the modernity ward

Unsolicited Commercial: Baby/Kid Clothes

Positively Organic is having a sale -- 50% off EVERYTHING, using the coupon code PO-xmas-09. I have to tell you I bought a bunch of their stuff on clearance THREE years ago for Sophia, and Daphne is wearing them now only because I wrested them away from Sophia on whom the pants are now shorts.

We bought a bunch of the yoga pants, and they are SO comfortable that my highly sensitive kid wore a pair almost every day (and most nights) for a couple of years. They've held up really well too. Ditto on the varsity shirts. I had to hide those or Sophia would be wearing them still. They're thick and soft and roomy without being floppy in the sleeve. Anyway, we absolutely love their stuff, and with the sale (through Dec. 24) it's an amazing value.

They fit cloth diapers well, too. I just wish they made grown-up clothes.

Look, I'd Rather Not Be Writing This

But there is not a goddamned thing on television. Man, I hate the nights when Roseanne isn't on! And at what point did the History Channel switch to the All-Nostradamus, All The Time channel? At least Nostradamus is nominally historical. I think 80% of their programming is 2012-related, or Siberian-fireball-UFO-related. I'm just waiting for "I Was Pregnant -- And Didn't Know I Had Morgellons Disease" to hit the airwaves.

Yes, I used a Wikipedia link. It's actually the least ridiculous source on the subject.

The other night I saw my most terrifying nightmares made into a show. Lo these many years y'all have laughed when I expressed my zero-at-the-bone terror of large freshwater fish brushing up against me -- and sure, maybe there aren't coelacanths to be found in Cheney Lake -- but look at this motherfucker. And this. They're really just fancy catfish, and I assure you, there are catfish aplenty in the good old U.S.A.

Fish are fucking creepy, is what I'm saying. Especially catfish. Because they eat dead people. And poop.

In other news, we have a loaner car while the embarrassing amount of body damage on our Civic is being repaired. It's a shiny black Sebring, and boy, do I feel ridiculous in it, but it's awfully nice to be able to reach the drive-through window and drive-up ATM without getting out of my car and climbing up on an overturned bucket. Also it has satellite radio, which in turn features an all-Chanukah station. Sophia is WAY into that, so in the car we hear about 20% "Dreidl, Dreidl, Dreidl," 20% that one Ladino song about dos candelikas et cetera, 20% "Sevivon, Sov Sov Sov," and a bunch of Woody Guthrie Chanukah songs, and no, I don't know the back story on that.

The remainder of the time is occupied by hilariously jazzy songs positing that Santa Claus is, in fact, a Jew, and under that hat he's got a yarmulke, and he drops down the chimney and heads straight for the knaidlach in the kitchen. I am not making this up. There is more than one song like this, and in fact there are more than three.

So those are the things occupying my mind when I'm not thinking about house-related things. Some of it is good, like oh my god I am finally going to get to PAINT things and I am going to paint our bedroom a really deep indigo. It is currently an absolutely hideous rose. The girls' bedroom is a pleasant pale pink, but the master, ecch. Pepto city. All I can think when I see those rooms is, "My colors are blush and bashful."

Some of it is about how we will never again ever have money for anything ever. Which is not entirely true, but it feels like it. We've been renting for...more than a decade. It's, you know, one of them paradigm shifts.

But I am ALL about the cheap home updates: homemade sandbox. Homemade amphibian habitat pond. Grape arbor. Chicken coop. Chalkboard paint for the kids. Weatherstripping! Caulk!

Laundry just steps from the bedrooms. Oh yeah.

This Morning

Sophia poured herself a nice glass of maple syrup and then drew pipkas* all over the wall with a pencil.

If anyone asks, they're fortune cookies.

*Pipka: Polish slang for little girl parts. Pronounced "peepka."

Prepared to Repair

The estimate was...eminently reasonable. Even tacking on a extra 50% for unforeseens, it's within budget. So...

...pending radon results, coming back this afternoon...

...we'll move on to the FHA appraisal, which probably will result in some things they have to fix.

Step by step and all that. Whoo!

The Surefire Way to Avoid Foundation Problems

Is not to have a foundation at all.

That's not to say there won't be problems, ohnosirree, they just won't be foundation problems. 

Old houses were sometimes just built right atop the dirt crawl space, and this would be one of them. It's held up by popsicle sticks and rolled-up old newspapers and possum bones, and in some places the possum bones have rotted away or been cut through for various reasons, and so those are going to have to be replaced. The floor has some pronounced slopes and the side of the house has a bit of a bulge. Not the issue it would be in, say, a brick house with a cinderblock foundation. But has to be fixed.

Also beneath the house are some seriously antique water pipes and drains, made of cast iron. And they are so seriously corroded that they are leaking into the dirt...under the house...where the foundation is not. Which is not a huge deal, but does need to be addressed.

There are also some outlets that need to be replaced, some plumbing vent pipes that need to be installed and/or extended, a dryer vent that needs to be vented outside and not into -- you guessed it -- the crawl space, and goddamn if they didn't scatter two boxes of mothballs under the house.

Since there's no subflooring, yeah, the house smells of mothball. We did specify they had to remove those. I wonder how long to air out the smell.

In the longer term, there are a few major appliances coming to the end of their lives, a roof that has a few years left in it, and a paint job that's a couple years out from an update.

Find out about the radon in a couple days. And yes, that's something that would cause us to renegotiate. Right now, our realtor is getting a few rough estimates on what it might cost to do these repairs -- and we'll see if that's enough to renegotiate, or if we'll just eat it.

On the upside, there's spray foam insulation through most of the house (with one exception -- the back of the hallway has NO insulation!), and despite the floor problems the tiled floors have no cracks. The tub has been reglazed (though I'm still testing for lead before we put kids in it) and the upstairs is even nicer than I remembered. All the windows open and have nice screens (a real oddity for old houses in Nashville).

