Oh hi, my blog looks like crap

I was TRYING to give this wasteland a spring-y makeover, but instead I made it look like birthday party barf. I cannot give the matter further attention currently, as I see my son opening and closing, opening and closing, opening and closing our DVD player. (He is also announcing "OPEN!" and "CLOSED!" as he does it). Just know I don't think this is a finished product that looks awesome or anything.

The people that you meet, when you're walking down the street

My "neighborhood" is pretty much one road with like 45 houses on it. Even though we are without a doubt the youngest people on this street, I still want to meet everyone and be good neighbors. It's lonely when you move. I don't care, I'll hang out with 50 year olds and play Bunco or whatever it is that they do.

Unfortunately, it's winter and freezing cold and hard to meet people. Here is how we are doing so far:

• Neighbors to the right- came over to introduce themselves and brought brownies. Yay! This made me very happy, except they rang the bell about one minute before my son's bedtime. He kept yelling, "Brownie! Eat it!" and dashing about underfoot. They let on that the people who lived here before were rather snobby. I let on that they were repulsive housekeepers. I haven't seen them since, but I keep hoping to run into the wife again while getting the mail. Sometimes I hear the dad yelling at the two sons. He has powerful lungs.
  


• Neighbors across the street- I haven't met them, but my husband met the across the street husband while doing yard work. They had a nice conversation, and then my husband insulted him by saying, "so, how about that huge cell tower in your backyard?". We have not seen them since either.
  


• People down the road- while getting my new library card, the librarian mentioned that she lived on the same street and asked, "Did you buy the old Sullivan place?" with a tone like, "Did you buy the old Bates motel?". When I said, "Yes!", as in "Yes, and aren't I so nice and cheery and exactly the kind of person you would like to live down the street from?!" She replied, "Don't bother planting any flowers, the deer will eat them."

So, as you can see, we are fitting in just great here.

Weird blog behavior

My mouse poop entry showed up in a very odd place, below the post I wrote weeks ago. It's two down, if you like reading about that sort of thing. And I'm having trouble coming up with a reason why you wouldn't. Everyone loves rodents!

It really happens, watch out ladies.

For real. I didn't see it coming, but I am turning into my mother.

The other day I left the house in the freakiest assortment of ugly clothes you can possibly imagine. I was going out in PUBLIC to MEET someone and I just grabbed whatever outerwear happened to already be sitting around in my car and put it on. My hair was crazy, I had a giant zit, and I guess I thought "well I can hardly look any more horrible, so what will this giant puffy purple down jacket that makes me look like a man hurt?" Then, because it is winter, my ears got cold and I had to wear a hat made for my SON. It is a knit hat shaped like a pumpkin and I willingly put it on my head and wore it around for a good hour. I should note that this pumpkin hat also has a stem, leaf, and curly tendril sticking out the top. AND I WORE IT IN PUBLIC like some kind of mental patient.

My sister advised me, "You should always dress as if you are going to run into your husband's ex-girlfriend." If I had run into anyone who used to know me when I was cute and put together I probably would have pretended to be someone else. Someone such as my sister, cause we look a lot alike and who cares if people think she goes out on the town dressed like the michelin man in a child's hat?

Lucky for you, there are no photographs of this horrible ensemble. So I drew a picture to illustrate. The girl with no nose or eyebrows actually looks way nicer than I actually did.

I can't find the cord that connects my camera to my computer, so I think I may be drawing my blog pictures for a while. Try not to be impressed by the quality of this rendering. I am currently working on a picture of a drawer full of mouse poop to go along with my next post.

The people who lived here before were GROSS.

That title is not witty, but it is a FACT. We have spent weeks and weeks and weeks cleaning and everytime I get down on my hands and knees to scrub something I hate them more. I'm going to be brief because every time I think about these horrible people my blood pressure goes up.

And it's not like I'm some kind of fanatic for cleanliness either. I have very very very low standards. If there were a continuum of cleanliness I would probably fall somewhere below slovenly bachelor and above drunken fraternity brother. I don't pee on the floor, but I don't pick my socks up either.

This is foul, but it will give you an idea of how nasty these folks were: when we moved in, every drawer in the kitchen was filled with mouse poop. For real. And not like one brown spot where you're like, is that a mouse poop or a crumb of burnt toast? Piles and piles of crap. And some of it was all squashed up, like the mice kept walking around in their own feces for a while.

