« April 2007 | Main | June 2007 »

May 30, 2007

Dots in Boxes

Did you think I'd be making my regular long-winded posts in the next few weeks? Please.

• Packing packing packing. So sick of packing. But damn if we're not way ahead of the game. I made my way to the dreaded basement yesterday. I wish I could say that I found something interesting in all my sorting and packing, but I didn't. Well, I think I found some new muscles in my ass that I'd never previously used.

• My hair is about three inches shorter now than it was this morning.

• I've realized something I'm going to miss about living here. I'm going to miss Snoopy, my neighbor dog. You know, the one who once had a weiner dog stuck on his weiner. In fact, I feel a little like I'm losing one of my pets. I've known him since he was a wee little puppy nearly six years ago. Tonight, while sitting in the backyard, I watched him running at approximately 83 MPH, in circles, barking his piddly little high-pitched girly bark. It's sort of like having my own teeny little gazelle in my backyard, and I'll miss that. I won't miss the racetrack he's made in my backyard, that's banked at the same angle as Talladega.
  

• Speaking of dog-humping, I can't believe I forgot to mention this after the trip to my hometown. Clara Jane informed us that Rhonda, my parents' sweet Labrador who never did anything to hurt anyone and deserves nothing but peace and love in her life, had given a piggy-back ride to Chigger. Oh lord.

• Speaking of Chigger, he has a thing for Hillary Duff.

• Oh, and have I mentioned this?
  
  

• The Cuz is coming to visit in July for a giant fundraiser extravaganza for her 3-Day team. I'll be pestering everyone for donations, so you've been warned. Also, so excited to be having company in the new house. My parents will be there the weekend after we move, but that doesn't quite count, for some reason. Probably because they won't be making Jello shot salad.

• I'm fetching Clara Jane tomorrow. Did I get everything finished that I intended to finish in her absence? Of course not. But I got a lot done. So much so that we'll be hauling our asses to the coffeehouse on Friday and staying there all damn day long.

• Oh, and I finished making my mom's Mother's Day socks, finally. They fit her hugely deformed feet. I think the right one is a size 3 an the left one is a 10. Still, cute socks.

• B. just informed me that this is the 30th anniversary of the release of Smokey and the Bandit, the Citizen Kane of my people. Honestly, what do you think prompted me to own a Basset hound? My mom and I saw the movie in the theater with Grandpa Chuck, who was a trucker. We also took him to see Every Which Way but Loose. Ah, trucker movies. Why did they stop making trucker movies?

  Posted by Robin at 08:29 PM | Comments (6)

  May 29, 2007

  Packing Heat

  Last week while browsing the library in a rather foul mood, I swore that I will never, ever read any book that utilizes a pun in the title, just on the principle that it's stupid and cliched. And yet, that doesn't stop me from using bad puns for blog titles. I'm not really packing heat,literally or figuratively. I'm just packing, and it's hot.

  See why it's a good idea to not read crap with puns in the title? It's a huge indicator that bad writing will follow.

  I made it home from my hometown late Sunday night, once again loving the delays that come with train travel despite the whining of everyone else.

  Clara Jane has been doing fine at my parents' house, despite clinging to me all weekend.I'm sure her clinginess had everything to do with the recent uprooting,and absolutely nothing to do with Saturday night's lesson in pet amputation.

  You might recall a post I recently made regarding my grandparents' cats, who have no tails. It's not pretty, especially in the case of Elmer #2:

  

  Don't worry, he does have a head. It's not pretty, either.

  

  He's sweet, I'll give him that. He's had a rough life, so it makes sense that he looks like holy hell. Elmer #2 is somewhere between 12-17 years old. The neighbor ran over Elmer #2's mother when he was an kitten. His father, Elmer #1, stowed away in my grandparents' RV during a camping trip to the Truman Lake. Despite having Elmer #1 for several years, my grandparents didn't recognize this as being their cat, and therefore booted him from the RV. It wasn't until they got home and said, "Hmmm ... have you seen Elmer?" that they realized what had happened.

  I didn't take a photo of Elmer #2's neck. He recently tussled with a bobcat. The results? Really not pretty.

  A few years ago, Elmer #2 got into a tussle with another animal - a regular occurance, even though he never learned how to fight and routinely gets his ass kicked. In this tussle, he received a tail injury that led to an infection that led to amputation.

  On Saturday night, my granny invited us to dinner. I can't remember the last time Granny cooked dinner for me. I do know that as of this past weekend, B. and I have been together for nine years, and in that time Granny has never cooked for us.

  Friday morning I texted The Cuz to tell her where we'd be having lunch. She texted me back to inform me that she was preparing to eat fried chicken at Granny's.

  Was I invited? Uh, no. So I whined and pissed and moaned until I guilted my 81-year-old grandmother into making dinner for me on Saturday night.

  After dinner, we were outside, where Elmer (the #2 is somewhat pointless, since #1 made his trip to the lake in 1995.) attached himself to Clara Jane. Which, incidentally, is how the Elmers got their name. Grandpa Chuck claimed that Elmer #1 stuck to Lady, their morbidly obsese, gravy-eating dog, like glue. Anyway, I pointed out Elmer's lack of a tail to Clara Jane, who went about the business of looking for Elmer's tail:
  

  He, in turn, looked for Clara Jane's missing tail:
  

  Otherwise, the weekend was low-key, which I needed. B. rebuilt the house from the bottom up while we were gone. Yesterday, he continued while I packed. And packed. And packed and packed and sweated and packed.

  Today, I went in search of more cheap furniture. Scored at two thrift stores: an $11 solid wood coffee table and a $5 antique floor lamp. I also made my first-ever trip to Old Time Pottery. I've already made this request of my spouse and mother, and now I'm going to make it to all of you. I want you to make me a solemn vow that, if I ever say that I'm considering a trip to Old Time Pottery, you will slap me hard across my face.

  Tonight? I pack some more. Seventeen days to finish it all.

  Posted by Robin at 03:58 PM | Comments (124)

  May 26, 2007

  Friday(ish) Shuffle - It's Saturday, So This Must Be Sedalia Edition

  On Thursday, after not going to her last day of daycare because flies! Flies eat babies!, Clara Jane and I hopped a train for my hometown. We had a pair of tickets from three weeks ago, when our train was cancelled due to flooding. I was told that there was a $3.60 price difference, which I could give to the conductor on the train. Nice fellow that he was, the conductor told me to keep my money.

  I bet he was wishing he'd taken my $3.60 when, four hours later, I alerted him to the puddle of urine Clara Jane had left on her train seat. Let's just say that when one has a Pull-Up wedgie, the Pull-Up ceases to be absorbant. She put at least $3.45-worth of cracker crumbs on the floor, and I'm sure the pee puddle was worth way more than $0.15.

  Before I had kids, they annoyed me, as did their parents. Then I became a parent and took offense at people who had no patience for small children and their adult hostages. After three years, though, I'm back to empathizing with those who get annoyed because honestly, us parents with small children can be rather deplorable. Just ask our Thursday night train conductor.

  I'll be making the trip home on Sunday night, sans the Peemiester 2004, if she will let me. My independent child is still clingy and easily spooked from all the moving and craziness. Yesterday she told me on three occasions, "We need to go home. Fast." Today's been better. Hopefully by tomorrow she'll be sick to death of me and will be happy to see me go.

  I feel a bit guilty, not being at home helping B. rebuild our house from the ground up, per the municipality's inspection. He assured me that I am a huge hinderance and would be much more helpful on the other side of the state. He's currently reinstalling our water heater, which frightens me to no end.

