A while back, something really terrible happened to a friend of mine. The kind of thing that leaves you thinking “Damn, I am glad that didn’t happen to me.”
When something terrible happens, I think it is a good opportunity to see exactly what kind of people your friends really are. Well, in this case, I showed myself to be a flaming jerk. I screwed up. Instead of supporting my friend, I backed away. When she really, really needed compassion and support, I was nowhere to be found.
It was not my finest moment. Not by a long shot.
I can make excuses, but they are all really dumb. What kind of excuse is there for being an asshole? (And yes, one can be an asshole by simple failure to act.)
I have been carrying around that black smudge of karma. I tried to avoid thinking about it, but it would bubble up from time to time. My subconscious wouldn’t let it go. Then, all the sudden, the universe let me know that it was time to address my failings.
Yesterday, I took the opportunity to apologize for my small roll in a much bigger hurt. In my family, we just pretend that bad things or conflict never happened, but that would be the pussy way out.
I had to apologize, even if there was no good reason for anyone to forgive me. I had to say it out loud and own it, so I did. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but it was the right thing to do. It didn’t erase the damage, but at the very least I took responsibility.
I always liked that (Dr. Phil??) saying “When people show you who they are, believe them.” I not only showed my friend who I was, I showed myself. I don’t like that person.
I am working on it. I am learning to be a better friend. I am trying to be a compassionate person. I am not perfect, but I can be better than this.
The previous owner of our house apparently made quite an impression on everyone who knew him. He was a lawyer who had two (now adult) daughters. He and his late wife moved into this house about 4o years ago. He died two years ago.
Since we moved in, we have heard many stories about this quirky guy: He kept indoor furniture in the garage and dragged it out each night to read on the driveway. He bought man books which filled every nook and cranny in the house. He never cooked and ate out three meals a day. You could set your watch by the time he left for the local pub each evening.
I like quirky people, so I find these anecdotes to be somewhat amusing.
The former owner had a girlfriend we will call Joan. He dated Joan for 11 years. Unfortunately, Joan seems to be having a hard time moving on. I know this because Joan has now stopped by our house FOUR times since we moved in.
The first few visits, I was sympathetic. She came in and talked to the construction guys before we moved in. I was cleaning the poop out of the garage, she was suddenly peeping over the hedges. We made small talk, she told me about the dead guy, she cried, I was appropriately kind. The next day she was at church (conveniently next door to my house!) and saw Mr. A in the yard and stopped by to introduce herself to him. One of the neighbors reported that she came to their house to talk to them and staring out our house for two hours that day.
Unfortunately, Joan sees a LOT of parallels between our family and the dead guy. Lawyer with two daughters, mostly, I guess. The dead guy worked at Mr. A’s old firm, so that is another similarity. Beyond that, there isn’t much more because we don’t hoard books, Mr. A isn’t a widow, he isn’t eccentric, etc.
Joan has asked repeatedly to see the house when we are done fixing it up and I said “sure” because I am nice. I think that was a mistake. The other afternoon, she called our house and asked to come see the floors that very same day. We are still doing a lot of work and the house is a wreck, so I asked her to come Sunday instead.
I showed her the floors and made a point to say I was in the middle of painting and couldn’t socialize very long. I also attempted to keep her in the living room, but she pushed right past me and walked all through the house. Opening every drawer and closet she passed along the way (!!). She told me endless stories about the dead guy who was apparently “almost ready to finally marry [her]” and “this would have been [her] house”. (A claim the neighbors say is quite dubious because the guy seemed perfectly happy to live alone with his books.)
She even insisted on leaving a scrapbook she made about the dead guy, ostensibly for Mr. A (who could care less!). I think it was a ploy to come back again.
She is starting to really creep me out. I believe she is trying to hold on to the dead guy by obsessing about the house. I think we are going to have to set up some clear boundaries, but I feel a little bit bad. I feel sorry for her, but we need this house to start becoming our house. The dead guy’s ghost (and his girlfriend) needs to GO.
(I wrote this while I wasn’t blogging so it happened about 6 weeks ago.)
Anyone who knows me well, knows I have a thing for cleaning ears. Sadly, several months ago, my ear-cleaning headlamp died a tragic and untimely death. I finally got around to buying a new one yesterday and mass ear-cleaning commenced.
It was obvious that Mr. A had not cleaned his ears in a LONG LONG time. He had sheets of ear wax* nearly obstructing each earhole. My trusty headlamp and I got to work scraping away. I quickly accumulated a pile of ear wax flakes. L has been really helpful lately, so I called her in and said “L, go throw these in the trash.” I put the little pile of wax in her hand and sent her on her way.
About 30 seconds later, L returned. “Um, Mom? Those things you gave me? M ATE them.”
