Month: July 2001

Damn, today went by fast. I spent much of the day trying to catch up on email. I think I’m only about two weeks behind, now. Fear not, dear readers, your response is coming!

I didn’t pay bills like I’d planned, or started packing (we have no boxes, although Himself promises to pick some up from U-Haul on his way home from work tomorrow), but I did vacuum the upstairs, which was desperately needed, and changed out the litter box. But I’ve found that I’ve become veryveryvery lax about housecleaning since we signed the contract to sell the house. It’s like, why should I clean? The cleaners will clean the day we move, so why should I bother to clean before now and then? It’s just going to get dirty again!

Any excuse to hold up the Laziest Gal in the South title.

I’m pleased that the litter boxes will be in the garage in the new house. The garage is also going to double as a gym, at least for a while…

Oh, and I came across an entry the other day on ellipses, and I’d just like to inform y’all that since I myself was once upon a time a waitress/ carhop – and it sucked mightily like I cannot describe – you have to be a pretty damn bad waitress for me to leave less than a 20% tip for you, and more often I leave in the vicinity of 30%.

In fact, I can only think of once in my entire life where I didn’t leave a tip.

Even when I worked at McDonald’s and was barely scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, and a whole group of us would go to Denny’s after closing, and I’d scrape up $1.50 for a teeny tiny dish of ice cream, and everyone else was doing the same, we’d at least leave a small pile of promos (what McD’s managers hand out when they’ve screwed your order up beyond belief and want to make it up to you, so they give you "free small fries!" and "free small sandwich!" cards), all our extra change, and a note of apology written lovingly on a used napkin.

I can tell you horror stories of my teenage waitressing/ carhopping days wherein I waited on a family of six with many small children running and screaming around (a usual thing; it WAS a family restaurant, after all) as the parents sat and chatted and paid no attention whatsoever to the little monsters darlings and when they left after two hours, they left a twenty-five cent tip.

You heard me.

But those instances were cancelled out by the elderly gentleman who gave me a 200% tip on a chocolate shake and insisted that I take it. And the stoner couple who gave me a $20 tip on an order of two sodas (drugs = good!), and the couple who could barely afford their hamburger baskets and left me a dollar in dimes as a tip.

Ah well, I could go on, but Eleanor said it better than I could, so go read her entry.

Now that we’ve bought a house, Fred has begun his phase of Freaking Out. He’s decided that the house is too small, and he doesn’t WANT to use the garage as a gym/ litter box area, he wants to use the garage as a GARAGE, and oh GOD Bessie, what the hell did we DO, buying a small house like that???

He’ll continue to be freaky for the next very long 3 weeks, until the day of closing. Then he will calm down and be all happy and confident that we really want this house. At which point it will be my turn to freak out.

It’s nice that our freak-out schedules complement each other so well.

 

 

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So, the house situation, oh what a story it is. But first, an adorable picture of yours truly and Miz Poo. Occasionally, I lean very far back in the chair by my desk. Miz Poo sees me leaning back, sees that my chest and stomach form a (somewhat) flat surface, and decides I mean for her to climb upon me and take a nap. As such:

She hadn’t quite gone to sleep yet, but she was heading in that direction.

Okay, back to the house situation. Here’s how the story goes. As I mentioned, Fred made an offer on this house while I was in Maine last week. As I also mentioned, there were two other offers on the same house on the same day, and our offer was not the one taken.

On Tuesday of this week, we went looking at houses, and saw one that we really, really liked, especially the back yard. This house is in the same subdivision as the one above and had been empty for a few months. You’ll note the cute front porch. We looked through the house, talked about it, and decided to make an offer. The only thing that bothered us was that there was a $5000 "decorating allowance" built in to the asking price, and though most of the rooms needed to be repainted (the living room was a HIDEOUS green color), we were concerned that there was something wrong with the house we didn’t know about. We decided we were being paranoid and made the offer, and commenced waiting. And waiting and waiting and waiting. The guy selling the house was travelling on business and hard to get hold of. Plus, Wednesday was a holiday, and so we waited impatiently.

