which would at least not freaking stretch when the thing commenced to fall, but electrician's tape -- which is, of course, made of rubber. So as to be, you know, safe.

Ladder 2 starts to give, Johnny jumps off and, with a paint-pot in one hand (now only half-full and Johnny splashed with the rest of the paint) he grabs the ladder with his other hand and leans in with his entire weight to keep the Carpenter (who, remember, is standing on the Board) from crashing down.

Except the Carpenter (and who can blame him?) pretty much simultaneously hops from the Board onto Ladder #1. The Board (sans Carpenter) comes crashing down and Johnny, expecting to be holding the weight of the whole contraption (plus Carpenter) with that one arm, overextends and wrenches the muscle underneath his shoulder blade.

Nobody got hurt, t'ank god, except for Johnny's wrench'ed shoulder. And Carpenter -- over a shaky smoke -- said he'd never seen anybody move that fast.

If he hadn't done it, if he hadn't moved that fast, the whole contraption would have come down on the Carpenter no matter if he'd jumped or not. So Johnny's a kind of hero. And also a kind of gimp.

He says he's working tomorrow, but I don't see how he can.

Four Out of Five Dentists Recommend...

Okay, so I went to the dentist. Nothing happened today, it was just an evaluation and a “make a plan” conversation between me, my dentist, her boss, and a couple of specialists.

Yeah.

The good news is I get to keep my wisdom. The bad news is there are great big gaping holes in it that will need to be plugged up before it all falls out. So there’s another couple or eight visits I'm going to have to have right there.

Yeah.

And the really-really bad-bad news is, I definitely need something called a crown extension. Which was explained to me, in its least cringe-worthy incarnation, as “a gentle shaving away of a portion of the bone and removal of a very small amount of gum.”

Yeah.

So, um, also? This morning? I went around to all the knobs on all the radiators? And I—

Oh, hell. I’ll write about them later.

Right now I’m going to have a beer.

Yes, Goody, I realize it’s only 2 in the afternoon here. So?

Which Way the Wind?

Well, so I went to Blowe’s. And it didn’t Blow. So, for this post (and this post only) I will refer to them by their proper name.

Home Depot.

No, I’m kidding. It was Lowe’s. And they were really nice and really helpful. All of them. Eight employees all together helped me find what I was looking for. Or, rather, helped me not find what I was looking for – but we’ll get to that bit in a minute.

I decided to leave the crutches in the car. I can get around without them now, although it’s slow and it hurts, but it’s extremely difficult getting around in public with them, and I am not the sort of person who asks for help. I am the person who will pull into the gas station to check her map, rather than open her window and ask the attendant. You should have seen me crutching around the grocery store the other day, bumping the cart along with my pelvis, because I was too stubborn to use one of those little motor scooters. Finally a kind stranger suggested that I use one, and I lied and said there weren’t any, so she made me promise to wait there in the aisle until she went and asked a manager. Who of course pointed to them right by the door where they always are. I would have done the skedaddle on her, too, but I could not crutch fast enough. And then I wound up buying four bags of cat litter I didn’t need because I was embarrassed to drive my scooter out of there with nothing but a twelve-pack of IPA and a two-pound bag of M&Ms. But I digress…

So first, I entreatied the greeter at the door. Even this is not like me. Usually I’m standing in the aisle for an hour and a half, saying “No thanks, I’m all set!” to every employee who comes along, until finally I give up and go home and give the store a mean nickname like Blowe’s. But this time I deigned to ask. “Could you help me,” I said, “find someone who could help me find a screw just like this one I have here in this baggy?”

He left his station and tried to help me find the screw himself. When he couldn’t, he told me to stay put and went to get the hardware guy. Three hardware guys came to me, all agreeing that they didn’t carry screws like that at all. Rats. Well, perhaps I could buy just one entire steam vent, then?

The four of them agreed I should check in plumbing.

On my slow, painful way to there (I was in aisle 52, headed for 17), I noticed I was passing “Fashion Bath.” This is where I’ll get my shower-curtain rod. I stopped to read all the words on all the signs, so as to choose my aisle carefully and not have to waste a step. An employee saw me wobbling, looking confused, and asked if she could help. I said what I was looking for, she told me where to go, checked with another guy to be sure she was right, then raced ahead of me down the aisle to make certain for herself.

On my way out, using the cheapiest, crappiest shower rod they carry as a makeshift walking cane, I was greeted by this clerk again.

Did you find what you were looking for, she asked.

