My Passive Agressive Nature

Between a temperamental A/C (its been out twice more since the last post), a big snafu at the office, and a really overwhelming feeling of missing my family this week (I get like this when they are all in the same spot and I’m not there…made worse by the fact that they are in Hawaii and I’m in Hotson.) you’d think I have enough on my plate to not let something little get under my skin.

You’d be Wrong.

One of my new neighbors has college aged children who are home for the summer. And they are popular. I know this because they have a constant stream of SUV’s parked at their house. Only, they aren’t parked at their house. They are parked at my house. Always. Its not like there are 5 cars at any given time, and they are using the area in front of my house as overflow parking. Rather, its always one or two cars, and they insist on parking in front of my house, despite the fact that there are 30 yards of perfectly good, unused, curb space in front of the house they are visiting. For a while, I thought I was being irrational. I mean, does it really matter where they park? But the more I think about it, the more it needles at me. I mean, if they would just pull up a few feet, they would be in front of the correct house, but they refuse to do this. And its not just every once in a while. It's every day. Evvvverrrrryyy.

As much as it annoys me, it drives the HSH even crazier. He came home the other day and we had some visitors in our driveway, so he wanted to park in the street. Only he couldn’t because our neighbor’s guests had monopolized the space in front of our house. It wasn’t a big deal because the HSH just had to drive a few feet further down and park in front of their house, but that just made it worse to him! I mean, why couldn’t THEY park there, and leave our curb to us and OUR guests? I thought his head was going to pop off his neck.

So this all begs the question: What do we do about it? I know the mature thing to do is just say something to them. Find some way to politely ask them to please pull forward. But the thing is, I don’t know how to phrase it without sounding like a total bitch. The Rice2029 crew are firm proponents of the direct method (as our new neighbors, they have been monitoring the situation closely). Even little Emily is confused by the situation, asking me last time she was there "Is that your car Posies?" Jason (who also lives in the neighborhood and has noticed/commented on the situation) thinks I should leave a note. He is only saying this though so he can take a picture for one of our favorite websites. Other suggested solutions range from the mildly passive aggressive (parking there myself and hope they get the hint) to the downright hostile (I’m sure you can imagine). And trust me, everyone has a suggestion because everyone who has been to our house has noticed, and thinks its unusual. So its not just me, if you were wondering. I'm not sure what to do! I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with my new neighbors, especially since they seem super nice in every other regard, but this is really driving me batty!

So what do you guys think? Should I say something? Should I just suffer in silence (yes, this is my version of silence) and hope the problem fixes itself eventually? Should I start leaving nails and glass in the gutter in the middle of the night? Guide me wise ones. (And no, the nails/glass thing is not really on the table as an eligible solution.)


And just because I haven’t had pictures in my posts lately, and everyone knows what a drag that is, here is a cute one of Rip. He always parks his car in front of the correct house.

Surface of the Sun Hot

I have decided being an adult sucks. I would like to return my membership card NOW. Who do I turn this thing in to? If you could direct me to the correct state or federal bureaucracy I would appreciate it. Or maybe I need to turn it back in to my parents. I’m not sure who, but at this point I’m desperate.

I adore my new house, but ownership has not come without some heartache. We’ve had a variety of things go wrong, but we keep reminding ourselves, the house is over 60 years old. We knew these things were going to happen, and planned for it. First it was the chimney. Then the light in my oven doesn’t work (and no it’s not the lightbulb). Then a leak from the A/C. Then the driveway seems to be disappearing before my eyes. And mysteriously, I seem to only be able to get hot water out of my kitchen faucet. Nothing has been overwhelmingly expensive. We have one of those home warranty thingees and to this point things have been more annoying, than major.

Then on Sunday we returned from coast. I walked into the house. Started going through the mail and suddenly said aloud to Ripken “is it just me or is it REALLY hot in here.” I heard the HSH pipe up from the back bedroom, “yeah, right?” Walk over to the thermostat. It’s set to 74, but the temperature inside the house is 95. 95 degrees. Like… inside my living room, not my garage.

If you woke up this morning wondering “how many trips from the warranty company’s A/C repair guy does it take before your house is cool again” the answer is 5. AND COUNTING. Their level of incompetence is astounding. I’m not just being mean because I haven’t been able to blow dry my hair in 4 days, or apply makeup without having it instantly melt off. I mean REALLY. I don’t want to bore you with the litany of examples but please take my word for it. Luckily the HSH is a genius and purchased a window unit on Sunday after the first ridiculous attempt by the a/c guy to fix our stuff. We have been camped out in the master bedroom since then, as it is the only room in the house that doesn’t require I hand out ice packs and extra deodorant upon entry. It’s a little like sleeping in a wind tunnel, but it beats “sleeping” in a 95 degree house.