When we still hadn’t heard anything by Thursday afternoon, Fred called our realtor and told him that if we hadn’t gotten an offer by 5:00, we were withdrawing the offer. We waited and waited some more. Finally, Jeff called and said that they’d accepted the offer, except that it needed to be rewritten so that the $5,000 decorating allowance wasn’t shown on the front page, or some such shit. We made plans to meet him at the house, look around some more, and sign the offer.

Thank god.

We went over to the house, realizing halfway there that we hadn’t brought our copy of the original contract (Fred wanted to compare the two before we signed), and so I dropped him off and ran back home.

When I got back to the house, Fred and Jeff were upstairs looking at the outside of one of the bedroom windows. Fred gave me a disgusted, pissed-off look and tossed something down at me.

I went in the house and found that Fred had discovered that the wooden frame around every fucking window in the house was rotting and would need to be replaced.

$5,000 wouldn’t even begin to pay for that.

"Fuck. That," we decided, and Fred on a whim asked Jeff if he’d show us a house that he (Jeff) was listing around the corner and in the same subdivision. We went and looked at it.

And loved it. The back yard was as good, if not better, than that of the other house.

Jeff had to leave, ’cause he had an appointment to show the very same house to another client. Fred and I came home and talked about it, and decided to make an offer. Well, guess what? That’s right, the client who Jeff had had to go meet to show the house to also made an offer.

We met Jeff at the house again at 9 that night (and y’all KNOW that that’s practically past our bedtime!) and wrote up the offer. Because we knew that the other people had also made an offer, we offered the asking price.

What sucked was that Jeff couldn’t really offer us any guidance, because not only did he represent the sellers, he also represented the other buyers. Our original idea had been to offer $2,000 below the asking price, but because we knew there was another offer out there, we offered the asking price and that the sellers pay closing.

So then what? That’s right, we had to commence waiting once again. The sellers were out of town for the weekend, and though Jeff had called and left a message for them to call him, they didn’t and didn’t and didn’t. Friday went by slowwwwwwly. We decided that a watched phone never rings (witness the fact that Fred always, always calls while I’m out at the street getting the mail), and went out to dinner.

No one called while we were out. No one called for most of the evening, except when Jeff called to let us know he still hadn’t heard from the sellers. We went to bed, and when the phone rang at 10:04, I went flying (naked) through the house to Fred’s bedroom to see if it was Jeff.

It was not.

This morning we got up and did our usual thing, and still no call. Jeff called mid-morning to tell us that he still hadn’t heard anything.

We reassured ourselves that if they accepted the offer, that meant we were meant to live in that house, and if they didn’t, it meant we weren’t. Yadda yadda.

I WANTED that damn house.

At 12:46, Jeff called and said to Fred "I’ve got some bad news."

"What’s that?" Fred said.

"You just bought yourself a house!" Jeff said.

Thank. God. So we did a little happy dance and drove out to look at the house.

The funny thing is that not only are all three houses that we made offers on in the same division, but the second one is about 2/10 of a mile from the first, and the third is about the same distance from the second. And they’re all less than 2 miles from the house we’re in now.

Talk about not wanting to leave your comfort zone.

Not only is it in the same school district so that the spud won’t have to switch schools, but we could pretty much open the back door and toss the spud over the fence onto school property. The spud’s room will be about twice as big as her current room (in fact, it will be bigger than the master bedroom!), and there will even be room for a small guest bedroom.

We have big, big plans for the backyard, to include a rose garden, a bulb garden (that’s more MY plan than Fred’s), some fruit trees, and a small fish pond. We’ll be saving about $200 on the mortgage, and since the house is smaller, we’ll be paying less on electricity, gas, and water. We may or may not eventually put in a pool, but haven’t decided.

I am SO fucking relieved that we won’t be homeless at the end of the month. Though I guess we wouldn’t have been anyway, since we had a sweet offer from reader Terry in Texas, who offered to let us live with her.