Yes thank you, I replied, hobbling on my determined way to aisle 17.

Is there something else you need?

Oh what the hell. I pulled my baggie from my pocket and told her the whole story. Another guy was rushing by, not even in a uniform, and she accosted him. He said he knew just what I needed and right where it was and he, too, rushed ahead to get it for me. When I caught up with him, though, he was still looking. He told me to wait right there and he would ask someone who knew better. He was just a district manager, not entirely familiar with each inch of every store.

Here is where I realized I’d left the crutches in the car, and that these people were being so helpful just because they were. I have never once in a billion visits had this experience at Bl— sorry, Lowe’s. But then, it’s only occurring to me now, maybe it had something to do with the fact that the District Manager was in the house?

Anyway, he came back to tell me the good news was that he hadn’t been looking in the wrong place. This was the aisle where it would be, if they carried it. But they do not. He asked me where I lived and I told him, and he told me to go to Ace Hardware, they have everything.

Thanks, Lowe’s District Manager!


I didn’t go to Ace, I did something else instead. I came home and I hung the curtain rod and I tried to fix the heat, but now I have a whole other dilemma that I’ll have to tell you about later, because I don’t have time to tell you about it now. I have to brush and floss and find a freakin’ bra so my tits don’t wind up around my ears while I’m in the dentist’s chair.

Yes, I went to Blowe's without a bra on. So?

Heat, Heat, Never Beat

I have got to do something about this heat.

See, for all the years that I was sleeping in the frozen tundra, I spent my waking hours fiddling with radiators. Knobs and dials, steam vents and tiny little screws, all the things "people" said would help direct the heat away from where it was actually working and into the Shackleton Base Camp I called my bedroom. Needless to say, it didn't work.

Or at least I thought it didn't.

Now that we have a furnace that actually works, now that we actually have actual heat coming up through all the pipes, it turns out that I was quite successful in my blind attempts. The living room is freezing, and you could grow orchids in the bedroom.

(Which, if I'm understanding things correctly, basically means that for all those years, I was burning oil with all the radiators shut off to ensure that the heat wouldn't come upstairs. No wonder we were spending $500 a month!)

Apparently, in all that fiddling and jigging that I did, I lost a screw off the steam vent on the giant radiator in the back hall -- which is just outside my bedroom door, which I never shut because of Him and Her. So when the heat comes on, which it does these days at 4:30 in the morning and which it soon will at all hours of the night, it makes an intermittent hiss. Goes well with general tropical fug that's in the air, but not exactly how I dream of being woken in the wee hours (which is: not).

So today, this morning, when it woke me up, I showered. I know, gasp, right? Hey, I'm still injured and it takes a while. I haven't been washing myself daily this past week, but I haven't been doing anything, either, so it evens out. Anyway, today I wanted to make sure I would be clean and dressed by the time Johnny was ready for work. I am.

I'm going to drop him off, and then go straight to Blowe's. I'm going to get a shower-curtain rod and a little bitty screw for that little bitty steam vent. Ooh, I have to remember to take another one with me so I know what size to get. Hang on...

Okay, got it. It's very small. I took a picture but it came out all blurry so I'm not bothering to post it. It -- the screw, that is, not the blurry picture -- is about the size of a peppercorn. A largish peppercorn, but still. I hope I can get one like it. I hope I don't lose it on my way. That would be so like me. Wait, hang on...

Okay, I put it in a baggy in my pocket. I think I ought to be able to keep track of it that way for an hour.

Anyway, I hope I'll be able to post my results before noon, but if not then y'all will have to wait. Because I have a dentist's appointment at 12:45. An appointment at which I will find out whether the news is bad-bad, or just regular-old bad.

And I will update you on that this afternoon.

Wish me luck.



Oh PS I do have to take one little moment here to to a happy dance -- and I'm sorry to all of you out there who heat this way -- but heating oil is at three bucks a gallon and still rising. I am not exaggerating when I say that if we had not made the switch, Johnny and I (And Him and Her) would have had to freeze. For once, one time, although it took six months and every last one of my nerves, I think, maybe, we finally won one.

And now I'm off to knock wood, cross fingers, bite tongue, scratch butt, and do every other jinx-defying thing that I can think of. Feel free to add your own...

The Moral of the Story Is : Ask EVERY Question!

Next update: this post about my shower.

Um, I’m not going to show you pictures, because it’s really gross. Even more grosser than anything I’ve fessed up about to you folks so far -- and that's pretty darn disgusting. Suffice to say there are quantities of mildew involved. And it’s not my poor-housekeepery fault.