  At least he started working on it in the morning. The last time he installed this water heater, he began at 7:30 PM. Oh, and we were leaving for Michigan 11.5 hours later. Perfect time to work with water pipes and natural gas! We'd been married six weeks. At 2:30 AM, I informed him that unless he gave up right that minute, I had no qualms about leaving his ass because nowhere in our vows did it say that installing major gas appliances in the middle of the night before leaving town would be tolerated.

  Now, whenever either of us has pushed beyond the limits of good sense and is stubbornly pursuing an activity that might lead to 1) explosion, 2) flooding, 3) a stress-induced cardiovascular mishap, or 4) one of us moving to Nevada for a quickie divorce, all the other has to do is utter two words: "Water heater." It's as good as any legal Cease & Dissist Order.

  Now do you see why he sent me away for the weekend?

  Even though I'm not there, I'm doing my part to help with the moving process. You see, my hometown is home to umpteen bazillion discount/discontinued/fell-off-the-truck-and-found-in-a-ditch furniture retailers. The giant red Pottery Barn-esque chair often seen in photos of my living room? $180 at one of the stores in my hometown.

  I don't ask where the stuff comes from. I just buy it. Like today. I bought a wood and suede lovecouch (smaller than a couch, bigger than a loveseat) and a brocade armchair for the new front room, all for the low, low price of $407. I also got a pair of black patent leather peeptoe wedge heels, a beaded necklace that matches the socks I'm knitting, and three chunky beaded bracelets for a whopping $9.

  I love that I'm such a tightwad. I really do. I think it's one of my more redeeming qualities.

  I think I wrote awhile back about how I always expect to see people I know when I visit my hometown, and I finally realized that, since I haven't lived here since 1991, the chances of that happening are slim to none. Even if I would run into someone I once knew, chances are I wouldn't recognize her, or I wouldn't be recognized.

  After my cheap furniture bonanza, I was searching the store for my mom and child (who I feared I might have accidentally bartered in my transaction). I didn't find them, but I did find my high school creative writing teacher. Thank God she was wearing a name tag, which saved me from having to go to the next aisle, yell, "Nedra!", and then innocently wandering by to see if she was looking for the person who yelled her name.

  Now really. If I'm going to run into an old teacher, which one do you think I'd most want to see? A math teacher? I don't even remember their names. Of course I'd want to see my creative writing teacher!

  I loved being able to say, "Hey. Guess what I do for a living? I write," to her. I hope I remembered to thank her. I meant to. I've thought about doing that many times over the past 16 years. I had three teachers along the way who encouraged my writing and told me I had talent: my third grade teacher, my sixth grade teacher, and Mrs. Z. in high school.

  I gave her my URL, so if you're reading Mrs. Z. and if I forgot to say it today, thank you for the push every 17-year-old needs. I apologize in advance for all the profanities you might read while you shuffle through my writing.

  1. Just Because - Nikka Costa
  2. If Yesterday Could Only be Tomorrow - Tony Bennett
  3. Song for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
  4. Our Secret - Beat Happening
  5. Exodus - Edith Piaf
  6. Don't Fail Me Now - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
  7. Garageland - The Clash
  8. Love Will Come to You - Indigo Girls
  9. That's What Love Will Make You Do - Little Milton
  10. A Better Future - David Bowie

  (What's the shuffle? Every Friday(ish), I put Beatrice, my iPod, on shuffle and post the first ten songs she plays. Why? I have no idea. Habit, perhaps.)

  Posted by Robin at 04:19 PM | Comments (2)

  May 23, 2007

  Irritated

  My dogs are irritated, and it's their own damn fault. They've been spitting out the Benadryl tablets we put in their food, and now the spring allergens have them scratching and chewing their bodies to bits.

  Which reminds me, I need to find a new groomer near the new house. Our groomer, who charges $5/dog for the works and recently appeared before Judge Mathias in a real estate dispute, is one of the few folks I'll miss from our current neighborhood. Cheap grooming and blog fodder aside, she's nice to us, and super-nice to my dogs, which is no easy task, what with them spitting Benadryl hither and yon, and then spending the next three hours trying to chew off their legs and, in Murphy's case, vulva.

  I'm especially irritated with some folks at Indiana University, specifically in the Communication Studies department, who have spent the past two days leaving comment spam on "mommy blogs" in an attempt to drum up research subjects. Please, if you see these comments, don't participate in their study. Don't let them set a precident of using bandwidth and web space that doesn't belong to them, without permission from the website owner, for their work. If you've been getting these comments on your blog, please contact their IT department.

  I'm irritated with my town, but what else is new? I'm not as irritated as I expected to be, though. In the eight years we've lived in this house, I've had it in the back of my paranoid little mind that, when the previous owners had the house inspected, some palms must have been greased. There were conditions in this house that would never pass inspection.

  Well, we're in the middle of a regular inspectionarama these days. Today was the buyer's insurance company and the municipal occupancy inspection. B. got the municipal inspection list on Monday, and the top of his head exploded in rage. So many things on this list that weren't fixed by the previous owners before we moved in. So obvious that yes, indeed, an inspector turned a blind eye to many offenses eight years ago, a few that we will be stuck fixing. B. could barely function last night for worrying about how badly this inspection would go. I just tried to not think about it.

  Good news is, we won't have to rebuild the house from the ground up. The inspection went fairly well. There's a small list of things to do, most of them fairly asinine and petty, but all completable in our remaining 23 days in the crapshack. Still, it's a bit galling. These municipal inspections are a joke, and little more than a way for these wee St. Louis county municipalities to make money. $20 for today's inspection. $20 to have another inspection after the work's done.

  Speaking of the move, this isn't exactly irritating, but it's bothering me. Clara Jane's been way off-kilter recently. There was last week's school-skipping incident, in addition to lots of general crankiness and defiance, which isn't like her. Last night was exceptionally rough; she was fighting sleep at 11 PM after a night of generalized mayhem-making. I went to her room to find out what as going on, to be met with Clara Jane's version of small talk.

  I don't know what prompted me to ask, but while we were chatting I said, "Sugar, does it bother you that we've been putting all our stuff into boxes?", to which she erupted in sobs. "Stop putting our stuff in boxes!"

  Ah, so that's the problem. The move's freaking her out. Who'da thunk it?

  Since then, B. and I have been trying to explain the concept of "moving" to her. Another surprise: that's not the easiest thing to conceptualize in 3-year-old terms. B. took her to the basement this morning to see that all the boxes with our stuff are still in our possession. We've explained that a big truck will be involved. In Clara Jane's world, just about anything's tolerable if a big truck is involved. We've explained that yes, the dogs and cat will be at the new house.

  Clara Jane and I spent the day at Cooperella while B. wrangled the inspectors. She was a bit more snuggly than usual. I think she's been a little starved for attention, what with all the moving chaos. I'm hoping that tomorrow's train trip and a few days with my parents will get her back on track, and not throw her even further asunder.

  But the fact is, no matter how off-kilter Clara Jane is, or how itchy the dogs are, or how irritating Indiana Univeristy is being, or how asinine the occupancy codes in my town are, it's all buffered by the fact that the end's in sight. 23 days, and the worst of the move will be over and this will all be worth it. The dogs will be spitting Benadryl all over a new kitchen. I'll be fighting academic spam from the comfort of my front porch with my new MacBook. Clara Jane will have enough room in the new house to construct her very own panic room. And no one will give a fuck if an electrical socket is installed upside-down.