So? We'll see, I guess. Yikes.

Eeeeeeeeee!

We'regonnagetahouseohmygodtheyacceptedourofferaaaaaaaahhhhh!

So, update:

We have an inspection scheduled tomorrow. The radon test will take three days, so probably we'll know by Monday what the deal is there. We're buying it as-is, but if there's something huge like a radon problem, we might have to step back.

I hereby pledge to share anything hilarious turned up in the inspection, and furthermore a story involving my attempts to procure a contraceptive device from the Vanderbilt midwives practice, which frankly is NOT impressing me with their callback time. Maybe it's an attempt to generate business on the front end, if you will.

Nothing to Report

Soon maybe we'll have some house news though...

Free Lancing

You know, like a boil. Or something.

I have elected to become a freelance content-generating robot, and it's nice to have bubblegum money, but it's taking away from my blogging, a little bit. Well, no. That's not entirely true. It's taking away from my worthless dicking around on the internet, is what it's doing, which is a good thing -- but man, I'm tired. Tired enough that I have a persistent eyelid twitch, and the theme from "Night Court" permanently, insistently, playing in my head.

Our neighbor across the street died day before yesterday. It wasn't unexpected, coming at the end of a long agonizing illness, but... she had two little children, just a little older than mine (respectively). So we had to talk about that, since the kids are always playing together. Sophia looked up from her coloring like somebody'd goosed her with a cattle prod when I said "died." This woman, we had never even met her, she'd been ill since before we even moved to town, but -- ach. We know the kids, we know her husband, we know her father and the neighbors who have known her. Like I've said, this block is a pretty tight-knit community.

My heart aches for the family, and for those kids, and I feel a little extra ferocious in my love for my girls. Sophia wanted to know what it feels like to die -- something we've been talking about for a while now -- and I told her that nobody really knows, but that when a person has been in pain for a long time, when they die they don't hurt any more.

And that's about all I've got this morning. It's a beautifully bleak end-of-November day (I really do love this weather!) and there's going to be a lot of soup this week. How y'all doing?

Dude, What Day Is It Again?

The past five days have involved:

• black widow hiding in recycle bin (huge)
• Sophia perforated eardrum (awful)
• Daphne cold same night (seriously, I got like three hours of sleep max)
• Sean out of town (see above) (also, now back)
• House hunting (frantic flailing about as market dead in pre-holiday period)
• MY house, THE house, the one we made an offer on and didn't get, having an open house
• BUT nobody has bought it yet
• SO we're resubmitting the offer
• Apocalyptic flea infestation (Advantage in the mail)
• Dad in a holding pattern
• Toilet requiring plunging
• Cat barfed off edge of desk
• Freelance articles here and there (yay)
• Some other things I am forgetting, because
• All I can think about is houses.

Seriously, I am ready to have the deed in hand, because then I can stop thinking about it! But right now all I can think is, my god, who would let US have a HOUSE? Because we're a couple of nine-year-olds! We don't own property! You should see our car! It looks like a moose kicked it!

I try to imagine us as homeowners and it inevitably devolves into some scenario involving us running in circles shrieking and going out to poop in the yard. I mean, sure, we're taking good care of our kids, up to code if you will, and seem to be managing our affairs sensibly enough. No credit card debt or anything. But...

When Sean is out of town, I keep the house together pretty well up until the last day. I feed the kids well and make sure all the little needs are met. The whole time, though, I eat like a 19-year-old boy who is alternating between uppers and weed. Nothing for long stretches, then an entire tub of Oatmeal Cranberry Dunkers and half a case of Diet Coke. Couple apple slices for breakfast, then six bowls of cereal and a cheeseburger at lunch. What if it turns out I'm like that with house maintenance?

I never worried once about my ability to take care of a newborn baby, but a house? Whole different ballgame, that.

Armed and Dangerous

If you have little kids, you're used to the hefting: baby up, baby down, preschooler out of immediate harm's way, groceries, laundry. I was standing in a parking lot yesterday hefting the stroller out of the trunk for the nine frillionth time when I heard, in an approving tone, "Hey, strong arms!"

My admirer was a young man in the next car over. He was either a college football player or a model who plays a college football player in cologne ads, and he was clearly not hitting on me -- just genuinely admiring my massive guns -- so I smiled and pointed to the twenty-five pound baby I was then hefting into the hefty stroller. "Best upper-body workout in the world," I said, or something equally dumb, making sure to flash my braces and maybe a tantalizing sliver of stretchmarked belly from beneath my applesauce-encrusted t-shirt.

"Well, have a good day!" he said, smiling, and drove off. I leaned down to kiss my baby as I buckled her in.

Then I made sure to kiss each bicep.

* * * *

So I've got these mighty arms, like that green cartoon flea with the twirly mustache, and I've got all this barely suppressed anger and rage, and I was thinking that maybe, instead of periodically getting frustrated that the baby is awake again for the fourth time in two hours and karate-chopping the top of the ancient seagrass hamper until it breaks last night, I could harness my powers for good.

I was thinking I could beat up some child molesters or something. Maybe put up an ad on late night TV: "Do you have BAD PEOPLE in your life or possibly your neighborhood? Did you read a disturbing news story about a HORRIBLE PERSON? Do you want a MAD LADY to BEAT THEM UP?" And then there'd be a frame of me standing very still (we couldn't afford a real freeze frame) posing in a muscular, aggressive position. "Five foot four inches of compressed fury, ready to unleash an ARM-ageddon of hurt on whomever is troubling your peace of mind!"

And then I could beat up some wicker furniture or something. To show the extent of my fury.

Of course I'd have to review the evidence in every case, but I was thinking it would be a free service.