Ramble On

Trying Not To Suck

I got an email two days ago that was from TypePad, saying I had a new comment to my blog. I opened it up and the comment said," you suck!  you use to write more....what is up?  do you have another interest in your life????"

As soon as I read the "you suck" part, I knew it was from my sister Dana. Dana was born 11 months and 3 weeks after me. Yep, she was an accident. She came home from the hospital on my first birthday. In my baby book (which my mom made about 3 entries in before losing interest and now the baby book is lost anyway) my mom listed on the page for my 1st birthday that my present was "a new sister". There were definitely times when I thought my life would have been much easier if I had gotten a teddy bear or doll or something.

Apparently I was caught trying to kill her by pulling her through the slats in her baby bed at some point. She made up for it by biting me approximately 1,212 times after her teeth came in. (How NOT ironic she is the mom of a renowned biter.) Being so close in age, we were almost like twins, and I remember doing everything together as small children. She was so easy to trick - "here, get in this giant suitcase and I will zip you up but I will let you out after 5 seconds" then "haha, I am going outside to play now while you are stuck in a giant suitcase." She was the one who always got in trouble; I was the devious brain behind all her escapades. "If you go color on your wall, I will color on mine." "If you jump in the pool with your clothes on even though it is February, I will jump in right after you."  She would always fall for it, and then I would run tell on her. It is kind of a chicken or the egg thing with how that all worked. Did I trick her into getting into trouble because she was always beating the crap out of me or did she always beat me up because I was getting her in trouble?  (I was physically kind of a wimp, anemic and scrawny and I was terrified of her physically. I could only compete with tricks and traps.) Because my parents were big on the concept of spanking, I caused Dana to get lots of spankings. In fact, Dana was ALWAYS in trouble. The stupid thing was, I would get so upset when she would be getting a spanking that I would pitch a tantrum in protest and act up so much that I would usually end up getting a spanking too.

During our high school years we were archenemies most of the time. I did take up for her to my parents when she would get in trouble, which happened frequently and no longer at my urging. At one point she was sent to live with my Dad a few towns over because she was a "discipline problem" and I wrote some of my most eloquent writing, for a melodramatic teenager, on her behalf trying to convince both parents she should get to come home. I am sure once she did get to come home we went right back to being mean to each other. Again, Dana was ALWAYS in trouble.

During college, she and I had completely different lifestyles. She was responsible and worked pretty much full-time while going to school and I was all about the partying. Many, many times I made a distressed drunken phone call in the middle of the night to my sister (I am at a party and "insert random name of current romantic interest" is being a jerk, can you come get me?) Within 20 minutes I would be standing in a parking lot somewhere and see this little white Escort station wagon come barreling in with Dana behind the wheel to rescue me. For this one brief period, Dana was NOT always in trouble.

After college we didn't stay in touch very much. She lived out of state for several years and months would go by without us even speaking. When she finally moved back to Georgia, she moved in with me, bringing her dog, who will only be referred to as "Stink Dog". I won't elaborate, I could write an entire post just on how bad that dog smelled even after coming back from the groomer, and also on his horrible painful pooping problem that had neighbors calling us worried about the distressing noises coming from the yard. Living in a teeny house with Dana, Stink Dog, and my boyfriend at the time was interesting. We had resumed our normal roles, and she was the partier and I was the responsible one. Somehow I was the only person in the house working full-time, the only one paying bills, and as far as I could tell the only one doing any cleaning up. So I made a "chore list" giving Dana and boyfriend at the time a list of tasks and the days to complete them, which was met with much laughter from both and then promptly ignored. After she moved out, we went through another period of falling out of touch.

I think when our Dad was dying we became close again, and her giving birth to Sam and Boo Boo, nephews extraordinaire, insured that she will never be able to shake me out of her life again. She is a great mom and is much more successful than I am, in terms of career and family. She lives next door to my mom and step-dad, which is really funny considering how much conflict there was between the two of them back in the days when she was ALWAYS in trouble. We disagree on lots of things, have very different tastes and interests, but she is a best friend to me. I don't know how I would have made it through the last year if I hadn't had her around. My only complaint is that she will not give me Boo Boo, but she says she needs to have one good kid at least. Sam takes after her.