The feeling of futility stems from the fact that I’m sure I could find a more competent A/C guy in about the time it takes me to break a sweat after entering my house (aprox. 1 nanosecond) but naturally if I do that, the warranty company won’t foot the bill. I might add, this is AFTER the warranty company came in and “fixed” the A/C because there was a leak in the drip pan and recommended a couple of other small repairs to prevent THE VERY SITUATION WE ARE IN RIGHT NOW (i.e. having to go without A/C in the dead of a Houston summer). So to recap: they replaced some part on my functioning air conditioning unit that “could go out on me at any time” and 1 week later, I’m mysteriously without the loving joys of central air. What the hell, people?! Now they’ve been to my house 4 times with either no part, or the wrong part, and of course every time promising that NEXT time it would all be fixed.

I miss the days where I knew nothing about air conditioning units and my biggest “home” related worry was whether or not my dorm fridge could hold enough beer for the weekend.

update: two seconds after I hit publish the HSH texted me to say the supervisor was at the house, and had fixed the problem. The other guy had the wires crossed. No really. Wires crossed. And you thought I was making the incompetent part up.

Things You Wish You Knew About Your City

I have lived in this fair city for a number of years now, but I was not born nor was I raised here. Because of this, I typically assume that if I know about some little treasure in the city, everyone else does as well. It’s not always rational, but hey…life is full of incorrect assumptions.

In conversation the other day I made an offhand remark to the crew over at Rice2029, and was met with quizzical stares. Say what? You guys don’t know about the magic that is Heberts? My oh my. Let me introduce you to my friend: the deboned stuffed whole chicken. These things are a true lazy person’s treasure. They come magically deboned (I have no desire to know how that is done), and stuffed with a variety of goodness. After hearing that they had never had the pleasure of enjoying this Cajun oddity, I invited Mamma V, Em, Kwon, and THC over for a meal. We had the HS favorite of the Shrimp Rice Dressing stuffed chicken, and I took advantage of the company to venture into one of my favorites, the Broccoli Cheese Rice Dressing Stuffed Chicken. (The HSH doesn’t like broccoli!) If you live in Houston, I highly recommend this place. You simply open, put in baking dish, put in oven and about an hour later, you enjoy your dinner. Easy peasy. I go for the fresh, unfrozen, chickens at the back of the store. They do frozen too, but I’m into instant gratification. They have a variety of other things as well. Some we’ve tried and lots we haven’t. We’ve never gone wrong.

We followed dinner up with arts and crafts time. No really. I keep sidewalk chalk around for the nieces and assorted other kiddos who are at my house from time to time. Em wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it.

Everyone Needs A Friend Like This

This is what my daily Instant Messenger conversations with KK (the artist formally known as McD) look like.

ME: if you were a patio furniture grouping that was open on one side....
ME: would you be open twds the house, or twds the yard
KK: house
KK: cause then you welcome the folks in and enjoy the ambiance of the yard behind you...
KK: rather than worrying if the killer who is robbing your house as you blindly face the yard is going to get you before he leaves?

I don’t know which is more unusual. That she never said “what kind of question is that?” (duh. The kind I ask.) or that her logic totally made sense to me.

Here is how it turned out. The first picture was taken while the cushion covers were in the washer. It was a risky move (it said not to machine wash, but I was desperate) that paid off. Ok maybe not "risky" in the traditional sense of the word. More like wearing-white-out-of-season, or putting-potato-skins-in-the-garbage-disposal risky. (Don't try that last one, I have and let me give the preview: lots of dirty looks, and dirty words from the hubby, or who ever your designated fixer is).

Tap Tap Tap (repeat)

I have house anxiety. I feel kind of bad even admitting this. I mean, there are so many other things in the world to worry about. People have been telling me more and more I need a kid so I can worry about something worthwhile, and to them I say: shut it.

I’ve been mulling it over, and I think I have found the source of the anxiety. The previous owners of the Halfstreet had a style that was different than mine. I wasn’t in love with their things, nor with the places they had put those things. So when the HSH and I moved in, our stuff and layout felt like an improvement. Fast forward to the new house (yet to be named). The house had been professionally staged when it went on the market, and the things were really nice. It felt like walking into a catalogue. So now my stuff feels out of place, and not as nice as the picture in my mind. Add to this the fact that you could fit all of our current furniture into one room in the house, and the thought of picking out new things plus figuring out where they go, is causing me some anxiety. No, really.

One thing was for certain though. A rug for the new master bedroom had to be acquired IMMEDIATELY. I never thought I would rue the day that I purchased a home with hardwood floors throughout, but the last week has been a sleepless nightmare. The sound of Ripken walking around on the hardwoods at 3am could replace waterboarding at Gitmo as the preferred method of torture. Not that I’m in favor of torture. I’m just saying.

