Out with the Old, In with the New

A while back, we were on one of our semi-frequent cleaning binges - for some reason, we're unable to just clean gradually...the house gets to a point where it could be declared a disaster area, and then we blitz it on a Sunday or something...I don't know why this happens - Speed found some old negatives (jesus, do I need to explain negatives? I'm going to assume I don't...google it if you don't know, and for the love of God, don't tell me you had to, I'm not ready for that kind of technological saturation) in the cabinet above the stove, which he "developed" with the superhardcore scanner he has. Turns out the pictures are of our house before it was renovated! Very cool. From the look of them, we're thinking that the guy we bought the house from purchased the house after the original owner passed away, and that he took these photos soon after taking possession of the house. I would think that whoever was selling the house would clean all the stuff out of it, but then again, who knows. So without further ado, here are our house's baby pictures!

This is the outside of our house, circa October 2005. Since then the following things have happened - that godforsaken barrel has been violently relocated to the backyard, the jungly area on the left has been torn down and now only the large oak tree remains, the two trees in the front right have been removed, the garden in the middle has been turned into a garden (as opposed to a chipmunk playground) and the gardens immediately in front of the house now consist of two rhododendrons, two evergreens, and an azalea. We also have the most wonderful wisteria tree in the world in the middle garden.
This is a picture of the house that Speed found from the town assessor somehow. I don't even knnow what to say about this, really. The only thing I do actually like more than the current set up is how the windows on the sides of the left hand/breezeway door go all the way down, whereas now they stop at hip height or so. I will also refer to this as the first exhibit in the case for making everything in the world green, which appears to be an argument that the previous owner was EXTREMELY dedicated to.
This is our bathroom. I hate this tile with my entire soul. I refer to it as "Miami Dolphins green marble" and it's this heinous plastic tile that is original to the (circa 1954) house. We recently ripped it off and will be refinishing it...painting, not tiling, since the shower is tiled and has a sliding glass door, so there's really no need for tile on the walls. This pic is an October 2005 one but I can guarantee that the only thing that changed in this stupid bathroom of grossness since 1954 was POSSIBLY the curtain.
This is our yellow room...in this October 2005 pic, we were using it as an office, but now it is our bedroom. We reasoned that we would just be sleeping in the bedroom, but spending more waking hours in the office, so we picked the larger yellow room for the office. Maybe three months later we were claustrophobic in the blue room, switched the two with much ado and swearing, and never looked back.
And here's the old version. This is really the only place you can put a bed...it's a bit airplane hangarish. This is basically the reverse of the October 2005 one - in this one you're looking at the door, in the yellow one, you're standing IN the door taking the pic. Note the GROSS door jamb - apparently the original owner really sank into a depression when his wife died (as you would) and spent his days mainly drinking and smoking in the house. This provided a nice sheen of tobacco smoke all over the house. More on this phenomenon when we talk about the blue room.

