lizzielou.com

First, for Eelaine…
here is the house

all decked out in “Hidden Sanctuary.” (It actually makes the house more noticeable.) The trim is “Brilliant White” and the porches are “Platinum Gray”. None of the immediate neighbors have yet commented.And the rest of the news…

1. I crankily report that the painter has not returned to do those last few spots. The four ladders that were in the yard for a few days have one-by-one disappeared. There are still the buckets filled with paint slop. After our talk last weekend when Mike said he might come back after dark and “take care of them” (and then gestured towards a house down the street that is being gutted – thus indicating to me that he might go dump them there), I am a little relieved that they haven’t vanished mysteriously, but a little bit pissed-off that they are still here. I will have to take them to the other side of the city to the household hazardous waste site; a strenous and messy undertaking I put off again today. For the most part we have our backyard back.

2. I have an amusing story from a co-worker that I am not supposed to tell anyone involving something lost, something found, some trespassing, some crying, some breaking and entering, something being tossed over a fence, and some bureaucratic neglect. (I am unsure if I should spill it or not.)

3. I commuted rather uneventfully every day this week. I didn’t get into a fight with anyone, was harassed not at all, and grossed out very little! Amazing! However, it was a critter intensive commuting experience. I witnessed a crow eating a dead pigeon (which is not something I had ever at all imagined in my head to my self until now even once) and I had to do a little do-si-do two-step with a pair of medium sized grey rodents so we could avoid stepping on each other. I did have a little Eek!-A-Mouse-or-wait-maybe-that-was-a-ratty moment, but not because I am normally one to say “Eek!” but because of the curiously bendy scampering and the near squooshing.

4. I have taken up the library’s challenge to all adults to read three books this summer. I am well on my way to finishing the first three in order to procure my Big Reward of a Starbucks(TM) coffee card and to be entered into the Big Bookbag of Crap Sweepstakes! I have to fill out a form which includes a few sentences about each book, presumably to test that I have actually read them. Will someone be checking? (Janie?) In my youth, my mother issued a similar challenge where for every 10 books I read, she would take me out to buy a new one. My first three entries are:

“The Discomfort Zone” by Jonathan Franzen (a rambling but ultimately engaging memoir about growing up awkwardly, experiencing the death of one’s mother, and discovering the joys of birdwatching, which includes the word ‘eidetic’);

“Cross” by James Patterson (the latest in the series of popcorn detective novels that I began reading when I worked at Barnes and Noble where the first not very challenging book was left in the breakroom, which does not include the word ‘eidetic’); and,

“Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and their Circle” by Lois Banner (because once an anthro major, always an anthro major and who could resist the riveting drama of well-known academics, their lesbian love affair, and dollops of biographical information on anyone they ever came into contact with ever, which also uses the word ‘eidetic’ multiple times).

5. And finally, if anyone asks, you saw me at 78 different parties this weekend and I was having an AWESOME time at each one.

… or “OK for Girls Part II”

Last weekend the temperamental weather and the rather erratic behavior of the house painter had us sealed up in plastic for many days. With the Serious Painting Business expected at any time, most of the windows had been sealed over and taped up on Friday, but as I noted previously nothing much happened.

Until Tuesday. This day was a flurry of activity, which I did not have to endure being away at work. The whole crew came, Mike and RescueMe and the Cousin, sealed up the rest of the house and started spraying primer everywhere. Everywhere it was supposed to be I should note, for the most part. When I got home from work every door and window was covered and I imagined finding a fresh Lolly sealed inside the house – if I could only find a way to open it up. Soon we were able to squeeze in and out the basement door and encountered Mike on to escape the stiffle within. “Now, you say you haf changed mind, rright? Now all white. Everythingk white!” Yes, yes, that’s very funny. We suggested: how about roof white, and walkway white, bushes white, grass white, everything white! “No? I kiddingk!” There is always time for kidding. He insisted that on Wednesday there would be real painting. Reallllly? I was afraid to hope for too much. They left as it was getting dark and I walked around and started feeling anxious about places that were still peely under the primer, places that looked Not Ready For Paint. I spent too much money on paint.