  Posted by Robin at 04:46 PM | Comments (9)

  May 22, 2007

  O, How the Mighty Have Fallen

  Some of you long-time readers might recall how, way back in the day, I used to operate my own little catering company while maintaining a regular column in the local foodie rag. I wasn't just a foodie - I was a professional foodie. If you were invited to my house to eat, you could guarantee that everything was made from scratch and would be pretty damn good. Well, with some exceptions. Like the time I accidentally served my in-laws fried chicken that was raw on the inside (most likely my subconscious doing its evil, dirty thing). Or the time I burned my foot while making lasagna(again, subconscious - it has everything to to with who I'm feeding and how I feel around them). So, let me rephrase: If you were invited to my house to eat and you didn't drive me absolutely, positively batshit, you were in for a fine dining experience, for sure.

  Since listing the house for sale in January, I've barely set foot in the kitchen. We've been eating a lot of convenience food and take-out because we either didn't want to mess up the kitchen or take the time from house projects. Nevermind that most of the people who looked at our house did so at dinnertime, which means we spent a portion of of our equity on eating out. When I hosted a little shindig in March, I did what had previously been unthinkable for me: I made it potluck. The only food I did was a cheese tray. And some cream cheese topped with my homemade Thai pepper jelly with pea pods for dipping. And mango-chili chicken salad. But that was it. Everyone else had to bring their own damn food.

  What's the point of being pals with a chef if her parties are potluck? Honestly.

  Today, I went one step further. At least with the shindig I made my dishes from scratch. Well, except for the cheese. I don't make cheese, but you understand what I'm saying. Today, I did something utterly disgraceful in my world.

  I had company over for lunch and a playdate, and every single food I served came out of my freezer. Everything but the salad, which was left over from Sunday night's dinner with last night's broccoli added to pad it out.

  That's right. The former food service professional who used to make money by feeding people nothing but fresh, hand-made food, fed a friend and some children her trash.

  Okay, granted, it wasn't exactly trashy trash. The kids had all-natural chicken nuggets. The adults had a frozen veggie pizza from Shakespeare's, which Angela and I both regard as a delicious, soul-soothing taste of nostalgia. And there was pie. Made-from-scratch cherry pie from Granny Viv. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Okay, inviting friends over to eat frozen food I don't want to move isn't exactly a proud thing, but it was fun.

  I even burned two of my knuckles while removing all three frozen items from the 425-degree oven, which means I've completely lost my touch in the kitchen.

  I don't see a lot of cooking occuring anytime soon. Tomorrow we have two inspections on the crapshack. Clara Jane and I will be fleeing, leaving the manly job of inspector-wrangling to B.

  Thursday, perhaps Clara Jane will forget her fear of flies and will return for her very last day of daycare. If so, I'll spend the day fretting, waiting for the call that the sight of a gnat has sent her over the edge and I have to come get her. If she doesn't go, I'll be busy with teaching her how to live her best agoraphobic life. That evening, we're going hobo again, hitting the rails for my hometown. She needs to spend a few days with her grandparents while we finish house stuff, and B. needs me out of his hair while he does some heavy-duty repairs.

  While I'm gone I'm sure he'll eat nothing but the Aldi's version of frozen fried chicken, burgers from Rally's, and nachos and Super Mega Tub Big Gulps from 7-11, at which point Chef Reed Miller, who taught me everything I know about cooking, will track me down and remove two of my fingers with my own chef's knife.

  Posted by Robin at 04:25 PM | Comments (7)

  May 21, 2007

  How Obnoxious is My Joy?

  Obnoxious enough for me to spend precious packing time doing shit like this:

  
  

  I also blame my obnoxious joy for leading me to drive my dogs crazy with what they think is the Best Food Item Ever: garlic naan.

  I'm pretty sure that, by the time we reach, say, the 12-day mark, pretty much everyone in my life is going to want me dead.
  

  Posted by Robin at 11:48 PM | Comments (4)

  May 19, 2007

  Yet More Reasons to Move

  We were having a lovely night last night. I wrote that last blog entry while B. and Clara Jane were fetching pizza (pepperoni for them, artichoke, green pepper, black olive and onion with pesto instead of sauce for me, which I'm only telling you because my God, it was good). We ate, then went to the backyard. B. and I sat in our super-cute Adirondack chairs and chatted about the new house while I knitted. Clara Jane chased the dogs, who chased each other, before settling into the sandbox for a good dig.

  It was a good night. We've never spent much time in the backyard because of the obnoxious neighbors, swarms of mosquitoes, dirt bike/dune buggy cachophony, and the steady stream of strangers wandering down the dead-end sidestreet, going God knows where to do God knows what. But last night was good. The foot traffic was light, the bugs absent, and although we could hear lots of neigborhood obnoxiousness, we couldn't actually see it from our little alcove.

  We also couldn't see our back gate, which is why we didn't notice when someone opened it, releasing our stupid little dog, Murphy and the neighbors' dog. Luckily, Chloe the Basset was hanging out by our chairs, otherwise, she would have been gone, too. Don't get me wrong; I love stupid little Murphy and I don't want anyone fucking with her. Mess with my Chloe, though, and you're going to pay. A lot.

  B. located the dogs across the street and two houses down, eating a bag of fast food fries that had been dumped in the front yard. I spent the rest of the night making sure Murphy wasn't showing signs of being poisoned. B. put the padlock back on the gate.

  This isn't the first time people have tresspassed on our property, opened the gate, and let out the dogs. That's why there's a padlock, which had only been removed while we were showing the house. All I can say is, the countdown has begun. The best consolation to the anger and fear of having our yard broken into while we were fucking sitting in it in the fucking daylight is knowing that in 27 days, I never have to set foot in this goddamn shithole of a neighborhood ever, ever again.

  But there are better reasons for getting out of here, and being oh so very happy that we're 27 days away from the moment when we stand on the front sidewalk of the crapshack and scream a giant, "Fuck you!" to the assholes on this street. Happy reasons. Like today. We had the inspection on the new house. It's awesome, and there are all-new photos. Keep in mind that the current owners are 1) frantically packing, and 2) have two kids under seven and a third on the way. Anyway, it's beautiful. It's in wonderful condition. We'll live there in 27 days. Did I mention that? 27 days.

  We also talked at length to the current owner and her sister while Clara Jane played with the current occupants of her new bedroom. I kind of wish this family had bought the house next door, because I really like them. They're going to be all of three blocks away. Phone numbers were exchanged.

  Get this - the couple who owns our new house both work in our current neighborhood. They work here, but make the 45-minute one-way commute from Prettytown. That's how much they love it. So much that when it came time to buy a bigger house, they decided the commute was worth staying in the neighborhood. How's that for a testimony?

  She loves the house. It's obvious. She noted several times that they wouldn't be moving if it wasn't for kid #3's July arrival. She talked about how much she's going to miss the front porch, which she paints every spring. The orange dining room. The bells of the nearby church.

  We learned a bit about our neighbors. Across the sidestreet is a teacher at one of the local high schools. Behind us, the principal of a parochial school. New people have bought the house next door.They haven't moved in, but word is they've been cleaning and working like mad.

  I asked. There are no dirt bikes or dune buggies.

  After the inspection we headed to Art on the Square to meet Beqi, Raquel and Aubrey. How much do I love that I'll be living in a town (In how long? 27 days!) that hosts an art fair on such a big scale? A lot. B. and I had the great idea that once we live in Prettytown, we'll buy one piece of art at the fair every year. Even though we're not quite there yet, today we purchased our first piece, the trio of Michael Mitz photos on the right. By buying them unframed, I saved a tidy $700. I can't take beautiful close-up photos of stunningly colorful roses. I can, however, stick photos in a frame myself. And I will. In about 28 days so they don't get busted in the move.
  

  Posted by Robin at 06:47 PM | Comments (12)

  May 18, 2007

  Friday Shuffle - Did We All Get Sick and Keel Over Edition

  My goodness. Develop one nasty bronchial infection and everyone disappears. Not that I blame you. Mildly ill blogging's pretty damn dull.

