A real shame

About twenty years or so ago there was a house in town that was very run down. When I would drive past it on my way to work I would wonder if it was ever going to be torn down or fixed up; it was apparently abandoned. The windows had long been broken out by local vandals throwing rocks through them, and the doors were hanging off crookedly, half off of the hinges. The wooden clapboard was falling off, what was left on the house appeared to be rotting. Then one day I noticed a few vehicles in the driveway, the next day scaffolding framed the house.

Over the next several weeks a wonderful transformation was created. Brand new Pella windows were installed, new doors, new vinyl siding, and about a dozen solar panels on the roof appeared. Shortly after it appeared that someone was actually living in the place! Every day when I would drive past this now wonderful example of urban renewal at its finest I would think about how much I wished that I had the kind of money it would take to retrofit my own house with the newest technologies for climate control and energy conservation. But it wasn’t very long before the house was abandoned again and vandalized again, back to holes in the windows and the beautiful solar panels broken. Every single one of them was full of holes. I don’t know if it was a hail storm, or vandals, but every one was ruined. I never found out the story behind that poor house, but it is once again a very sad and lonely house. It’s a real shame.

When did that happen?

For a few months now I have been unable to watch one of my favorite television shows Bones. So I was very surprised when I managed to watch it a few nights ago and found out that they two key characters appear to have married and had a baby! I can remember episodes when they were talking about how “Bones” wanted to have a baby but that she was thinking about artificial insemination. Now they are living together and have a baby together. The married part I’m not completely clear about- in this day and age it could be that they have not yet taken that step.

I’m thinking that I’m going to have to try to find out if I can watch reruns of the show on the Internet of the show to try to see the episodes that I’ve missed so I can catch up! Geez, you get busy for a few months and then all this interesting stuff happens!

Stuff happens

One of the reasons that I don’t like wall to wall carpeting is that if something bad happens, like a pipe bursting, and the carpet gets really dirty and/or wet it can be a real nightmare to clean it up and prevent rot and mold from settling in. So when I hired the heating company to run the piping for the hot water baseboard heat in the basement and then found out that the plumber made a mistake and the entire basement was flooded, including the brand new wall to wall carpeting down there I was quite upset.

So I called the heating company and told them what happened, and they told me to call their carpet cleaner Round Rock company to come out and clean up the mess and to send the bill to the heating company I was happy that some professionals were going to come in and disinfect and dry out the carpet with their huge fans that make me think of airplane propellers I was quite relieved.

The mad dash to the Post Office

When I was a teenager, I remember my parents always waited until the very last minute to file their taxes. I can remember going with my mother to the big Post Office in the next town over, pulling into the driveway at 11:50 pm and handing the big envelope to the Post Office employee that was standing there with a big net on a pole. The net reminded me of either a big butterfly net, or the kind of net I used to envision the staff from the mental hospitals used to try to catch the mentally ill patients that were trying to escape the insane asylum.

Ever since I’ve been on my own, I’ve always filed my taxes much earlier than the deadline; I don’t even know if any of the Post Offices stay open that late on tax deadline day. One thing is for sure – that mad dash to the Post Office on tax deadline day is one family tradition that I don’t want to continue and pass down to future family members. The stress of waiting until the last minute for anything just is not worth it!

Out of place

Guest post by Chandra Yearling

Going to the Lost Dog Cafe with Sue and Jarod today was interesting. I’ve heard about the Lost Dog Cafe before, and have wanted to go there for the past few months, so I was really glad when they suggested that we go there today. We split a large Polynesian pizza, which was really good. It has been several years since I’ve had a Polynesian pizza that had bacon on it; most of the pizza places just puts ham and pineapple on it. This one had ham, pineapple, bacon, and shrimp on it. I asked for ginger ale to drink and was given a brand of ginger ale I’d never had before – I think it was called Dominion ginger ale. It was sweetened with honey, or maybe raw cane sugar – I can’t remember which, but it was very good.

After the pizza, we drove Jarod back to his apartment, and he invited us to come in and check out his new digs. I’ve been there before a couple of times, but Sue never had been there before, so we went in for the nickle tour. While Jarod was showing Sue around, I asked if I could use the bathroom, and Jarod told me to go ahead and use the one that was in the hallway outside of his room.

I was rather surprised to see that there was a new vessel sink in the bathroom; it looked a little bit out of place in the house. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the look of vessel sinks! The house is an old brick cape cod style that was built probably in the 1940′s in an older neighborhood. Seeing the clear vessel sink and an oriental-inspired faucet that looked like a stick of bamboo just seemed a little bit out of place in that house. I know that I’m not an interior decorator, but I would have expected a more traditional pedestal sink in a house like that. I wondered what prompted the building owner to choose that style of sink.