It’s not.

Here's what happened: we lived in this house for a year before there was plumbing in that bathroom. Six more months before electrics. And, as you know, it's only recently had heat. I started sleeping in the attached bedroom in December 2005 even without the heat, but it took until spring thaw to get up the nerve to use the shower. When I did, here is the conversation that ensued (maybe not verbatim, but in spirit anyway):

Me: "Hey, it's warm out. Maybe I could finally-finally-finally use that shower!"

Johnny: "Sure."

And so I used it. Every day, mostly, for a year and a half. And now black yuck is seeping from the seams. Johnny says it's because the seams never got caulked up, so the water is getting in them and making secret yuck concoctions on the wall behind. And when new water goes in the seams, it washes out the old yuck stuff and it drizzles out into the shower where my (shudder) feet are.

Not good, considering what we went through to build this room. But also not my fault.

Not, I tell you.

Here is the conversation that ensued when I discovered this:

Me: "Why-- Why... Why?"

Johnny: "Why what?"

Me: "Well [trying not to sound overly judgmental], why wasn't it caulked properly before I used it?"

Johnny: "Because you were all fired up to use it, so you did."

Me: Yes, but it's not like you said No, dear, it has to be caulked properly or else black gook will grow behind it and start oozing out and the room will rot away just like it was when we found it, and I said SHUT UP YOU, I WANT TO USE IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

You'll note that last is not in quotes, because I did not actually say it. What I actually said was:

Me: "Why-- Why... Why?"

Johnny: "Why what?"

Me: "Why didn't you tell me?"

Johnny (shrugs): "Seemed obvious to me. Not caulked. Water. Mildew. Mold. I figured you didn't care."

Me: Didjn't care? Didn't care!? Even if I didn't care, shouldn't you have? Shouldn't you have said hey idiot, here's a caulking gun, plug it before you chug it baby? Sometime in the past eighteen months, couldn't you have said you know, one of these days we really ought to fix that? Jeez!

But what I said was:

Me: "Can we fix it?"

Johnny: "Yep. Don't use it for a few days. I'll squirt bleach in the cracks and let that dry for a few more, then I'll caulk it up and we'll be gold."

Me: Couldn't you have -- oh, hell. "When?"

Johnny: "As soon as you get a curtain rod for the other shower, so we can both use that one in the meantime."

Me: Oh hell. Fine. I'll do it tomorrow.


That was actually before I hurt myself. I didn't actually say then that I'd do it tomorrow, because at that point he hadn't actually finished the other bathroom yet. But I didn't think it prudent to go point that fact out. But now I'm mostly mobile, so now I will. He says it's not as bad as I make it sound. He says it's not like the walls are really rotting back there. Yet. Sheesh, I'm so freaking glad I never drilled that screw-hole in the wall.

Sore Labor's Bath

Update re: This post about my bathroom (and this one).

Johnny finished it. Ta da!


I can't tell if I can still see green behind the grey or not. And if I can, I don't know if it's because it's really there, or just because I know it used to be. Johnny says I don't see it, so I've decided to trust him.

I wish I had a real before picture to show you, but I don't. Until I started this blog I never took pictures of anything (and even after I started this blog, until y'all complained). It was truly hideola. Black and used-to-be-white wallpaper, peeling away from crumbling, lime-green walls.

Oh yeah, that's right. The walls were green under there anyway. So whether I see it there or not, it's got nothing to do with what Himself put on. So I guess there's something else for me to just get over. Wanna place bets on whether or not I spend the rest of my time in this house squinching my eyes and staring at these bathroom walls, thinking to myself "it's green... it's grey... it's green... it's grey... "?

Johnny says the edges around the tiles will never be right-right because “they” essentially built two separate walls: one from the ceiling down for wallpaper (or, now, paint) and one from the floor up for tile. The two walls don’t even meet in the middle (there’s a half-inch crack at the tile’s edge that is filled with caulk and joint compound) and the only way to make it smooth and perfect like all the other corners would be to work at it from both sides. Meaning to smear joint compound all over those lovely tiles.

No thanks.

There’s a little bit of paint-splatter on the towel racks which he’s going to clean up. Then he's going to sweep and mop the plaster dust that's been there since, oh, maybe August? And then, then, finally, he’s done.