  I'm better.

  Quick story from Thursday: Clara Jane missed her next-to-last day of daycare. Not because she was sick, although she's already figured out that being sick will get her out of going to school. No, she didn't go because last week, she saw a fly on the playground and it terrorized her. I knew about this, and I thought she was over it, but apparently not. When I started getting her dressed for daycare yesterday, she broke down in the screaming, sobbing, heaving meemees that lasted for 45 minutes. I was sure either puking, passing out, or both would occur. So, being the good parent I am, I kept her home and taught her about agoraphobia.

  Mental illness: share it with your children!

  Anyway. I need to get our family's names off of the junk mail lists. With the move to the new house, I'm making efforts to live even more green. Stopping the flow of useless trash into my home just makes good sense. Save trees. Save landfill space. Save the cost of transporting tons and tons of junk across the country.

  But if I do that, I'll miss the entertainment of junk like these two recent gems we've received in the mail.

  First, a bit of background. A week before our house sold, it was shown by a real estate agent - not ours - who left a scathing review. She said our house was cluttered, dirty, dated, and would never, ever bring the asking price. It was bad. So bad that our agent said it was unduely harsh, false, and we should flat-out disregard it. None of the other feedback matched hers, but still, this knocked me flat for a few days. All the work we'd done on our house, only to have it called such mean things. Nevermind what it did to my morale.

  Oh, but it gets interesting. While she was showing our house, she visited with our neighbors, who were preparing to list their house for sale. Guess who was at their house that night, passing out business cards? That's right - Mean Agent. Our neighbors have listed with her.

  In other words, she trashed our house to her clients in hopes of selling the neighbors' house to them. Which she hasn't. In the three weeks the neighbors' house has been on the market, how many times has Mean Agent shown it? Once. Maybe. Our neighbor told us that they had a possible appointment last night.

  Needless to say, B. and I have been chuckling under our breath about this terrible, awful agent.

  Oh! But it gets better! This is what we got in today's mail:

  
  What's so funny, you say? Why, this is the house next door to ours! Listed by Mean Agent! Would we like to buy the house next door to the one we just sold? Sure! It's a smidge closer to all that dune buggy and dirt bike action! Here's my $80,000! Sign me up for 300 square-feet less space than what I just ditched!

  But! But! But! It gets even better, if you can believe it:
  
  Thinking about buying or selling, you say? You want to sell my house, you dumb bitch? The one that you described in words worse than my beloved "crapshack"? Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!

  No, I'm not thinking about buying or selling. I've bought. I've sold. But I am thinking about sending her junk mail back to her with the URL of this post, as I can't be bothered to write a mean letter to her. And if I do happen to do such a thing, I have a message for you, Mean Agent: you're dated, your brain is obviously cluttered, you're lazy, and I'll just bet your underpants are dirty.

  Speaking of being old and dried-up, we got another piece of junk mail that has B.'s (clean) underpants in a twist. You see, B. turned 37 six months ago and for the first time, he's having some age anxiety. "Do you know how close 37 is to 40?" he's asked over and over since November. To which I have to say, "Three years. You're an engineer; I'm surprised you couldn't figure that out all by yourself."

  This anxiety wasn't helped one bit when a brochure - not a coupon or a flyer, but an actual tri-fold brochure - arrived in his name from the makers of Just for Men Haircolor:
  

  If anything arrives in the mail involving weenie dysfunction or injecting poisons into ones face, I'm afraid it might kill him, old and gray and frail as he's become.

  This brochure, I must say, is a piece of marketing brilliance. Beauty ad campaigns have been making women feel shitty for years. It's high time men parted with their money and did things to their bodies in the name of low self-esteem!
  
  It should be noted that, in another part of the brochure, there's a small (too small to be effectively photographed with my camera, sadly) illustration on how this product only dyes the gray hair and leaves the virile, manly, natural hair alone. Because coloring hair that isn't gray makes you gay.

  
  It's romantic. Translation: no lay if you're gray!

  You know, B. does have a fair amount of gray hair. Maybe that's why only fat chicks will do him.

  
  Your dad was a geezer with gray hair, dried-up nads, and he never got any sweet, sweet lovin' after the age of 32.

  Speaking of nads, I wonder what kind of warning this product has regarding the coloring of down-there-hair. I know that hair color products marketed to women contain a small warning about not using the product there. But think about this: if there are men as insecure about gray hair on their heads as this brochure indicates, the idea of other gray hair likely contributes to at least 37% of the stress-related cardiovascular disease in the male population. I'm estimating, of course. But if the degree of insecurity is so high, the desperation to do away with that gray hair has got to be strong enough to merit a warning like this:

  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DUDE, DO NOT PUT THIS ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR PUBES!!! ARE YOU AN IDIOT? YOU'LL BURN THE WHOLE WORKS OFF!!!

  So that's where we are. Clara Jane's afraid to leave the house because the flies are going to kill her. I'm raging at a real estate agent I've never met. B.'s huddled in the corner with a pair of tweezers, plucking grays from every square inch of his body. We're shuffling emotional basketcases.

  1. Merry Go Round - The Replacements
  2. The Well and the Light - Arcade Fire
  3. Way Down - Tori Amos
  4. Hot Cha - They Might Be Giants
  5. Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus
  6. Time to Get Ill - Beastie Boys
  7. Steal the Crumbs - Uncle Tupelo
  8. Be Real - Bottle Rockets
  9. Stairway to Heaven - Dolly Parton
  10. Doin' My Time - Johnny Cash

  Posted by Robin at 05:39 PM | Comments (11)

  May 16, 2007

  Predictably Ill

  I knew it was coming. During times of stress and overload, I can guarantee that I will come down with some nasty respiratory-related illness. Sure enough, the first bits of dry, hacking cough arrived on Sunday night. Monday, I was okay through the day, but promptly zonked out for three hours shortly before dinner. Had it not been for a father-child kerfluffle outside my bedroom door around 8:30, I probably would have slept through the night without dinner, which is saying a lot, because I really like dinner.

  I hacked and coughed my way through Tuesday, so much so that B. came home at noon to take over child care duties. And to fetch food, because I had a fever that required feeding and lots of it. This fever, which hit the 102 mark at one point, wanted baked potatoes, chicken noodle soup, mac and cheese, bread, muffins, Little Debbie Nutty Bars, pure refined white flour straight from the flour bag, and potato chips. Since I'm normally not a carb craver, I'm guessing that my body was in panic mode and decided it needed to load up on energy sources before it was struck down by a coma.

  I'm fine. Really. I stayed on the couch all day, and even managed to do enough knitting to mess up a sock. I snuggled under my quilt with Clara Jane, who gets terribly worried if I so much as cough. Sorry about the predisoposition for anxiety disorder, Toots.

  I was sick enough that I didn't listen to the new Wilco album, which I purchased on iTunes first thing yesterday morning. My ears were hurting, so I opted to wait until I can enjoy it via my earbuds. I'm hoping to hit the perfect window of the time when my ears are back to normal, but I'm still emotionally wonky from being sick. I'd love nothing more than to have a few music-related crying spells. The one song from the album I've heard (which you can hear on my MySpace page) makes me sob. In a good way.

  Illness be damned, house stuff keeps moving on. We have the inspection on the new house Saturday morning, just in time to head to Art on the Square. We decided awhile back that, once we live in Prettytown, we're going to buy one piece of art at Art on the Square every year. Although we'll be three weeks shy of moving in, we're still going to buy our first art as Prettytown residents, which makes this move seem very, very real. And good. I'm having a really hard time mustering any sentimentality about leaving. Leaving Clara Jane's room might be the hardest part for me, but even that seems odd, because it's definitely not the same room we had for her when we first brought her home.

