have you SEEN what a gorgeous day it is outside?

'managed to get thru the work weekend, roughly in one piece. rented "dan, in real life". incredible movie. Must. Go. Buy. love the music, too.....sandre lerche is a genius. also watched: "i am legend". very intense. very sad. very will smith.

the universe has shifted. the p7 came home yesterday in a delightful mood. she took the dog out without being told. she took out both AR books and read them without throwing herself in a heap on the floor and writhing about in so much agony at the injustice of it all. while i was grilling, mind you. she then announced she thought she'd like to do her Entire Homework Packet. in one night. which she did. all 7 pages.

she got up this morning. by the alarm clock. on her own. she dressed,

brushed her hair and then came in the bedroom, bent over to give me a peck on the cheek and said "good morning, mama. i'm going to get some
applejacks for breakfast, ok?"

i'm still reeling.

either God is giving me the day off, or the evil prepubescent demons are sleeping in. either way, i'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

in other news. see this cute guy? adorable, isn't he. one would never guess that beyond his chocolate gaze and wrinkled t-rex paws, lies a dark plan for the deconstruction of my sanity.

week 2 of operation "puppy-pad meet outdoors" is going off like a lead balloon. i can't blame it all on his evil-ness-ish...we humans can be danged confusing. he loves to go outside. but the connection between the peeing and the grass has somehow short-circuited. somewhere between the hard-wood, yesterday ~ my left foot, and the front door.

le sigh. i may not survive.

the 'hood

i've worked the weekend pm shift a year, now, at my job. i work for the state, in the mental health field, taking care of 2 women with retardation in their home. needless to say, my sleep patterns, therefore, are eratic at best. its not uncommon for me to be up 36 hours straight, and counting, when i come off my shift, in attempt to gear up for the week in front of me. 'getting back to *normal* hours, as they say. this holds especially true in the summer, when bella is up @ the crack of dawn, raring to go.

i have a love/loathe relationship with our home. for a variety of reasons. mostly, i'm thankful that we have it. and every time we update another little nook or cranny, i fall in love with it all over again. i love this area of town. 'have wanted to live here for years. the neighborhoods are so inviting. the school is tops. the houses, gorgeous. so when we moved back from our brief hiatus in the midwest, this was my first drive-by. when i actually saw a *for rent* sign out front, i had to blink hard, twice, and practically slammed on the brakes for jason. i ran around front and back, trying to peer thru windows, and within the hour, was on the phone to the landlord.

its one of the historical houses here. a large 2-story that they made the unfortunate decision of splitting into 2 apartments, long ago. we would have the entire downstairs. the rooms are ginormous. enough so, to dwarf even our beloved california king. you could fit a hot tub and a full dance routine with ease, in the bathroom. it feels like a house, instead of just another apartment.

the landlord showed us bits of this and bits of that. 'mentioned the upstairs neighbor was a quiet college student. 'didn't even have a car. we should have "no problems with the neighbors". matter of fact, he didn't know how long she'd be there. we'd have the parking in the back, as well as a huge back yard, fenced on both sides.

the neighborhood is warm and inviting. alot of dog owners. we've got a good mix, from the yuppy middle-aged to the older, retired. even the newly remodeled frat house down the way, seems to be a pretty decent bunch of guys. for the most part, neighbors are friendly, bordering on interactive. shock!

as with any rental, there are ups and downs. i loved the hardwood. bella's bedroom had a decent plush carpet. the master had the cheap apartment carpet they put everywhere. unraveling at the seams. 'been here awhile. most definately had seen better days. the place needed alot of cleanup after the previous inhabitant: an outdoorsy bachelor and his dog. i found memories of his dog, all over the 6x8 carpeted portion of the bathroom. i could almost imagine the 2 of them standing side by side. :shiver: i made plans to put down interlocking wood laminate in that spot. the thought of stepping barefoot in there made me queasy.

at any rate, i'm a fixer-upper, by nature. we've always left a rental better than what we'd moved into. i have an eye for color and detail. jason's handy with a paint-brush. i deftly maneuvered a move-in deal: we'd do the cleanup. he'd wave the first months rent. on my 3rd trip to clean carpets after work one evening, i noticed neighbor(s). plural. for the first time.

when they split up the house, they initially had 2 entrances in the front. our master used to be the living room. at the time, i suppose it was the easiest way to get around the upstairs/downstairs dilemma, without building on a whole partition. they eventually saw the error of their ways and we now have our own side entrance. unfortunately, the neighbors still come up the front, right by the window which is parallel to the bed, which is 3 feet away. this, in itself, would not be a negative thing, if our neighbors weren't the type that come tromping up on the porch at 2, 3, 4, in the morning.

