This Old House

So I may have prematurely mentioned that we are buying a house.  Lesson learned.  Just because you put an offer on a house doesn't mean you will actually pony up and buy that house.  Unless you can magically pull this guy out of your pocket and fix all your household ailments in the duration of a one-hour time slot on PBS:

Bob Vila, no relation despite his disturbingly identical resemblance to my late father, who oddly, was also a master carpenter (Bob is Hispanic, not Jewish, btw, but longtime readers of this blog already know that)

So we put an offer on a house.  An inspection revealed that it was a horrific cesspool of decay in ways that were not apparent to the untrained eye, and which we were not prepared to correct, so we said, as politely as possible, "NO F'ING THANK YOU" and ran away.

Then we found this other house.  This house was incredible, in that it was a 2700 square foot time capsule.  I half expected Don Draper to walk in the door and berate us, as he is wont to do, for being in his house.  This house was clearly built by some very classy swingers, who decorated to the hilt in 1967 and then never updated a single detail.  Many a key party must have taken place at this pad.  Full bar in the basement, complete with secret passageway into super-secret store-room where they probably hid all their sex toys from the kids.  Red canvas wallpaper and multi-colored pin-striped carpet.  Gold foil and red velvet flocked wallpaper in the bathroom.  It has been vacant for over 2 years, and the second time we visited the house, the dryer was running and full of Levis.  So basically, the house is haunted by classy swingers.

I can't make up this kind of crap.

Well, we made an offer, but the greedy heirs to the deceased owners rejected our low-ball offer.  This, despite the fact that the house needs a new roof, new carpet, new windows, new kitchen appliances, and it probably needs John Stossel of Nightline to come in with a black light and test for bodily fluids EVERYWHERE because come on people SWINGERS.  So we are back to square one.

To assuage the pain of house-hunting, tonight I made a delicious meal that just happened to be vegan, which magically makes it have zero calories.  Because, you see, my brain evaluates calories based on the amount of explicit animal suffering that went into the preparation.  And don't even complicate things with arguments about human rights abuses in agricultural labor, or unintended animal harm from farm machines, or the environmental impact of food shipping, because my head will explode and I will run into the forest and forage for twigs and leaves for the rest of my life because I can't shoulder all that guilt and still enjoy my food, but people's gotta eat, you know?

I came across this vegan paella recipe on Oh Dear Drea's blog.  Yes, my twitching ovaries and I read baby blogs.  Let the judgment commence.  But the recipe was a great success.  Andy liked it, and he didn't even seem to notice that it was animal-free until I casually mentioned it as we were cleaning up (yes I just said WE and CLEANING in the same sentence, because that's what happens, and it's wonderful). 

Vegan Paella.  No animals were intentionally harmed in the creation of this meal, except I narrowly missed stepping on the cat's tail but I don't think that counts.

I Scream, You Scream

Really, anyone would scream if they saw the frozen-treat-dispensing-vehicle that has been lurking around my neighborhood.  And I once saw someone buy a bag of drugs from a fake ice cream truck in an alley in North Philly, so when I say this is a terrifying ice cream situation, you have to believe me.

There is this man.  I call him a man because I don't know how else to describe him, without using cultural references like "Skeletor" or "Voldemort".  He looks like death personified.  Deep, sunken eyes surrounded by dark circles.  A skeletal face, no hair.  A penetrating, soul-sucking glare. 

I have seen him twice now, and I am afraid that it's a sign.  An omen.  If I see him one more time I will die a sudden and mysterious death.  I first saw him as he was driving out of my apartment complex when I was coming home from work.  Slowly lurking down the street, glaring at passersby.  Glaring at me.

I saw him again today while I was running.  He was driving south, towards my apartment complex.  Still glaring.

He drives an ice cream van.  Not a truck.  Not even a big 15-passenger van or a windowless child-molester utility van.  A straight up late-90's Ford Windstar type of minivan.  Like a, 'Thanks for the ride to soccer practice, mom,' kind of van. 

I would have to imagine that he just has a couple Igloo coolers full of home-made fudgesicles rolled in broken glass on his back seat.  And probably a 10 year old boy tied up with duct tape, still wearing his soccer cleats and shin guards, with a rapidly melting Klondike bar shoved in his mouth.  Imagine is all I can do, really, since his windows are darkly tinted and mostly covered over in grotesquely cheerful posters of ice cream products.

His van plays "It's a Small World" on a continuous loop.  It's especially disturbing because it sounds like the recording was made from a Casio keyboard with several broken keys.  Every phrase or so in the song, one note will be either jarringly flat or just sound like a car accident. 

