2002-10-08 - 6:47 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "You Never Give Me Your Money", Beatles

Well.

Last couple week has been something of a roller-coaster for me, related to the house. I go from "This house is so awesome! I love this house!" to "Oh my GAWD, if I EVER meet that geezer I will LAUGH in his FACE."

During the latter times, I am consumed with hatred.

There are the little tidbits the neighbors are dropping, indicating he's not really all that nice of a man. "He was, well, I wouldn't say slimy, but he was, well, I can see how he would cut corners", and "Half the time he didn't even park in his garage! He would just park in front, sometimes blocking our door. Maybe he was lazy, I don't know."

And then there are the unending, horrendously stupid home, uh, home SOMETHINGS (I wouldn't call it "home repair") that he's done to this house. Every time we go to fix one thing, we find three more things to fix. F'r instance:

- Half the light switches are deliberately installed upside-down. So that when the light is on, the switch is down, and it says "NO", because the switch itself is upside-down. Either "down is ON" is how they do things in Israel (does anybody know?) and he was doing his best with American light switches, or the guy's got a superstition or OCD.

- Half the light bulbs are burned out. I mean, I would expect a few to be burned out, but I'd have to say literally half of them had to be replaced.

- The entire kitchen, plus a few other things, is on a single breaker. Ugh.

- Did I mention that he painted some of the recessed lighting bulbs when painting the ceilings?

- He somehow managed to create a leak in the BRAND NEW garbage disposal. A leak out the BOTTOM, where the MOTOR is. Meaning we have to REPLACE it. It's a $160 garbage disposal. Whether this is related to all the paint that seems to be in there, I don't know.

- Instead of buying a single dryer vent hose, he bought two, OF DIFFERENT SIZES, and somehow jammed them together. Eventually they fell apart, leaking humid dryer air, confusing the hell out of Poindexter for a while because the place where the hose goes into the wall was plenty tight. After Poindexter discovered this one, he said angrily to me, "I bet this guy thought he was the second coming of MacGyver," followed by some terms Poindexter deemed more appropriate for the man, including "dumbshit", "idiot", "goddamn son of a bitch", etc.

- The dishwasher was FILTHY, full of DIRT. I cleaned the dishwasher out, then ran it, and discovered more dirt coming in. It was all in the drain hose. The expression on Poindexter's face when he looked into the drain hose was so revolted I couldn't stand to look for myself. Poindexter replaced that, making me a very, very happy woman. After seven long months, I finally have a working dishwasher again. Not to mention, I'm relieved that we don't have to spend money to buy a new one yet.

- He was too cheap or lazy to buy painter's tape, choosing to use regular masking tape instead. So there is a sticky frame of adhesive all around the black metal fireplace frame. First I had to clean up his paint splatters, and now I have to get the adhesive off. Mineral spirits, my dad says. I'm sure it involves a shitload of scrubbing, which I HATE.

I hate HIM.

Anyway.

Despite the geezer's best efforts, the house is still just freakin' awesome. Being here all day long, seeing how the light pours through the house at different times of day, is just amazing. I've been trying to take pictures of it, but I can't do it justice. It's just golden, all day long. In the morning I have to wear sunglasses in the kitchen so I don't get a headache.

I love living in a real neighborhood. I see people I know every time I go out. There are little kids playing in a courtyard nearby, there are dogs everywhere, and there are old people sitting on the stoops taking in the sights.

There are old people nagging me to have children, too. I met one of my neighbors, a 70ish woman, through another neighbor. She asked me if I had kids, and I said, "Not yet," which is my standard reply to old people who seem unlikely to really understand the concept of choosing not to have children. She said, bossily, "Not yet?! What are you waiting for?!" I was taken aback, and she continued, "Are you waiting for winter, so you can cuddle up inside from the cold?!" I smiled hugely and said, "Yeah!"

I told Poindexter later that I should start saying, "Well, we're working on it, but nothing's happening! Are we doing it wrong?" His suggestion was that I squeeze out a tear and say "We can't have children" just to make them feel guilty for asking.

The commute is not bad. I drive Poindexter to work every day. We actually found a fairly direct route, using surface streets, that only takes 10-15 minutes, depending on how many school buses and delivery vans are in the way. It's working out really well, although I miss having him come home for lunch. I am also getting used to the hyper-alert state that city driving requires, always on the lookout for the ubiquitous manholes and potholes, weaving cars, bikers biking at 5mph and making turns without looking, and jaywalking pedestrians. I think this is the first time I've ever done an entire commute below 25mph. I console myself with the idea that if I hit a biker or jaywalking pedestrian, at least I'll only be going about 20mph.

The bikers are awful. It's a shame, because a bike is a great way to get around the city, and anything that takes cars off the roads sounds good to me. And they could remove half the sidewalk in many places and still have plenty of room for pedestrians, making the removed part a bike lane. But the bikers here are nerve-wracking. Only 1 in 10 is wearing a helmet. Many of them ignore stop signs and traffic lights. Some of them will start to weave outward into traffic without looking over their shoulder to see if a car is near them. It's just awful. Lots of times when I am creeping forward at a four-way stop sign, I'll look and not see any other cars and be ready to go, and a biker comes flying through the stop sign without slowing down. And to think, some country in Europe recently wanted to make automobiles fully liable in all bike-car accidents. Fuck that. If that biker ran a stop sign, there's definitely some biker-fault involved.

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