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This is my third blog (if you only count the ones I didn't get sick of and delete after only a handful of entries). There has been a lot of water under the bridge since I first started blogging here. I know that "Here" is not the place it used to be, I also know I'm not the person I used to be. That's okay. Maybe there's still some of that old spark left. |
| This whole trying to write every day thing is tough and I am terribly out of practice. I think tomorrow I am going to walk the beach in the morning. That is still my favorite thing about where I'm living. My brother and sister in law have offered me a canoe, and as soon as I can figure out how to get it from there to here, I am going to take them up on it. Ultimately, Michael and I would like to get a couple kayaks, but until that happens, a canoe with be awesome. There are so many places around here to drop a canoe into either the river, the bay, or one of the many, many creeks and inlets. We have Michael's kids with us this weekend and so the energy and noise level are higher than usual. I enjoy the kids, but I think I will need a quiet walk on the beach to decompress tomorrow. Or maybe I should drag the kids along and have them burn off some of the energy! |
| Ernest Hemingway said "“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Sounds interesting, but truth can be a bit fuzzy and subjective. People forget that sometimes. We forget that perception is reality, and truth can be situational. We put too much stock in things like facts and truth. Now that's a true sentence! In a way, fiction is held to higher standards of truth than the real world. In fiction, characters have motive, symbolism imbues meaning into damn near everything because if it was irrelevant, it wouldn't have made the final draft. I had a history teacher try to explain that the problem with our understanding of history lies in our desire to turn events into stories. We frame things out in terms of protagonists and antagonists and assign motives to actions and reduce it all down to three acts. In doing so, we run the risk of completely missing the point in part because we tend to cast ourselves or those we identify with as the stars (either heroes or victims) while stripping agency from others. It makes better copy. Just ask Brian Williams... his story about being in the helicopter that was taking fire and was forced to land (I think that was the story) was a great story. It just never happened to him. And then there was Ryan Lochte's rather detailed account of being mugged at gun point in Brazil except that never happened either. We all engage in some degree of self aggrandizing behavior. In that way, we are all authors seeking to craft a narrative that makes more heroic, more tragic or just more interesting... |
| Went to look at a house today, and without meaning too, I fell in love. The place was built in 1935 and it just oozes charm. It is a well built, beautifully maintained, and recently updated house. Is it perfect? No. Definitely not. There isn't a master suite, it is one bedroom short, and the kitchen is in-arguably small. It could be that I would grow to hate that kitchen. The closets, on the other hand, are pretty generous. There is no way we'll be putting an apartment in the outbuilding anytime soon, but the space has a lot of potential... not to mention STORAGE. The basement could be partially finished to create a fourth low ceilinged bedroom. There is also an attic. Michael suggested we could put a bedroom up there, but since the stairs are of the pull down variety, I don't really see that working. But there again we have storage! I was walking behind Michael to tour the upstairs bedrooms and upon walking into one room, he stopped short and said "Oh. Jesus." I thought maybe our luck had run out and this would be the room with the water damage from a roof leak or something along those lines. I couldn't see around him so I asked "What's wrong?" "Nothing's wrong" he reassured me and stepped forward so I could come into the room. And there in a wall niche was a statue of Jesus.  The place had charm. It had crown molding and old-school cut glass door handles, and solid paneled doors, and I am completely smitten. The lot is wonderful and I'm so used to walking on a "lawn" of cross cropped weeds. The grass there was so thick it was like walking on a plush carpet. This, of course, brings us to the issue of timing. I asked the realtor if it was absolutely unthinkable to ask for a closing date six months out. The house has been on the market for since March and they've dropped the price twice, so maybe... Realtor said to get a letter saying we are pre-approved for a mortgage and then we could talk about an offer, but we need to show we are qualified buyers first. So... that's the next step. Oh... they are putting in central air next week and we are going to go back to see the house again after that's done because depending on how they do the duct work, we could lose too much ceiling height to have usable basement space. It's all kind of a long shot, but it is still exciting and fun to think about the possibilities. I'm pretty philosophical though, and if it doesn't work out, I'll manage to convince myself that it wasn't meant to be because I would have just hated the kitchen! |
| I thought if I pushed back blogging until evening I'd have come up with something to write about. The plan didn't work out too well and I've still got nothing particularly interesting. BUT... since I am trying to write everyday, I'll just tell you about something rather mundane. I take a commuter bus into DC everyday to work. This works exceptionally well for the most part and spares me the horrors of beltway driving and the insane cost of parking in DC. A bus pass for the month runs a good $50 less than a month of parking AND I don't have to pay for gas and vehicle wear and tear on top of that. So... I take a bus. There are two park and rides where I can catch the bus. One is a bit further from home, but is a much nicer park and ride. The buses run more frequently, and are less crowded. Also that stop is the last pick up point so it is pretty much an express run that drops me within 2 blocks of my office. The other park and ride is very close to home. It is run by a different company and the buses run less frequently. The buses are generally pretty full and not so direct. Oh yeah, there also isn't a real park and ride lot. We park at a church and walk to the bus stop at the gas station across the street. In the winter when the days are short, we end up crossing a BUSY in the dark twice a day. Perhaps as a result of these hardships, those of us who catch the bus at that stop are a pretty tight and social group. Once there is more than one person at the stop, the phones get put away and we TALK to each other. Even though it is morning, we chat and frequently share a couple laughs. In the evening, we've been known to linger in the lot sharing stories about our days. We know each others names. At the nice park and ride lot, the phones are out. Some people talk, but mostly they are have kids who play soccer together or something. There are no shared near death experiences to bond over either. Guess which stop I prefer. |