It's hard to believe that this is real life.  I mean what?  The hell?  If Andy hadn't been with me the first time I saw him, I would have to assume that, at best, the intense sunlight was causing me to hallucinate, or at worst, I must have a brain tumor.  Driving home from work, we turned the corner into our complex, talking excitedly about something.  All of a sudden, our conversation halted and Andy instinctively slowed the car as we took in this very confusing, very terrifying sight.  It's just...I can't even...I don't know.  I just don't know.

Soft Loud

Things have been a little quite here on the blog, but not in real life.  I have barely even had time to exercise, so you know that means I'm busy.  But big things have been happening!  Things so big they have to be measured in square footage, and even acreage!

Yes, that's right, we're probably going to be home owners soon!  Assuming the inspection goes well, which, in all honesty, it may not.  There might be mole people living in the crawl space, for all we know.  But, barring mole people, mold, radon, termites, faulty wiring, amateur plumbing, rampant asbestos,or a secret portal into a 5th dimension and/or hell, I think that bad boy will be ours.

The idea of owning a home is so surreal.  Living in New Jersey, I never thought owning a home would be a reality for someone in my line of work:  prostitutioneducation.  Utah, though, is a totally different story.  A horse of a different color, if you will.  Nay, not even a horse, but a unicorn, of a different color (rainbow, natch).  Not to brag or anything, but I think our mortgage payments for the year will be lower than some people's property taxes in Jersey.

In other (real) news, have you guys heard about THIS? 

People here are so genuinely nice, they will lift a flaming vehicle off your unconscious body.  And that's why we're buying a house. 

That and our neighbors in our apartment community are super freaking weird.  And we really want chickens and a goat.  And a dog.  And a garden.  And be able to walk to work.

No Fair

As Sarah Silverman once said, when life gives you AIDS, make lemonaids.  And that sort of maybe describes yesterday.  Or maybe it doesn't.

Short story even shorter, we didn't go to the Utah State Fair because it rained like a mother. 

However, the weekend wasn't a complete wash when it comes to human spectacle.  On the way home from work on Friday, we saw one of the most redneck displays of humanity ever to grace the earth.  Let me preface by saying that we have noticed a preponderance of Rascal Scooters*/Jazzy Power Chairs on the street here.  They are seriously all over the place.  One time we saw a caravan of three or four people on their chairs, out for a Sunday roll. 

Rascal Scooter - source

Jazzy Power Chair - source

 But I digress.  Friday we saw a young guy rolling down the street in his chair (clearly this was the JPC variety, because it lacked the signature Rascal Scooter steering column).  Normally, a Jazzy Power Chair doesn't attract much notice in these parts.  But this warranted a second, and even third glance.  This was no ordinary chair.  It was a chair with flare.  This boss had himself a mossy oak camouflage pattern power chair.  Clearly this aesthetic finesse was representative of his overall animal magnetism and masculinity, because it seemed perfectly natural that he was not alone in this chair.  No.  Sitting side saddle on his lap, arms flung romantically around his neck, was a lady friend of considerable girth.

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This isn't the chair.  But aren't you going to sleep better tonight knowing that something like this exists?  This chair probably has more horsepower and towing capacity than my Civic.  Who else thought, at first glace, that the steering button coming out of the arm rest was a mounted bayonet?


You can choose not to believe me, but I assure you this is true.  I wasn't quick enough on the draw with my iPhone, so there is no photographic evidence of this encounter.  I tried to whip it out and take a discreet picture from behind, but the traffic was moving too quickly.  Because there remains one tiny chamber of my heart that isn't made completely of ice and condescension, I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of them from the front, lest they realize that some heartless asshole thought she was so much better than them that she had a right to take their picture AND make fun of them on the Internet.  So there's that.


*Full disclosure:  The summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, I sold these scooters over the phone.  Not in a call center where potential customers contacted us.  No, this was the worst kind of telemarketing.  I don't know where our call lists actually came from, but it was not unusual for me to call someone who was incredibly senile or even dead, and sometimes recently so.  It was Awkward City, population me.  It was the most awful work experience I can imagine, outside of working in a sweatshop or being held in actual slavery.

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art

Last August and September, when I was unemployed and trying to find ways not to accidentally fall wrist-first on a set of steak knives, I drew a lot of MS Paint pictures of my cat.  I was especially proud of this one, because it so perfectly captured the essence of Ajax.

 

Thursday morning as I was eating breakfast, I happened to have my phone in my hand when I noticed Ajax in this very compromising position.  He's not always easy to photograph, because he's kind of extremely skittish and usually runs away if he notices you approaching him with a foreign object.  But he was pretty enraptured with his nether-regions so I made some photographic magic happen.  I feel like I just captured a photo of Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster.  What has been legend is now indisputable fact:

He glanced up just as I took the picture, but I think it's perfectly clear what was going on here just moments earlier.