Here you can see the windows...note that the curtain is fully double the size of the windows. The windows in our bedroom and office are the only thing besides the ugly bathroom that I would change about the house - they are right for the style of the house, but they are very short , where I would prefer full size windows. Maybe someday we'll get around to changing them.
This is the wall that Speed's chair would be facing in the October '05 pic above. Again with the nasty once-white-now-tobacco-colored trim on the window, and the long curtains.
This is the blue room, formerly the bedroom (we must have been nuts) and now the office. You can see the short windows a little better here. This pic was taken when I was painting the ceiling - the entire room, including ceiling, was blue, and the ceiling fan was a P-51 nosecone (the guy we bought it from was a Reservist, so we assume that's how the P-51 came to be). The blue of it all was overwhelming...it was one of those things where your senses are being smacked around but you also can't figure out why. After painting the ceiling, I took a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and scrubbed the dribs and drabs and pencil marks around the edge...and discovered that the actual paint had been two to three full shades lighter. I then scrubbed the entire room, and it was vastly improved. This is one of the timeline issues - the Reservist definitely did NOT seem like the smoking type, and it would seem to be the fault of the original owner that the tobacco stains would be there...and yet the blue is clearly post-renovation. Hard to tell.
This is a good frame of reference, because we're basically standing in the same place to take the picture. Note the GROSS windowshade. Any questions on how good for your health smoking is?
Interesting fact! These bureaus are IDENTICAL to one that Dad had in his office in our house growing up. He actually had the shorter one with the mirror to me to take to DC, and while the bureau has moved on to a better place (the back facing was perpetually falling out, leading to profanity and aggravation), I still have the mirror, and it is hanging over our bed in the yellow bedroom.
This is the new kitchen, and in this pic you can see one of my favorite features of the kitchen (second only to the flatttop stove top)...see over the sink that there is undercabinet lighting? I love the nice homey feel it gives the kitchen. It rocks.
This is pretty much the outside of the house, writ small and indoors. Oh. Em. Gee. This is just so problematic. The ivy wallpaper, the heinous linoleum faux tile...just...saints preserve us, you know? As you can see, the Reservist really went to town on this one...he moved the stove almost exactly opposite to where this old, janky one is, and then put in the FAB new counter, which extends past the wall (on the left) and turns into a table. AND got rid of the linoleum and put in real tile.
This is the living room, which has also evolved beyond what you see here. The blah white curtains were ousted for some green and white sheers that hang on a dark wood pole - MUCH better. There is a major light issue in this room, so having the sheers instead of that ninety-pound-per-square-inch brocaded crap is a great improvement. You can see the beautiful refinishing job that the Reservist did on the floors - he was apparently VERY handy.
Hey look! It's effing GREEN again! I actually do like the little mural thing on the wall, but it's just all so 1970s, isn't it? I particularly enjoy that even the BASEBOARD has been painted green. These people had to be stopped.

This...well okay. A while ago, Mom and Dad found some old pictures of when they moved into our house in 1983. And they'd been living in this townhouse in Gettysburg that was MAYBE five feet wide, okay, so their college kid furniture hadn't really been forced to evolve? So there are all these pictures before they bought a lot of Big Kid furniture where you've got this loveseat and couch that are literally bouncing around in the living room, on top of an area rug that is MAYBE 5 feet by 8 in this giant room, and you can practically hear the echoing through time and space via this picture? That's what this reminds me of. My favorite thing is maybe the supremely undersized picture on the wall. Note that they covered up the beautiful floors with carpet...that was a WIERD PHASE, all you people who signed on to it. Okay? WEIRD.
This is probably the most dramatic difference. The great room was what sold the house for us - the openness, the hgh ceiling, the way all the living space really flowed together...yeah, not how the orginal owners rolled, apparently. The door on the right leading into the kitchen is no longer there (our dishwasher is there now), and you can see on the left the wall with a window in it. The great room was an add-on, so that wall would originally have been an exterior wall and the window would have looked out into the backyard. I will say right now that the removal of that interior-nee-exterior wall was the best thing this house ever had done for it.
...because now it looks like this. So great, no? Great flow through the living room (where this pic is being taken from) into the great room.
Here we have more...these pics were taken during a family visit. You can really see here how we'd been in the house about three minutes when the pics were taken, what with all the furniture having been thrown in the vague direction of where it was going to go and the use of the litterbox as a decorative accent.
While this pic highlights why we bought the house (we later bought wood blinds that PERFECTLY matched the wood in the room - we really lucked out, and a vertical blind for the slider), the best thing about this picture is how Flyboy (orange cat) clearly wants to fight Hillary and Emma (black and white dogs outside, who belong to Mom and Dad), who are eighteen times his size. Props to Scarlett for noticing that one. Aaaaand the old great room. You can see the exterior-turned-interior wall better here...the window is CLEARLY an exterior window and framing, and the location of the bench and hat/coat stand really make it easy to see the past life of the wall.
This door is actually where the SLIDER is now...several million negative points for the architect of the project. "Let's make this beautiful, airy, window-ridden addition...and complete it with a boring wooden door!" Also note the louvered windows, which were moved to the breezeway when the Reservist redid the windows in this room for the big, open ones we have now.
More great room...note the hardcore air conditioner, which we love, especially Speed, a.k.a. "Mr. Siberia." It's got a compressor out back and everything. Good stuff. You can see the same a/c unit in the picture with Mormor and Speed standing in front of the door above.
More great room, and more totally disgusting tobacco stains, this time on the curtains.

