Wednesday, March 30, 2005

evening

My Childhood Home Goes Up For Sale

I thought I’d be okay with my parents selling the house.  In fact, I encouraged them to sell it because it’s silly for them to have to drive back and forth between S. California and Vegas every few weeks.  My dad sent me an email tonight telling me that they put the house up for sale.  It’s made me a tad weepy.  My parents bought the house for maybe 30k before I was born, so I spent my whole childhood there.  I went to all the same schools as my brothers.  I’d always thought that some day I could buy the house because it’s such a great house.  I’ll post pictures as soon as I get some from my parents.  It’s funny though, I couldn’t even afford the house if I wanted to buy it.  It’s now worth something crazy like 600 or 700k, because of the real estate market there.

I’ve picked out the things I want from the house (again, pictures of those later) - no, not any of the big furniture or anything.  I want Mr. Smooth.  He’s a cheesy wooden knight that my dad painted silver and turned into a lamp.  When I was maybe three, I named him Mr. Smooth.  My brothers agreed that I could have him.  Who knows where he’ll go, but I want him.  Also, I want the little plastic yellow cinnamon sugar bear.  He’s probably all grubby from 40 years of use, but I don’t care.  He always dispensed the perfect cinnamon/sugar combo. 

I guess I don’t like change much.  I don’t mind *me* moving around - I moved out of my parents house to live in their apartment building.  Heh, baby steps.  I lived there for about five years, then I moved to Vegas for a year.  Then, I met a girlie and moved to Pacifica, which is a few miles south of San Francisco.  I loved Pacifica, but we had a psycho landlord and our oceanfront place was moldy and gross.  We moved to San Francisco for three years or so.  San Francisco is an awesome place to live.  Then, with Leigh-Ann, I moved back to Vegas where most of my family is...and where we could afford a house.  San Francisco was out of the question, what with the Noe Valley neighborhood (where we lived) average little house going for more than a million bucks.

I just thought the house would always be there.  Logically, I knew it wouldn’t.  I’ve been telling my parents to sell for years, so they could settle in Las Vegas permanently.  I didn’t expect to feel so strongly about the house going up for sale.  I haven’t even been back home for a while, but it doesn’t really matter—that’s where most of my perfect happy childhood memories are.  Where I threw books down the hall when I was mad at David.  Where I learned to play baseball and football in the streets with my brothers and the nextdoor neighbors’ five boys.  Where my cousin put the smoke bomb in the Jantzen’s driveway and Mr. Jantzen ran after him down the street, threatening him with his wife’s slipper, accusing him of trying to blow up their house.  That troublemaker became a Yale/Harvard educated cardiologist.  I still picture him as a kid, running down our street, being chased by a slipper wielding old man.

I need to go to bed.  I’ll have more stories tomorrow.  I’ll go to bed weepy tonight… Crap, and I never cry.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

lunch time

Living Wills - Get Them Done…NOW!

Like many of you, I’ve been lazy.  I’m 40, not 80 - I don’t have any children, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get any paperwork signed.  Well, after the Terri Schiavo ordeal, I’ve made my wishes known verbally to my parents, to Leigh-Ann and on this blog to anyone who will listen.  I guess I’d better formalize it.  I found the US Living Will Registry, which has the Advanced Directives for your state.  Fill them out, get them notarized and put them in a safe place.  Don’t let Congress, the President or your Governor, meddle in what is your business.  I live in Las Vegas, so here is an example of the Advanced Directive Form from my state.  As soon as I load my printer up with paper, I’m filling those papers out.  I will not have millions of dollars spent on my empty shell.  They can donate that money to people who can’t afford to pay for their pets’ surgeries.  Yes, pets.  Almost always, someone will take care of a person in need, but pets will be euthanized for things that can be treated.  What do you think of the name “Cricket’s Fund - For Pets in Need”?

I digress.  Go sign your papers.  Now.

[edited to add - I found a site that will send you an Advance Directive packet - go here and do it now.  You’re online, you know your own address.  Take care of it.]

lunch time

Oh No, April 1st Is Sooo Soooooon!

I swore up and down that I was going to restart my life on the first of April.  How am I going to do that?  We have the stucco repair people coming tomorrow (and whoo hooo, without appointment today—apparently this new doormat of ours attracts people, instead of repelling them.  Crud), the International Sign Expo at Mandalay Bay, the landscaper is coming sometime in the next two weeks to bring more reject sand to our back yard (can’t afford grass yet, but the desert boulders are showing through the dirt), the electricians are coming to upgrade our panel so we can actually work on our new glass/stone engraving and dye sub businesses, the painters will have to come to fix the inside of garage (the leak that the stucco people are supposedly fixing), Cricket just came home yesterday after her multimilion dollar surgery, etc.  I don’t even have to worry about all of the yard/house stuff (Leigh-Ann takes care of all that), but still, it weighs heavily on my wee mind.  So, April 1st seems so ambitious.  I was reading another blog about FlyLady and hoped that she was the answer to my organizational prayers.  Alas, five million extra emails a day doesn’t help in the slightest.  I had to unsubscribe after one day.  Besides, it annoyed me to be told to clean up the dinner dishes before I’d even had dinner.  Must be an East Coast operation.  I’ll have to find organizational inspiration elsewhere.