Would’ve been one hell of a commute though, I’m thinking.

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The spud, on the plane. We were, if I recall correctly, sitting in the plane on the runway in Bangor, hoping like hell we were about to fly back to Portland. All our hoping was for naught, however. Grrrr. The spud and I, in the bathroom in the Bangor airport. See me gritting my teeth? I grinded (ground?) my teeth so often that day that I’m surprised I didn’t grind them down to little nubs. This is a former church in downtown Lisbon Falls. A family now lives there. Wouldn’t it be cool to buy a CHURCH and fix it up right? Talk about your big-ass living room! The Kitty Korner, home of the best damn Ham Italians in all of Maine. Trust me. They have some damn fine whoopie pies, too. The spud, my dad, and Brian. We went out to breakfast at the Country Buffet in South Portland (mmm!), and my dad and the kids wore matching Old Navy t-shirts. The spud, my mother, me, Brian, and my sister Debbie. Still in front of the Country Buffet. I believe we were all ready to go home and take naps. The spud and Brian in the back of Debbie’s car. She’s selling it; that’s what the sign in the back window is for. Let me know if you’re in or around Maine and have need of a 5-speed Toyota Corolla. Only $1500, and it’s in pretty damn good shape. The Sea Basket in Wiscasset, home of the best. Lobster. Stew. EVER. My parents’ dog Benji, and my brother’s dog, Cola. Cola is one seriously hyper dog. And Benji was feeling particularly amorous that day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the little dog humping the big dog, damnit. My mother, the spud, Brian, and Debbie. They were showing off the size of their feet and hands. My mother, Debbie, the spud and I all wear size 9 shoes.

 

Brian and the spud on a picnic table. They’re such little goobers.

 

Brian and the spud again. We all (except my dad, who was travelling to Oklahoma for work) went out to eat at Ricetta’s. Debbie and I split a damn fine pizza, and their chocolate chip cannoli was to die for.

 

Benji again. In this picture, he’s in the backseat with the spud. My parents take him EVERYWHERE with them. He’s spoiled rotten in ways we’d never have dreamed of when we were kids. I was the last one to leave the house one day (I was going over to Liz’s to watch a movie), and had to put him in his crate. They told me to give him something like 5 treats so he wouldn’t starve to death in that crate. Spoiled rotten, I’m telling you.

 

Me, Debbie, Brian, my mother, and the spud. We went out to a chinese buffet in Brunswick for dinner. So I pulled out the camera, of course.

 

Liz. We were driving back from Brunswick, on our way to her house to watch a movie and eat dinner. Note that the braces make her look like she’s about 13. She actually got carded when we were in Applebees, and I’m betting it’s ’cause of the braces.

 

Benji again. I kept following him around with the camera, poor doggy. I was messing with the settings, and got this one in black and white. Came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

 

The day before I left Maine, my mother and I took my grandmother out to lunch at the Sea Dog Brewery in Topsham. This was the view from the deck, where we ate. That would be the Brunswick – Topsham bridge which connects, oddly enough, Brunswick and Topsham.

 

Another self-portrait in another bathroom. I should have used the flash so I wouldn’t be so green. I think that light gray is not my color.

 

My grandmother’s house – and my mother and grandmother in the driveway. I’ve always thought that my grandmother’s house is just the cutest thing.

 

Brian and his kissable cheeks. Doesn’t he have the prettiest eyes?

 

The spud had blond streaks put in her hair, and her hair thinned by Debbie’s neighbor. Looks pretty damn cute, doesn’t she?

 

Yes, this is the picture I put on the front page. Brian, Debbie, me, and the spud in front of (guess where?!) the Country Buffet in South Portland. We met there for a late breakfast on Sunday before my parents and the kids brought me to the airport.

So that’s it, those are the vacation pics. Next year maybe I’ll be brave and take the camera to the beach with us. Maybe not.

