Love That House!

In keeping with the recent list theme, and in accordance with the impending move, I've decided to launch a feel-good meme. I fully expect that, like all such minor-league blog launched innovation, this particulare meme will drop like a lead BB in the vast ocean of the Internet. But, it's fun.

So . . .

List 5 things you like most about your house. (Very exciting, I know, but it's on my mind.)

Old house:

1. History - Sam was born while we lived here. Timothy and Stephen started school while we lived here and learned to ride a bike in the dead end out front. A million other things that make up a rich life happened in this house.
   
2. Shade - We have a huge oak tree on the south-facing side of the house, along with several other, taller trees across the street. Our air conditioner stays on 76 during the day, and still doesn't come on until about 3 PM. Nice.
3. Light - Despite the fact that the house faces south, and that most of the windows therefore face north and south, we do have a few windows that face east (to catch the rising sun) and west (to catch it setting). Those rooms that do have east/west windows are my favorite.
4. The Dead End - In front of our house is about a hundred feet or so of two lane road that services only our driveway. It's flat, pretty well kept up, and the only time there are cars on it is when someone is coming to visit. The kids ride bikes there, play tag, soccer, & football; it's been the site of block parties for years on end; it's shady; it's all ours. And parking, wow. Despite the fact that our kids don't drive (yet), we do occasionally have large family gatherings and parties with friends. Here in the dead end, we have "anyone can leave anytime" parking for 9-10 cars. If we really pack them in, we could easily handle 20 or more. The new house has ACLA parking for 4 cars and packs in 6.
5. Dry - This house is on a hill, and the nearest creek is several hundred feet away and dozens of feet down. If this house ever floods, gopher wood will be involved. The new house, while not technically in a flood plane, does have a creek running through the back yard.

Now, because I'm moving (and because it's my blog), I get to list my 5 favorite things about the new house.

1. The Office - This is why we're moving. There's a 400 square foot office above the garage in the new house that shares zero walls, hallways, doors, etc. with any other room in the house. And it has its own HVAC. And two windows. Since I'm out of the way, the boys can run around and be boys in their own house; my wife can relax and not have to ride herd on them all day; everyone will be happy. Probably.
2. Light - The new house faces east, and my bedroom, the living room, and my office all catch the morning sunrise. Very nice. The kitchen and dining room (and my office) catch the evening sunset. My own little Palace of Light.
3. The Creek - There's a creek in the backyard, leading into a forest. Boy heaven.
4. The Tub - There's a jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom. Our existing house has one tub, the new house has three. I like baths.
5. Trees - Lots of new trees, including a couple of Japanese Maples and some of the largest, oldest River Birches I have ever seen. (And the lawn is tiny.)

What makes a list a meme? Passing it along. Specifically:
My Wife, 'cause she's awesome
Splitcat & Fiorinda, who live in the same house (they're married, so it's all on the up & up)
Dignan and posse
Circusfrog
Both Mom and Dad, cause . . . you know
My sister, who just moved to her first house (and probably needs reminding that the moneyhole called home ownership is still much, much better than an apartement.)

But anyone else is welcome to leave a comment. Enjoy.

Reading Lists

I was downstairs earlier today looking for some of the chocolate I had purchased on my bachelor weekend, and was talking to my wife in an effort to distract her from my search. She hadn't mentioned (i.e., yelled at me about) the chocolate yet, so it was possible that she hadn't seen it.

(To distract her, I use lists; any list, about anything, with more than a few items, and her eyes glaze over and it's like I'm not in the room. Very handy. Talking about computers also works.)

A few mentions of my ideas for furniture placement in the new house, and I basically had the kitchen to myself, so long as I didn't mention money or make sudden movements. I checked the usual places (none of which I will divulge in such a public forum as this) and found the box. Success!

Sitting next to the box, though was a reading list from my son's school. I looked at it and started scanning the titles.

"Timothy's already read most of these," I said out loud (I had already re-hid the chocolate, so stealth was no longer required). In my mind, I was rejoicing that we could just mark these books off the list. Nothing kills a good book like having to read it.

"That's the 1st and 2nd grade list," came the reply. There was a hint, an insinuation, a subtext in her voice. As usual, I didn't get it.

