shishnit.org

In early 2008 we began to seriously think about buying a house. The home we were living in was extremely overpriced and over-valued. I imagine a lot of people felt that same way about a lot of houses at the time. I wrote about our experiences with our previous landlord here who wanted to sell us the house but we could not afford the $315,000 that he was wanting at the time and tried to purchase his son’s home…which was also extremely overpriced (and is also still not sold today).

I blogged again about my viewpoint on our home purchase a few months later and my viewpoitns 9 months after purchasing it here. I was still feeling relatively good about our choices.

Then one day I googled my old leased house (the one that I really really loved and wanted to buy for the entire year I lived in it) here. The picture dissapeared from that blog post so here it is again.

That house really urked me because I loved it. It was perfect in a lot of ways. Today out of curiosity I looked up that house again…just to see what time has done since last September. I know everytime we’ve driven by it (and we have to make an effort to do so) it has had a for sale sign out front. Today I found out that the house was foreclosed on. I felt like Karma had finally had her say. That’s what you get landlord guy….that’s what you get for raising our rent on us when we were attempting to purchase your son’s house. (a house still not sold either!)

And then I found it….the for sale ad. 116,900!!

It’s now selling for less than we paid for our house. L They wanted 315k when we lived in it two years ago. Oh if only I had waited 2 entire fucking years…..lol as if. Someone got fucked on that house and it wasn’t us. Thank you Jesus. But I still wanted to barf right in that open toilet right there…the same one I peed in for an entire year of my life right before going to bed at night.

But then oddly….I started to think about our house. The one we did buy. The one that we’ve had to fix several things in. The one that needs new air conditioning duct work as I type. The one that has had termites!! The one that needs a trench dug out around the addition. The one that’s driving me nuts right now. And I’m still happy because I’ve had some fantastic moments in that house with the big huge library. The one that isn’t a real estate transaction or a memory captured by google maps but the one that is our  HOME sweet HOME.

This is what happens when you drive after visiting the bar.  There’s no nicer way to say it.  Rick ran into two parked cars (parked along the street) and caused lots of damage to both of those cars.  Both belonging to one guy…one being his personal car and the other being his personal cab for his own business. 

He should have gotten a DUI…but didn’t because the police were too busy processing 2 other drunk drivers and apparently don’t have the resources to process more than 2 in the county at one time. 

I have mixed feelings but I don’t want to forget this stupidity.  And that is exactly what it is.  I also think if you drive drunk you should be in jail.  I have said this to Rick.  Yes…this is trouble in paradise.  Yes I am angry and bewildered.  And since I blog the truth..the truth is…I’m pretty numb.  I’m also grateful no one got hurt.

His truck before:

His truck after:

Since we live on the island of poordom, no telling when Rick will have a driveable vehicle again. (He does have insurance, but not on his own vehicle.)

But I really hate long book reviews that tell me everything I need to know about the book…thereby making it a needless process to actually read it myself. 

Hate that.

I also hate that person that reviews a product on an online retailer only to bitch about how their shipment was busted, didn’t arrive or was misdelivered.

THAT review doesn’t tell me anything about the product itself. You’re angry…stop telling the world, we don’t care.

Hate that.

I also hate people who get things for free and then proceed to gush about them even though we all know said book, product, etc. is total crapola. 

I really really hate that.

Another thing.

I really hate blogs where people bitch about how aggravating their children are.  No one made you have them.  Some people can’t have them.  You’re wrong to complain about something you signed up for.

Tripe hate that.  And that’s saying alot since I’m having my own parenting struggles.  But low and behold..I love my son.  More every day.

I also hate when people think because person A did it..that person B and C will likely do the same.  Person B and C are not Person A.  Get over Person A….he or she is hopefully gone.

I just ordered this scale off of etsy.com  Surely I’m not the only one that loves etsy.  I saw this scale and the memories flooded back. I never owned a postage scale.  But oh how I loved sending my Uncle David letters.  Oh how I loved my Uncle David.  So much so my son carry’s his name forever. (Keith David)  I’m sure I’ve blogged this before somewhere. My Uncle David was 18 and I was 8.  He was a bit lost, oh but he was kind and good and everyone loved him.  He joined the Marines and he left and I missed him madly. I was 8 and he was my hero.

I wrote him letters when he took off for the military.  He was at Camp Lejune, then California and then a long stint in Japan.  Letters….carefully scripted and laid out with joy.  I adored him and I took my letter writing seriously.  And he wrote back to me.  His letters were amazing. I thought the world of him.  Always.  For 7 years we wrote each other letters.  (I still have his.)  When I turned 15..nearing 16 he got out of the military and he came back home…at least close to home in PA ..he was in Maryland.  He came home to PA on the weekends and he got a serious girlfriend.  He was 26.  He got a job operating a backhoe for a construction company 2 hours away in Maryland. 

One day he went to work, with a pocket full of cough drops, cold medicine tablets and used kleenex.  He was coming home for the weekend that day.  It was early December.  We were all looking forward to Christmas because he was home for the holidays for the first time since I was 8.

My grandmother smelled something burning that afternoon but found nothing wrong in her house.  She spent a half hour looking for the source of the burning smell to no avail. 

That afternoon my Uncle was operating his backhoe, removing a tree from muddy wet ground.  It was a soggy cold December day in Maryland.  They were putting a shopping mall there.  His backhoe tipped into the hole left behind from the tree.  When it tipped he jumped from the backhoe.  He jumped to the wrong side and was crushed instantly.

My world changed that afternoon when my mother told me “You’re Uncle David was killed today in a backhoe accident”.  That was the first time I learned all about loss.  All about pain.  All about agony.  It was the first time I knew how much a person could hurt inside.  Those were dark weeks watching my grandparents grieve for their son.  Hard dark weeks when I would have killed for just one more letter.  And then Christmas came.  My Uncle had bought everyone a Christmas gift just a week before his untimely death.  He had gone shopping for everyone with my Aunt Kathy (his sister).  On Christmas Eve, age 15 I opened white gold hoop earrings from my Uncle David.  His signature on the attached card hurt so bad.  The loops of the a…the dot on the i strangling the air from my chest.  He was supposed to be home for the first time in forever, but he was instead gone.

I loved him more than anyone I knew at that time. I looked up to him.  He taught me my ABC’s when I was 4. I remember reciting them and angering my older sister who was struggling to learn her ABC’s. I remember feeling better than her just once in my life…that day.  Because of Uncle David.  I remember laying on his chest watching The Adam’s Family and clicking her fingers to the opening jingle together.  My memories of him are so vivid, so alive, so completely forever.

Postage.  Mail.  I have so many reasons to love a letter in the mail.  My Uncle David was the first person who taught me the power of a letter.  The love that could be contained within.  The permanence of the written word.  The power of love stringing through the sentences winging their way across countries, lasting lifetimes, making their mark on hearts for a lifetime.

I saw this scale and I remembered him.  I bought it.  It’s winging it’s way to my house.  The art of writing a letter, it’s slowly being lost.

Write someone a love letter today.  For me.  For my Uncle David.  For someone to have and keep forever.  Lives end but words written down last.