Wednesday I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t stand not being around for the Big Day. I was ready in the morning to go over the progress and voice my concerns and make additional requests. RescueMe arrived first surprisingly. I found him sitting at the patio table, silently still and waiting. Not working, or looking at the house, or having a beverage or a cigarette, just sitting. I told him about some of my worries and the peely spots but he couldn’t do anything until Mike got there. Nonetheless he assured me they would fix all that. (And eventually they did.) Meanwhile we made small talk: he wears shorts year round, he’s from Minnesota, he wore shorts in Minnesota year round too, he goes to bed late but he gets up early, did I know that seven people were murdered here? He said that every time he works at a new place he looks up things about it online. To my embarrassment the thought that passed through my head the instant he said that was, “No way! I totally would have sensed something like that.” Then I called bullshit and he laughed. He’s a kidder too. (Although there was that old stained and rusty hatchet that I found hidden in the basement after we moved in… ) Mike finally arrived. Lolly and I left for lunch and to get the boys some beverages. When we got back it didn’t look like much had happened and there was a problem with the sprayer. My anxiety returned. We hung around the house a little while, still covered in plastic, and now even more plastic as the window frames and things were done. We left again and as we passed they made the Everything White Joke again.

Around dinnertime on our way home, as we neared the house we could see a color emerging from down the street. It was… PINK! One side of the house was almost entirely pink! Excitedly we shut ourselves back in the house with our sandwiches and listened. There was a lot of activity out there, but it was getting later and later and supposed to rain in the morning. But then there were the sounds of ladders being moved and of cleaning up. We crept out the basement door. All PINK! But Mike said, “I make new colour! I mix pink width white. You like?” We were like… huh? He seemed very excited, “New colour! Here! Liddle white, liddle pink togethder. New colour!” Ohhh. Yes, funny, that’s just where the paint sprayed over. “HA HA! Joke!” We sat outside with them for a bit, gawking at our clean pink house. It looks bigger. Is nice. Is good. Is OK for girls!

After the flurries passed things got back to normal on Thursday and I went back to work. Mike was coming back to do touch-ups, take off the rest of the masking, do the porches, etc. Around lunchtime Lolly noticed Mike and RescueMe had arrived and were sitting on the front steps smoking, having beverages, talking about women (perhaps the bikini contestants) and admiring their work. Then they were gone again. Then they were back again briefly. This is the level of activity I was used to. They had painted the top step of the front porch and all of the plastic was now down, but there will still touch-ups that weren’t done. So what was done? Shopping. Added to the box with the VCR tapes there were some clothes – a denim jacket, a shirt, a belt – and two sets of 4 Lenox Tuscany Season Martini Collections Glasses in amber, amethyst, blue, and green – Authentic! Brand New in Box! All of these items were also moved into our basement.

We began to suspect he may be taking up residence.

Friday the porches did get done and some touch-ups too. He said he would be back on Saturday morning to do a walk through. He showed up around 10 a.m. looking swell in his play clothes, bejeweled and… bescented? becologned? I told him about the few spots that still needed to be done and he said he might be able to get to them on Sunday when he would have a truck and would get the rest of the painting stuff, the trash, and his things. He asked me if I knew of a place to have his watch fixed. He’s had it for four years. He said he would give me back the $30 he asked for the other day to buy masking tape. He said he couldn’t stay and talk any longer because he had to go to the bathroom and that he would go to the Swastika Santas and use theirs. That’s what friends are for.

It was Sunday afternoon and I thought it would be the end of the story. Mike came with a truck as promised (and a woman who might have been his girlfriend!) to collect his things. (Well, everything but the buckets of dirty water, the four ladders, the plastic sheeting and some other work-related miscellany.) As he was carrying his belongings out of the basement – the sprayer, the box for the sprayer filled with other things, the box of tapes, the clothes, the Tuscan Season Martini Collections Glasses, and the electronic dartboard in a small wooden cabinet – I felt a pang. “I feel kinda sad,” I told him, “I feel like you’re moving out.” He laughed a little and said, “Da! I cannot stay heere any longker. I haf to move out! Is like I am movingk!” He looked around at the house again. “Is nice, thdis colour. I like.” I told him we did too, that we were happy. “Is good. I like to make heappy.”