I hated the last owners so much right then I think I had a little stroke.

Lest anyone who comes over for dinner now feel compelled to bring their own silverwear, don't worry, I cleaned every inch and crevice of those drawers like my life depended on it. I employed a sanitizing steamer, cleaning solution that will burn the hair off your head, and steel wool. I scrubbed so hard that I stripped the finish off.

I hate them.

It's harder than I thought to draw a good picture of a drawer full of mouse crap, but I gave it my best shot.

Lord, I hate those people.

Very interesting. Now I will shun you.

Am I the only person who ever watched this show? It was on the cartoon network or comedy central recently and I still kind of loved it. The characters are Hill people (rich, beautiful, vapid) and Valley people (going about their day surrounded by toxic waste).

The town I just moved to has a "hill section" and a "valley section". One of them is considered to be better than the other. Guess which one I live in.

I found this out when I went to a new residents meeting a few months ago.

I ended up sitting next to a woman who was only three years older than I am, but had already jumped the shark into "old lady clothes" territory. She was wearing coral lipstick, and a shirt with little bedazzled teapots and cups on it. I was wearing no makeup and a shirt that quite possibly was originally part of a long underwear set. I probably looked a little homeless, which is maybe not the best first impression to make.

She smiled at me.

I smiled back.

"Do you live on the hill, or in the valley?" She said.

"Oh shit", I thought.

I got the hint immediately- there is a good side of town and a bad side. "Please let me live on the right side of the tracks." I prayed silently.

"On the hill?" I croaked out.

"OH." She pulled away from me a little bit, wincing.

It was like I said I live in a giant poop, or in a van down by the river.

"Well, I'm sure it's very nice there too." She smiled condescendingly. I felt like she almost reached out to pat my knee out of pity, but didn't want to risk touching a hill person.

The kindness of strangers

Usually I can't stand people, but every once and a while I am reminded that humanity is pretty great!




















Once, on a college road trip, I dropped my driver's license and university ID outside a Walgreens in Ohio. I didn't even notice until the next Friday night when, obviously, I wanted to go out and found that I had no ID at all. I sulked around the apartment by myself all weekend digging through pants pockets and looking under the bed a million times. In the end, a complete stranger found my IDs and mailed them back to my mom's house (the address on my driver's license). There was no return address, so I wasn't able to thank them, but it really stuck with me. Instead of just walking by, this person took the time to do the right thing. And a grumpy college student was able to go to the bars once again. Sigh. Happy ending!

A few weeks ago a similar faith-renewing event took place. Except it was scarier and involved helicopters.

My son can't get enough of airplanes ("hairpins!") so my mother-in-law and I took him to a local airfield to watch the planes take off and land. Long story short: a helicopter pilot waiting for his student to arrive saw him watching and invited us past the gate and onto the tarmac to take a look at the helicopter up close. He even asked if my son wanted to get inside and sit at the controls. I wanted to say, "my son will rip off ten pieces of your delicate helicopter controls in two seconds." But I just declined that offer politely.

Then the student arrived. This "student" was around seventy years old, immaculately dressed, and driving a Porsche convertible. He was very soft-spoken, and when I said, "Thank you so much for letting us see the helicopter, have a great lesson!" He replied quietly, "would you and your son like to take a ride?"

I am normally such a big wuss, so I don't know what possessed me to yell, "YES WE WOULD!" and start cramming my tiny son into the backseat of a crazy flying machine piloted by a seventy year old helicopter student.

Unfortunately, my son was having none of it. He refused to get in, and stayed behind with my mother-in-law while I set off on my first helicopter flight. The student pays for his training time obviously, and was generously spending his own time and money flying me around on an adventure.

I remember thinking, man, my husband is going to be so jealous! It was so, so beautiful (New Jersey in the fall- I could see the city!) and so, so terrifying (like flying around in a giant toy). Very different from an airplane- I kind of felt like I was floating around above the ground in a giant bubble. The picture above is the actual helicopter I rode in!

If any of my approximately three blog readers ever want to take a helicopter flight (the pilot does flights over New York and Philadelphia) here is the link to his website. He REALLY LOVES helicopters. http://www.helicopter-training.net/school-info.php?school=KeyAir-Helicopters&school_id=416&location_id=734&featured=yes&category_id=3