I'll be sure to take some more recent pictures sometime soon!

Wowah wah wah wah, wah wah wah!

Okay, first? New blog, in which I hate on the MCAS, over on WCPL. Check it out!

Second of all? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Z0CpPW2Fc

The first time I saw this in the trailer for Meet the Robinsons (which I know NOTHING about, and which the trailer sheds absolutely no light on), I very nearly peed my pants laughing. The second, third, fourth, etc., viewings, I rewound it at least seven or eight times and cackled away merrily, at least a couple times to the point of nearly choking myself. I have tried describing it to some people, but as you can imagine, it doesn't really work. Thankfully, my friends are mostly just as demented as I am, and when I tried describing it to THEM (in an email, no less), three of them immediately emailed back saying "Oh my God, I peed my pants laughing." I love you guys.

Oh man...I just checked out the summary on IMDB (which is linked above) and I STILL have not a CLUE about what kind of crack these people were smoking through the production of this film. I cannot WAIT to go see it, is all I'm saying. Here's what the summary says:

Lewis is a brilliant inventor with a surprising number of clever inventions to his credit. His latest and most ambitious project is the Memory Scanner, a machine that will help him find his birth mother so they can become a family. But before he can find her, his invention is stolen by the dastardly Bowler Hat Guy and his diabolical hat and constant companion, Doris. Lewis has all but given up hope when a mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson whisks our bewildered hero away in a time machine and together they team up to track down Bowler Hat Guy in a showdown that ends with an unexpected and unbelievable twist of fate.

Go ahead, tell me you don't want to see it now. "Dastardly Bowler Hat Guy"? I will also note that their marketing includes a singing frog, the awesome T Rex, a dog, an octopus, and a variety of strangely dressed humans, NONE OF WHICH, you will notice, are mentioned in the above summary. There is no way that this movie will not be mindblowingly insane. Let me know if you want to come with.

CRUISE UPDATE: Scarlett has been getting increasingly insane emails from the DR, who was FIRED from the ship in a random booze test...which he seems to be happy about, weirdly enough. So whatever, he has returned to his cow-based business in the actual DR, from which point he emails and calls Scarlett frequently. These emails are generally written in what can be recognized as English until you look closely and see the crazy busting out all over. He has also decided that they will have three Dominican babies, one of whom will be named Jesus, the other of whom will be named "Scarlett," and the third whose name does not apparently matter. Scarlett has now tried REPEATEDLY to inform him that he is in fact obsessing over a made up relationship that does not exist, and has done this both in English and Spanish (through the use of a translator), however, he just continues along either not understanding or just plain ignoring all attempts to break up with him gently. Just the other day, he informed Scarlett that he would be in the US in about three weeks to visit his sister...for five months, during which time Scarlett will clearly be unable to avoid him, especially since he's all Pepe Le Pew fawning over her with the cartoon hearts and everything. She hung up on him yesterday and did not answer when he called back, so of course he...




...continued emailing crazily, still without any immediately obivous indication that he understands that they are "breaking up." We are officially at DefCon 1. It should be interesting to see how this plays out - in the meantime, I suggested that she get a gun and a concealed carry permit.

In other news, things have settled down pretty well...we ordered a new bed, a king-size Bob-o-Pedic (i.e. Tempurpedic knockoff), as well as lots and lots of pretty sheets! I am far more excited about this than is necessary. I went to a Big & Rich show with La Habitante on March 20th, which ROCKED super extra hard, and now I have been listening to B&R non-stop. It is infectious I tell you! The awards banquet that I was organizing for the Booster Club also went well, once I had gotten past the aggravating pestiness of a couple of folks, and - you'll love this - I won Booster of the Year. Ha! Love it.

I also turned 24 on the 19th, which was exciting in that everyone loves presents, but boring in the sense that 24 feels pretty much like 23 did.

I'll leave you with this FAB pic from The Lucy (who, incidentally knocked it out of the fucking park with her birthday gift, thus rendering me frantic with concern that I must meet the same level of awesomeness on her birthday)...clearly this will be my next vehicle.

AND YOU WILL KNOW ME BY MY GIANT PINK STILETTO!