Last October, at Mom's Suprise Party

Rock Show

Last night I saw Ryan Adams and the Cardinals at the Tabernacle. It was a spectacular show and he/they really rocked. The evening started out with the skies opening up and flooding on me while I was waiting to get in the venue and I looked like a drowned rat. Then I managed to have a rather testy exchange of words with two guys sitting behind us. They were mad that a woman about 6 rows in front of us had the audacity to stand up at a rock show. Apparently this was equal in their minds to stomping on a baby kitten and they proceeded to bitch about her loudly, yell at her, and mock her until I finally snapped and turned and yelled back at them that they were ruining the show for me much more than that women could possibly be ruining it for them. Some more words were exchanged before I suggested they should stay home and watch pay-per-view concerts on cable. I am usually the BIGGEST wimp in the world, but I knew if I didn't say anything I would be listening all night to the two of them making their comments they thought were so cool and snarky. I am 5 feet tall, I have NEVER seen a concert of any kind when my view was NOT impeded by some person and yet I have somehow managed to enjoy myself. So after our exchange they made a few comments about me to save face, then left to get beers. When they returned they didn't say another word about anything, and in fact stood up the rest of the concert themselves. I was then able to focus on the show, which as I stated earlier, really rocked.

My 4th of July

I went to my friend Mark's parents' house in Alabama. They live on a lake. I actually swam in the lake, despite my general dislike of being in water that is not in my bathtub. Well, I didn't really swim, just floated on noodles.We paddled the canoe across to the cove, and since I was in the front I actually had to paddle and couldn't just fake it like when I went sea kayaking one time in Maine with an old, old boyfriend. (He should have never let me sit in the back.)

We drove back to Atlanta on the 4th, just in time for Jen and Susan's Fish Fry. It was a blast. I hope I always have friends who own a deep fryer. I went for a walk around the block to help recover from eating approximately 32 hushpuppies, and unfortunately I missed the shattering of the George Bush pinata that Susan craftily made. Then, about a half-hour before we were to go watch the fireworks in Decatur, a massive thunderstorm rolled in, and everyone had to make a mad dash inside to continue the party. My homemade ice cream was delicious, of course. (I can say that without worrying that I sound like a bragger, because homemade ice cream is one of only about 5 things that I can make that is good.) I also made a homemade sauce for the ice cream using dark brown sugar and walnuts. By the time we left J and S's house, people were dipping hushpuppies in the leftover brown sugar sauce. Not me! Gross.

End of Dry Spell

It's not that I have had nothing going on to write about- I have- but I just haven't been in the mood. I have been a little busier, a little more tired, and a little sluggish, which anyone who has lived through a summer in Atlanta can understand.

Here is the latest on my house:

So, we finally have started. Last week the trenches for the foundation were dug and I think in the next couple of weeks block is going to be delivered for the walls. Of course, OF COURSE, after a long dry spell that had Atlanta on water usage bans, we started getting regular rain as soon as the digging started.

Okay, so you really have to kind of use your imagination here. I took this photo while standing on a mound of dirt in my future backyard. The trenches kind of let you see where the house will be on the lot.
Maybe this next picture will help you envision everything a little better.

This model was made way back at the beginning of the process. You can see how the living area is two stories tall and looks out into what will be the courtyard. My art studio and bedroom also look out onto the courtyard. There is a roof-top terrace over one of the garages, but I will be renting the entire upstairs out and won't get to use it personally, for now at least. Originally, the master bedroom, bath, and bonus room were located upstairs. After I became single again, we had to make some revisions in order for me to be able to afford to continue the project. Now the former music studio is going to be my bedroom. Also for budgetary reasons, we had to lose a lot of the glass shown in the model. The main two-story store-front window of the living area remains, but the two windows on either side of it are now gone and will be galvanized metal. The skylights are gone, too. But you can see that there will still be plenty of windows and light.

Here are sketches of the front and back elevations. I added a few notes about the materials and such.

Here is a shot looking from what will be my courtyard. (I will also have  40' x 50' backyard, but I am most excited about the courtyard since that is what most of the house will view and I loved gardening in my courtyard when I lived in my house in Decatur.)

I will post floorplans at some point. I only have old ones now. I am meeting with Bill on Tuesday to finalize my kitchen layout. I have already ordered my bathroom plumbing fixtures and when I opened up the box I have never been so excited over a showerhead in my life. Hopefully in about ten months I will be actually using it.

Pardon any grammatical or spelling errors in this post. I am too lazy tonight to proof anything.