My job is to get a new shower-curtain rod, because the old one smushed holes into the walls on either side and we don't trust that not to happen again, but one we have is too long to fit between the tiles. So I have to go shopping. And if you think that's a fun task for me, well, then we have never really met. I don't love it. In fact, I hate it. But I’ll do it. When I can walk again.

In the meantime Johnny's using my shower in the en suite, which is what my next update will be about...

A Pilgrim's Progress

I know you're all just dying for me to follow up with some old posts and tell you how they've all turned out -- to update you on my idiosity, as it were. Since I’m still not reporting -- and I’m questionable for next week, too -- this seemed as good a time as any to comb through the archives and tie up some loose ends. So without any further ado I shall begin, and update you as they occur to me throughout the day:

Least, but not last: This post about my cell phone beeping.

Turns out you can shut it off. Who knew?

I left it at my Dad’s two weeks ago, and when I got it back last weekend the screen was black. I figured the battery had finally died-died-died, but even after charging for an entire day, the screen was black. I hit every button on there – including the one marked “power,” twice – but still, black.

I picked up the house phone to call the company to tell them their doo-dad was a piece of shit and they had better send me a new one right away even though I never really wanted the damn thing in the first place, then I thought “No, I’ll call my dad. Maybe he did something to it that he'll know how to undo.” Then I thought “No, I’ll email Dad, because if I call him at work he always panics and thinks I've been thrown in jail or killed or something.”

I went into the office to email Dad, and that's when I saw the empty box the phone had come in. And that's when I thought “Hm, do you think perhaps the manual would address this sort of issue?”

And that's when I learned you have to hold the power button down until the screen comes on.

I fixed it!


I'll write updates on old posts throughout the next few days -- some of them might even be about the house. So if you've been wondering how something I wrote about turned out, post a comment and inquire. Chances are the answer is "We haven't gotten around to it yet," but I can think of at least a dozen different ways to say that.

Fe Fi Fo Fum!

I’ve been watching an inordinate amount of television lately, and it’s reminded me of a question that’s been on my mind a while. Namely: who buys all these different kinds of so-called air fresheners?

When I was growing up, I remember, there was just one kind. I believe the brand was Air Wick and, if I understand the concept correctly, it was kind of like a stick of deodorant inside a perforated plastic case. I might have that slightly wrong, however, because we never used it.

There were three kids in our house, all born within three years. There was always some sort of construction going on. We had a cat, for a brief time a dog, varying assortments of rabbits and guinea pigs and hamsters, a flock of chickens and even, for a couple years, a horse (those last two, admittedly, were not kept in the house, but the clothes we wore to take care of them were). We heated with a woodstove, did not have air conditioning. And our house, to put it mildly, was not always meticulously kept (what can I say? I come by my tendencies genetically).

But it didn’t smell. Not enough to have to open a can of deodorant in the living-room, at any rate. And nobody else I knew used Air Wick, either.

Our next-door neighbor’s house – an elderly couple originally from Someplace German – smelled of pipe tobacco and Ben-Gay. Often, when we played outside, they’d call us over for a piece of candy. It always tasted of pipe tobacco and Ben-Gay, but we never had candy in our house either, so we liked it fine.

I have an Auntie C. on Mom’s side of the family who, I believe, inherited all of the housekeeping genes. We used to have to leave our shoes at her front door, the only place I knew that to be true until the seeming whole rest of the world came around to her dark side. There were always vacuum-lines in her carpets, and even her cookie jars looked like they got waxed and buffed on a consistent schedule. But Auntie C. did not use house-deodorant. Her house just smelled clean, because it was.

My Grampy Jim’s house smelled like the gas stove and Listerine, and like onions when Grammy made a spinach pie, which was whenever we came over. I don’t remember a smell at Grammy & Grampy Ferg’s, because they lived on a lake and we never spent any time inside – if anything, it probably smelled like wet sand and wintergreen. Auntie K. and Uncle G. had an old New England farmhouse that was a stop on the Underground Railroad: it smelled like history, and cows.

My point, I guess, is that real life has aromas, and most of them are good. If your house smells so bad that you feel the need to hide it with a stick of room-deodorant, a pool of so-called “scented oil,” a plug-in odor cartridge, a spray-can of vanilla, a self-timed puff of lavender, an alternating disco-globe of apple pie and cream, or some sort of discy-thingy that I’ll never understand – then maybe, just maybe, your house has larger issues than its smell.

