Pay Attention to MEEEEEEE!!

That's this blog yelling at me in the title there. I've not been a good blogger (jeezus christ I hate that word. The word just plops out of your mouth like a turd. Awful). So yeah, I am a slacker huh? I say that I want to have at least one update a week for this website/blog thing but of course I keep neglecting it. Why is this? Mainly it's cuz I don't have much going that is all that interesting. I'm trying to be courteous to you, gentle reader, by not posting a lot of sleep-inducing blather about my day-to-day existence. I HAVE to know about all this stuff that's in my head but I can at the very least shield you all from it. Basically I'm a hero and you need to praise me.

Alright, so...um..what's up? Not much with me. Yes, ok, there's stuff going on but it's all work stuff. I have some things I have to take care of at work and they seem to be taking quite a bit of not only my time but also my brain capacity (short order there huh? zing!). I think once I get past this project I'll be better able to focus on side projects like this (not that I have a ton of hobbies or whatever). I have a long-standing policy of not talking about jobs that appear on the resume so I'm certainly not going to go into much detail here. But I will say that I got cranky at my job recently. I was given a project that I wasn't thrilled about and after trying to wiggle my way out of it with no luck, I just sucked it up and did the work. That's really what I've found works for me anyway. Stop yer whining and just do the thing. Maybe you'll learn something in the process. So yea, it was not fun but it's wrapping up soon and as it turns out, I did learn some things. Meh. I tend to forget that if I'm uncomfortable and grumpy at work it usually means I'm learning something new. Yes, I can be a baby but hopefully I can be less of a baby in the future.

What about home stuff? Well, we recently had our deck and fence replaced at the house. The old deck was not-so-slowly sinking into the ground (this past winter and all that snow really took a toll on the poorly built bugger) and the fence that forms a giant 75-foot L shape between our property and two of our neighbor's houses (we have the corner lot) was threatening to fall over soon. I think the new stuff looks wicked pissah. Wanna see? 'Course you do. Let's do this in "Before and After" style!

See? Look how far away from the house that railing is...it was sinking!

Ahhhh..that's better

This was the culprit corner. This corner was down about 8 inches from where it was supposed to be.

Blammo! Fixed.

The shittiest stairs ever. Not one riser was the same height as the next one. The top one was almost 9 inches. The standard is somewhere between 6" and 7" (yes, I looked that up).

Mucho better.

Bleah. Look at that shit.

Ooh. So fresh and so clean clean.

Not bad right? Pretty slick. We used the same contractor who did our kitchen renovation. He rules. We also had him build us a little shed on the driveway side of the house. I don't have a picture of it but in his words: It's cute! It totally is too. I'm gonna get me a snow blower and keep it in there. Did I mention I know absolutely nothing about snow blowers? I've been shoveling snow since I was a tiny cherub. I believe I deserve some gas powered awesomeness to move that white bullshit for me. It will rule and it will never not work and nobody will ever break into my new shed and steal it. Right? Right.

The Very Timely Death of The Crack

After living with the ginormous crack in our kitchen ceiling for 11 years, the Wiff and I have decided that it's time to fix the mofo. And of course by this I mean "hire some dude to fix the mofo". The ceiling was damaged by what we suspect was the previous owner's kids. The bathroom is directly above the crack and an overflowing tub is the likely culprit. For the first 9 years we lived in the house, we completely ignored the crack and just puttered around the house blissfully ignorant of the blight taking up residence in our tiny, whacked-out kitchen. It was there, and we knew about it but it wasn't bothering anyone so we left it alone. Then in 2007 we put the house up for sale (I know...not exactly the best timing. Thanks economy!) and the crack was like a big ol' gaping mouth saying "HA! No one will pay what you're asking for this place with ME hanging around!" The crack was right.