that night, while scrubbing away, i was amazed at the amount of traffic in front of the house. cars pulling up. girl running down the stairs and to the car. cars driving off. girl running back up the stairs. repeat. hmmmmmm.

we quickly learned there was not just 1 but at least 3 girls living upstairs. and if they were college students, then i'm a size 2 blonde. our initial futile attempts at neighborly friendliness went off like a wet rocket. we were completely snubbed. they even ignored my child. :gasp:

the noise was unbelievable. as was the traffic in and out of their apartment, like a revolving door. it was nothing for them to vacuum at 3 am. or to hear someone banging on the door at 4. 2 months after we'd moved in, jason had a rude awakening one night, while sitting outside. six undercover police cars pulled up at once, like a scene from a movie, and surrounded the house. two officers came up and began asking jason questions. did he know this girl. what were their patterns. what was the landlords information. jason peeked out the front window and watched as they kicked open the door and eventually brought out the oldest girl in handcuffs.

there was no activity for over a month. then one night, we noticed a light on upstairs. one of the girls had returned. then, two.... our peace was short-lived. they were back. and with a vengeance. the noise resumed. at least 2 men had now moved in as well. there were arguments. police visits for what i can only imagine to be domestic disputes. we called animal control one morning when we were awakened by the frantic crying of a puppy, stuck halfway between their bannister and thin air.

and then, they started throwing food out a side-window. at first, i ignored it. it was mostly bread, potatoe peelings, etc...but then it was grease. running down the side of the house. i'd had enough, one day, when i came outside to walk kodah, and there, scattered all around our front deck, were strips of raw chicken. later, that same afternoon, it was what appeared to be an entire loaf of bread. i calmly came inside, grabbed a plastic grocery bag and some gloves and scooped it all up inside the bag, then tied it neatly and sat it around front on the bottom step of their porch. in my mind, i thought this was the nicest, quietest way of dealing with the issue. i hoped they would get my point. i had avoided talking with the landlord up to now, because both jason and i were more the laid-back type. live and let live. but this bordered on ridiculous.


instead, i watched from the living room, as 2 of them walked around the house, laughing, pouring the contents from the bag in the exact same spot. i headed for the door in oh no you just didn't mode as they ran off, jumping in their car. by this time, i was more than just annoyed. they sat, watching me pick it all back up and carry it out to the garbage. finally, one rolled down a window and hollered "we like to feed the birds!"

wow. they could speak.

i walked abit closer and said, "that's cool...we feed the birds too. its just....could they maybe please toss their scraps in the vacant yard beside us?"

she shot back: "its just bread, lady."

"well. no it isn't. i've got a little girl and a dog that play outside. you're throwing cooking grease out as well as raw meat. I don't throw my trash in your front yard.

they replied with "we like to feed the birds!!" and spun off in a peel of giggles.

the next day, there was a note in our mailbox, written in big, bubbly letters, telling us we were "annoying", and that they'd "never had neighbors like us."

i responded with a very kind but to-the-point letter, myself. i apologized if we'd been annoying and gave our phone number in case it ever happened again.... that we certainly didn't want to offend them. i asked them politely, if they were aware how loud they were at all hours of the night. i reminded them, gently, that the landlord was only aware of one tennant, not 5, and that we had been kind enough not to bring their numerous police visits to his attention.

i received a note the very next day, apologizing, and thanking us for not involving the landlord. she said she was 6 months pregnant and that she'd made bad decisions in her love life but she was a good person. that the police were always in her business. she said they'd stop throwing out their scraps and they'd try to be quieter.

for awhile, that seemed to solve the problem. things weren't perfect, but i recognized and appreciated their attempt at trying. i realized she'd had the baby, one day, while taking out the trash. i saw a bassinet box in the alley. my heart went out to her. i'd since discovered she lived there with custody of her younger sister and a toddler we had never seen. half their rent was paid by the state. they are on welfare and she goes to school part time, in effort to keep all of this. i had a sneaking suspicion they were selling something extra on the side.

for about a week, i tossed the idea back and forth, whether or not i should leave a little peace offering on their doorstep. maybe some diapers. maybe a gift card. in the end, i decided not to. but there are those moments when i think we truly miss out on the bigger picture, simply because we choose not to step outside our comfort zone. this is one of them.

shortly after the baby arrived, a new man did, as well. he seemed nice, actually spoke to us in passing, and seemed friendly when he stopped at our yard sale in the spring. but it wasn't long before the fighting started again. one night, bella and i were laying in bed reading an AR book for school. jason was outside with one of his buddies, working on his boat, when we heard what i can best describe as a piano being thrown off the deck onto an oncoming car. we ran outside just as the guys came around the house. there was no piano but alot of screaming, spilling out in to the street. jason immediately dialed 9-1-1 and police were there within minutes. as soon as they pulled up, however, every light upstairs went out. they refused to answer the door and we were left standing there scratching our heads, along with the officers.

