Laments & Observations

New Ways to Chill June 25, 2012

Over the weekend, we acquired a new-to-us, free refrigerator from Brian’s boss, whose wife was threatening mild violence if he didn’t get rid of it immediately. My mild enthusiasm over it was but a pale imitation of Brian’s unbridled glee. He got up early Saturday morning, showered immediately (usually there’s a good hour of deck sitting with coffee and internet before anyone makes a move to get clean on the weekends) and excitedly took off to go get the thing. On his way home, he picked up beer and earthworms, two of three things he proclaimed now have their own special place – do I really need to reveal the third one? It’s deer meat, obviously, because this appliance was appointed the man-cave redneck fridge before it ever set foot in the basement. Of course this is the cue for the main refrigerator to go out, because now I’m certain that’ll be coming soon to a kitchen near me.  I’m not bitter, just very experienced in these things.

I teased him throughout the weekend, but I remembered I felt the same way a couple years back when I got us our first down comforter, along with some new high thread count sheets. All of a sudden our bedding transformed into a lush, giant pillow-cloud that would definitely be Oprah-approved.*

I’m really dumb sometimes. One of the most exciting things about where we live now is the lake. My oft talked about Lake Murray, at one time the biggest man-made lake in the country? The world? Something like that – it’s a big lake. For quite a few years now, many people have used it for their boating, fishing, and any number of water-based fun-time needs. This lake is literally in my back yard, yet it took about eight months for me to go in.  Oh, the excuses were convincing – things like not wanting to deal with a bathing suit, being nervous about the water itself (which isn’t strange for some, but considering I grew up in Florida and spent most of my childhood in various bodies of water, very weird for me) and the various things that could be swimming around nearby but unseen…whatever. I have no idea.

Either way, all that silliness came to an end yesterday morning. It was around 10:30 and already ridiculously hot and humid. Brian was fishing, but he’d already been in the water a few times to cool down.  He kept saying I was crazy not to go in and finally I agreed and without ceremony plopped off the dock. As soon as my head resurfaced I said, What the F is wrong with me, and went on to spend a fantastic hour happily swimming around (in t-shirt and shorts because the bathing suit dilemma has yet to be resolved).

I mean, here I’ve been sweating my ass off (but unfortunately not my gut, no; never the gut) walking every night through the humidity and gnats and stupid grilling meat smells like I’ve done the last few summers but now there’s a lake and for the past few months I could’ve been doing this. Oh and burning twice the calories (because of course I looked it up) in a much more refreshing and enjoyable manner. See above where I said I’m dumb sometimes. But I forgive myself, because I have big plans after work this afternoon to go home and again take the short walk down to the lake and off the dock. Today and probably many days to follow. I guess it could’ve been worse – I could be writing this in early September, having missed an entire summer of swimming. Thankfully I’m not that dumb.

*I actually don’t give two shits what Oprah approves of, but I wholeheartedly agree with her opinion that having good linens improves quality of life.

Ch-ch-ch-changes October 24, 2011

I think the reason they include moving as one of the top five life stressors isn’t because it’s something that momentous (unless we’re talking about a really long-distance move, cross country or a different part of the world), but all the little things. The adjustments and changes in routine are suddenly a daily occurrence and it’s enough to throw you off kilter for a little while. And by “off kilter” I mean I’m lucky I’m managing to wear clean clothes to work every day.

We moved one county away, about forty miles from our old house. His mom actually uttered the words, “It’s like y’all are moving back to Florida!” and unfortunately I’d never have the balls to answer with something like, “When we lived in Florida we saw you once or twice a year as opposed to every week – would you like to go back to seeing what that’s like?” But I get it; we’re now almost double the distance away from them and it’s just long enough to have to put some thought into scheduling visits.

But honestly, that’s the least of my concerns right now. The following items aren’t exactly traumatic, but will definitely take some getting used to.  

I went from a 15 – 20 minute commute to one that is forty, minimum. And that’s only if all the stars align to prevent accidents, anything but clear sunny weather, beating the school buses, and hoping a train doesn’t decide to stop and sit on the track for a leisurely twenty minutes, holding up miles of traffic on either side. All of these I’ve experienced in just the first week. As a bonus, the lovely late-Fall sun I otherwise love shines directly into my eyes both to and from work.  I’ve gone without that for almost five years now; I guess the time had to come again eventually.

As rural as we now are, we’ll no longer enjoy the luxury of trash pick-up.  Oh, surly trash men who liked to pick and choose what items they took arbitrarily, sometimes left lids open on rainy days and occasionally left garbage scattered in the yard, I’ll miss you so. This has already forced a big change in our trash tossing policies and procedures.  With no garbage disposal either, any food waste is now being tied up in a plastic grocery bag, stuck in the fridge, and when a significant amount accumulates, I carry it along with me to work and dispose of it in a dumpster near my office. I’ve turned into a trash ninja. Luckily we have the redneck equivalent of an outdoor fireplace, the burn barrel, in which non-toxic but flammable things can go into, starting off with the roughly ten thousand boxes we’ve broken down the last few days.  