I had attempted to repair it for the sake of making the house more presentable by using plaster button doo-dads but that didn't work out so great. As I was trying to install them I got a first-hand look at just how bad the damage was/is. When I drilled in the first button, the crack started to open up about 2 feet away from where I was applying pressure. I stopped cold and so did the ceiling. There was a bit of stand off for a few minutes and then I backed off. The crack was taunting me. So I ate the cost of the buttons and decided to smear some joint compound into the largest part of the crack. Yes, it looked shitty but it looked somewhat less shitty than before. I am no artisan. Oh, and then our house still didn't sell. Awesome.

So cut to this past summer and how damp it was here in the Boston area. The beginning of the summer was cooler and certainly wetter than recent memory and when the heat finally did arrive, I noticed the crack had widened. It had drooped more and become more noticeable. And then it started to drop bits of itself onto the kitchen floor. I'd notice little tiny bits of plaster crumbs that the cats had obviously enjoyed batting around the night before. Well goddamn. Now every time I wander into the kitchen (which is a lot...heh, stupid belly), I immediately look up at The Crack. It is now large enough to warrant proper noun status. I secretly think that my joint compound band aid may have aggravated the situation but don't tell the Wiff ok?

And so blah blah blah we're getting it fixed. A few nights ago we had a guy stop by to take a look but it turns out he doesn't fix ceilings (mis-communication there...he's a painter. whoops) so that wasn't so much helpful as it was a complete waste of everyone's time. However, tonight we have a genuine ceiling fixer dude/plaster guru coming over to laugh at our ceiling. Dunno if he'll be the one we end up hiring but it's a start. So fuck The Crack. He must go.

This is The Crack. I hate him.

Stop grinning at me you prick.

Purge, Purge and More Purge

The Great Purge of 2009 has begun. The Wiff and I had a smallish start a couple of weeks ago when we cleared out most of the cabinets in the pantry but this past weekend we tackled the back room of the basement. Here, lurking in boxes and Rubbermaid bins was an assload of stuff that we simply do not need. We cleared out enough things to fill about 12 boxes. And these are pretty decent sized boxes too. Next stop: The Attic.

Anyone Interested in Some VHS Tapes from the Early 90's?

The Wiff and I have lived in our house now for 11 years this month. That's a long time in my book. The longest I've lived in any one place was for 16 years (I still have dreams that take place at 70 Linwood St. It's always right there just under the surface). And so as you may have guessed, we've accumulated quite a bit of stuff. I used to like to remind the Wiff that when we moved in together all my worldly possessions fit into the back of my parents Hyundai Excel (including my bed which was strapped to the roof). Now if we were to move it would take a very large truck indeed. So what to do? It's time to purge some shit.

My mom used to go into fits of purging every now and then and just toss stuff out without really consulting anyone (like beloved stuffed animals or comic books). Our house was cluttered but always clean. We just seemed have a lot of stuff everywhere and then suddenly one day when everyone was out of the house, she'd flip a switch and throw stuff out. This is why I think I now have that tendency. It used to be much more prominant in my personality but I think but ever since the Wiff and I tried and failed to sell our house we kind of went into a, well I wouldn't call it a depression necessarily but perhaps a malaise? When we had the house up for sale we had to keep the place absolutely spotless at all times just in case the real estate broker called to let us know she was going to show it. We also had to strip it of any real personality so all our pictures and the more "funky" decorations had to be taken down. These all got boxed up and stored in the basement. I also took all my stupid little toys out of the little bedroom upstairs to make it look more presentable.

After it became apparent that no one wanted to buy our house, we had pulled it off the market but we didn't put all the stuff back right away. A lot of it still resides in those very same boxes in our basement. I'm talking 2 years now. Also since we didn't have to have the place looking like it was going to be in a photo shoot for Better Homes and Shitty Back Gardens it was allowed to revert to it's natural state of clean but cluttered. Plus there's all the stuff that we either aren't interested in anymore or just simply don't ever use in the basement and/or attic as well. If I'm honest about it, there's things there that I'm fairly certain we've actually NEVER used. We have boxes of old cassette and VHS tapes somewhere as well. It's just stuff. But since it's all (for the most part) neatly stacked away and out of sight, I was ok with it (as was the Wiff). Then we started watching the show "Hoarders".