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So, we made an offer on another house yesterday, but since I don’t want to jinx it, I’m not going to talk about it until we find out whether it’s been accepted or not.

Instead, I’m going to take the quick and easy way out. It’s, once again, time for the Diarist Award nominations, and since I’ve been somewhat (read: not very) careful about bookmarking the entries I want to nominate, I can slap up the links here with a little comment, and voila! Instant entry!

I have to uphold my laziest gal in the south title, don’t I?

So, here we go, but not before I mention that if you think you wrote an incredible entry (and I’m sure you did!), and it’s not on this list, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like. What it more likely means is that I had a brainfart whilst reading said entry and forgot to bookmark it, get it? No whining, okay? Okay. Here we go:

Abeyance. An incredible, brave entry, and I know I’ve linked to it before, but when someone lays their heart out there like this, it highly deserves recognition.

…the day the music died. I was never a Ramones fan, and probably couldn’t have picked Joey Ramone out of a lineup if my life depended on it. That said, I know that he meant a lot to a lot of people, and Roe’s entry about it is great reading.

Animal Rights and Tim McVeigh. You’ve gotta love Miz Bitter Hag, it’s the law.

Mother’s Day, 2001. A great Mother’s Day entry.

Die Shari, die. If you’re not reading Poundy, you oughta be. I always find myself grinning and nodding as I read Wendy’s entries.

When in Doubt, Use Parsley. Amy’s always funny, but as I scrolled down this entry to the second picture, I snorted with a mouthful of water in my mouth, and almost died. Even thinking about it makes me giggle uncontrollably. And this entry made me laugh pretty hard as well, especially because of the last line. Hee!

Hand Plucks Floating Child from Water. I just love and adore reading Secra’s trials and tribulations as she gets ready for her wedding, and god knows we’ve all dealt with women like Ludmilla.

Mellow out or you will pay. Everyone loves Dana (who doesn’t write nearly enough and should be locked in a room with a computer and forced to entertain me endlessly, as should you all), but I particularly like this entry.

more.than.this. Heather happens to be one of my favorite journallers, an excellent writer, and this entry about the other side of postpartum depression is one of her best.

Things that are stressing me out. Jan’s another of my favorites, and god knows I love LOVE a good rant.

Time to trim the shrub. Yes, I also love Saundra, and I love this rant. What’s funny is that I greatly enjoy Saundra’s journal, as well as Athena’s journal Lexxicon, and though the two are far apart as far as politics go, I find myself frequently agreeing with one or the other.

Maybe it’s that wishy-washy middle child thing I’ve got going on.

Story of O, Big O, O Yeah. Saundra again. Tell me again why this woman isn’t raking in zillions of dollars, with Hollywood at her feet?

The Book of Dadliness. I love entries like this, and I bet Schuyler will like reading them when she’s older.

Sincerely Your’s. Sars hit most of my pet peeves, ESPECIALLY the whole web sight/cite/site thing. Grrr. The ones she hit that aren’t pet peeves of mine are things of which I am guilty. Alright, for example. Oops!

There were several good entries about the whole Kaycee Nicole thing, but I only bookmarked Nicole’s entry, Truth Hits Everybody. Nicole said what I was thinking and feeling far better than I ever could have, and probably with fewer naughty words.

Okay, that’s everything I had bookmarked. I can’t believe there were no Athena or Melissa entries, what’s up with that?

Must’ve been that whole brainfart thing I mentioned earlier.

 

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Dear Sweet Beloved Readers:

I love you. You’re so sweet. I’m glad you’re happy that I’m home, and some day I’ll actually get around to answering your emails. I am, as usual, woefully behind in my emailing duties, and if I ever locate my getupandgo, I’ll get my ass in gear and begin returning email.