Last Saturday when it was raining – in Seattle, big surprise – there was yet another accident at the intersection in front of our house, causing us to feel compelled to call 911 yet again.

Just the evening before we had been relating our previous unpleasant encounters with the 911 operator. And here we were, having another. It pissed me off again so I posted immediately that… “Seattle 911 Operators are Assholes. And if anyone from the City of Seattle comes across this statement and would like to comment about why this is so. Feel Fucking Free.” [Even after Linsey's supportive comment, I deleted the post for being too harsh. But oh look, here it is. Kinda.] The operator was rude yet again, you see. She was being bitchy about us not knowing which specific persons were in need of medical assistance even though we wouldn’t have been calling if no one needed help. When I told her that the people involved were making their own calls, she hung up on me.

Yesterday, there was another accident. And although Lolly and I have decided how to handle the rude operators when we feel their services are needed, we deemed it not necessary in this case as the people were already walking about and on their phones. I tuned in to the real time dispatch however and to my dismay, it wasn’t reported.

You may think it callous and strange of me to stomp out on to my front porch and take pictures of car accidents. I think I should have been doing it since we moved in. I can’t tell you how many times we have been sickened by the sound of screeching brakes, thuds, crunches, and sirens. Here is a more dramatic one:

August 23, 2005 1 p.m. Motor Vehicle Accident – This was when the van drove up over the sidewalk and onto the neighbor’s lawn. That morning as I was walking to the bus stop I noticed all the landscaping they had done that weekend. Lolly started emailing pictures to me at work as she described the scene. The neighbor came out of her house after the collision and started yelling about her shrubbery while the medics were attending to the driver. Apparently freaking out about all that landscaping work. And probably freaking out that she could have been run over if she was out there with the baby and the dog. Still, not so sympathetic to the guy. We don’t know why he careened out of control and there were no other vehicles involved.

And another:

October 31, 2006 8 p.m. Motor Vehicle Accident, Heavy Rescue – We actually didn’t call about this one because the thud wasn’t very loud. A motorcyclist getting run over by a minivan apparently doesn’t make very much noise. The sirens did however. Our only trick-or-treater filled me in when he came to the door (with his mother waiting down at the sidewalk) having come from that direction. I asked if he could tell all that was going on but it was pretty dark. He told me about the crying family in the minivan and the crumpled up motorcycle and the blood in the road and the guy under the car. I stood there pretty shocked that it was so serious while the kid stood there staring back at me. “Um… trick or treat?” he said and held out his bag for candy.

After this we named it the intersection of death, or “IOD” for short. We do our best to avoid it.

So, Dear Readers, please be extra careful when you pass by!

We are having our house painted.

Last summer I scraped, sanded, sealed, primed and repainted the garage (with help from my mother who was visiting and the next door neighbor who is skinny enough to squeeze between his fence and the building). One afternoon out in the alley working on the door a guy came by me and said, in what I assumed was a Russian accent, “Not bad job, thdis.” He told me he was a house painter working in the neighborhood and then quizzed me on my plans to do the rest of the house. “You’re doingk house? rrest of house? I could make house look nice. Now looks like shit – up thdere peelingk, needs scrrapingk, needs caulkingk. I could do house, fence, wall, whole thingk! I give good prrice. You do thdis colour? Thdis is pink?” And he made a face. “Bah, I dunt know. You like colour?” When I told him that I did and that we had, in fact, picked it out on purpose and wanted to do the house in the same (which you can see below) he reconsidered. “I guess is ok, you know… for girls.”

He said that he would come by and leave his number because I was definitely interested in having the house not look like shit anymore and I can’t do the high stuff myself. I think I saw him occasionally after that, having the same conversation – yes paint house, other houses in neighborhood good, yes pink, maybe summer. I remembered to tell Lolly that if a Russian guy came around not to worry, it was only “Mike” and he wants to do our house.