Holy fuck. This show messed my shit up. Now I don't want to give the impression that we have a hoarding problem at all. I could not imagine the hell that these people on Hoarders live in. First of all, the subjects' obvious mental illness is really quite terrible but it was the very tangible physical evidence that I focused on. Meaning: there's piles of stuff everywhere. I literally wanted to become an instant Buddhist and just get renounce all worldly possessions (except my T.V. and maybe my PS3...I really like those. Oh, and maybe the cars..those were expensive. And I really like having the coffee maker. Hmm, maybe I don't need to renounce every everything). Watching this show awakened that dormant purge gene and all I could think about was organizing and minimizing the amount of thingies in the house.

On Saturday the Wiff and I started down the path by cleaning out the pantry cabinets. We're contemplating getting that room fixed up and I figured this would be a good way to promote my new "Let's throw shit out" agenda. Luckily the Wiff is smarter than me and suggested that we donate the stuff that's still good rather than renting a giant dumpster and just hurling everything into it. Fine. We'll do it your "sane" way or whatever. Hmph. The pantry is a pretty small space and there isn't much in the way of storage space but holy crap had we crammed a bunch of stuff in there. After all was said and done we ended up with 5 boxes for donation and only one that will be sent to the basement for storage (I know, I know...baby steps. Eventually we'll get the extra stuff to go away). The Wiff did a great job. It was harder for her than it was for me cuz for the most part the stuff in question were in her domain. I don't mean to make that sound like she "belongs in the kitchen" or any of that chauvinist bullshit, no I just mean that she's the chef of the house so these are all her tools. And goddamn if she didn't have a bunch of them.

Now all I can think about is what to tackle next. The coat closet? The back room in the basement? My tool area? The attic? There are plenty of places that need attention. The Great Post No-Sale of the House Depression has run its course. It's time to chuck shit into boxes and send 'em off to Salvation Army and/or Big Brother/Big Sister. Again, this is not to give the impression that our place is a mess. It simply isn't. But what we do have is a whole lot of shit that we don't need to keep around anymore. Especially if it's stuff that one of these charities can make some dough off of (mmmm, dangling preposition). "Why not have a yard sale then, Mark?" Oh silly reader. Don't you know by now that if you have a yard sale that people show up? I don't like people remember? This way is better me thinks.

Lawn Care and Jesus Christ

Nah, just kidding aboot the Jeebus part. I have an aversion to lawn care. Mainly cuz, well, I don't care. I'd much prefer if I had some sort of ground cover plant thing that did not require me to walk in a pattern with spinning blades mere inches from my tootsies. But this will not come to pass. Back when we first bought the house I was sort of gung-ho about the whole idea of taking care of my lawn. That feeling of pride wore off quickly and even though it's not big by any one's standards, there's enough of it that it does require attention (HEY-OH!).

I grew up in apartments and so I didn't have any experience at all with lawn care. Other people took care of that stuff (or as one landlord did, just paved directly over the grass. Classy). I had seen commercials where suburban type dudes took great interest in their lawns and would defend them against the dreaded onslaught of weeds and/or dandelions with their very lives. There were lotsa dandelions and odd looking leafy formations on my "lawn" out in front of the house. "Hmm, I should go get me some of them there spray things to knock down those weed things," I thought to meself. So I did. Did you know that most of those are engineered for use on weeds showing up on say, concrete driveways and such? Yea, I didn't. Reading is hard.

I used this product (RoundUp I think) on what I determined to be the biggest offenders of the area. I sprayed the fuck outta them. I looked down at the milky-white stuff (ew) on the leaves and felt great about my new-found home ownership and being now by association: a lawn care expert. I went back inside and got myself a beer cuz I fucking deserved it. The next day I went back out to survey my newly weed-free lawn. Oh, it was weed-free alright. It was also grass-free. I had in essence created little crop circles of death. I had a grass holocaust on my hands and I was responsible. "Hmm, that's fucked up," I thought. "I wonder why this powerful herbicide killed everything in its path instead of what I had meant to destroy?" Doesn't it know the difference? Nope. It does not. Oh and all these years later the only thing that will grow in those very same circles of death? Weeds. Big, crab-grassy, pervasive and invasive weeds. Nice.