Things You Don't Learn Any More

Before I get into this post, I should mention that there is a new post up at Wicked Cool Playlist, so check it out if you'd like something more light-hearted. I will warn you now that I decided to write about this particular topic on this page because I could swear here.

Speed and I have been looking for a new bed. It's come down to the Bob-o-Pedic and the Sleep Number Bed, with the former slightly edging out the latter because Speed has found less damning evidence about the Bob-o-Pedic/TempurPedic. We wanted to go check out the Bob-o-Pedic again, so we headed out via East Mountain Street. Right at the lights before the turn off for Price Chopper, we saw a little black and white cat streak across the street, right in front of the red SUV in front of us (If I had this asshole's license plate I would print it here, is how pissed I am). The SUV actually went over the cat (as in, the cat apparently stopped perfectly between the wheels and did not get killed), and once the SUV cleared the poor thing, the cat gathered its wits and shot off under someone porch on the side of the street it had been going for. This was not what pissed me off - the cat really did come out of nowhere and even if the driver HAD hit it I don't know what he could have done to avoid it. What pisses me off is that this asshole, having almost killed a living creature, just drove off, and didn't even stop to check. Here's the thing - SPEED AND I stopped, pulling into the Joey's Limousine parking lot which was just a nano-second ahead of where it happened, and went to go look for the cat to make sure it was okay.

What was so difficult about this? Do they not teach you to respect and care for all of the world's effing animals anymore? We took maybe five minutes to stop and look for the cat and knock on the door of the house it ran under (no one was home) to see if it was theirs. We looked where it had gone and looked around to the back porch and made those dumb "here kitty kitty kitty" noises humans reflexively make. You can't fucking do that? You can't make sure SOMEONE'S PET is all right? Asshole. Fuck you, Red SUV Driving Past Price Chopper At About 8:15 on March 14th.

And as Speed pointed out, asshole number two is the person who decided to let their cat be an outside cat next to a major road. Of course, what the hell do I know if the house it ran under was actually the cats home, but the fact remains that it had to live somewhere in that area, right near this giant road, for it to be roaming around. Want a cat? Fine. KEEP IT INSIDE if you don't live on a farm. When you buy a pet, you're promising to keep it safe and taken care of. The number of people who don't get this shit just drives me right up a fucking wall. Listen, pets are like kids, okay? Not the way I consider them my kids, but on a fundamental level. Kids get sick, pets get sick. Kids need food, pets need food. Kids need shots, pets need shots. You're signing up to TAKE CARE OF THAT, not just to have something like an inanimate object you can give a shit about when you feel like it. Asshole. ASSHOLE. We keep our cats inside in Holden because we don't want them to get eaten by BEARS or COYOTES or whatever else roams the burby-woods at night. We take care of them and take them to the vet when they send us that little postcard saying they need shots and when Cady is a MORON and eats yarn we pay the fucking two grand because WE PROMISED TO TAKE CARE OF THEM WHEN WE BOUGHT THEM AND THEY WERE ADORABLE AND TINY. Because we GOT that although the adorable and tiny were very convincing arguments for adoption, we had to be ready to take care of them as LIVING CREATURES.

Fucking people, I swear to God.

Beverly Hills, That's Where I Wanna Be...

For those who I have forgotten to tell (and it's nothing personal, I just can't remember anything), I have been writing a blog for a website brought to you by the nice folks at the Telegram & Gazette's online empire, Telegram.com. It's called The Night Fantastic and I think it's pretty good, so you should all go read it and maybe shower some adoration on me if the mood strikes. It will probably split the time from this blog, so I'll be sure to post an update here when I blog Night Fantastic stuff.

The blog is part of a new site called Wicked Cool Playlist, which is a site dedicated to local music in the Worcester area. The blog itself can be found from the front page of EITHER WCPl or Telegram.com (after 4pm, apparently...I just found out about this last week and have not checked if this actually happens), but you can also click on this link and it will take you directly.

Hope you enjoy - give me some feedback!

The Photographic Evidence

We were really bad about taking pictures, but here's the smattering that we did wind up with. Enjoy! I've organized them loosely into locations, rather than days, because a lot of them are pictures of us in hallways, plus on the ship there were a couple places where we were ALL THE TIME so it's tough to pin down which day a specific pic was taken.

