Let There Be Light

I couldn't take a picture of it where you could actually see the damage, but Johnny singed his whole left eyelashes and brow.

He's been re-glazing the windows on the sunny side of the house. He started out replacing the glass on the one he tripped and put his head through -- and he actually suggested we replace that one with Plexiglass. I said "we are not putting plastic in our windows!" He said "It's not plastic, it's plexi!" I gave him a look. He said "well, it's dangerous! What if it happens again?"

Listen, I love you, honey. And I'm sure it was scary to put your head through the window. It was scary enough for me to come home from my weekend away and find your baseball hat in the yard in a pile of broken glass. But plexi is plastic, and we're not replacing the windows with plastic on the off chance that such a fluke happens again. We'll just be glad it was the Green Bay Packers hat that Gerry gave you, and not the Patriots one that you got from my sister.

Anyway, in the process of replacing the broken one, he noticed that one of the windows in my office was practically falling out. Needless to say I never picked up on any such thing myself, but it would explain the arctic breezes that blow through. And replacing that one led to him doing that whole side of the house and now the porch. My kitchen's still not finished, but I suppose having actual panes in our windows come snowfall is ever-so-slightly more important.

So anyway, re-glazing windows involves taking the old glazing out and scraping and scraping and scraping and scraping. It involves a heat gun and lots of elbow grease. He mentioned something about having to burn off the something left around it (I don't know how taht sentence ened because I stuck my fingers in my ears and sang "La la!"). He has a bruise up the side of his right arm from when his hand slipped with all the scraping and he clattered the elbow of him off the wall. And then the other day I noticed he was missing all of his left-eye hair.

"My gosh, honey, did you singe yourself?"

"Yup," he answered with a little grin.

"That's not funny! How did you manage that?" I couldn't imagine accidentally putting the heat gun in your face long enough to singe your eye, and I didn't want to imagine the fireballs of lead paint that might be happening in the cracks of my house while I'm away.

"On th' stove."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my Guild-Trained Irish husband can burn the glazing off the windows with a beer in one hand and a heat gun in the other.

But he nearly blew his face off trying to light a smoke.

Won't You Be Mine? Take 2

Dang, that'll teach me to just hit "Publish" when the phone rings. Here's an edited version. Sorry for all y'all who suffered through already...

When I got home from work just now, there was this big black pickup truck parked out in front of our house with a big burly bearded guy hopping out of it. He was headed across the street but turned when I pulled up in front of him and shouted "Is that in your way?"

"No," I hollered from the driver's seat. "You're all set!" But by the time I was out of the car he was on his way back over.

Crap.

See, we don't have the best relationship with our neighbors. Not all of them, but several. We've been told by other locals that their dislike of us has to do mostly with the facts that #1. they've all lived here forever and we haven't; #2. they wanted the AssVac and we bought it; #3. they wanted us to give them money when we moved in and we didn't. Ta da! The Montagues and Capulets it ain't, but there you have it.

We especially don't like the people that live across the street. They're -- well, how can I put this? I wouldn't be terribly surprised to have TV crews show up on our block because one of these goony goo-goos was caught in the act of setting cats on fire. (I believe that is the technical term for it, is it not? "Goony goo-goo"? Ref. Eddie Murphy, Raw?).

Anyway...

So this guy -- this big burly guy with a big burly beard on his big burly head who had gotten out of his big burly truck and headed for the goony goo-goo house -- was now heading straight for me and saying something about painting. I couldn't understand what, precisely, because there were too many cars going by behind me, so all I caught was:

traffic noises traffic noises "... paint your house?"

Oh come on. We'll get to it, all right? Go burn a cat or something, will you?

I turned to look at the AssVac over my shoulder (and I'm looking at this version of her, remember...

... not the nice, still-in-one-piece version from the old picture above). I cupped my hands around my ears to indicate I hadn't heard, and said the only thing that sprang to mind.

"My husband's a painter."

Very good, sweetheart! And you are a writer and Mommie Dearest is your mother and Khurston is your sister! Here, have a spearmint leaf...

I don't know where I was going with that comment. Might have been a "we'll do it ourselves, thanks" deliberate deflection. Could have been a "Cobbler's children have no shoes" sort of apologetic shrug. Just possibly it had a hint of "I have a husband and he's huge and eats burly thugs like you for breakfast so please leave me alone" mixed in there (and don't you like that I at least said "please" in my imaginary not-quite threat?).

Whatever I meant by it, though, this is what the thug said in reply:

"My name is Jimbo, and I own the house across the street. The tenants that were in there for the last few years are moving out -- thank god, they made a disaster of the place, the scumbags -- "

(hey, he said it, I didn't)

"I haven't got anyone moving in until September, and I'd really like to find someone to look after the house for me till then. Most of the folks around here are old and dying [sad, but true], except for the scumbags [also true: they're frightening young and virile-looking] -- and this Polish lady over here is just a lulu!"

[Also true. "The Polish lady" (although I thought Lithuanian) would be the kitty-corner neighbor who pounded on our door one night wanting to sell us meat. Long story. Actually, no -- that's pretty much most of it right there...]

"Anyway, if you wouldn't mind just, you know, keeping an eye out, I've got a mess of pipe scaffolding I'd be happy to lend you -- you know, in exchange -- whenever you plan on painting."

"Yeah!" I gasped. "Of course we'd be happy to keep an eye on things. Even without -- you know. But I'll tell Johnny about the scaffolding. I don't know if he --" I have (finally) learned not to speak for Johnny about anything regarding his profession, so I cut myself off.

"My name's Erin, by the way -- Johnny's my husband."

"Yeah, I see him around sometimes. I see you, too. You guys are always working on that house!"

Ah, go on...

"So -- Erin, is it? Jimbo," he said again, and stuck out his Hagrid of a hand, which I shook.

"Nice to meet you!" I enthused, perhaps embarrassingly.

"Likewise," says Jimbo.

And we went our separate ways.

Well, what do you know? A real, actual, honest-to-god neighbor. A big, burly, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours neighbor right here outside my house. I shook his hand and everything!

Too bad he doesn't actually live here, but still.

Jimbo. Huh.

It might not have been a bad idea to get a last name. Or a phone number.

Ah well. Here's hoping nothing too terrible happens to his house. At least not while I'm in charge...