HATHY VANKSGIPPING

Hello readers dear and far!

It's 12:41 on Saturday, the day after the day after Thanksgiving, which is sort of a confusing way to say it. It reflects well the state of my mind now, though: a little scattered, a little tired, still riding the high of Thanksgiving and the visits of Benjamin, Mika, and Emil; Joedy's brother and sister-in-law Jesse and Melissa and their kids Noah, Venenzia, Victoria (still with us), and Robert (still with us); my stepdad Robert (still with us); our friend Blaine (still with us), Joedy's parents (still in town, visiting other family today); and, for Thanksgiving itself, the adorable trio of cousins/friends Kat, Nate, and Noah.

It's been so much fun having everyone around: the other night, getting ready for bed, I heard Emil crying and Robert moving around in the office, where he's been sleeping, and it made me so happy. Being surrounded by people I love, having all this fun stuff happening all the time, hearing voices in the kitchen when I wake up, making fires outside, going dancing (twice in three nights!)...it all makes me SO happy.

On Thursday around three in the afternoon, while everyone was cooking or sitting out on the deck, talking and listening to the music on the old record player Robert brought us out from California (we'd left it in the care of Joedy's brother James last year), the much-anticipated cold front hit: it was AMAZING! All of a sudden I felt this gust of cold air blow in the through the kitchen window, and with each half hour, it seemed, it got colder and colder, until...dang! It was freaking cold! And a party was sent out to collect rocks to build a fire pit in the back yard (Nate ended up throwing one together by himself while they were gone...it was really awesome seeing the first flames and then, later, huddling by it, although by that time it really was too cold outside).

Like I said, I'm feeling a little scattered--I keep forgetting who's here and who's not, and I can't for the life of me remember what the date is--but that's just as much due to the Extreme Dancing and Somewhat Extreme Late-Nighting I've been doing lately, and perhaps a little due to the Unusual Amount Of Drinking I've been doing (three shots of tequila, back to back, last night!).

I don't really know what else to say right now so I'm going to post a few pictures and then, hopefully, go eat an insanely spicy taco so my brain will get back to normal.

As I yelled to strangers on the dance floor last night, Happy f'ing Thanksgiving!

Or: Happy Thanks-f'ing-giving!

RATS AND ZEBRAS

HOLY MARY IN THE STABLE SCOOPING POOP!!!

IT'S BEEN SIX DAYS SINCE I BLOGGED!

YET IT FEELS LIKE MORE! AN ETERNITUM!

That's because:

I've been tearing wallpaper--so much and so emphatically that the top layer of "wall" has come off too. Now there's cardboard, or something like it, in patches here and there in the main bathroom. It's an interesting effect--it sort of gives a vintage feeling. Kind of a run-down, vintage feeling.

Hm. Perhaps my house-fixin'-uppin' (I'm talkin' like my hero*, Sarah Palin) is doing more harm than good, you ask? Nay, it's not--the wallpaper in the bathroom was hideous. Mint green with purple designs on it, and all buckled and peeling and stained and disgusting from the, uh...the HUMIDITY that NATURALLY OCCURS in a BATHROOM.

As in, WHO THE HELL PUTS WALLPAPER IN A BATHROOM? That's what I yelled to Joedy the other day. He shushed me and pointed at the open window, but I was like, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE NEIGHBORS CARE?? THEY HAVE A SATELLITE DISH FULL OF DEAD LEAVES ON TOP OF THEIR HOUSE!

As in, I don't think they give an F or even a Flying F about what I think about someone putting wallpaper in the bathroom a long time ago. They don't even care about lightning hitting their satellite dish, turning them and us and the rats into a new kind of Texan BBQ!

That's right, I said rats! We don't have mice after all. Upon closer inspection of the dung heap behind the washing machine it became clear that these turds could not have come out of mouse butts--not even Texan mouse butts. The turds were long and hefty like bullets, and the hole behind the washing machine looked...rat-appropriate. Chewed up and filled with this weird black material that might have been insulation or maybe hair--I don't know which, because I didn't look very closely. We just put a big piece of cardboard over the hole and shoved the washing machine against it.

Don't get me wrong--I like rats. I've even loved rats. I often think about a few rats in particular, and when I do I get scarily sentimental, all of a sudden wishing I wasn't an atheist, so I could believe I'll see them again someday. But those rats were pretty, smart, and cute--they were pet-store rats, as opposed to your average brown, coarse, wild rat.

Oh boy, I'm sounding racist about rats. Time to change the subject.

I painted Lula and Malko's room the other day--blue, BLUE, BLUE!--and woke up the next day on a color-induced high that's continued through the wallpaper-tearing and the less exciting tasks of sorting toys, changing lightbulbs, and hanging curtains; it's been really fun gettin' all creative with this fixin' uppin'. I really love a creative challenge, and there have been some satisfying ones already, the most recent being "What to do with the nondescript framed zebra print?"

We inherited this ok, but very uninteresting, framed print from the previous inhabitants of our previous house, and I'd thought for a while it would be fun to draw over the zebras or somehow change the super-dull tan background; after spray-painting the ugly bronze-esque frame the other day I decided to do a collage around the zebras and cover the putty-colored (god, can you think of more boring colors?!) matting with this black and white paper that has a neat ripple design/texture. I'm pretty happy with the result--Flying F it, I'm VERY happy with the result!--and cannot WAIT to do more collages...actually, I think I'm going to start looking for framed stuff at the thrift store and do more of this "repurposing"...it's SO fun and SO satisfying.