When we first moved in I had purchased one of the reel push mower dealies. They work fine as long as you keep up with the growth of the stupid grass. I, um, didn't and found out that when grass reaches a certain height, all a reel push mower will do is knock the blades of grass over as it passes harmlessly over them. Well mother fuck. I had a gas-powered weed whacker thing but it's loud and noisy and made my hands hurt. Plus, it would shoot grass juice all over my pretty little sundress. Have you ever tried to mow a lawn with a weed whacker? It ain't fun.

I went out a couple years back and bought myself an honest-to-goodness gas lawnmower offa some dude who had it on Craigslist. He even had a 2-gallon gas tank that he threw in as an extra bonus. I brought it home, stuffed it into the basement (it was almost winter) and forgot about it. Flash-forward a couple of years later and I'm at work complaining to a buddy about having to weed-whack my ghetto lawn again. He asked me about the lawn mower I had bought. Oh, that. Um, I don't know how to use it. Hee. I didn't know, seriously. He somehow didn't kick me in the balls and offered to show me how to use it that Saturday. Deal.

One of the problems with having this lawn mower stashed in the basement is that I don't have a bulkhead access for the basement. The only real way to get the thing into and out of the basement is to lug it up the basement stairs and then drag it across the kitchen floor to the back door. The biggest issue with that is when you happen to have more than half a tank of gas in the mower, it tends to leak out as your dragging it up the stairs. Awesome. So whatever, I learn how to use the mower (much obliged there Andy) and proceeded to use it fairly regularly, spilling gas all over my stairs every goddamn time.

Then I ran out of gas. Now I am a special kind of lazy. I still (I'm talking over a year now) haven't gotten more gas for the mower. Yup. A YEAR. Whatevs. I kinda hated the gas mower anyway for many of the same reasons I hate the gas weed whacker thing. So it has been sitting in a corner of my basement mocking my manhood ever since. Up yours mower, can't you see I'm not manly? Sheesh. I even looked into getting one of those battery powered mowers but they're more money than I was willing to spend. So what to do? I bought myself an electric weed whacker (with the giant 100 foot cord) and I'm out there like a retard weed whacking my whole lawn again. Sigh.

At the beginning of the spring I was out in front of the house dreading another season of lawn care when the kid who lives next door came over. "Hey Mr. O'Malley," he called, as I freaked out realizing that that's actually my name now...so old. "I can mow your lawn for you if you want whenever I mow my mom's lawn." YES! You, sir are a savior. He said he'd do it for $10 and I could just pay him whenever I saw him next. Holy shit. Dude, I'm gonna pay you $20 for your much appreciated service. Now chop chop! Get to mowing!

And for a solid month and a half this was my greatest accomplishment. I had procured a landscaper for super cheap. I remember the first time I pulled into our driveway and looked over at the freshly mowed lawn. Best. $20. Ever. It ruled. Then about 10 days ago, after noticing that my lawn was in need of a trimming I saw the kid. He had a cast on his arm. Oh Fuck You. "Hey there Mike," I called out to him. "Uh, what happened?" He broke his goddamn wrist. 6 weeks in a cast and then 5 weeks of physical therapy. Oh, you dick. That's the whole goddamn summer and right into early fall. WHO'S GONNA MOW MY LAWN FOR ME? YOU EVER THINK OF THAT? Oh, I need to sit down for a minute. Oh you putz. Ugh.

So there it is. Right now my lawn is so overgrown that I'm thinking of calling in the EPA to see if I can get it declared a wildlife preserve or something. I just don't want to fucking walk around trailing a 100 feet of cord getting covered in tiny bits of grass and debris. My Chuck Taylors are supposed to be blue, not streaked with green grass ick. Plus it's been raining here non-stop for going on a month now. This is gonna suck. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the lawn tonight but no promises. My brain is very tiny.

Why Is Your Belly All Wet?