Anyhoo, there was the compounding problem that he couldn’t get enough traction on the hardwoods to jump into the bed (yes, my dog sleeps in the bed. Again: shut it.). So his new method of getting into bed consisted of placing his front paws about 2 inches from my face and whining until I lifted him into bed. (Somewhere in Indiana, Shannon is vomiting in her mouth). Yes, I know my dog is spoiled. I also knew that I could easily break him of the habit, if I was willing to part with approximately 2 nights of sleep, and just let him whine it out. But I wasn’t. What I was willing to do was hurry up and find a rug. Pictures below (sorry for the craptastic quality of it...its on my cellphone, as we still have no internet at home).

Name Recognition

So I haven't posted in forever. Well not forevvvver. But pretty close. In my defense, I have been busy closing on houses, unpacking boxes and deciding which cupboard my 10 sets of nesting bowls belong in. Seriously, why does one person have so many sets of bowls that nest. And who came up with term? It sounds unsanitary.

Oh, and I don't have internet at the new house. So if you're wanting pictures, or something witty, you'll just have to wait.

In the meantime... There have been lots of discussions/questions about what the Halfstreet will be called, now that I don't live on the Halfstreet. So in the spirit of democracy, I open the discussion up to you loyal readers:

Is the Halfstreet more than just a physical location? Should the blog be renamed? What about all those creative nicknames that it took me forever to come up with? You know, like HSH. Should it go by the wayside?

I'm on the fence. Instruct me internet peeps.

Some Thoughts On A Home (aka please excuse the cheese)

Sorry I haven’t written lately. I’ve had a post drafted up for a while, but I fear the jinx. Maybe it’s the baseball fan in me, but I am hugely superstitious that as soon as you talk about something, it will be no more. As irrational as it sounds, in my mind, “Hey, we sold our house” sounds exactly like “Hey, he’s got a no hitter going” … Doing so will make it vanish faster than a bullsh!t bloop single in the bottom of the ninth will make a grown man cry.

But now I’ve said it, and it’s out there. We’re leaving the Halfstreet. Just typing those words makes me a little misty eyed. We had no idea it would happen so quickly. We’ve batted around the idea of selling so many times, our friends/family got tired of asking. But one weekend we decided to pack up some clutter around the house, and by Tuesday it was listed. I figured I had some time to get used to the idea, but by Friday we had an offer in hand. By the next Monday we had placed and had an offer accepted on a new house. It all went so smoothly I absolutely refused to believe it was true (well the bargainer in the HSH did come out, so smoothly is a bit of an exaggeration). I think many of our friends/family were caught off guard, including my poor brother who had to hear about it from someone else. For those of you I didn’t tell directly, I apologize, it’s not because I don’t love you! NOTHING goes this well for us. It just can’t be true. We are out of the option period for both houses now, and I had told myself I would take a deep breath when that happened. But honestly, no deep breaths in sight. I won’t believe it is all true till I have the keys in hand.

Plus there is the matter of how I feel about leaving the Halfstreet. The following will surprise no one that knows me very well: I cried when I signed the contract to sell the house. Not just a little tear glistening on my cheek. But buckets. So bad that our dear friend who is doubling as our realtor (and who has worked like a dog for us…any credit on the ease of the process goes to him) felt compelled to remind me that we didn’t have to sell if we didn’t want to. And it’s not that. I’m ready for a change it’s just….

Well.

The love of my life asked me to marry him in the dining room of this house.

There I said it. Its so cheesy I know. But it is also so true. Also true are the facts that I hosted celebrations in honor of the baptism of Sofia, and the impending birth of Brady in this house, and countless other occasions.

Only.

They aren’t countless, I remember every damn one of them. I remember hosting Father’s Day for the HSD, the HSFIL and the HSBIL. I remember last Christmas where my whole side of the family packed it in for Rock Band, and my cousin told me I was an impressive hostess (a compliment I will take to my grave). I remember bringing Ripken home and can still see the evidence of it on some of the blinds that he gnawed. I remember watching Kenyon crawl across the floors and all of us getting a chuckle out of how I had thought my floors were clean. Like I said, I remember everything.

I have no idea where this pile of sap and sentimentality came from. I fully recognize the need for more space, and change of venue. And I love the potential new house. I really really do. Its just. Well. I really love THIS house. And I’ll miss it. But as the HSD would remind me: onward and upward. I have no time to dissolve into tears at the mere thought of leaving the house. I have boxes to pack and furniture to buy. Keep us in your thoughts as we try to get through this process. And by “we” I mean “me” since the HSH shares none of my irrational behavior. Hopefully I didn’t just put the mother of all jinxes on it.