Muddle
9:54 a.m.
1) The upstairs is mostly finished. Next up: the den and my studio. They are going to require creativity. Small Basement vs. A Lot of Our Shit 2007!
Sometime this weekend I'll probably take photos and then do a before and after post so you can see what I've spent the last week doing. And you can make fun of my paint color choices. I'm pretty relaxed about paint-choosing, which is why I ended up with a kitchen painted something called "Saffron." It's an out of control yellow (that I'm starting to lurve). Which, really, I was going to do bright orange. Or green. Or blue. So it worked out okay. I also used colors called "Gaucho" and "Dusty Lane."
The paint industry is kind of dorky, right?
I used to mix paint when I worked in a Sears hardware department. Did you know that?
Dorky!
2) I'm really enjoying what fate and my body are doing to me this summer, what with the stomach infection and then a horrible period with the worst cramps of my life and now a head cold, the dreaded summer head cold that makes me unable to breathe when it's hot and sticky anyway. You got me again, body! Hilarious trickery! I love feeling like crap for weeks at a time!
3) I love our next door neighbor. She is 93 and very energetic and loves to weed. Every evening she sits across the street with another widow, in lawn chairs, and they "visit" for about three hours and watch the neighborhood while the sky darkens to night. She came over last night after nine to give us a piece of paper with the town's yard waste disposal information typed on it, and said she'd go with us if we didn't think we could find the landfill. Yesterday evening in the yard she told us the names of everyone on the street and who was widowed, and she was adorable and waving a fistful of weeds around and I felt vaguely uncomfortable that I was wearing a thin t-shirt and no bra while I explained that I kept my last name. She confessed that she came over to inspect our license plates up close, because she had never seen a Wyoming plate before, but that she wasn't snooping and she hoped that was okay.
She told us about what a nice man the previous owner of our house was. He was 93, too, she said, and he was so nice. She said it was too bad he had to die, it was sad, but we wouldn't have gotten the house if he hadn't, and it was nice to have young people in the neighborhood. He was a nice man. She said it was funny, because she saw I hung wind chimes up right where he used to hang wind chimes. We agreed that we loved the sound.
I love her.
4) We've been married for two months and a day and have been here for a week and a day.
Happy weekend,
black sheeped
posted by Black Sheeped @ 9:54 AM
8 Comments:
I love old neighbors. We have an older couple (actually, now it's just the widow) who timed how long it took us to move in.
They told us later, "We knew you must've lived close to here because it only took you 15 minutes in between carloads." (Our old apartment was three blocks from our house.)
It's like having a Geriatric Neighborhood Posse keeping an eye on things.
When we moved into our house last year, the first neighbors to introduce themselves were Harold (92) and his wife Virginia (89), who told us who lived in what house and for how long, and that they were the original owners of their house built in 1981. We, did, however get the lecture on how nice the previous owner kept his yard. Hint, hint. I love them both.
I love older folks, always have. When I was a kid, I hung out with my great-grandma whenever I could. I wrote her letters once a week, and I still have all the letters she wrote me. I miss her daily. She kicked ass. She used to tell me I had an old soul.
That is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC that the neighbor ladies hang out "visiting" every evening!! Yeah for social capital!! Yeah for human interaction! (as I type my accolades to the internets...)
I would absolutely be beside myself with such cool, small-town neighbors. Our freakish, survivalist neighbors out my way keep to themselves, and I always feel lonely and weird walking the dogs.
For a while, there was exactly one woman who would say hi to me when I was out and about. I am wearing the neighbors' isolationist resolve down, though. Almost everyone waves now! Because! I wave first, shout out a sing-song "hello!" AND FORCE THEM TO INTERACT WITH ME.
Your new neighborhood sounds so awesome!!!
Ohh, I can't wait to see the "after" of your house. It's always fun to add some color. Our house is mostly plain. The rooms I have painted, I chose some bright wild colors. It's fun.
So good that you have a sweet neighbor like that. I'm sure she's as lovely as you've described.
I love cute old people :)
The totally normal off-white/cream color we painted our house when we moved in (I froze and couldn't choose colors) was called "Clear Yellow." Huh? "Clear." And "yellow." When it is neither.
When I chose the color for Elizabeth's room, I LOVED the pink names but had trouble choosing for COLOR rather than NAME. If the perfect pink is called something dumb ("Clear Red," maybe), it's hard to choose it over "Ballerina" or "Princess" or "Petal."
The names for consumer product colors have gotten way out of hand. For shits and giggles sometime, you should try calling customer service for paint/clothing/whatever and ask the representative to describe to you the difference between "lemon yellow" and "sunshine".
Try it. I swear, they can't do it.
Sister,
I ventured down the scary basement where the laundry room is. Somebody wrote R.L. Stein quotes on the walls. As in, author of the Goosebumps books. One of them says "Beware of the basement."
Also, I like your blog. Your Old Lady Neighbor sounds snoopy.
Love,
Sister.
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