It's a-live!

Yes, we live. I've been working sixty-fourth-heartedly on a honeymoon trip summary, but I've only gotten through the first day. After being sick last weekend--sick in a way I haven't been since age twelve--I decided to cut the news and political commentary for a while. I realized I was too exercised about other stuff to add that on top of it. I've dipped my toe back into the news a bit, just because I don't like being completely out of the loop, but that's about it. I've got a book I'd rather be reading anyway, The Boat of a Million Years, by Poul Anderson, "his classic novel on immortality and the human prospect." It has all the makings of a favorite, but one of the very ingredients that makes it appealing, its patience, in laying the foundation--immortality, after all, should take some time--also makes it hard to know if it will even sustain, much less ultimately live up to its potential.

A funny anecdote about the kids, before I forget again: Yesterday I came into the living room while the kids sat on the couch watching Looney Tunes, my hair mussed severely after a drenching in the sink. It's too long again, which greatly amplified its dramatic appearance. Not Einstein, but a worthy effort. I asked the kids if they liked my hair. Alexander looked and smiled and said, "It's ug-ly!" Angelina, though, in her thoughtful way, smiled at its comic appearance, then grinned--a small grin, more to herself for remembering--and said, "It's a train wreck."

That's m'girl. Funny what makes one most proud. My influence grows stronger.

Besides my being sick, Carole's pregnant. We found out officially about a month ago, I believe. As before, she felt it was so before she took the test. We visited the birth center for the first time last Monday. It's a nice place, homey and inviting, which one might expect from a converted two-story Victorian, painted brightly yellow, with a huge wrap-around white porch. The fact that it's two blocks and two minutes away (if that) makes it all the more inviting.

A tight tank-top type top

We'll know.

It's a curse

Seeing faces, that is. In everything. Well, in things that look like faces. Like happy food containers:



Or anxious outlets:



Or shrieking mailboxes:


They're everywhere. Better faces than voices, I guess.

June 12, 2006 - First Night

I’m sitting here in the breakfast nook, eyes a little bleary, listening to tiny wind chimes as Carole decides what to do with the little birdhouse chimes that for years have been hanging from the kitchen ceiling fan that is now ours.

I bought a house today. I won’t own it for many years likely, but it’s mine. No longer is it merely something I’d like to do some time—know I will, but in the future. No. This is my house. It’s my yard, my garage, my deck—my house.

Now she’s trying to force the electrical cord on the food processor into the base. She did it. Now it sits neatly next to the crockpot. She neatening up the kitchen. Our new Cuisinart 4-slice toaster that replaced our wedding-gift toaster is next.

We closed this morning at 11:00. Danny met us there and we had a good time. No, really. Several humorous stories concerning parrots were told, mostly by me. Tammi, the Republic Title lady, related how at one of her closings a man showed up with a parrot on his shoulder, and not for comedic effect. It was deadly serious. How could I not tell what stories I knew? We were done in an hour, though we did have to run to Texans to get a check to cover a balance on the final closing costs. On the way back to Republic Title we stopped at a house on Old York for a *third* time to get a picture. (The second time was to replace a blurred virtual tour. This time was to get a still picture I hadn’t realized I’d missed.)

Chrisana is a saint. She of Chrisana and Vance, and son Travis, the previous owners of our house. We truly could not have been more fortunate in a couple from whom to buy a house. He patched holes and painted and ran an additional electrical line into the living room for us just as a freebie. And we keep discovering things that Chrisana left for us: sugar and creamer in the cupboard, plastic containers with lids in a cabinet, plastic cups, a cookie press for Christmas cookies, and even a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood with all the neighbors’ names and phone numbers marked on their respective houses. They’re just golden people. It really is a shame they couldn’t move just next door. We wanted their house, but we’d really like them for neighbors. They’ve clearly set a standard; all the neighbors are sick they’re leaving.

After closing we went back to the apartment, meeting Dad there. He’d brought the truck to help us move our mattress and box spring plus the kids’ bed stuff. As it happened, he ended up taking Carole’s Kia home and we kept the truck full of stuff. We picked up the kids and came here to meet Vance and Chrisana to get the keys from them. Vance helped us unload and they were on their way. After they left I shot a video with my Olympus camera giving a tour of the house.