Ours did. When we first moved in, it smelled like decades of cat piss and neglect. Like damp, decaying death. Moldy, mildewed mire. Rotten, rank regret. And slugs (and if you think slugs don’t have a smell, then you have obviously never met a slug up close). I mean to say: it would have taken an entire Reckitt Benckiser factory to Wick that Air.

(That’s the company that manufactures Air Wick. I didn’t know that, either. I had to look it up.)

So Johnny tore out the rotten parts and I cleaned (and cleaned) the rest. The kitchen cabinets, oddly, had a bad-breath smell to them, but a case of Arm & Hammer and a coat or twelve of paint took care of that. I sprinkled baking soda, too, over the all floors, tracked it around for days under the mistaken notion that it would suck up the cat-pee smell. It didn’t. The cat pee didn’t really go away until we tore out the linoleum last year – and I’m thankful that in the meantime our cats did not decide to follow suit. Now, finally, I am happy to report, after three and a half years, the AssVac no longer stinks.

Sure, once in a while we fry fish. And sure, its malodorous memory can linger. You know what we do? We squeeze a lemon over it, and when we’re done, we zest the peel. Ta da!

And I hate to have to break it to the industry, but a well-tended cat box doesn’t smell. I mean, this Dodo here has lately had a nasty touch of swamp-ass that gives rise to my gorge. But it only stinks when fresh, and it’s not like I’m going to chase him around lighting candles underneath his bum.

Johnny’s socks get ripe. We (here’s a novel idea) wash them. With baking soda if need be. If his boots get really bad, they live out on the porch for a few days until we have a chance to get him new ones. Trust me, once the shoes are so bad you need to hide their smell, new ones are necessary. If not, then for god’s sake, see a doctor. Or wash your feet more often.

Johnny smokes. If anything, that’s probably what people smell when they walk in here. But only in the winter, because we don’t use a/c either, so from April to October our windows are open to the fresh-cut grass and, if the wind is right, the sea. Then again, from October to April my resident smoker usually has a homemade soup of some kind or another simmering happily on the stove. If you do smell his nicotine, it’s just another layer, along with stew or chowder, chicken bones, and kale. Plus fresh bread, apple pie, and slow-roasted pork butt -- which smells nothing at all like the kitty kind.

So I repeat: who uses all of this stuff? Not anyone I know. But it must be selling strong, or they wouldn’t be coming out with new and improved versions all the time. Is it just because you like it? Is it just because you want your house to smell like cookies but you don’t want to bake? Or are you really hiding something, something that you don’t know how to deal with any other way? And if so, should I be frightened?

Because now, if I ever do walk into a house that smells of any these things, I’m going to be thinking Tell Tale Heart.

Puff-puff… Puff-puff… Puff-puff

Also, This

This, this is my lap. In my bed. With my big down comforter.

That, that big point at the top of the frame, that is my injured foot. Elevated. On three pillows.

These, these are my cats. The front one is Him and He is Stupid. He is kneading me and drooling. The back one is Her and She is Mean. She is stubborning herself into a no-budge ball and hating Him for being close enough to touch Her.

They are fourteen years old. They have not shared a square yard, let alone a lap, since they were kittens. But Mama had been laid up for a couple days at this point. She'd been missing her regular 5:00 a.m. please-don't-lay-on-the-keyboard appointments with Dodo in the office and her 9:00 p.m. pet-me-no-don'ts in the living room with Sister.

So the mountains came to Mohammed.

Her lap, to be precise.

Both of them.

Ow.


Oh yeah, PS, that, in the top-right of the top picture, that is my laundry. It has been there since before I hurt myself. It will be there after. So?

How I Spent My Injured Reserve

Yesterday -- or the day before I forget; one of these however-many days I've wasted lying in bed with one foot on three pillows and alternating between "America's Next Top Model" marathons (yeesh) and unnecessary naps that bleed into eventual bedtimes -- poor Johnny made the mistake of checking in on his way to the pub to see if I needed him to bring me anything from the world beyond. I told him he looked particularly handsome right that moment, and he should go get me my camera so I could take his handsome picture.

He acted all put-out about it, but I ask you: could he not have simply told me no and left the house? Could he not have been halfway to Concord before I crutched my sorry way into the office for the camera myself?

So wherefore this frightening first shot?

Yeesh, man. If you don't want your picture taken, say so, but don't try to break the camera with your eyes!

I told him to face the wall, he gave me this:

Now he's just being silly. I believe he actually fluttered those lashes.