| I've been away from WDC long enough that I'd forgotten the frustration of losing an entire entry when I tried to post it! Oh well... that brought back some memories! Michael and I began our house hunting in earnest yesterday. Maybe that's a bit overstated. We looked at one house that was maybe .10 of a mile from where we currently live. It fell solidly into the category of "fixer upper." One of the first things Michael did was to look under the kitchen sink. He was using the flashlight on his cell to peer into the cupboard and a said "Well there is obviously an infestation of mice that would have to be addressed," and with that, I felt myself edging toward the door! The house had a thoughtful layout that would have worked well, but it had very little storage including no garage, and no basement. I made a concerned sound over damage to the hardwood floor where the fridge had apparently leaked. Michael heard me and asked "What's wrong? Did you see a mouse?" I laughed and assured him that if I'd seen a mouse he'd know because I'd be shrieking as I ran out the door. He has not yet witnessed a full on rodent freak-out. It would probably be best to get that out of the way before we make things any more permanent. In any case, I did not see mice, but I saw dollar signs everywhere I looked. The house has a lot of potential, and maybe if it had the basement and garage, or if it was on a more appealing lot, we might be inclined to take on that project, but as it stands, we'd have to pour a lot of money into the place and it still wouldn't be what we want/need. It got us looking at other listings again though, and now we have an appointment to see another place on Thursday. I've looked at the listing for the next property a bunch of times. I love it so much that I'd even pinned some of the interior pictures to my Pinterest board. I hadn't considered it seriously though because it is a three bedroom cape circa the 1940s and that carries a number of limitations like small kitchen isolated in the back of the house, tiny closets, and overall cramped living spaces. Also, and this was a big deal breaker, it didn't have central air conditioning. The owners are now putting in air conditioning! It still only has three bedrooms, but there is a walkout basement and a good sized two-story outbuilding/garage/workshop/office. We are going to go take a look to see if there is the possibility for adding a fourth bedroom in either the basement, or as an apartment over the garage. Since Zack will be graduating in May, that bit of separation and independence might be good all around. As for the rest, I am trying to keep in mind that Michael and I are going to be empty-nesters before we know it, and in many ways buying smaller and staying put would be preferable to buying big and then needing to move/downsize in 5 years. In any case, I am looking forward to seeing it, and feel fortunate to have found a relator who is happy to work with us despite our long time line. |
| I am an active Twitter user. It is kind of a love/hate thing really. It took years of passive participation to really figure out how to engage on Twitter where there seem to be thousands of self promoting voices screaming for attention at any given moment. But, once you find users who are seeking engagement versus a platform for self-promotion, it can be a pretty cool place. I like that it gives me a forum to delve into the types of political discussion that I try to avoid with family, friends and coworkers. Now don't get me wrong, Twitter can be a dark and awful place. The level of hatred that is targeted against some users is horrific and there is a strongly misogynistic undercurrent as well but that just makes me more determined to be part of the conversation. I am contrary that way! Besides, sometimes I come across a tweet that is so funny I damn near fall out of my chair laughing. Yeah, that happened this morning when @BoobsRadley tweeted: "I wish there was a vibrator that lectured women about music so we could just, like, train ourselves to find it erotic." I was in tears and too breathless with laughter to explain to Michael why I was laughing. I just handed him my phone. He read the tweet and... well... he didn't laugh. His lack of amusement made me laugh that much harder. After a couple of minutes, and once my boisterous laughter was spent down to a smirk of amusement, Michael finally said "I never thought about it, but men do kinda do that, don't they?" Yeah, that set me off again. I love the man dearly, but he is very prone to lecturing about music. Staying on the topic of gender today, I read another article this morning through a twitter link about how families with sons are more likely to stay together than families with daughters because... well... men prefer sons. It went on to talk about gender and the expectations associated with gender. In the course of the article, the author cites a study that analyzed random internet searches and found that the question "Is my son gifted?" was searched twice as often as the corollary "Is my daughter gifted?" despite the fact that girls are twice as likely to be enrolled in gifted programs. They also found that the question "Is my daughter over weight?" occurred twice as often as "is my son overweight?" while boys are twice as likely as girls to be overweight. The use of internet searches as a metric for measuring attitudes in interesting and likely to be very revealing, but I think they need to find a way to control for writers. I don't know about you all, but I have Googled some strange shit in the name of research!  |