The kids were silly excited. They took their own pillows in to the bedrooms as we unloaded their mattresses, then just spazzed around the place. They started playing a “game” of banging on the nice upright piano that Vance and Chrisana left, and then running into one of the bedrooms to be goofy. Eventually they made their way back to the shed to play with all the “new” toys that Travis, Vance and Chrisana’s twelve-year-old son, had left for them. He’s a really good kid. We think as the youngest child he enjoys being looked up to by someone younger. We took the kids back to the apartment to feed them while I broke down their bedroom cubbies to bring here. Carole in the meantime was getting a—well, she was packing. The overnight essentials (mostly). When we came back here the kids were still vibrating with excitement, doing silly dances around the living area—“Clint, look how I can dance sideways”—and watching us ready their bedroom. They both seem very happy here, especially, it seems, Angelina. When she was dancing near me in the living room I knelt down and “Pssst”-ed her to come over. She was curious and did, but as she approached I extended my arms in a hug and she smiled a bit and put her arm around me and sat on my leg. I asked her if she was very happy in our new house and she said, “Yes. Are we going to live here when I’m 19?” I said we very well might be, that this was going to be her home for a long time. She seemed very contented with that. They liked having all their stuff in a new room. They won’t be sleeping in our room anymore, which does tweak a little bit. It was very cramped in that one bedroom, and I will love the privacy of having our own room like we ought, but it was nice being able to see them asleep when we came in to go to bed.

It shouldn’t be surprising that we’re already seeing things that we need: a nightstand for the bed, end tables for the couch, Tiki torches or the like for the deck, cubby holes in the laundry room on the way to the garage where the kids can put school stuff and coats. And while the Granny wallpaper in the living room does fit us in a way—because, as I told Carole earlier, we are kinda Granny-type people—it will be changed to something less Granny. It is nice to finally have enough space to hang all of our pictures. It is nice to finally have enough space for the kids to be able to play like kids. It is nice to have a big kitchen. It is nice to have enough space to breathe. It is nice to have our own house.

This is our house. This will be our first home. This will be the Christmases they’ll remember most as kids. This will be where they discover their own way, and bring friends home to play, kids running straight through as a blur from front door to back on the way to the backyard. This will be where we enjoy evenings with our friends, lounging on the deck in the cool night shade with torches and chimenia burning. It might very well be where they learn to play their first instruments, and, who knows, maybe where they even get ready for prom, and high school graduation. I mean, my god: Is this the home they’ll leave when they finally leave home?

It’s so hard to imagine it, and yet I know it will happen, and there is good reason to believe it could happen here. This is a good house. It will be a great home. Who knows what the future holds, but for the moment, and for many years to come, this house will hold ours, and for that we will call it home.

I grew up knowing what a home was, but never wondering much about having one of my own. It was always some far-off future place, even when I considered it as an adult. That was something to do once the prologue ended, and it never did. I was becoming used to that fact.

And then it did, rather abruptly but still quietly. The first chapter of my life, of the life I’ve been waiting so long to start, has to my continuing surprise begun. Welcome to my life, I keep telling myself. Welcome to our home.

Carole’s using the vase that Chrisana left to fill the Brita dispenser in the refrigerator. She’s finally organized all she can for the moment. She’s telling me where pen and pencil are, in the long drawer to the right of the sink. That sounds fine. And now she stands across the table from me, staring at the dark living room, wondering what else she can do. There’s nothing but getting ready for bed. A kiss, and off she goes, and so do I.

Welcome to our home.

Heading for home

It's getting closer. The appraiser was supposed to hand in her report today, so hopefully we'll hear something tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll also be following up on home insurance and . . . something else ACT! will remind me of in the morning.

As for today, we took the kids to school, Carole went down to Harry Hines hunting for fabric to match the top she already made for Anita's mother-of-the-bride dress, and I drove to Paris for a couple of jobs. (After a job in Carrollton.) Carole found the fabric, fortunately, and Anita smiled on it. Good good. The kids elected to sleep here, though Alexander made noises about wanting to go to Daddy's. I finished Photowalk stuff, fixed spaghetti and meatballs, we finished watching the surprisingly thoughtful (no, really) Bubba Ho-Tep, labeled and FTP'd the Photowalk stuff, then respectively messed around on the Net. I wish I didn't have to wait till midnight to start catching up on the news and commentary of the day, but as yet I haven't discovered much of a way around it.

On that score, however (advance pun intended), I see Natalie Maines opened her mouth again outside of a song. Always a danger. And I see she's as much of a punk as she ever was. She says now she retracts the apology she gave for her disrepectful remark about the president back in '03. Now she says he deserves no respect whatsoever. Well knock me down with a feather. Natalie never got and still doesn't that free speech cuts both ways; if you dis your audience, either directly or indirectly as she did here, don't be surprised when they react negatively to it. She's always played herself up as some brave martyr when in fact she's just a rude, dense punk.

What I've long hoped, however, is that she caught some flak from Martie and Emily, assuming that they surely didn't share Natalie's loopy liberalism. Not so, I see. In fact, Martie, my favorite (et tu, Martie?), rivals her in idiocy with this: "'I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith,' Maguire said. 'We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do.'" I'm sure she felt exactly that way when they were setting sales records, selling out arenas all over, and racking up Grammy's left and right. I'm sure she was thinking then, "Y'know, what'd really be cool is if most of these people went away and didn't buy our music." Well, Martie, you don't have to worry about it now. The three of you misread your public and now you're having to make up transparently fake rationalizations for it. What a fall, and what a shame. At least you make good music. Or used to. I haven't heard the new album yet . . . .