Some time later while getting out of the car in the garage, Lolly was unexpectedly cornered by a guy speaking animatedly in the doorway. She squinted at him and stepped back cautiously looking for a weapon and wondering how she would escape when she realized… that he sounded kinda Russian… and that he seemed to be gesturing at the garage and over to the house… and that perhaps he is covered in paint splotches because he is the painter… ahhah. He then seemed to realize that he had cornered a stranger, a woman, in her own garage and he took a few steps back. Unable to answer any of his questions, or really even understand much of what he was saying at all, she gave him my cellphone number.

The weather started warming up. I started to consider this thing more seriously and took a bid from one of those college painter groups. 7K? Too much money! I waited for Mike. Finally last month I was walking home through the alley and he was back there talking to the Swastika Santas. (Definition: the Truck-driving Men With Piles of Junk Around Their House. One item of junk was once a good-sized, plastic, lawn santa with a black swastika spray-painted on its belly. It was only there a day or two but made a lasting impression.) He shouted, “Heylo! heylo!” and trotted after me to ask if we were ready to paint. I told him to come along and give me the Good Price. Only 2K? That’s more like it! We made an arrangement to meet so he could show me the house he was finishing a couple blocks away. “If you like, I paint for you.” He had done several in the neighborhood. “Thdis guy over here, I do thdis one. One on corrner? I do thdat too. But thdat guy thdere, I didn’t do. I, ehh, no like him. I only worrk for people I like.”

One of my coworkers noted that I might end up on the local news special investigation into fraudulent handymen. I figured that if he really was a scammer he wouldn’t still be hanging around the same neighborhood where he’d been scamming. Right?

So he was coming on Monday to start, with pressure washing. I met him that morning and while he was explaining that the pressure washer hadn’t been working properly because he had let his friend use it and there was air getting in somewhere and that was bad but he had it fixed even though this one is like new but not as good as the one he had that got stolen it will be okay, I noticed that his t-shirt read: Official Bikini Contest Judge. The pressure washing began on the back of the house. I put towels down in the doorways to keep the water from coming in and Lolly drove me to work. She kept me apprised of the progress (lack of) when she got back home:

Subject: we’re peely . . .
but everything else is fine. Just got home. No water a’tall on towels by front door, or anyplace else. Back of house facing back fence now seriously peely in places it wasn’t, like under kitchen window. Front of house still seems dirty to me, but maybe it doesn’t get washed. Or mebbe he’s not done. Maybe he stopped due to rain. Not sure, but no flooding, no worries there. No waffley on the paint job, though. It needs it now fo’ sho.

Tuesday it was time to pressure wash again. Again, Lolly kept me posted while I was at work:

Subject: currently getting pressure washed [9:06 am]
I closed all the windows and reapplied the towels. There’s also a dude here who looks just like one of the actors on Rescue Me. I talked to them and Mike said (upon seeing me walk out the back door), “But I just called the tall one!” I said I was the one there today. He got a little flustered but I think he’s regrouped by now. He said he’d be done pressure washing today, so no more worries about windows after this.

Subject: Re: tsk tsk [10:29 am]
They were definitely in the back and on one side doing something, but now they seem to have left again, and nothing has been done to the front. ??? But they told me they’d be done after today. It did rain, perhaps that’s why they left? But they surely knew that would happen, and told me they’d be done today anyway. Are they coming back today? I have no idea what’s up now, they just vanished. When I sent the last email, I assumed they were staying until done. That doesn’t seem to have occurred. I am totally confused, and don’t know what to think about windows and towels.

Subject: more . . . [11:14am]
Well, the pressure washer is still in the yard. Maybe I’ll toss it down the back stairs, cover it with a blankie, close that door, then act dumb when they come back. (You think that’s how that other one went missing?) Washer? Who? Huh? Where? What? It’s raining. Everything’s clean now. I’m tired. Are we done with these towels?

Subject: they’re baaaaaaaack . . . [1:54pm]
I guess the bikinis and piroshkies have been properly wrestled under control, and it’s time to return to the issue of our Dirty Dirty House. They’re wambling about in our backyard again.