its unfortunate, they are the one dark cloud on this street. unfortunate, all the more, that they live on top of us. because i have the ears of a bat and i sleep so light anyway, their night time routine is a great source of aggravation for me, and over the past months, i've gotten to where i actually need a sleeping pill a couple times a week, just so i can sleep a few hours, rather than minutes.

last night, i was woke up around 2 in the morning by screaming and banging upstairs. eventually, they made it downstairs and onto the street. him, half-naked, and her, chasing behind him with a blanket. it took me forever to get back to sleep. today, i go between feeling she's so incredibly stupid for repeating this pattern over and over, and then feeling sorry for her because she's so obviously being abused in some way, shape or form. i wonder if she honestly doesn't know any better. i worry for the safety of her 2 small children. and i wonder what my place is, in the process, so that i'm not just another bystander that has failed her.

v to the jayjay

kim called this afternoon. surprisingly chipper for just giving birth.

i see your drugs haven't worn off yet.
yah, well. you try going it the natural route.
touche'.
you should see him, kat. he's gorgeous. looks just like dad.
lets talk about why we went with "dean" instead of "dane", shall we? i, for one, would just like to announce my marked dissapointment.
dustin liked "dean".
fine. lets talk about why you really called. how's the woo.
ugh.....i had to get an episiotimy.
bet you're glad you didn't hafta feel that sucker.
:exasperated: i'm sooooo grateful i have you to discuss all my personal issues.
hey. thats' what big sisters are for.

thursday thhbbtts

this is my new favoritest thing, since snuggles new peach blossom dryer sheets: palmolive scrub buster crisp blast. its smell-good and a pretty bottle all wrapped up in one. and if you're like me, that's important.

also, you'll want to take note of my fancy schmanzy use of html up there. which reminds me. not a one of you reminded me to get my ink cartridges filled @ walgreens for free yesterday. i trust this was because you all were standing in line to do just that.

so i am an auntie for the 3rd time around. weston dean. both mama and mini squirt are doing fabulously. but i'm highly dissapointed in their choice of middle name. i may need to leave them out of my will, now.

also, my house poking was a bust. small world that it is, turns out the "auto-mechanics teacher-turned-realtor" actually used to teach jason in high school. my hopeful introduction lost its hope pretty durned fast, when we spent the first 5 minutes talking on the porch, with him blocking the door. i realized that to enter the promised land, we first must pass his spanish inquisition, so i pretty much gave up right then and there...kind of zoned out and drooled on myself.

i dunno. either jason was a rotten student or i wasn't holding my mouth right. but by the time he'd actually opened the door for us to enter the house, i was already heading for the car in my mind. i stuck it out tho, always morbidly curious as to the many creative ways my ballons can be popped. we didn't even get to the basement and the workshop. he brought us back to the living room and turns out i gave him his out.

we stood and shot the breeze about gas vs. electric and then i struck. "so we mentioned we have 2 adult male cats. both fixed. and a miniature weenie dog. did we talk about a pet deposit?"

he faked a cringe and snapped a thumb-to-finger... "gosh. i'd have to go with a nooo, for this house, honey. 'wish i'd have known about that...could've cleared that up front....don't really want pets here. "

i snapped my mouth closed and nodded like the stupid person he obviously took me for, recalling 3 seperate phone conversations prior, with this same man, and the terms "sure! we're pet negotiable!" and, "how soon could you move?" and "we'll work something out with the deposit" and, "i'm not worried about it." and, "i'm so glad you called!"

he realized his error. but too late. he feebly attempted to cover it with a "yeaaah. i'm pretty sure i've got someone lined up for this place, aaaanyway. had alot of interest."

what the hello ever.

in the same breath, he actually recommended we look at a trailer of his, down the road.

a trailer. down the road. it may as well have been a van, down by the river, at that point.

i don't know about you, but for some reason, i find that offensive. do i look like i should live in a trailer? i thought i'd scrubbed my redneck as hard as i could. i opted against teasing my hair for our little open house, and at the last minute, threw my nascar teeshirt in the laundry.... i even clipped my toenails.

ugh. ::shiver::

its certainly not that i haven't, or wouldn't again, but just the fact that that was his peace offering. it was insulting. which i managed to relay, after obliging him and following him over to look at it. i guess, when i'm displeased, people tend to read me like a book. we spent all of 2 minutes inside and i walked back out while jason scrambled to be kind. the landlord mumbled "some people don't really like trailers...some do..." and i shot back with, "well. we've been there, done that... kinda trying to move up in the world, you know. i suppose that's why i called about the house. "

after that, well.. there wasn't much more to say. we exchanged pleasantries. he mentioned 3 other houses in the hood that he's renting and i climbed back in the car and sucked my face inside out, refusing to cry.