My face must have shown it, because she tried again. "Timothy's list is underneath."

I looked. Sure enough: 3rd grade reading list. (Oh, yeah, Timothy's going into 3rd grade. Eek.)

"Then why did they send this other one?"

She looked at me with the Are-You-Really-This-Dumb look?

Then it hit me: Stephen. He starts 1st grade this year. This was Stephen's reading list.

A). Wow.
B). Stephen starts 1st grade this year.

Ok. This could be my new, all-purpose phrase, along the lines of "snakes on a plane," or "c'est la vie," or "it is what it is," or "shikata ga na." Stephen starts 1st grade this year.

It can be stoic: "What're you gonna do? Stephen starts 1st grade this year."

It can be epicurean: "Woohoo! Party! Stephen starts 1st grade this year."

It can be Christian: "God is in His heaven. Stephen starts 1st grade this year."

It also means is that Stephen, my quiet one, Mr. Do It Myself (Usually Without Asking), the eater, the sleeper, the charmer, little Papa, etc., is actually starting 1st grade this year. His exposure to the world is getting wider and deeper, and I do not doubt that the world will be better for it.

But for us, it means less and less of Stephen here, in our lives, until one day he goes away to college and never calls. So I'm a mess; and hence the chocolate.

When Working On A Toilet

1. To get water out of the tank, turn off the water supply underneath the tank, flush the toilet a couple of times, and then use a disposable diaper to absorb the remaining water in the tank. Just turn the diaper inside-out, lay it in the bottom of the tank, and then go eat lunch (or play a level of Star Wars: Battlefront). When you get back, all the water should be absorbed. Throw the diaper away.
   
2. Buy two wax rings. If you buy one, you will mess up and need a second one. If you buy two, nothing at all will go wrong (with re-seating the bowl, that is) and you will only need one. In either case, you'll be going back to Home Depot. (Every home improvement project in the history of mankind has required at least two trips to Home Depot; it's a natural law by now.) But if you buy one wax ring you'll be going back mad and having to spend more money; if you buy two you'll be going back with your task completed and someone will hand you cash at the end of your visit.
3. Do not unscrew the bolts holding the tank to the bowl unless it is absolutely necessary to remove the tank from the bowl. For example, don't unscrew 30-year old tank bolts just out of habit. It will leak, because the bolts will never go back in place the exact same way.
4. If you're at Home Depot, and the possibility of toilet work looms on the near horizon (say, in the next 5 years), buy tank bolts. Because you might, out of habit, unscrew the old ones. As a matter of fact, keep a spare set of tank bolts in a drawer somewhere. I do.
5. Remember where you put your spare set of tank bolts.
6. Do not try to work on tank bolts while there is water in the tank. Unless you like lots and lots of water all over the bathroom floor. If that's the case, have at it.
7. Do not use the good towels when working on the toilet. Remember the towels you picked out before your wedding? The ones where your bride-to-be looked at you strangely and then said, "Sure honey"? Use those, if you can find them.
8. Remember where you bought the good towels. You know, just in case.
   
9. Do not over-tighten anything. As my Dad always says, "Hand tight, then a quarter turn. More plumbing leaks are caused by over-tightening than by under-tightening." If you over-tighten, you run the risk of cracking and destroying your vintage, 1975, hi-flow toilet, and you'll have to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for a crappy, new, Al Gore Special that, frankly, can't handle the load.

Ok. Now to get to work on the disposer.

Things You Can Do When You're Home Alone

• Eat whatever you want, so long as you're willing to cook it yourself, eat by yourself, and clean it up when you're done.
• Watch 5 (or more) episodes of Lost. Per day.
  
• Blog, but only if your daily to-do list is done (mine currently run to three Post-It notes long, in roughly 9 point Arial)
  
• Realize that the couch your wife bought on Craigslist.com, while not something you would ever have considered (or even looked at twice), is actually very nice and a good deal.
• Not talk for hours. Then talk to yourself (or to the TV, it's perfectly normal), realize that you're not too fond of the sound of your own voice, and so not talk again for hours.
  
• Make and eat too many french fries. Excellent.
• Wash your own clothes, fold them, and put them away.
  
• Play the video games that you can't play when the kids are home (Syphon Filter, Star Wars: Battlefront).
• Wonder what games your kids are playing, and realize you'd rather play those.
  