As I said before, Cricket is home.  She spent the whole weekend at the vet’s office recovering from her knee surgery.  We were really happy to see her, but she’s doing so well that she wants to act like she doesn’t have this HUGE stitched up wound.  We’re hoping we can keep her drugged and calm, but it’s hard when one of the cats realizes that he somewhat enjoys the little dogs in the bedroom and now comes to visit uannounced.  Actually, I think the little porker is looking to steal their food.  It’s not enough that he eats mountains of cat food.  We adopted him from Best Friends and we’re thinking maybe he was on the road for a while before they got him.  He acts like we’re going to take the food away from him.  He’s turning into the Happy Hippo.  The Happy Hippo who slept with us last night.  We slept with a cat (a first) and a gimpy little dog.  There was another little dog on the floor, a big dog right outside the baby gate/doorway, two more cats down the hall and a dog in his crate downstairs, not to mention the six parrots snoozing in their own room.  It’s the Dr. Doolittle House for Rescued Animals, and they’re slowly moving into the bed.  AAAAAAAHHHHH.

You know the previous entry where I said the vet bill was $2300?  Whoops, wrong again.  Try almost $3000.  She’s lucky she’s adorable.  Not that I wouldn’t pay for an ugly dog’s surgery, but I’m just sayin’ the photogenic button eyes, weird curly hair and cuddliness, make it easier.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

early evening

I Hate Almost Everyone and Everything

Why is that, you ask?  Hell if I know.  Not more than five hours ago, I was just sitting and thinking about how happy and content I was.  I don’t know where I went wrong to swing the other way, but when I wake in the morning, it had better all be right again.  At least we’ll be able to bring Cricket home and cuddle with our gimpy little pup.  She was so cute when we went to go see her yesterday.  All doped up and woozy, but clearly happy to see us.  It was really nice of the vet’s office (Creature Comforts) to let us in to see her.  We thought they closed at 6p on Saturdays, but alas, that wasn’t true, they close at 5p.  We, of course, arrived at 5:05p.  Duh, us.  Anyway, they very nicely let us in, and even better, put us in a room and brought Cricket out to us.  We only thought we might be able to see her quickly for a couple of pets, while she was in her li’l recovery cage.  So, big thanks to Denise & Stephanie for letting us in and to Becky for bringing our monster baby out to see us.  It was nice to see that she was doing so well.  It was an extra nice thing we could hold onto after we heard the horror of her $2300 bill.  Gah!  Last year, when she had both knees done, it was maybe $1800 or so.  Oh well, that’s what the Care Credit card is for, no?  Naturally, we’d just finished paying it off after Chelsea’s feeding tube extravaganza.  But, it wouldn’t be our lives if that card didn’t have some big pet expense on it.

I’m really babbling here.  I’m losing control of my life maybe.  I’ve gone so low that I checked out FlyLady because I sure could use some help organizing my life.  I feel like I’m surrounded by stuff, lots of stuff.  Before the house was appraised and we had the leaky windows and all, the house was mostly presentable.  But then we got sick and we spread the sickness (clutter, not vomit, sillies) all over the house.  And maybe not so much we as I.  I know I have a big clutter problem.  Actually, it’s a big procrastination problem because I don’t like living like this.  Also, by “like this”, I don’t mean we live in one of those scary houses you see on Animal Cops, where they have 50 dogs/cats locked up into two rooms and it’s really gross.  We just have a bit of a clutter problem, especially now with the new business equipment.  Who really has room for a sandblasting cabinet, a dye sub printer, an Imprintor, eight dozen mugs, a large heat press and a mug press?  I’m guessing not a lot of people.  I admit to being responsible for the general clutter and I certainly could be responsible for attempting to get rid of the dust from the yard that settles over everything in every room downstairs.  Maybe FlyLady could help, although ten emails a day?  It would be like my mother nagging me.  Of course, I can tell these emails to fuck off if I want to.  It can’t hurt to try, I guess.  There’s always “unsubscribe”.

I have another complaint.  The font is so small when I’m writing this that I can’t always tell if I’ve spelled everything correctly, and I’d go batshit if I saw a misspelled word on my blog.  Keep that in mind.  If you see one, from any entry, please write and let me know—it’s a typo and I must fix it.  Then again, I also need glasses.  Must be all these years of staring at the monitor.

This entry is so insufferably boring that I think I might have to go find a cute pet picture to add something interesting.

Here’s a cute puppy picture of Cricket.  She was so tiny.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

early evening

Attention, My Real Life Will Recommence April 1st

Until such time I can focus my total love and attention on you, dear blog, I’m going to post haphazardly, aimlessly, helter-skeltery, et al.  But I promise you, on April 1st, I’m going to lavish attention on you.  Attention like you’ve never experienced before.

Anyway, until then, I’m gonna rant about Bill Frist, obviously the most incompetent doctor to ever graduate from Harvard Medical School.  What an idiot!  The Bush Boys - gag.  Let...the...poor...woman...go.  Tom DeLay - whoa, his head is spinning with inappropriateness and hypocrisy.

Whitney Houston, back in rehab, again.  Fucking pay someone to be your friend and stay with you and hang up on your drug dealer.  Barry Bonds, asshole supreme.  He’s gonna quit, then he’s going to slowly shrivel into a mere slip of a man.  He’ll also become a human being again, instead of an animal.  He’ll write a book, apologize for being a ‘roid jerk and he’ll make even more money.

I’m reading one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read My Life Among the Serial Killers : Inside the Minds of the World’s Most Notorious Murderers.  I’ve read all kinds of nasty true crime books, but I didn’t know about any of this serial killer medical experimentation stuff.  I suppose I should’ve guessed, but ack, I didn’t.  The author is a bit pretentious, but I don’t mind it much.  I just want the crime parts.  Yeah, I know it’s sick.  But don’t worry, after this book, I think I’m reading something uplifting and gentle.