so its another day in paradise. but the way i see it, paradise isn't all that bad.

here's what i know

you can't change anything if you're not willing to change.

talking to christy last nite, i realized i'm very jaded. its not that i've lost total optimism. its just that logic and realism tend to pale that, in comparison. kicked one too many times while you're down, can do that to a person. i'm no martyr, and a visit to the trailer park a few miles down, will leave you with the impression that i'm living at the ritz. there are plenty, worse off than me. but in my life, i've lost alot. i've had times of plenty, and i can't tell you how many times that good things have been ripped from my life.

that's humbling, at best. and at worst, just plain phbbtty, m'gritty.

i consider myself to be an empathetic person. but the older, more experienced i become, the less patient, understanding, i am, when it comes to people running in circles. if i've had to do it, by toads, so can you, kind of philosophy. thats not fair, but i acknowledge that wholeheartedly.

so somewhere in the midst of all this, my eleventeenth midlife crisis, we decided maybe it would be a good idea to move in together? 3 adults. splitting the bills 3 ways. an interim, some breathing room, a stopping off place,while everyone gets back up on their feet. we're all going thru a difficult stage. so why not alleviate some of the pressure in the process....

i think, sometimes, God gets a great deal of enjoyment out of all my scheming. you'll notice that i never took the time to ask Him, during all this decison making.

i have a bad habit of surrounding myself with chaos, which directly contradicts my ocd/anal retention, and, i have a sneaking suspicion, God. the truth is, i'm in love with spontaneity but i cling to, aka worship order. talk about some yin to your yang. trouble is, my harmonic balance always ends up just a smidge off skew.

this idea has been no different. here we live, paycheck to paycheck, not unlike half of middle america. we have nothing saved back. not because we're lazy but because we're never able to. 3 very different adults, struggling to get by, get thru, heal, change... a couple, sorting thru their marriage, my dear friend, feeling confused and convicted/conflicted as a lesbian, 1 headstrong 7 year old, going on 17. four very different personalities. throw in 2 extra dogs and cats and alot of emotional baggage, and we've made ourselves a home, no?

in theory, i know what you're saying. it sounds all a little too romantic and white-picket-fence. ha! but i lie awake at night, wondering how in the world we'd ever pull that off. so when she called last night and voiced her doubts, in not so many words, i was at once, relieved and then just irritated. she wondered if she'd dissapointed me, and i was honest: the only person dissapointing me these days, is me. i was irritated not because i've already harbored the sneaking suspicion it would never happen....that it didn't need to happen...but humbled, because yet again, this wasn't something i'd really talked to God about. i was aggravated that she was not ready or willing to take that step, when by toads, if i am, then someone else better be, right?

that's not to say i'm always so great at stepping out, myself. who are we kidding. but i think thats wounded me far more than helped me, in my life. learned behavior can be changed. but 10-1, its not gonna happen overnite. and very rarely, is it a picnic in the park. i've wanted healing for her. but there again, i can't make that happen on my own. sometimes, i think i'd do well with a personal assistant to reign me in....

this house, tho has its finer points, has slowly lost its charm. and yet i know a great deal of that has to do with what happened a year ago. that, and our upstairs neighbors, possibly. its ironic, i say that.... goes to show that the grass is not always greener on the other side. when i first moved to this section of tennessee, i fell in love with the tree streets here. large, older homes, full of history and quiet, stoic beauty. i could see myself here. and i felt like actually getting here, years later, was an answered prayer. i suppose it was, in a way. God answered it, but only to allow me to see the bigger picture.

like so many other things, it feels tainted, after all this time.

but i also have trouble with staying focused and blooming where i'm planted.... so there you have it.

we're going to look at that other house today anyway. even tho christy is no longer along for the ride. even tho its $100 more than we pay currently. even tho its not the best time. and we have nothing to go on. nothing really going for us. but i prayed the other night that God woul lead us in the right direction, either way. so, in the same token, we have nothing, therefore, to lose. i laid in bed last night, listening to the neighbors either break down their meth lab or practice bowling, one, and imagined where/how i'd position everything there. how nicely it would all fit together. how we wouldn't have to creatively store (cram) things in closets, like you do, with apartment living. how we'd have a huge yard, and a basement - complete with a workshop. a garden building. room for a garden. how i'd arrange the built-in bookshelves. how i'd have no carpets to clean. how jason could park his yacht (bass boat) in something other than the yard.

i want it.

i don't know how or where or why that might ever fit into Gods plan, and it more than likely won't. but i want it, all the same. and so, for a few moments tonight, i'm going to enjoy peeking in corners and cupboards and closets and daydream how all of our things would fit so nicely into all of them.