  While I would never poke fun at anyone's death, no matter how reprehensible I found that person to be in life, I had to laugh at Salon's interview with Tinky-Winky regarding the passing of Jerry Falwell. Don't read it if you're suffering from respiratory malaise, like myself, because it hurts. Badly.

  Speaking of hurting badly, rumors are circulating that my beloved coffeehouse is changing hands. This saddens and concerns me to know end. So much so that all day, I've been fighting the urge to haul my still-diseased, unwashed carcass down there and demand what's going on. I'm not terribly surprised, just knowing what I know about how things have been over the past few months. But I'm concerned that the new owners won't roast the coffee so perfectly. Or that they won't share the original owners' adamancy about using only fair-trade beans. Or that they'll turn the play area into The Ayn Rand School for Tots. Or that the new owners are friends with Savior Dad, and they've purchased the coffeehouse for the sole purpose of ruining the lives of me and my motley crew of friends. There are so many things to worry about with this news. So many, indeed. Which means I'll be getting sick again.

  Posted by Robin at 12:50 PM | Comments (3)

  May 14, 2007

  If I Can't Say Anything Nice ...

  Well, these days, no matter what crap rains down, I can at least say that the move is on. One month from today, my friends, we close on both houses.

  One month.

  And no, I'm not having packing-related panic attacks. I've actually done things in a smart, organized manner. There's really not much packing left to do, as I've been packing here and there since January.

  Last Thursday was our home inspection, and today was the appraisal. I've learned something about folks in the poking-around-your-house business: they're perpetually early. The inspectors were waiting outside when we arrived home 15 minutes before their appointment. Today, the appraiser arrived at 9:30 instead of 10, meaning he got to see me in my pajamaed, braless, morning breathed glory. Good thing I wasn't the one being appraised. I wouldn't have gone for much. Although in this neighborhood, pajamaed at 9:30 AM, braless, and morning breathed is better than a lot of the other options. Do I need to bring up '80s Lady, dune buggy old ladies, or the 360-degree cameltoe yet again?

  Because spending money on a house isn't enough, we're also footing the bill for a new roof, per last week's inspection. Today I learned that we're also footing the bill for a new air conditioner in our truck. I guess it was feeling left out, what with all the cash we've been flinging at the house.

  But that's all fine. We'll have a vehicle with air conditioning (which we won't be able to afford to drive) and a new roof (which we'll never live under). We're lucky to be able to throw random wads of cash hither and yon.

  Tomorrow I'll be throwing some of my cash hither and yon in the direction of the new Wilco album, and you know that makes me happy. Take my a/c. Take my roof. Take my money. Just leave a copy of "Sky Blue Sky" on my iPod and I'll be just fine.

  Sometime in the next day or two, I'll be slipping away so I can listen to the album in its entirity all by myself without distraction. That makes me almost as happy as moving. Too bad there are people still living in my new house, or I'd tresspass onto their front porch for my little listening party for one.

  In fact, 15s are looking good. Tomorrow's the 15th, and the album's coming out. June 15th, we'll be moving. July 15th, I'm planning a big, blow-out of a boobie fundraiser for The Cuz and her 3-Day Walk for Breast Cancer. And not just because I so want her to raise $5000 and shave her head. That's only part of the reason.

  But yes, 15s are good. I can talk about 15s all I want right now, and I'll always have something nice to say.

  Posted by Robin at 04:52 PM | Comments (10)

  May 12, 2007

  Friday(ish) Shuffle - Like I Ever Post on Fridays From My Hometown Edition

  And like I can form coherent paragraphs this week. Here's the short version.

  Drive to hometown Friday night. Sucked. No air conditioning. Truck. Two adults, one child, two hot, stinky dogs. We usually make the drive without stops, but we were so hot we stopped halfway for 20 minutes of fresh air and convenience store air conditioning. In a stroke of pure luck, had we not stopped we would have been smack-dab in the middle of a huge, ugly wreck at the turn-off to my parents' road.

  I finally made it to the local yarn shop. The owner is pretty nuts, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I bought four skeins of Brown Sheep sock yarn and two skeins of Brown Sheep worsted weight wool, and spent less than $20.

  Since I didn't get my mom's ugly orthopedic Crocs for Mother's Day, I got her a gorgeous chocolate cake at the new fancy-pants local bakery that I love. We're going to eat it for breakfast tomorrow. Just the moms.

  We went for a family horse-drawn surrey ride this morning. I wasn't ready, as I was still braless and in pajamas. A word to the wise - braless surrey rides hurt.

  But the horses love me. I think one of them wanted to make sweet love to me, even. Let's just say I had horse slobber down my back and leave it at that.

  It just wouldn't be Mother's Day if my dogs didn't escape from my parents' yard and go adventuring. At least it happened while I was cake and yarn-shopping and I didn't find out until after the fact, as the annual Mother's Day Weekend Hound Escape! tends to bring on massive panic attacks and family feuds.

  Clara Jane got a giant swing set for the new house for Mother's Day. I'm not sure how she managed the $200 gift, considering how little birth she's given. But that's cool.

  She also got a t-shirt from The Cuz - black with an old-school tattoo-style heart that says "Mom". But when you ask Clara Jane what it says, she replies, "It says Bob." Hi. I'm Bob.

  Speaking of tattoo-style shirts, my 76-year-old great-aunt Helen showed up tonight wearing a similar shirt to Clara Jane's. Except instead of Mom or Bob, it said "Hot Stuff". I'll bet you wish I wasn't so lazy right now and would upload the pictures of it. Because there's just something about a 76-year-old great-aunt in a shirt that says "Hot Stuff".

  Great-Aunt Helen told a story tonight about how she's been getting calls from some guy who claims he saw her add on Modern Mature Lady dot com. My great-aunt, hot stuff she may be, but she doesn't own a computer. This guy also claimed that her imaginary ad claimed that she's "a full-bodied woman". Apparently, he's just randomly calling women in the phone book in hopes of finding an old, fat, single chick. Granny Viv says that this is a good reason for single ladies to have their phone listings with just their first initial. I argue that, if that happens, how are guys ever going to meet old, fat, single chicks?

  I'm so tired I can barely shuffle.

  1. Pocket Knife - PJ Harvey
  2. Bonzo Goes to Bitburg - Ramones
  3. Gun - Uncle Tupelo
  4. Prodigal Son - Rolling Stones
  5. Tennessee Homesick Blues - Dolly Parton
  6. Do Right Woman - The Flying Burrito Brothers
  7. Raining Blood - Tori Amos
  8. Take the Fifth - Spoon
  9. Let's Not Belong Together - Paul Westerberg
  10. The Crane Wife 3 - The Decemberists

  Posted by Robin at 10:34 PM | Comments (6)

  May 10, 2007

  Dots of Grievance

  I'm to the point where this week is going to consist of me pissing and moaning and possibly putting my head through one of the Sugar Wafer walls. I've just flat-out had enough. I'm tired. I'm worried. I'm stressed. I'm feeling as if the universe is saying, "Hey, you got your house. Now shut the hell up and pay for it, Bitch."

  Just humor me. I'm venting.

  • Amtrak. Oh, Amtrak. Always struggling because they're at the mercy of the freight trains companies that own all the rails. Clara Jane and I should be preparing to board a train to my hometown right now, except all train service west of Jefferson City has been cancelled until Saturday. They're trying to get the freight through before the tracks flood. I understand, I do. I'm just not thrilled about making a three-hour drive in crowded truck with an air conditioner that's died for the second time in as many months.