“WHAT?” I said.
“She ATE it.” L repeated.
I called M into the bedroom. “Did you eat that stuff in L’s hand?”
“Yes.” M said. Mr. A and I started to laugh hysterically. Then M started to look worried.
“What was it?” she asked.
Mr. A and I were convulsing on the bed with laughter.
“It was EAR WAX!” L told her.
“Grossss! I thought it was a corn flake!” M said.
“Didn’t it taste funny?” I asked, “You know, like EAR WAX???”
“How would I know what ear wax tastes like? I don’t go around EATING it!” said M, quite indignant.
“Yes you DO!!” said L, which made Mr. A and I laugh even harder.
M does not think eating ear wax is funny at all, in case you were wondering. And
*Mr. A has typical dry, flakey Asian earwax.
This isn’t going to be a long drawn out post (because I have ceilings to paint), but I do need to make a brief comment on it.
There is a big bruhaha about a law professor and his wife who earn $455,o00 who blogged that he can’t afford a tax hike. Here is a link to a copy of the original post. I am not going to get into this guy’s finances, but I do feel like it is my job as a good, upper-middle class liberal to say something here.
We earn less than a quarter of this guy’s family right now because Mr. A is working for the government. I am guessing that guy’s lifestyle and ours are probably similar though. We have school loans we will be paying forever and a day. We want to live in a nice neighborhood and have a nice home. We prioritize our childrens’ educations. We choose to spend our money on these priorities. We don’t feel rich, but we certainly aren’t living in poverty.
At less than 25% of that guy’s income, WE can afford more taxes. We can afford them because we have room to make choices in our budget. We are choosing to buy a house instead of rent it (and choosing to paint the ceilings!). We choose to live in a school district that costs more. We choose to pay down the school debt that was an investment in the relatively pleasant lifestyle we have right now, because we chose schooling that would lead to this.
I am happy to pay my taxes. In fact, I would gladly pay more to help out those who don’t have the luxury of choosing how to spend their money. If higher taxes means that more children are educated in competent schools, I can cut back on some trips to Target. If everyone has health care, I can take a less-fancy vacation. If everyone has enough to eat, safe neighborhoods and the right to dignity in their old age, then I can eat out a few times less.
Cutting back on luxuries does not equal poverty.
I choose to believe our country (one of the richest in the world) can be better. We can tighten our upper middle class (and SuperRich) belts a little for our neighbors and friends who are less fortunate.
I believe that a better educated population benefits all of us. I believe none of us can feel secure until no one is homeless or hungry or living their old age in poverty. The safety net is for everyone. If one day Mr. A becomes disabled or loses a job or some other catastrophe happens to our family, I want to know there is a safety net there waiting for us too. I want to know that being down on my luck doesn’t mean I have to lose my dignity and my humanity.
Let’s do unto others and share with our neighbors (and family and friends) and care for the least among us. Paying more taxes is the least we can do.
There is so much weird stuff in our new house, this is going to have to be an ongoing series. I thought about doing the first post on the basement, but when I looked at the pictures I realized there is way too much weird shit in the basement for one post. I think I have enough material there for at least FOUR posts.
So we will start with the oddest (to me) thing about the house: The Cistern.
We didn’t even notice the cistern when we first looked at the house. It is hidden behind this innocent looking wooden door about 4.5 feet up the basement wall. I should have suspected something was up when the door had a padlock on it, but I didn’t.
The cistern was apparently once used for laundry water. It is a giant concrete reservoir that holds (according to this little sign stuck on the inside of the door) 2858 gallons of water. It is deep. It goes father down than we can reach with a long stick.
Water comes in through a downspout attached to the gutters on the house (we think). There are two overflow pipes that appear to siphon off any overflow. There is also an elaborate gear/pulley system that must do something, but we aren’t sure what.
There are several pipes that come out of the wall down near the ground that must once have attached to a primitive laundry machine. It is quite possible it was last cleaned in 1956 by F. Ball. If I could find F. Ball, I would hire him to clean it again because it kind of freaks me out. We haven’t been able to locate a cistern expert, so we are making our best bet as to what we should do with it. (And by our best bet, I mean what our home inspector who specializes in old houses told us to do.) We treated the water with swimming pool shock and cross our fingers that nothing else happens.
The cistern is the first thing Mr. A shows anyone who visits. When we took M on a tour of the new house, he picked her up and showed it to her. Then he gave her a lecture about NEVER EVER opening it because she could drown in there. (As if anyone in their right mind would not only open it, but climb into that grody hole in the wall.) M is now terrified of the basement. Lovely.
One of our neighbors has a similar cistern. They have plans to rig a pump up to it to run yard sprinklers. I like that idea, but I don’t know if we will get around to it.
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