Kisses,

Robyn

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Dear 29C:

Hi, it’s me, 28C. You know, you flew from Portland to Atlanta in the seat behind me on July 1st? Remember how we landed in Atlanta 20 minutes later than expected because of the air traffic over New York which caused us to fly in circles for a few minutes and delayed our landing in Atlanta, and you let out a string of very colorful obscenities, terrifying the sweet little unaccompanied 11 year-old sitting next to you, and everyone sitting around you turned and gave you looks of dismay and horror, to which you were oblivious? And when we landed in Atlanta and the plane was ever-so-slowly making it’s way to our gate, and you let out some more obscenities and smacked the back of the seat in front of you repeatedly, which I so very much appreciated, remember? Well, I suppose that that was understandable, ’cause no doubt that was the alcohol talking, that or just your innate charm.

My favorite part, though, was when the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign, and as one, everyone in the plane took off their seatbelt and stood up. The aisle was immediately packed, and everyone stood there waiting for the door to open, and when it DID open, of course the line moved slowly because no one ever checks their motherfucking luggage anymore (but that’s another letter, 29C). And what did you say, at the top of your abrasive, annoying, asshole voice? Why, you said "MOVE IT, I HAVE A FLIGHT TO CATCH!"

29C, you are so very lucky. Lucky because all I wanted to do at that point was fly at you, gouge your eyes out, and slap your stupid face until you screamed a high-pitched scream of pain and horror.

There’s nothing funnier than a man screaming a high-pitched scream, by the way.

"Oh, pardon the fuck out of ME!" I wanted to bellow at you. "Pardon the motherfucking FUCK OUT OF ME! You have a FLIGHT to catch, you say? Well, everyone move out of the WAY, 29C has a FLIGHT TO CATCH. And since 29C is SUCH AN INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT PERSON, we had best move our INCREDIBLY UNIMPORTANT asses out of the motherfucking way, because 29C HAS A FLIGHT TO CATCH! Should we throw some unaccompanied minors down for you to trod upon, 29C, so you won’t get your IMPORTANT FUCKING SHOES dirty while you’re hauling your IMPORTANT FUCKING ass down the concourse to that FLIGHT YOU MUST CATCH??? Do pardon the FUCK out of we pissants who have the utter NERVE to be in your VERY IMPORTANT WAY when YOU HAVE A FLIGHT TO CATCH!"

But I did not bellow any of that at your stupid self-important ass.

Instead, I moved into the aisle, and when the line began moving, I mooooooseyed along as slowly as possible.

I hope you missed your flight, asshole.

Love,

Robyn

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Dear 28B:

I know how difficult it is to travel with an 18 month-old, and may I say, your child was incredibly well-behaved, not to mention cute as the dickens.

If the dickens can be said to be cute.

I know I mentioned my appreciation of your well-behaved child and excellent mothering skills as we left the plane, but I must reiterate my appreciation.

I’m sorry I tried to steal his little yellow car. I have a thing for little yellow cars.

Sincerely,

Robyn

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Dear Fred:

It’s not too late to buy a big piece of land and a double-wide. A couple of double-wides, even. How ’bout a double-wide for each of us, a single for the spud, and a single for the cats?

You think I’m kidding…

Love,

Robyn

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Dear Fellow Travellers:

I know that you have very important things packed in your luggage. I know that your super-special $1.50 shirt from 1983 is very near and dear to your heart. I understand completely that you don’t dare to check your luggage, for you are scared that something truly important will get lost and you’ll never see it again.

Too fucking bad. CHECK THAT LUGGAGE. Do you think that anyone appreciates that they have to stand in the aisle for 15 minutes while you’re blocking the way, looking for someplace to cram your motherfucking luggage (hey, I have the perfect place you can cram it!)? There is NOTHING you should be travelling with that is SO fucking important that it won’t fit in a small bag that you can stuff under the seat in front of you.

Take me, for example. What do I carry with me whilst travelling? Why, my travelling purse, of course! It’s big enough to carry my wallet, a book or two, a bottle of water, and the digital cam, which ain’t all that small. Oh, and my ticket, of course. Everything, EVERYTHING else goes in my luggage (two suitcases I took to Maine with me this trip. One suitcase contained only a full-sized pillow and couple of t-shirts. My parents don’t provide enough pillows for my spoiled princess head). I don’t travel a huge amount, but I travel once or twice a year, and haven’t lost luggage yet. And if I did lose a bag, my life would not be over.