  • B. called today to say we should drive to my hometown tonight. Guess he forgot that he'd waited until the last minute to go Mother's Day shopping and was going to do it tonight. Either that or he's just going to buy me something at one of the many Dollar General stores in my hometown.

  • Could someone please inform my husband that, when someone (namely, his wife), offers to pick him up at the train station, proper etiquette dictacts that he should inform her that he's leaving the office late as soon as he's aware. Not twenty minutes later, when she and their child have gone out of their way to pick his ass up. Not informing the person who offered the favor could lead to a chain of events that prevents you from getting home until 6:20, instead of 4:45. It could also mean that the person who offered to pick you up, went out of her way to do so only to turn around and drive home, who's now stuck making dinner because you're not here to do it as promised just might use her Neti pot to clean her sinuses over your bowl of gnocchi with gorgonzola, peas and ham while you're not looking.

  • I'm going to set fire to all my phones. They've done nothing but ring today and frankly, I don't feel like fucking talking right now.

  • There's a point just east of downtown St. Louis where several majors highways converge. It's always a bit congested. Today, I sat in traffic in this area for oer 20 minutes because they'd reduced traffic to one line. Why? Because they were changing the light in the "Welcome to Illinois" sign. Did I feel welcome, while I roasted in my car, watching my $3/gallon gas burn? Not even a little.
    
  • You know what else made me feel unwelcome? Going to Associated Foot Surgeons in Belleville, Illinois (full name listed for Google purposes) to purchase a pair of orthopedic Crocs for my mom's Mother's Day gift. Yeah, I know, but that's what she wants, and she found out that's one of the few places in the region that sells the ugly things. First, I stood in the office, all alone, knocking on the glass window for ten minutes before someone arrived. When she did arrive, she told me that the sizes on the orthopedic Crocs are wonky but no, I wouldn't be able to exchange them, even if they still had the tags on them, but would I care to "just risk it at buy the size sevens?" Way to fuck up peoples' feet and drum up business there, you ugly shoe-peddler. No thank you. Happy Mother's Day, Mom! You'll be getting ... um ... a free night and breakfast in the spare bedroom of our new house? Some Amtrak tickets for a train that's not running for an undetermined amount of time? No? Well, that's pretty much all I've got.

  • Despite the fact that we had large limb spear a hole in our roof a few months ago, along with damage from multiple storms, our insurance company stands by their policy that, although we haven't filed a claim with them in the eight years they've insured our house, they will not cover a new roof for us until we can see daylight through the ceiling. Which is a shame, considering that the people buying our house demanded a new roof today.

  • Clara Jane keeps kicking me off the couch.

  • Oh! And she made a Mother's Day card for me. This is what she dictated to her teacher for the inside:
    I love it when Mommy takes me to the coffeehouse.
    I love it when Mommy makes me peas.
    I love to run and play and look for ants with Mom.
    Daddy is my best friend.

    Frankly, I think her teacher could have left off that last part. I essentially got a Mother's Day card that says, "I love all the shit you do for me, but Dad's the one who's tops in my book."
    

  The truly amazing thing is, I've yet to cry today. But when I do - and oh, I'm sure I will - there's really going to be a flooding situation in Missouri because goddamn it, I'm about to explode.

  Posted by Robin at 04:20 PM | Comments (13)

  May 09, 2007

  I'm Such a Bandwagon-Jumper

  
  follow poppymom at http://twitter.com

  They call it "Twitter" because of the involuntary muscle spasms caused by addiction.

  Posted by Robin at 05:18 PM | Comments (7)

  May 08, 2007

  These Dots in History

  Maybe this is just me and my freakishly sharp memory, but I look back at my life and I don't necessarily recall single moments. I recall phases when things change. I have a feeling this past week will be one of those, for in the past week I've ...

  • explained bisexuality to my mother.
  • sold my house.
  • lost a house I thought for sure was ours.
  • bought a house.
  • lost a friend, whose ashes will be scattered tomorrow.
  • learned one friend was making plans to end a marriage.
  • learned a second friend was making plans to end a marriage. Not the same marriage, mind you.
  • wished my dear Basset Chloe a happy 10th birthday, which makes me a little sad because even though she doesn't act it, she's getting up there.
  • possibly done permanent damage to my back by performing the oh-so-difficult task of sitting my ass down in my desk chair, which I accidentally kicked out from under my very own ass. You remember in the Roadrunner cartoons, when the coyote would go over the cliff and he'd land in such a manner that his body would turn into an accordian? Yeah, that happened to me.

  I think this might be the week where someday, I look back and say, "Yeah, that week in May, 2007, when I was 34 years old? That was when I officially hit adulthood." Because you don't fully hit adulthood until something happens that gives you the ability to predict the weather based on past injuries, right? I think I'm there.

  Posted by Robin at 10:17 PM | Comments (9)

  May 07, 2007

  Bit by Bit

  I'm finding that after the insanity of the past week, I'm having to digest everything - all the great news and bad news - in tiny little bits. If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I'm easily overwhelmed and I can't take on everything at once.

  The only problem with this bit-by-bit method is I can't quite predict which bit is going to hit me at what point. Like yesterday, I went to Target by myself. One minute I'd find myself so giddy I was teary-eyed because I found the perfect tablecloth to match the walls in our new dining room. The next minute, when I'm not distracted by some pretty piece of merchandise, I would find myself teary because I was thinking about Paula. And then I made the mistake of going shopping for Mother's Day cards, which always makes me weepy.

  In other words, I'm in a constant state of being on the verge of tears at any given moment, and for many, many reasons. But I'm dealing with it.

  Toddler time helps. Sunday night we babysat the 21-month-old son of a friend. It's hard to be teary from sadness when there are two little ones, running amok, filled with giggles and squeals and snuggles.

  I'm starting to allow myself to get excited about the move. The contract for the sale of our house is in our hands. Today, the buyers conducted their professional inspection. While the inspectors have to give us the results via our real estate agent, they assured us that things look good. This was the biggest hurdle between selling the house and closing. The news that the house really isn't a crapshack has lifted a weight.

  The contract on the house we're buying became final today. As of June 14th, we're out of the Redneck Jungle and into our new house, in a new neighborhood and new town. I keep looking around whenever I'm driving around our current neighborhood, expecting to feel at least a little sentimentality, but all I feel is complete, absolute relief that we're finally on our way out.

  The new house: It's a 1920s brick bungalow. Corner lot, huge covered front porch, beautiful brickwork, trees, picket fence, two-car garage in the back, big yard.

  It's one story, even though we assumed we'd buy a two-story. Granted, it's got a wonderful finished basement, so essentially, it's two stories of living space. Considering that most of the apartments I lived in were basements, it only seems right for me to return to subterranean life.

  The main floor - restored hardwood floors, gorgeous original woodwork, an arched front door with leaded glass window, fireplace with a beautiful mantel in the front living room. Down the hall, there are two bedrooms and a bathroom. Straight ahead, a big, orange dining room with a single leaded-pane French door leading to the kitchen, where there's a floor-to-ceiling built-in china cabinet.

  Have I told you this? I honestly can't remember who I've told what.

  The basement's family room is 13'x28' with a wet bar and exposed brick walls. There's a huge spare bedroom, which will also house my desk although I'll most likely finally be getting my laptop once we're moved. Next to the spare room, B.'s office, which is around the corner from a big utility room and a tiny bathroom.

  That's right. A bathroom. We were in such a rush when we looked at the house last January that we completely missed the second bathroom.