Back when we first moved in together (1993..holy poop!), The Wiff (although back then she wasn't The Wiff, she was "Amy Davis" ... by the way, her name fits perfectly into "Amadeus" by Falco. Try it! Rock me Amy Davis!) and I sort of split up the household chores without really ever discussing it. She is a much better cook than I am (that may be the biggest understatement ever) and I like to clean (yes, I like to clean) so those two were pretty easy to define. Other chores tend to spawn from those 2 basic ones and we've been ok with that arrangement for years.

Back in the apartment living days we agreed that whomever cooked the meal would be exempt from doing the dishes for said meal. That has since morphed into Amy doing I'd say 97% of the dishes in the house ("But wait," you interject rudely. "Doesn't doing the dishes fall squarely under 'cleaning' as far as chores go?" Yes it does. Shutup. I hate doing dishes. And since we currently do not have a dishwasher thing, I get Dishes Belly every time I do them. What's "Dishes Belly"? DB occurs when I lean too far forward while washing the dishes and I tend to get a portion of my belly very wet in the process. Like, soaked. It's an issue). Where was I going with this? Oh right! I was pointing out how Amy kinda got screwed on the dishes front. Heh.

Amy also does all of the grocery shopping. To me, that is a god-awful chore in and of itself what with the crowds and the overly bright stores and the rows and rows of stuff and I get overwhelmed and I need to leave immediately...pant, pant, pant. But she enjoys it. I know this for a fact because I asked her about it. When we lived in Allston and had to shop at the run-down Purity Supreme (a.k.a. "Poverty Supreme" or "Grubby-stan" do to the large number of surly Russian old ladies who roamed the isles, glaring at people), it was my job to carry all the bags home. One time I tried to "help" by taking her list and ripping it in half so that she could do one half and I could do the other to make things faster. This is efficient yes? No. Did you know that unless you specifically plan your list to be torn in half like that it doesn't make it any faster? In fact, it made her so mad at me that I haven't gone grocery shopping with her since. We're talking 15 years now (plus, we have the ol' Volvo wagon now so I'm only needed to bring in the stuff from the car to the kitchen, not blocks and blocks and then up several flights of stairs. Stupid Allston).

So what do I do? I clean. I sweep, dust, vacuum, mow, shovel, scrub, rinse, wash and a whole host of other synonyms. I do laundry (although Amy will help out on that front too .. wow, she's really getting the short end of the stick here), take the trash out, clean the wood stove thing blah dee blah. Basically we do stuff for the house and each other without much complaint. But I have reached a point with the kitty-poo-poo boxes where I can't take it anymore. We have 4 cats and 6 boxes. Why 6? Well, the idea was so that just in case I didn't scoop for a day or two, there'd be a box that was acceptable to the little fuckers. But now one of them has decided that peeing on the floor is way cooler than doing it in the box. Luckily it's in the basement on the concrete floor but still...it's pretty frickin' gross no matter how you slice it.

I've dealt with the horrible cat box thing since we got our first lil' dude Mugsy (who, while not in the best of health is still with us 15 years later) but the problem isn't with the boxes or the piddling on the floor or the dusty nasty litter. Oh no. The problem is with this evil thing. Warning: Don't click that link unless you wanna skeeve out for at least 15 minutes straight. Gah. I'm freaking out over here. Our house (♪in the middle of our street♪) has these things running around in the basement. I don't want to give the impression that we're infested with them but I'd say in the warmer months I'll see one every third or fourth trip downstairs. They are fast and the word "creepy" does not do them justice. They are evil incarnate. They make my blood run cold. They freak me out just as much as the cockroaches did in the first shitty apartment we had (stupid Allston). I did some rerearch on them and I guess they're harmless but I disagree. Anything that moves that fast and makes me shriek cannot be harmless. Our useless cats are afraid of them too.

So this is the main reason why I don't want to scoop the litter boxes anymore. The cat waste part is bad enough but when there is the potential of a critter running across my foot making me scream like a 12-year-old girl, I think we can all agree that that's asking too much. Now how can I convince Amy that it's perfectly fine for her to go down there and scoop? Hmmm...