• Drink way more Cokes than usual. Don't ask how many.
  
• Go shopping for unmentionables and nail clippers. Look at a really cool messenger bag, and then realize you're too old. Same with hats.
  
• Set the alarm clock to wake you up at 5 AM with Smashing Pumkins (Siamese Dream, ftw).
• Eat ice cream at night, and complain all you want with the cramps that inevitably come.
• Eat yogurt the next night.
• Call your wife, every hour, on the hour.
• Remember to never, ever, miss being single.

Lots of Fun

As anticipated, the boys loved this: http://www.devilducky.com/media/46502/ (no devils or ducks actually involved).

Make sure to have the sound on, because the music makes the piece. This is very finely crafted and well done.

Now, if you'll excuse me, apparently I have to go build some stuff in the back yard . . .

[Warning: I cannot vouch for any of the links from that page, so don't click through to anything else unless you're ready for a potentially big surprise.]

Update: Upon closer review, at 2:30 in, hitting the plane, those are snakes. That's right.

Rumble

Sam stands up on the couch, and yells across the room, "I'm Miffy!"

Jonah, playing on the computer, turns around to watch Sam, who by this time has jumped off the couch and is stomping his foot on the floor. "I'm Miffy! I'm Miffy!"

Challenged in this manner, Jonah hops off the computer chair, runs over to Sam, and says, "I'm the Blue Power Ranger!"

Sam growls at Jonah, "Bing ahhn! [Bring it on!]"

Requiescat In Pace

Forboda of Suramar
06/23/05 - 09/26/05
11/17/05 - 02/21/06
03/14/06 - 06/17/06

Does anyone have any chewing gum?

3, 2, 1,

Contract!

That's right, we have a contract on our house. As noted previously, someone came by, saw the house, came by again, and made an offer. It was a good and fair offer, which our Realtor (TM) pointed out was a bit of a rarity. There was one stipulation (a $5000 carpet allowance) that was simply not feasible, so we countered with a polite "no, thank you," on the carpet and an enthusiastic "YES!" on everything else, and the counter offer was accepted.

Signed, sealed, delivered, etc.

There's still a lot of work to do (including convincing someone to lend us ridiculously large amounts of money), but it's all things that can be done, instead of 10 months of Clean & Wait (TM).

Thank you for all of your prayers (for those of you who prayed). Party at our new house, sometime in late July.

Oh Be Careful Little Boys Where You Pee

It would appear that our cat, the mighty Sparkles, is not doing his job. How do I know this? Well, we have varmints living in tunnels in our side yard.

This was an issue before we got the cat, but in his first year here he cleaned them up. In the pre-Sparkles era, there were long mounds, devoid of grass, criss-crossing the area between our house and the woods. Then the hunter arrived and they were gone.

Now the tunnels are back, and they are apparently inhabited. We thought at first that this was a momentary glitch in the small-animal slaughterhouse that had been our yard. Perhaps he was concentrating on bird killing. But then several fledglings survived in our neighbor's yard across the street.

Plus, I carried the cat downstairs last night, and he's huge. He's a big, fat lazy cat, which normally would be fine, but there are consequences . . .

Yesterday, everyone was outside playing, and Sam decided that he needed to pee. My wife urged him to go inside, but he wanted to pee on the tree. Because this is somewhat common, we have an out-of-the-way tree that is used specifically for this purpose (it's a healthy tree now, by the way). On the way to the tree, Sam spied a hole and decided to pee in that. Fine, said my wife.

So he drops his pants, begins peeing, and out of the hole pops a little gray head. The animal was not happy, and neither was Sam, who spent the next 20 minutes pointing to the side yard and saying "Don't peepee thayuh."

Sparkles is going to half-rations starting today.

. . . and Outcome

So, how did it all go? It went very well, but not at all as expected.