On that note, I should hit the hay (Joedy and I have yet to buy a real mattress, and though the hay's getting rank it's still sort of comfortable...a little dry, which makes it crackle when you move, but overall--not too bad) so I can get up early tomorrow and get ready for the visit of

BENJAMIN! MIKA! EMIL!

*a joke, OBVIOUSLY

HOME FOR NOW

The past week has flown by in a blur of cardboard boxes, mouse droppings, and desperate Craigslist searches for the loveseat that I know is out there, waiting for us to find it.

I thought this move would be a good opportunity to prove that I've matured, that I'm no longer as instant gratification-oriented as I used to be, but it hasn't worked out that way: I want this house fixed up, filled with cute furniture, and looking 100% perfect RIGHT NOW. Patience is not one of my virtues, a fact that was made clear again yesterday, when I tested our new hedge trimmer, a gift from Joedy's parents, on the bushes in the back yard.

My thoughts went like this:

"Wow, this is fun! I could do this all day! I could do this for a living!"

"This is a very big shrub."

"I'm bored."

I managed to finish the job, which is more than I can say for certain creative projects I started eighty billion years ago, and though the bushes are now more or less leafless, just a bunch of depressing-looking sticks pointing upwards, as least we can see out the windows. Of course, all the fallen branches still need to be picked up--I'm sure I'll get around to that someday.

I wasn't kidding about the mouse poops. Hello, hanta virus! Thanks for coming into my life just when I stopped worrying about our child-molesting meth-cooking ex-neighbors. Now I have something besides my Craigslist addiction to occupy my brain. It's always good to have something to worry about! Even if little furry fuzzums isn't dropping lethal turds around the children, he might eat the electrical wiring and set the house on fire! Which, given the crackling noise and Halloween-esque flickering a couple light switches have produced, seems totally possible.

AN IMPORTANT ASIDE: Parents, you're right--the landlord should take care of this. I will call him immediately.

Maybe we can get him to send over an electrician. Hopefully, unlike the plumber he recently sent over, he/she will not have red eyes and act...funny. I'm fine with stuff that turns your eyes red and makes you act funny, but I'd prefer electricians didn't smoke it before working on the wiring in our house. What if the dimmer switch got confused with the garbage disposal switch, causing a short and a fire and sizzling little hanta-bearing fuzzums in his sleep?

While I've enjoyed unpacking, finding new places for our things, cooking in the new kitchen, and generally settling into this house, which is in many ways a really nice place, I can't help feeling a little cynical, a little...unenthusiastic. I know it's partly due to having moved no less than six times in the last six years, but it's also because I'm getting old and still don't have a horse.

I've wanted a horse my whole life, and if I don't hurry up and get one soon I'll be too arthritic to lug around wheelbarrows of manure or act out scenes from The Black Stallion. Our current house is fine--it's quiet and roomy, and there's enough mouse poop to pretend I'm mucking a stable--but in a few years I'd REALLY like to say goodbye to the rental world and hello to the farm I've dreamed of since I was seven years old.

THE GREEN LIZARD

I was enjoying the sun in the upstairs hallway, hiding behind a green suitcase that kept getting opened and closed in the most annoying way, when the female giant appeared with a small grey box that she pointed at me. She was so close I could smell her breath, and OH MY GOD--garlic! onions!--it was so intense
I had to move to the window sill.

As soon as I did I saw THAT thing--the female giant, apparently, had put it there as some kind of practical joke. Of course, I immediately started turning green, and while I looked for a way to get off the disgusting dirty sill she kept pointing the grey box at me and breathing that dragon's breath, which normally, being a lizard, you'd think I'd like, but...holy Jesus--you have NO idea.

Without too much trouble I was able to leap onto the suitcase, where, despite the stench, I couldn't resist posing--I do look good in green, after all--for the female giant, who seemed understandably entranced.

The sun felt good on my head and made me feel expansive, so I decided to formally greet the frog

and his companion, a duck. They seemed nice enough, but very quiet--neither said a word the whole time--and after repeated attempts at striking up a conversation I got the distinct feeling they were having a private moment.

Indeed, judging from their position, it seemed like the frog was doing something to the duck,

but when I tried to get a closer look he jumped up, startled, his bloodshot eyes full of warning,

so I climbed over him and left them to their antics.

By then, I was getting sleepy--from the sun, the exertion, the stress of having to look my best while the female giant waved the grey box in my face--and I climbed back up the suitcase for a nap.

It was a little uncomfortable with the frog and the duck doing whatever they were doing back there, but I was able to close my eyes and doze...

...until, of course, another wave of garlic and onions hit me--UGH--and I had to move again, this time to the top of the suitcase.

No relief there--the female giant kept hovering near me with that stupid grey box and breathing that foul stench...I was exhausted and PISSED by then, too worked up to be able to sleep, so I crawled away, off the suitcase, towards the floor.

As soon as I got down I smelled ANOTHER smell--just as strong, but less, well, garlicky--and since it seemed to be coming from the female giant's foot I climbed up on it.

It definitely was a strong smell--kind of oniony, still, but also a bit earthy, not totally unpleasant--and since it masked her breath I decided to stay there for a while.

She was making noises--soft, whispery sounds, sort of like my mother used to make--and as I listened I felt more relaxed, more comfortable with the smelly foot and the grey box and the frog and the duck and everything...

Soon my head felt heavy and I was sleepy again; before I lay down for a nap I struck one last pose,

thinking about how, all in all, it had been fun hanging out with the female giant.