Subject: Mike is currently ON [2:28 pm]
the roof. As in, on. Walking about a bit. Weezie Meep doesn’t think this is a great thing. She’s looking annoyed. For some reason they didn’t think I’d closed one of the upstairs windows, so RescueMe rang the front bell. I went and double-checked, and it was closed. Already. ??? But in the course of making sure, I pulled aside the curtain and . . . smiling Mike head waving back at me. Inches from me. OH! IS CLOSED THEN! YES! VERY GOOD! You just don’t expect to see another human head looking back at you just inches from yours, while looking out a window not on the first floor.

Subject: Gomez . . . [4:40 pm]
is experiencing distress. He does not know where to go or what to do. He is currently parked midway up the stairs. Both upstairs and down have apparently taken on suspicious qualities. He was tucked in bed till he saw Mike on the roof. Yes, Gomez. I’d feel the same way. RescueMe is standing right outside my window as I type this, halfway up a ladder, holding on with one hand, smoking a cig with the other. I need that man to hold on a bit better. Hold on, RescueMe. Hold on. Hold on NOW, smoke LATER. Weezie just growled. She’s in the office with me.

Before Mike and RescueMe left that day they stopped to ring the bell at the front door with some final comment or question for Lolly. Mike was holding a molded cardboard box with holes in it. The box had been out on the back porch since they returned from lunch, but Lolly could now see that it was an animal carrier. She asked what was in the box. “Is snake.” was the reply. Mike and RescueMe started to giggle. Lolly was unfazed; she thinks they were expecting her to say “eek!” or recoil in horror. “But no, I joke. Is no snake… IS KITTEN!” And the box opens and out pops a little black and white kitten head wearing a tag that said “Timmy.” Mew? While away for lunch they went to the PAWS animal shelter down the road and Mike got a kitten.

On Wednesday, there was some more washing.

On Thursday, there was some scraping. A little maybe. Maybe some on Friday too. RescueMe almost fell off the ladder explaining to me that some wooden parts of the house were rotten. Mike was kept up the night before by the kitten, “biting nose, biting feet.” He might name him “Tiger.” On Saturday it rained a lot.

On Sunday it didn’t rain but no one came. Nothing happened on Monday either. On Tuesday maybe something. Wednesday? I don’t remember. At some point there was a lot of talk about how realtors and people who are selling houses do many bad things like painting over parts of the house that need to be fixed just to make them look nice and fool the people who buy them. A box of movies on VHS appeared on the back porch.

On Thursday, there was a lot of activity. It was going to rain again and we were all behind schedule. Another guy joined the crew, a cousin who is better at the work. I could see it; he got things done. One of the things they got done was to put plastic all over the windows and door in preparation of priming in the morning. After the cousin left I found a cassette type out where he had been parked. Someone had designated it as “avnili dhe grupi.” I showed it to Mike. “Oh Avnili dhe grupi! Is music. You have cassette player? you want listen? You listen. You can dance to Armenian music!” He left, with RescueMe, and I went inside to play the tape and dance for Lolly. She had a headache and preferred a nap to my Armenian dancing. A carpeted cat scratcher appeared on the back porch.

On Friday morning it rained. On Friday afternoon the 2 returned with the paint sprayer. Is new. There was no painting however, just a little more scraping and then we put the sprayer in the cellar so it wouldn’t get stolen.

On Saturday, it was supposed to rain later in the day, but the morning was clear. So they were back and then gone and then back. We got the sprayer out of the cellar. There was a little scraping. Some of it by me. It was too windy for painting and rain was coming and so the sprayer went back in the cellar. It was joined by an electronic dartboard in a small wooden cabinet.

…. [to be continued]

The Uncouth Heathen has requested more cats. Perhaps one of these days I’ll get a Flickr stream-thingy going so the choicest photos of the 3000 taken can be viewed and admired by all. Until then, there’s this.

The two remaining current household felines yet to be featured are Little (nee Gypsy then Vivien aka Quibble McGee), seen here trying to assert himself with Weezie…

…and Ashleycrumb Tiny (nee Patchabelle and sometimes Smashley or Crashley although for a time she was also known as Mrs. McGee but their affair was fleeting).

Ashley is in no way concerned that her shorthair makes her look dykey. It just runs in her family.