Then followed three or four more pictures where every time I clicked the shutter (or whatever you call it with these newfangled digity things), he open his mouth to speak:

That's him, looking away from the wall at the last minute and starting to say "can I go now?" Ain't he clever? He thinks so. You can see it in his eyes. Which are blue, by the way, despite how they look here.

This, I think, is finally the shot I was aiming for. Except for the pinchedness in his lips, which is a direct result of me shushing him when he started to speak. Anyway, ain't he handsome?

"Now can I go to the pub?"

Yes, dear. Go.

Bring Diet Coke.

A Verse Belately

I started writing a whole parody of "The Raven" but was only 1/4 of the way through it (that sucker is long!) when I hurt myself. I wish I could say it was a poetry injury but, alas, twas not.

I've been down for a few days, long enough that "The Raven" doesn't seem appropriate anymore. But I still owe Mommie D. a poem. So here goes:

It's been a week, I bet that most
Of you forgot about the post
That I titled "Rare and Radiant"
And asked you to be expedient
Telling where I got that phrase.
I thought it would take you days
But, from her Pine Tree Stately haven,
Mommie Dearest guessed The Raven.
(Tho she signed herself Mom Pom--
Whate'er she's called, she's still my mom)


Ta da! I'll write a real post later. Because I know y'all are suffering for lack of witty little me.

Me Foot Pretty Today

On the one hand: I have tickets to David Sedaris at Symphony Hall tonight. Tickets I have attempted to procure every year for the last five but failed repeatedly because they go on sale three months before I even know the date's been set. Tickets I finally got this year as a gift for my birthday in July, and which I have had thumbtacked to the wall above my desk and caressed every day since mid-September.

On the other hand: If I don't keep my foot higher than my heart, it turns all purply-red and swells up like a football with toes. If I've been wearing the brace I'm supposed to wear, there are even little seams.

So what do you guys think I ought to do?

And what do you think I will do?

Yeah.

I'll tell Mr. Sedaris y'all said hi. If anybody calls, tell them I'm sleeping.

Whoops

When you're Irish -- or, perhaps I should say, Irish and "of a certain generation" -- you leave offerings out for the souls on All Souls Night.

That's November 1st, in case anyone doesn't know. The day after Halloween. In a word: yesterday.

You leave a glass of water and a piece of bread, then you light a candle and leave all three together on the hearth. So when the souls come down the chimney (the entryway of choice for all good wanering souls, including Santa Claus), they see the snack and get disctracted. They eat it, and leave without bringing any strife into your home.

I don't believe a word of it, of course, and it seems to me a thing parents would do for their kids till they grow out of it. But it's important to my husband, and I think it's kind of quaint, so we do it. We do it every year (we used to leave them by the back door when we didn't have a hearth), and we did it last night, too. Or, rather, Johnny did. Because I'm, you know, gimpy.

Here's a picture (please ignore the big pile of ashes: it is a testamanent to my ability to ignore housekeepery messes that I didn't even see the ashes until they showed up here).

Notice anything missing?

Glass of water? Check. Candle? Check. Big pile of ashes from the last time we had a fire which I think was over Labor Day? Check. Bread? Balls.

No. No check on the bread. Somehow, we seem to have forgotten all about it.

Johnny thinks we'll be okay. Johnny thinks everybody leaves them bread and they're probably full by the time they get to our house anyway. Johnny thinks they were probably just happy for the warm light and the something cool to drink.

But Johnny's not the one who got woken in the night with an intense and sudden burning pain in his swollen, tender ankle -- is he? No.

It felt just like someone had taken my sore foot and given it a shove.

I won't forget the bread next year, poor souls. I'm sorry.

Please don't still be in my house.

I Spoke Too Soon!

He's on! He's on!

And I think it's the one where he moves a house!

You see, Prudence, what a little Christian-type forgiveness can do for a Dirty Girl?

Goody! I'm shocked!

I'm Annoyed

At Dirty Boy.

Because I'm in bed watching tv all day and he isn't on.

Damn Dirty Boy.

Mmmm... Dirty Boy...

Okay, I forgive you!

Phone Works!

Nobody came or anything, it just started working again on its own.

Cable's out now, though. And Comcast isn't answering their phone.

We should start a pool on what the next disaster's going to be.

Although no cable hardly counts as a disaster. Unless you're laid up with a twisted ankle. And no phone. But oh yeah the phone works now. So I guess I'm grateful. Yeah, that's it. Thanks.

What I've Discovered

Crutches are very, very good for the lower abs.

What they're not so good for?

Armpits.

The Aftermath

It was a rough night.