Need I say that you shouldn’t be travelling with anything that would cause you to throw yourself on the ground and have hysterics if it were lost? I mean, for the love of god, y’all, leave the fucking crown jewels at home!

I am such a wonderful traveller that if the aisle were clear, I could walk directly to my seat, sit in my seat, and toss my travellin’ purse under the seat in front of me. Ten seconds, it would take.

HOWEVER, since NO ONE EVER CHECKS THEIR FUCKING LUGGAGE AND INSTEAD CARRIES IT ON THE PLANE WITH THEM AND MUST SPEND HOURS UPON HOURS CRAMMING IT IN THE OVERHEAD COMPARTMENTS, it takes a tad bit longer for me to get to my seat. And since I’m always and forever sitting very close to the back of the plane, it takes always and forever to get to my seat.

And I don’t like that.

So knock it off, y’all.

Love,

Robyn

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Dear Sweet Beloved Readers:

We’re off to make an offer on a house. Woohoo! More about that tomorrow.

Kisses,

Robyn

 

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That’s right, I’m back. Didya miss me? It’s sad to say, but I didn’t miss sitting in front of the computer all that much, though of course I missed each and every one of my beloved readers.

To read the whole story of my arrival in Maine and my parents’ reaction, check out the diet journal, it’s all in there.

So, Maine was awesome, of course. If you requested a postcard, you probably already know that, ’cause I wrote "Maine is awesome" on most of the postcards I sent out. Know how many I sent out this year? 60! I thought my little hand was going to fall off, but I got ’em all in the mail by Thursday. If you haven’t received yours yet, be patient – it’s on the way.

As I mentioned in the diet journal entry, the spud and I arrived at Portland 7 hours later than I thought I’d be there. I impressed myself with the fact that I wasn’t pissed off all day long, but I didn’t see the point in being mad when it solved nothing. So I spent a lot of time reading, some time snoozing, and eventually, I made it to my destination.

Debbie and Brian spent all that time waiting at the airport, though, can you believe that? Debbie went around making friends and hearing everyone’s story. I told her that that would have been the ideal time for her to have a cellphone, since I could have called her from the plane and let her know what was going on.

I spent lots of my vacation sleeping late, did some shopping for bargains (I bought a couple of $5 t-shirts at TJ Maxx), though we didn’t hit the Maine Mall or LL Bean this year, and I ate plenty of lobster, whoopie pies, and orange Hostess cupcakes. I have some pictures, but none of us at the beach (I didn’t dare to take the digital cam to the beach, due to the sand and klutz factors). I brought a pair of splash shoes with me, and highly recommend them – they’re very comfy, and you don’t have to worry about stepping on something nasty.

Anyway, what I meant to say is that I’ll be putting up some of those vacation pictures as soon as I have the chance to go through them, most likely some time this week.

Fred drove by the house we really liked almost every day while I was gone, and round about Wednesday I talked him into making an offer on the house. I mean, we knew we liked it, we loved the neighborhood, and why should he wait ’til I got home to make an offer? He finally made the offer, and guess what? This house, which had been vacant since February, got two other offers on the same day.

I took that as a very clear sign that that house isn’t where we were meant to end up.

So we’re back to looking at houses. We went through one today that I really, really like, and it’s actually a lot less expensive than the one we made the offer on. The downside is that it’s on the other end of Madison, and now Fred’s making noises about how it’s the most expensive one in that neighborhood and such.

Yeah, I don’t know what we’re going to do. Bleh. I’m not sure how much more house-lookin’ I can stand. At least I have the better part of this month to get stuff packed up.

Okay, that’s it in a nutshell – I’m home, all is well, the postcards are on their way, and I have the sinking suspicion that we’re going to be homeless by August 1st.