  And yes, as many of you suggested in the comments, it's a better fit than that house we were sure was meant for us. It's a bit smaller, which is fine. I mean, considering that last week we misplaced our cat for several days in our 970 square foot house, it's highly possible that, if we lived in that 2200 square foot house, we would misplace our kid. Overall, though, it just feels better. As much as I adored the other house, we also knew a lot of work would be involved to fix it up. In this one, once we fix a tiny bad spot in the fence, we should be able to move our stuff and simply start living. I can't begin to describe how wonderful that sounds.

  This house doesn't feel like settling. The whole time we were looking at it on Thursday, I wasn't overwhelmed by its charms. I just wanted to sit in every room and snuggle in. I guess it's akin to the difference between infatuation and true, solid love.

  I get to live on what's claimed to be America's longest Main Street. I can't even begin to think of how idyllic that seems.

  So, it's all sinking in. I know all of this probably reads rather numbly, and it will for awhile because it's going to take awhile to process all that's happened in the past week. But I'm getting there.

  Posted by Robin at 10:55 PM | Comments (14)

  May 05, 2007

  I'm Ready to Get Off the Roller Coaster, Please

  I started the day by learning that a friend I'd made on a message board has died. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma several years ago. She was a wife, and mother to two kids, ages 17 and 12. She was 40 years old. Her name is Paula and she lived in Round Rock, Texas.

  My dear friend Dixie wrote a beautiful post about her a few months ago, and today she wrote an even more beautiful eulogy for our friend. Please go read them.

  My other friend PKB (I have a lot of friends. Have you noticed? I am so, so, so lucky and I hope I'm always able to do right by them.) broke the news to me. I broke the news to Dixie. It was the first time I'd heard her voice in over five years. Dixie lives in Germany, and the last time I heard that sweet Mississippi drawl of hers was in March, 2001, when we were both in Memphis. I've never had to tell someone that she's lost someone dear to her, until today when I did via trans-Atlantic phone call. I can't imagine it feels any better or worse breaking such news in person. It's the kind of news that just sucks all around.

  Since I tend towards pessimism/panic/reality, I generally expect phone calls from people who don't normally call me to be bad news. I was hoping Dixie would be the same, but she's not. She sounded excited to hear from me. I hated raising her up just to bring her crashing down.

  Dixie wrote about this today, and she did it much better than I can at this point. We cried together, but eventually we were telling each other funny stories and reliving our favorites stories. I think she started it by suddenly bringing up my nut story, which somehow led to her telling this story about a dog shitting in her dad's face, and I'm telling you this as a way of goading Dixie into telling that story on he own blog because my God, it is the funniest, most disgusting story you will ever know.

  I don't know if this is a regional thing with southerners and border-staters with Ozarkian tendancies like myself, but we always have the big family get-together after a funeral. Everyone winds up talking, telling stories, laughing, and having a great time, then feeling guilty that we just put someone in the ground and here we are, telling poop and nut stories. Dixie and I had that moment today and agreed that Paula would most certainly approve. She loved her friends. She loved to laugh. We hoped that her spirit was laughing with us.

  Clara Jane and I spent the day with PKB, trying to go about as normally as we could. Lunch and coffee, a trip to the yarn shop, painting Clara Jane's fingernails, all interspersed with tiny bits of grief.

  My brain and my heart are trying to sort through Paula's death, and how these online friendships can leave such an impact. If she'd simply quit the message board, that would be one thing. Her words would be absent, but I'd know she was in the world, somewhere, even if she wasn't in my life. Now, her words are absent, and I wish I could just pretend that she's in the world, living her life with her husband, son and daughter. And yet, I can't do that and I don't understand why.

  As I typed that last sentence, it came to me. This is why I write - it's the only way I can sort through the jumble in my head and figure out anything. The perfect example of why I can't simply pretend is just a few paragraphs up. Dixie. We were on two message boards together. I quit one. A year or two later, she quit the other. We didn't keep in touch, but I knew she was there. She and PKB were still on the board I'd left, so I'd get my Dixie updates on a regular basis.

  Then, a little over two years ago, I learned that Dixie had started blogging. We started reading and commenting on each others' blogs. We talked knitting. We found ourselves on another message board together, emailing each other, and partaking in the squirreliest sock-knitting scheme ever.

  The point is, I went years without Dixie's words, but I knew she was still there and there was a chance I'd have her in my life again. That's not the case with Paula.

  In the midst of all this, we got the best news possible: our bid on the house was accepted. Come June, we'll be out of this horrible neighborhood, living in a beautiful little house in a lovely neighborhood. The kind of place I've always dreamed of living.

  I don't think I've cried, laughed, laughed until I've cried, or cried until I've laughed as much in my life has I have in the past 12 hours. Such is life, and I feel a bit like I've lived all the emotions of one in a single day.

  Posted by Robin at 08:45 PM | Comments (38)

  May 04, 2007

  Friday Shuffle - The Neglectful Edition

  Like I'd get my Friday post up anytime early in the day this week. You're lucky I'm making it at all.

  The housing update: The sale on our house is written in blood. All that's left are the occupancy inspections and closing. We've got a signed contract in our hands and a "Sold" sign in the yard.

  We've made an offer on The House of Which I Shall Not Speak. I'm a little paranoid, considering all the melodrama I inflicted over the house we didn't get. We'll know by 8 PM Saturday night if our offer's accepted. After that, I'll spill more details about the house.

  Now, on to other things that don't revolve around buying and selling houses. Well, not quite as much, at least.

  To say B. and I have been distracted this week? Understatement doesn't even begin to cover it. The whole family's suffering because of it. We haven't eaten a decent meal in ages. Tonight, we brought home a variety of chicken wings from one of the local grocery store delis. Upon bringing in all the groceries, B. asked, "Where are the wings?"

  "How should I know? I've been sitting on my ass for 15 minutes, talking on the phone while you haul in our sleeping child and a week's worth of food."

  We lost the chicken wings.

  Not that it was hard to find them. They were in the truck, exactly where the the rest of the groceries had been five minutes earlier.

  Night before last, we ate chicken kebobs for dinner. Not homemade ones, of course, but ones that were skewered, injected with marinade, cooked, frozen, sold to me by Target, and thrown in a pan by B. They were served alongside frozen Alexia oven fries and some bagged broccoli a few days past its prime.

  I think it goes without saying that we shouldn't have given the three-year-old a pointy meat-filled stick. But we did, and then we didn't pay attention until she screamed, "Murphy! No! Give it back!" and I looked to find the pointy meat-filled stick not in my child's hand or mouth, but gouged down my stupid little dog's gullet as she tried to swallow the whole thing, snake-style.

  I paid the utmost attention when I reached my hand down the dog's mouth and extracted the stick.

  Don't worry, Murphy's fine. As fine as she ever was, anyway. So's our cat, Romi, who we didn't miss a bit during the 24-48 hours she was locked in the back room of our basement. She must have gotten in there when our house-buyers were here Monday night. B. released her sometime Wednesday. I didn't even question why this cat I've lived with since 1999 was suddenly gone, and then suddenly clinging to me like she was being persued by the spectre of dark death.

  Today, I was so distracted by umpteen bazillion phone calls that I didn't realize Clara Jane had decided to de-neutralize our Sugar Wafer dining room:
  

  That green stuff on the dining room floor that sort of doesn't technically belong to us anymore? That's paint. Applied by my child, who also did this:
  
  I let her keep the body art because, you know, it's pretty cool and stuff, but I did hold her responsible for the condition of the floor:
  

  Shuffle along with that cleaning rag, Clara Jane. Stay out of trouble while I sit here and worry, okay?