Instead of City water, we’re now dealing with a well and sewage tank. Years ago when we would visit his dad, I have vivid memories of the showers’ crappy water pressure (if you have thick hair, the majority of your shower time becomes attempting to rinse all the shampoo out). I didn’t, however, remember the tap water smelling so farty.  Yesterday at Lowe’s I learned there’s a very wide spectrum of price points for water purifying  and I’m really hoping the fifty bucks I invested will be enough to help alleviate at least some of those issues, because ew.

As excited as I was to go from a 1950’s firetrap that had almost no working outlets and cloth-covered wiring (!) to a place where his dad put in outlets approximately every five feet, he must not have been a fan of overhead lighting.  Because the house gets such great natural light during the day, I didn’t notice until nightfall how damn dark the place was; thank God K-mart was running a clearance sale on floor and table lamps (yeah, I classed the joint right up with some Big K décor) so I no longer feel like we’re watching TV and reading in a cave every night.

Then there’s the stair situation. I’ve wanted one for awhile, but I now have no reason to ever get a stair climbing machine. The house is split level and the stairs are everywhere and never ending.  This was especially amusing during the move all the belongings into the place phase, but even now I spend most of my free time going up and down from the bottom floor where the TV is, to the top where the kitchen and bathrooms are.  Granted, that’s part of what makes the place unique, but damn.  I’ve already started making sure if I get up to do something I multi-purpose as much as possible.  Half the time we’re all, “Where are you? Up here! Where are you? Down here!” but that’s not necessarily bad.

All of this is true, but it’s mostly just bitching in jest. I’m still pretty amazed every morning when I wake up and we’re there. The crappiest part of the move is finally, finally behind us (well, except for getting the old house fixed up) and now I get to finally do the fun stuff; i.e. pick out and rearrange where all our stuff will go, put the pictures on the wall, put the boxes with Brian’s stupid dude stuff into his man cave. Watch a bunch of HGTV.

In two weeks we’ll get our first house guests (Sister! Niece!) and two weeks after that we’ll have more (Grace! Elizabeth!). Soon what is now new and weird will be old hat and I’ll still be living in the house I love, so I’d have to say it’s all more than worth it.

Adieu Arbor Drive September 28, 2011

With not having an actual deadline date we have to be out of the current house, I had a funny feeling (knowing us like I do) this was going to be a long, arduous process. And hey, I was right! I can’t remember the actual day we started packing boxes, but it feels like we’ve been living in a crowded cubist’s nightmare for months now. But there is an end in sight: we’re aiming to be all into the new place by mid-October. That still sounds pretty non-committal but it’s something.

I regularly talk about the new place and what’s going to go where and how I can’t wait to be drinking coffee on the deck, etc., until Brian the other night accused me of not having liked our current house (to be fair, he was sweaty and dusty and packing boxes at the time). It was a moment of assholishness on his part that quickly passed, but I started thinking I hope his mom and George don’t think that, having generously let us live there for four years while paying a 1980’s rent price.

I loved this house. Four years is the longest we’ve ever lived in a place and even with all the things wrong with it, I mostly always concentrated on (and verbalized) the things I liked about it. It’s small and old and quirky, but there are definitely things I’ll be sad to leave behind and it hit me yesterday when we saw the weather forecast.

Apparently we’re about to get our first significant “cold front,” so I asked if we could have one last fireplace night. The fireplace is numero uno on the list of things I’ll miss. The new place has a fireplace, but it’s gas and I’m sorry, but those barely count. People in Florida have gas fireplaces so they don’t have to be depressed when it’s 80 degrees on Christmas day and they can flip it on to pretend they don’t live somewhere lame. You can only feel acutal heat if you’re sitting on the hearth, and then it kind of smells like you’re in a grill. They do give that nice cozy look, but ours happens to be in a room we’ll never hang out in, as for some strange reason his dad figured why not put one in where no one ever sits but merely passes through. I know I’ll want a fire once in awhile, but it won’t be close to the same thing. Wow, all those years living in Florida have turned me into someone who can write a 300-word essay on Fireplaces: My Deepest Thoughts and Feelings.

The front porch swing. Many a good (and some bad) books have been read on it; I’ll miss that too.

The dogwood tree.  

Okay, so I’m not going to miss that many things. But four years of our life were spent there, happily, and the house served us well. I can’t say I’m sad, exactly, to leave it but I have some form of nostalgia for every place we’ve lived and this one is no different. I hope whoever lives there next is as content as we were.

And doesn’t mind the three mean pit bulls who just moved in next door with their loud family. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.