On a less serious note, it's a little harder to take stories about the near-impossibility of escaping from the infamous Alcatraz when you see a headline like "Boy Swims from Alcatraz to San Francisco." I mean, it makes it a lot harder to take Clint Eastwood seriously, squintingly trying to Escape from Alcatraz, when apparently it's kid's stuff.

Much too late to be awake. But I blogged, goshdarnit!

It's all about me . . . and you . . . and him . . . and her

We as a society need to just get this through our collective skulls. 'Course way too many of us are much too thick-headed to get it or care.

Saturday, May 13

Kids were up early, but not as early as sometimes. Carole'd brought the video games over here yesterday from Dave's since the kids were excited about the games they'd bought from Travis (the young'n from our prospective new house), so they were up and ready to hit them first thing. Carole ended up sitting with them instead of coming back to bed. I was eye-rubbing tired when I finally dragged myself out of bed (good thing I'm getting to bed early tonight), but brought out Gene and Skip anyway. Spent the next hour-plus entertaining the kids and being climbed on. I submit Exhibit A:


After that Carole and I whiled the afternoon away on photo editing and political commentary (I'll let the dear reader decide who did what). I did manage to get to the credit union to get cashier checks for the title company. We have to get those to Danny tomorrow so he can take them to Republic on Monday morning. I did get some research done on the honeymoon. Mid-July, it will be. I think we've boiled it down to two possibilities. Waiting on responses from both of them to determine which. Then we went to Texadelphia for dinner, staying till close doing a Boggle puzzle and crossword puzzle in The Diddly News. Followed that up with a Wal-Mart run to stock up on Diet Dr. Thunder and to get some Mother Day flowers and a card. Back here it was back to the computers doing various things that certainly don't need to be done right now -- though it is good to have the Vonage decisions made -- but there we are.

And here I go.

Friday, May 12

Another hectic one, though thankfully not quite like yesterday. Not nearly as much back and forth and overlap between work and house stuff. Alexander woke up early again today, though thankfully not quite like the other day. He was being dramatically loud with his yawns and talking loud, hoping to wake Angelina, so I had to shush him a couple of times. He quieted down and there wasn't mutual stirring for a while, and then it was all but up.

We were late getting them to school, but I made use of the time and got the car loaded for work. After an apt. office stop to fax the contract to Danny and a Walgreen's stop to swap the Diet Coke with Splenda with Diet Coke withOUT Splenda, we headed for our ostensible first stop, east of Lake Lavon in Nevada. Only problem was she didn't live in Nevada; she lives in Powell. Wrong city, right zip code. Oops. Reschedule. So then we did the two jobs that were left and came home. Scheduled the house inspection and then I got to work scheduling Monday. Thought I had it all done when Carole mentioned a different sheet, which meant I had to start essentially all over. It took a long while and several phone calls, but I finally got it all done.

In the meantime Carole had gone to pick up the kids from school and stop at Dave's to get the video games. (We weren't supposed to have them tonight, but the babysitter called to say she had a church function she hadn't remembered, so we switched nights with her.) The kids dug having the video games here for once (twice, actually); Alexander said he wanted to sleep here all the time now. I wonder what was the difference? Everything was fine until
bedtime. Alexander and I had a good ol' time playing on our big bed until Angelina was ready, at which point it was her turn and I told him it was time to get in bed. He kept ignoring me, even as I got more serious with him and told him I was getting upset. Angelina by then was ready and in bed herself and then he wanted to look at his photo album. I told him no, it was time for bed, way past time, and we'd had lots of fun, but it was time for bed. He started crying and I told him if he didn't stop crying and start getting into bed before I counted to five, he'd lose a song. He didn't, so he lost a song. I told him again, he didn't again, so he lost another song. I told him again, he didn't again, so he lost his last song. Of course he was upset by all this, but he's got a stubborn streak going on lately that we can't abide, particularly where minding me is concerned. I told him it was very sad that he lost all of his songs and gave him one back, but he only got the one. Of course I tickled him and gave him lots of kisses and he was giggling and laughing and ready for more when I gave the Big Kiss. (Angelina said she was too tired for the Big Kiss, which was a first, but I saw her still catch it and the small kisses from inside her sleeping bag, which was funny and cute.) Such is the life of a parent, and to some degree specifically a step-parent.

And now I'm going to get back to the Billy photo project, which entails me scanning a multiplicity of photos of Billy to send him and Shana. This was prompted by the wedding collage; I thought Shana in particular might like to have some old photos of Billy, and realized Billy would probably like to have them himself. So I'm scanning in several to send them tonight.

Back to it.