This is the Grandeur of the Seas, anchored off Cozumel. The Weege snapped this one as we took the tender back to the boat.

This is the only picture we seem to have taken inside our stateroom, and it really shows you nothing except the size of the sleeping area (i.e. tiny). This is Scarlett and I with a random rag of some sort that we found in our room and were all unable to identify.

These are the Mayan ruins at Chacchoben...as you can see it was a gorgeous day!

The Weege at Chacchoben
Me at Chacchoben...you can't really see it here, but at some point I decided that my cosmetic bag was more convenient and small for taking off the ship, so I used that.
The jungle behind the ruins - we were basically standing on the edge of a cliff here. It was amazing.

This is Scarlett and UnShy on the last day at sea...this was the day he earned his nickname by walking around like a crackhead saying "talk to me don't be shy."

Scarlett and I on the top deck with our margaritas rimmed with inexplicable blue salt. We referred to it as roofie salt since we didn't know what the hell it was.

This would be The Weege, FARC-ing it up with the secretly brilliant sunglasses-as-wind-defense system.
The Un-FARCed Weege and I on the top deck...again we see the Roofie-rita.Neil Diamond in his pentultimate performance! WOOOO GO NEIL!

Scarlett and The Peruvian in the Schooner. This was one of the many pictures where the timeline indicates that Scarlett was not actually drunk, but looks completely hammered.

Another one of the un-drunk drunk pictures...The Weege in particular looks insane, but this is in fact not the scariest picture of her. No, I'm not kidding. Keep reading. This was us throwing the peace signs to mimic the ENTIRE BAR STAFF who suddenly went on a peace sign binge on the last day.

Scarlett and I at dinner on the last night!
Aaaaaand the reverse side of the table, me and The Weege. This is the expression she always started off with when we tried taking pictures of her because of her damn face. You can also see that it DOES NOT SHOW UP IN PICTURES. ANY OF THE PICTURES.

This would be at the only formal night we made it to...the call of Ricky Bobby was just too strong for us. Luckily we ran into Neil Diamond and the Missourienne later on and not only did they miss dinner, but they ALSO were watching Ricky Bobby. I guess it was just that kind of a night....we should have invited them over and made popcorn!
The Weege and I at the bar in Costa Maya...I think this is a cute pic even if I am doing something weird and whitening-strip-commerical-y with my teeth.
Okay...we were drinking these 40-oz beers, which rocked because they took a while to drink and you could relax without them getting really hot from holding them, and we thought they were funny, because who drinks 40s? Exactly. So we asked the bartender to take our picture, and his "I have an idea!" lightbulb flashed on and he started piling up all the paraphernalia you see here (which you'll note not only includes glasses and booze, but also stuff like a napkin holder). The result? Not the intent...you can't even see the giant beers!

I enjoy this because NO ONE is looking the right direction, I have the drunk-effect going on, and instead of holding the camera up to get everyone in the frame, someone put it in their lap. Who is in charge of this event??

The Weege and Scarlett in the hallway - again, we were on our way to dinner, so no one in this picture is drunk! What the hell is going on with this? I will give you five dollars of my own personal money if you can explain it.

This would be Scarlett and The Mexican, having mended their differences (I HATE YOU! No wait, I like you, you're cute.), in a random hallway outside the theatre. I LOVE this dress of Scarlett's and totally covet it.
The Weege and Scarlett in the bathroom...something we noticed on this - presumably these two were in the girl's bathroom, and yet there is clearly a man in the background going into a stall. There was one time that they got desperate in the miles-long line for the ladies' room and hit up the mens' room, but all accounts say that it wasn't the formal night, which their outfits tell us it is in this picture.

Ahh, the airport. This would be the response to Scarlett BELLOWING to me that she was taking my picture.

This is Scarlett's sad face and The Weege's....well, what would YOU call that? Her zombie face? Once again, The Weege appears to have lost control of her face.

I...nothing.

This is what we mean when we say The Weege looked like a mental hospital escapee in New Orleans. Tell me this woman wouldn't bite you if you got in range.

And finally...Scarlett and I in Tampa. Yay cruise!