Dinner was very good. We ate at Taquiera Del Sol in Decatur, which is a great little restaurant. I had a brisket enchilada that was an interesting pairing (the brisket was like butter, but was overpowered by the chili sauce; once I stopped letting that bother me, it was very good). We waited in line for 20 minutes (which is apparently par for the course on a Friday night), but it was raining outside so the line snaked around inside like a ride line at Six Flags (although nobody with a mullet was making out in the next row over, so it wasn't exactly like Six Flags). As good as the food was (and it was good), it couldn't compare to the floor show. A line of thunderstorms moved through, more slowly than usual, so the entire time we were eating, in a dining room that was really more of a breezeway, the rain took turns falling hard and very hard, and lightning and thunder alternated closely on either side of us. I also had rice.

The movie was good. We saw X-Men 3, or whatever it's called. It was good, lots of fun. But I had a giganormous Coke (for 50 cents more, you get another Liter, for crying out loud; what a deal!) and drank it during the first half of the movie (okay, during the trailers) so that I spent the last half of the movie in rather serious pain. Stories of Tycho Brahe swirled through my mind, ruining the climax, and I missed the after-credits "surprise." Thank heavens for the Internet, so now I can look it up.

Another thing that bothered me was that Wolverine spent so much time bothered with Jean Gray when the whole time Halle Berry is standing next to him! It's just . . . I can't . . . aw, forget it. At some point, you know it's just fiction.

I watched another episode of Lost tonight, and it continues to amaze (Confidence Man, by the way). I grew up on TV, and one of the reasons I don't watch much anymore is that I can see a lot of stuff coming miles and miles away. And with a show like Lost, you know a twist is coming, but you never know just what it is. Thankfully, good TV is now being written by folks who also grew up watching TV, and who can see stuff coming a mile away, and can avoid showing their hand so easily.

As for the house, we had given up trying to sell it. I've been looking up garage plans on the Internet, and have found a couple I really like that will let me put an office in the attic space. It's not our number one choice, but it's getting to the point where I can't stay in the house any more. It's not fair to my family. And if the house won't sell . . . well, there isn't anything else to be done.

But today, not two but three people came to see the house (one more is scheduled for tomorrow). At one point, according to our realtor, all three groups were in the house at the same time. Two of those folks have seen the house before, and were back for their second view.

And now one of them has made an offer. It's a good offer, and we'll probably take it, unless one of the other folks comes forward with something better.

So, all in all, not a bad 24 hours.

Anticipation

I love surprises.

I love to surprise others. Hiding Christmas and Birthday gifts is one of my favorite pastimes. Tricking my wife into not expecting her surprise 30th Birthday party (when she had explicitly asked for one) is one of the high points of this career.

I love being pleasantly surprised. A new facet of my children, a new book, a new movie, a new episode of a good TV program, a new restaurant recommended by friends, these things pull me along and outward.

This is from Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, where after a year's flight they're about to go down onto the planet's surface for the first time:

. . . it suddenly occurred to her that everyone was happy -- they were in the last moment of their anticipation, an anticipation that had lain in their hearts for half a lifetime, or ever since childhood -- and now it had blossomed beneath them like a child's crayon drawing . . . it loomed before them in all its immense potential: tabula rasa, blank slate. . . . Anything was possible, anything could happen. . . . It occurred to her that they might never be so happy again. Beauty was the promise of happiness, not happiness itself; and the anticipated world was often more rich than anything real.

And, as it turns out, what I really love is anticipation. The thought of how that food is going to taste at the new restaurant, what new talent one of the boys will display, the look on their face when they open the present, the new twist on a good story. I love it all.

So today is a good day. I'm 6 episodes in to the first season of Lost, and it's awesome. Why didn't someone say something? Just kidding. (Note that comments are disabled; no spoilers, please.) It's killing me to just watch one episode per night. But that keeps the anticipation very high, and it's working. (Here's a meme: when did you first realize that Lost was not only very good, but different? Want mine? 3rd episode, at the end, when Sawyer is crying.)

We're going out tonight for dinner and a movie, either X-Men 3 or M:I 3. I've avoided reading too much about either, so the anticipation is high. And we're going to a new restaurant. Well, new for me at least; my wife has been before and likes it. She says I'll like it, and she knows me best, so she's probably right. I can't wait.

And today, less than 30 days away from the end of our third realtor contract (we're not renewing after this one; it's too hard), today we get 3 calls. Three different people are coming to look at the house this weekend. At least two have seen it before. One could make an offer (our first in 10 months). There could be a bidding war.

Anything is possible, anything could happen.