Have a great weekend, internet friends!  We are considering going down to the Utah State Fair tonight, because the rodeo is free with admission, and there's a traveling sea lion show (in the middle of the desert, which isn't weird and doesn't smack of animal cruelty at all).  So if that happens, expect a glorious post to follow in which I reveal how shameless and insensitive I am by displaying photos I took of the human spectacle.

Oh Randy Taylor

Happy 30th birthday to my third (but most passionate) celebrity crush, Jonathan Taylor Thomas!! 

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JTT, you may have appeared on the scene after Davy Jones and Mark Paul Gosselaar, but you were always the brightest-burning candle in my shrine of dreamy celebrities.  You were also the only one young enough to be realistic, at least from a pedophilia standpoint.  Although, seriously, cut a sister a break.  When you're three years old and totally digging on The Monkees, no self-respecting mother with the slightest awareness of child development is going to find it worthwhile to explain that a) these are 20-year old reruns, b) that man you love so much is 40 years older than you, and c) statutory rape is icky so just give it another 13 years and you'll reach the age of consent.  I just didn't know any better.  Thanks, Mom, for letting me be a 'Daydream Believer' until at least the ripe old age of 6 (when I discovered that there was no Santa and subsequently came to hate and distrust the world for probably the next 14 years).

In fact, now that I think of it, thank you, Mom, for accommodating and even cultivating my deep and profound love of Davy Jones.  You went so far as to record the two earth-shattering episodes of My Two Dads in which D to the J guest-starred.  Perhaps we have this show to thank for my unadulterated affection for gay men and the GLBTQ community at large, even though Paul Reiser and that guy no one remembers weren't actually gay on the show - the undertone was totally there and super progressive for the 80's, I'm guessing.

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Not going to lie, though, Jim Varney of "Ernest" movie fame/infamy was more than a little intriguing to me from roughly 1989 through 1993.  You wouldn't call it a crush, exactly, but I did have an "Ernest Goes to Jail" poster of which I was inordinately fond.

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My god.  This started as an ode to JTT and turned into a manifesto of reasons why I'm creepy.  But isn't that really what blogging is all about?  Oversharing in the hope that someone out there validates your weirdness and ups the ante just a hair?  Who wants to go first?  Anyone have a fetish for Christopher Lloyd or Steve Buscemi?  Or that lady who played Hatchetface in Crybaby?  I mean, seriously, you're going to have to really put yourself out there if you want to top pre-kindergarten Jim Varney lovin'.  But this is a safe, non-judgmental place.  Just let it out.  Show me on the doll where the bad man touched you.

Know what I mean, Vern?

Picture This

As promised, here are some more pictures from a glorious weekend.  Or maybe, just maybe, we didn't really go to the Tetons this weekend.  I may or may not have Googled all these pictures.  I actually spent the weekend eating donut holes and chugging Tussin while listening to Yusuf Islam records in a darkened room.

Or maybe I really was outside have a blast.  It's your choice.  What are you going to believe?  Have I blown your mind?  Do you even know who you are anymore?

Jenny Lake.  I feel like there might be a Forrest Gump joke in there somewhere, but it's just not coming to me.

More of Jenny Lake.

Have I mentioned that Teton is French for tit?  Because it is. 

Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, WY.  They have saddles for seats on the barstools, and silver dollars are embedded in the bar.  It was a little rich for our blood, though, so we didn't stay for a drink.  Maybe someday we can be Million Dollar Cowboys, too.  I guess for now I can settle for being a Rhinestone Cowboy.  Glen Campbell?  Neil Diamond?  Anyone?  Why am I a 70-year old trapped in a 26-year old's body??  Ok I lied I am only familiar with the song because it was in the commercial for High School High, a movie I have never even seen because I wasn't allowed when it came out in theaters.  This caption is becoming less and less of a caption and more like a dissertation.  I am deeply sorry. 

Antler archway leading into the town square in Jackson.  There's one on every corner of the square.  You might be imagining the bloodbath that necessarily preceded the construction of this arch, but remember that elk shed their antlers every year.  I kind of didn't know that, and was totally relieved to find out because I secretly thought this was a little bit awesome even before I found out no animals were harmed.  Shame on me.  Shame.

Surprise!  It's a lake.  No really.  This is Surprise Lake.

I might be a little obsessed with the panoramic feature on my new(ish) camera.  Good thing we live in a place where we are constantly and literally surrounded by amazing things.

French trappers used to call these mountains the 'Trois Tetons'.  I guess third nipples have always been hilarious (the supernumerary nip is not pictured here - obviously...because most people can count to two, I hope).

Mmm glacier water.  Pretty sure nobody should drink anything that color (not even Hypnotiq, unless you're into that sort of thing).

Amphitheater Lake.  We never quite made it up to Arena Lake, where I hear Bon Jovi was giving a private concert.   Bad Jokes.  I make them.

More Amphitheater.  9,698 feet of elevation.  My sea-level loving body and brain cannot even fathom this.