  1. Hickory Wind - Gram Parsons
  2. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out - The Replacements (which never fails to make me laugh my ass off)
  3. Turn You Inside-Out - REM
  4. Badger Song - Dead Milkmen (which also never fails to make me laugh my ass off)
  5. Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song) - Johnny Cash
  6. Suicide Blonde - INXS
  7. Slip Slidin' Away - Paul Simon
  8. Mean Woman Blues - Elvis
  9. The Needle Has Landed - Neko Case
  10. Gone - U2

  Posted by Robin at 09:29 PM | Comments (7)

  May 03, 2007

  Real Estate 101: How to Sell and Buy Houses

  I was going to do a cheeky little run-down of the past five months and the lunacy of the home buying and selling process but fact is, I'm too damn tired and my brain has trickled out of my ears like undercooked oatmeal.

  So I'm picking up where I left off, wherever that was.

  When we last left our heroine, she was slamming her head against the floor because - oh, the irony! - the same day her crapshack finally sold, the house she wanted had been usurped from under her! Homeless! We're going to be homeless because our buyers want to close at the end of this month and there isn't a single solitary suitable house in all the land! Homeless!

  Some melodrama ensued. It wasn't pretty, so I'll spare you.

  We did take the offer on our house. Of course, we would have been stupid not to. We made one wee little change to the contract, and we're waiting to hear if the buyer accepts it. If not, no problem. We'll take what they offered.

  Upon realizing my intense malaise and penchant for melodrama yesterday, the dear PKB drug me out of my house and said, "Get yourself east of the Mississippi River and let's find you a house." I really didn't want to, since putting on clothes and brushing my teeth seemed like monumental task in my melodramatic state, what with all the time I was spending weeping bitter little tears and flinging the mosaic tile I took from the house I thought would be ours at the stupid fucking dirt bike riders who zoom up and down my street 24 fucking hours a fucking day. But she made me go.

  Good thing, too because guess what. We're buying a house. Well, not PKB and me, although we've discussed having that sort of lifestyle. B. and I will be doing the purchasing and living together and whatnot.

  Remember back in January, when we first started looking at houses? I really liked the first house we viewed that day, but it was a weird situation. Our brains were already wrapped around The House. We were meeting our new real estate agent for the first time. And, it didn't help that when we opened the door, we were greeted by a very sickly, very startled young woman. Apparently her real estate agent hadn't told her we were coming. She was four months pregnant, on bedrest, being fed via IV, and completely mortified at the condition of her house.

  Come on. She was that sick, with two little girls already. If I were her, I probably would have burned my house down at that point. I'd think I was doing well to not have piles of poo throughout the house. Regardless, we looked very quickly. I saw enough to know I liked the house. B. nixed it.

  On Tuesday night, when I was frantically trying to find a new house through the bitter, bitter, bitter tears, that was one of the houses I was trying to find. It didn't appear on any of the real estate websites I checked. Neither did the other two houses we liked.

  So, yesterday. PKB and I started at one end of Prettytown and commenced driving up and down every street in search of for sale signs. Lo and behold, where did we see one? The Bedrest House.

  Long story short, B. and I took another look today through new eyes. We're making an offer tomorrow. Hopefully, by the end of the weekend, we'll be on our way to calling it home.

  

  Posted by Robin at 04:03 PM | Comments (21)

  May 02, 2007

  A Brief Escape

  Still no new news on the goddamn fucking house front. But everyone who said we should take the offer and run? You're right, and we will. My dear PKB is going house-hunting with me today, and she doesn't even mind that I'm too sad to be bothered with putting on real clothes. She just might take me house-hunting in my pajamas. That's a friend.

  In another case of impeccable timing, my equally dear Kristina has interviewed me. And her questions are wonderful, pure fantasy and good times, which is what I desperately need right now. Well, that and a glass of wine and some Klonopin. Anyway, let's escape while we continue the long, constant wait for the real estate agent's call.

  1. B.'s birthday gift to you this year is a hot night with one of these guys: Jeff Tweedy, Jack White, Tyler "Sweaty Boy" Florence, or Anthony Bourdain. No strings, no guilt, just...fun. Whom do you pick and why?

  B.'s the most awesome guy in the world, if he did that. Honestly, I'm not really into Jeff and Jack in "that" way. As much as I dig musicians, I'm not really that attracted to them. I'd much rather hang out with them and talk. Besides, as much as I love Jeff and Jack, I think they'd be too whiny and self-involved.

  So that brings us to the chefs, which makes this a hard one because chefs are totally hot. While Anthony's so damn hot, he's a little too arrogant (which is funny because that's what I like about him). He could very well be the type who takes care of himself and that's that. So it's definitely Tyler. He's got bonus points for having written this not-safe-for-work article. His answer to question #4 pretty much seals the deal. Yep, Sweaty Boy it is.

  Boy, that took my mind off real estate.

  2. It's the last day on Earth. What do you eat and drink for dinner?

  I think I'd start the day with all the super-rare, expensive delicacies: black truffles, 100-year-old balsamic vinegar, caviar, sweetbreads, and such. And really, really fabulous wine, of course. But I'd want to close the day with all my favorite comfort foods: my granny's noodles, your Aunt Louise's marinara, watermelon, chicken tikka masala made by my Indian former boss, my ma's fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, veggie pizza from Shakespeare's, those little dim sum sweet red bean dumplings and a giant All Shook Up concrete from Ted Drewes, about a pound of Maytag blue cheese. Washed down with sweet tea.

  3. Since I am unoriginal but interested, what's your best concert experience?

  So many. The November, 2001 U2 show was a fantastic experience, what with the camping out. Also, during "Sunday Bloody Sunday", I think I came to terms with 9/11 and it was such a powerful moment. U2 in Vegas was amazing, too. Wilco at the Pageant in March, 2006, was fun and moving and reassuring when I needed some reassurance in a big way. And those pregnant White Stripes shows were so much fun and so surreal.

  4. We're going back to Memphis (seriously, we need to!). What would we do this time?

  We're going to the goddamn Memphis Rock and Soul Museum, because this time we won't have a traveling companion who bitches about the price of admission, only to spend twice that amount at Hot fucking Topic two hours later! Aside from that, I think we need to go off the beaten path this time. Go to Sunday services at Full Gospel Tabernacle and have lunch afterwards at Four-Way Grill. This, of course, after a night of hitting clubs and bars off the tourist path. Gotta end the trip with banana pudding on the banks of the Mississippi, though. That's a must. And this time, we will be staying at the Peabody.

  5. If you could live in a novel, which one would it be?
  One that has absolutely no drama at all whatsoever. And one with stable housing.

  Posted by Robin at 10:17 AM | Comments (3)

  May 01, 2007

  Thanks for the congratulations, but right now, I can't read anymore.

  Our agent called a little before 10 tonight. The house we love ... someone else has an offer on it. It happened yesterday. So now we're in a position where someone wants to buy our house and we're without one to buy.

  We've spent the past hour scrounging every real estate website. There's nothing. Not in our price range, not in our areas.

  When I got pregnant it was such a joy, only to end in so much misery with her horrible labor, delivery, and my illnesses that followed.

  Tonight, we were so happy about the sale of our house. Hours later, we're looking at two options: passing on this offer we've been dying for, or taking it and moving into ... what?

  For once in my life, I'd love to not have the other shoe drop whenever something great happens. Just once.

  Posted by Robin at 10:59 PM | Comments (16)

  And Not One Single Person's Answering the Damn Phone

  In this age of hyper-connectivity, I can count on being able to reach anyone, at any time, within seconds.

  So why is it that, at this very moment, I can't get ahold of anyone on the goddamn phone so I can say this outloud...

  WE SOLD THE CRAPSHACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Posted by Robin at 08:00 PM | Comments (23)