Does this even need a caption?

Happy Labor Day!

 

What?  Not that kind of labor?  Oh.  Well, it's the thought that counts, right?  Too much?  Too far?  Isn't that what America is all about?

We made it back from the Tetons in one piece.  Well, two pieces, really.  I mean, we were two separate people when we went, so if we came back as one, that would probably have to imply some kind of Human Centipede sort of deal, which definitely did not happen.  Even if it did, the last thing I would do is put something that private on the Internet for everyone to see.  After all, what happens in the Tetons stays in the Tetons, right guys?

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All told, we hiked about 18 miles this weekend.  No big deal.  Although, when you're hiking with Andy, it is a big deal, because you're hiking each and every one of those miles like it will be your last.  He hikes at about the speed you could expect someone to travel if they are being pursued by a guy with a machete.  I'm confident that I'm a reasonably in-shape person, but I suffer from a 7-inch height disadvantage when I'm trying to keep pace with Andy.  My stride couldn't be more than 2/3 of his.  I have to imagine that all the people, young and old, fit and unfit, past whom we speed on the way up the trail, feel a twinge of pity for me as I practically run to keep up with my husband, who would be totally oblivious if a bear happened to snatch me off the path behind him.

Oh, this lake?  We hiked around the whole thing.  Circumnavigated, if you will.  And you will.

I'll probably post some more pictures tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises.  Not trying to set myself up for failure here.  Just be happy you got this much, folks.  

3-Day 3-Way

This might be the first time in my adult life that I have really and truly appreciated Labor Day as a three-day weekend.  The first two years out of college, I worked in a high school, so Labor Day was bittersweet.  It heralded the impending return of the zombie horde, because the school year in New Jersey typically begins on the Wednesday after Labor Day (or is it Thursday?  Perhaps the PTSD from this time is interfering with my memory...).  It was like giving a wrongfully-accused death row prisoner a pile of cookies right before the execution.  Momentary pleasure preceding inhumane punishment. 

The year following this employment, I was a broke grad student.  I can't remember if I had already quit my job by that third post-collegiate Labor Day, but I was either unemployed or soon to be so, and one day off was as good as any other.  And the year after that, I was desperately unemployed in Idaho.  I would have paid someone to let me work at that point, so, yea, Labor Day wasn't much more than an excuse to drink a little bit more than usual on a Monday.  Although I probably had no idea what day it was at that point, so there's a good chance I was at the laundromat or just alternately blogging and wallowing in self pity for the majority of the day.

This year, however, I have been working for a solid month.  I know.  You don't even have to say it.  Sheeeeet.  A whole month.  I must be exhausted, right?  Because I don't need to do this for the next 30 years or anything.  Well, I am exhausted.  The one good thing about working in a public school is the schedule...at least... if you semi-don't care about your job and work the bare minimum of hours with no prep time before or after school.  I was in at 7:30 and out by 2:30.  Now I'm in at 8 and out at 5.  I've been mostly working out in the morning before work, so by the time I get home I'm ready for bed except I still have to make dinner, and then eat it, and preferably digest it and do some basic things to prevent my house from turning into a crack den full of cat hair and dirty clothes.  I really miss that extra two hours every day.  Although I shouldn't complain too much because I do thoroughly enjoy my job and the people are great, even when weird patrons ask me semi-inappropriate, non-library questions (like, "how tall are you?").

I think the original point of this post was probably just to let the internet know that we'll be in the Tetons for the weekend.  So if I never post again, you might want to alert the authorities to search for a female carcass covered in bear teethmarks.  Sorry, Mom.  Joke!  Totally a joke.  Because everyone knows bears love honey, so I'm just going to carry around a jarful to placate the bears.  Everything will be okay.

Also, I want everyone to know that I apparently have the body of a 9-year old boy, or at least, a very unfortunate 9-year old boy who happens to have a generous set of boobs but is otherwise totally androgenous.  I ordered some hiking pants (convertible 3 ways, from pants, to clam diggers, to shorts, if you care, because I sure do) on mega-sale from backcountry.com.  I ordered them YESTERDAY and they were on my porch this evening, because apparently the company is based out of Salt Lake.  But, I was unsure about what size to order, even based on the sizing chart (because who seriously whips out the measuring tape and jots down their waist, hip, and inseam measurements?).  Fortunately, these pants had a lot of customer reviews to guide me.  One dissatisfied customer wrote that "real women" should not buy these pants - only women built like 9-year old boys would fit in this style.  I took my best guess, and the pants fit like a dream.  For once, I don't feel like a miscreant for having no hips or ass (although I suspect I may regret that statement if I ever have a child and find that I'm physically incapable of shoving said kid out of said hips...sorry, is that an overshare?  It might be).

With that horrifying visual, I wish you all a fabulous weekend.  And I do mean fabulous.