| Other than some wind, we did not really experience any effects from the storm. We didn't even get any rain, and we could have really used it. Today was a beautiful day and Michael and I walked the boardwalk along the bay and visited the beach. I really do enjoy living so close to the bay. There are cliff formations along much of the local shoreline, and the Calvert Cliffs are loaded with fossils that are continually released as the cliffs erode. We visited a stretch of beach today along the cliffs, and the fossil hunters were out in force as they generally are following a storm. I always enjoy talking with them and they seem to enjoy showing off the sharks teeth or other assorted finds. I found what appears to be a fossilized piece of sea turtle shell. Driving home, we noticed a for sale sign on a house we both liked. When I got home, I looked up the information and it seems to be an interesting possibility. The property is approved for a short sale and the price is well below our budget. Unfortunately the house does not have either a basement or garage, but it is so far below budget that we could feasibly add a garage. I know that short sales can get complicated, but since we have loads of time, I figure we might as well check it out. I contacted a realtor and we were able to make an appointment to see the property at 1:00 tomorrow, so I guess the plan to wait until January or February to start looking for houses is kind of out the window! What can I say... I think we are both a bit over anxious to find a place and make it ours. |
| The sky is very dark and threatening, and the winds are starting to pick up. Hermine is no longer at hurricane force, but according to the weather sites, it is still a potentially life threatening storm. The wind is blowing here and the backyard is already covered with leaves. There are things I need to do in the next couple hours to prepare for this storm, but I'm really hoping we will avoid the worst bits of it. I am about a mile inland from the bay, and I don't need to worry about tidal surge, but I'm in the woods so wind, falling trees or tree limbs, and loss of power are all potential issues. I have no idea about flood risks since this house is a rental and I haven't been in it through any serious storms. I am going to need to secure the patio furniture, run to the grocery store for some no perishable snacks and perhaps a bag of ice to help hold freezer temps if we lose power. I also need to top off my gas tank, charge all things electronic, dig out candles, lighters and flashlights and check batteries. Oh yeah, I also need to lay in some water since we're on a well here. At least the temperatures are comfortable enough that losing the AC wouldn't be miserable. Michael says that when we buy a house of our own, he wants to put in a small generator to keep a fridge running and allow us to charge phones. We talk a lot about the next house. The lease on this place is up in July 2017 and we definitely plan to buy a place before then. I've been looking at houses a lot, and have concluded that the next house is going to involve a lot of compromises and is probably going to be a 5 year transitional house rather than the house we'll grow old in. Michael has two kids that are with us every other weekend and also for a couple weeks in the summer, but at 13 and 16, that won't be the case for a whole lot longer. Also, Zack is likely to live at home for a couple years of community college before transferring to a four year school, but that is not a given. Even if he goes to a four year school, he'll be with us in the summertime so we need enough space for all the kids even if it is mostly just us. But over the next 5 years our situation is going to change dramatically and whatever we buy now is probably not going to seem way to big down the line. Michael and I both would prefer and older home with some character, but most of the housing in this area is stock suburban 4 bedroom colonial so that is probably what we'll land in. We've debated sacrificing some convenience to get more land and privacy for the same money. Michael and I are well matched and both have some strong, hermit-like tendencies. The privacy holds a lot of appeal, BUT, I think we could allow ourselves to become too isolated. I kind of feel like being in a neighborhood would force more interaction and that it could be a positive thing. There is a neighborhood nearby that I have been looking at. It has a pretty steady supply of listings. The neighborhood has public water and sewer and SIDEWALKS. I like the sidewalks. There is also a walking/biking path that connects the development to the bay front town and boardwalk. I am strongly leaning in this direction, but I know that it'll ultimately come down to what houses are available in our price range at the time we decide to get serious and that'll probably be January or February. I would love to be able to get serious about looking now while the interest rates are so low, but it doesn't even make sense to move forward with getting a mortgage pre-approved when I am due for a pay raise in October and am looking at a possibility of promotion. Also, Michael is going to be coming off of his temporary active duty assignment and returning to his civilian job. All of that makes it difficult to establish our income/budget. Plus... we have a lease AND I don't want to relocate during Zack's school year. Still, with the upcoming election, I do worry about the interest rates. For now I just keep looking at the real estate listings online. Until the power goes out... |
| It is Labor Day weekend, and I'm looking forward to the long weekend. It looks like it might be a washout as far as the weather goes but I don't think we'll see the worst of Hurricane Hermine. In any case, I doubt it'll be the worst or stormiest Labor Day weekend I'll have gone through. It was during Labor Day weekend, four years ago today, that I told Tony I wanted a divorce. I'd known for months that I needed to have the conversation, but since we were living in different states at the time, it was a bit difficult to approach. I didn't want to tell him over the phone. I also didn't want to tell him a month earlier when we were on vacation at the beach with my entire family and uh... celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. I did a lot of on-line research about when, and how and what to tell him. In case you ever find yourself in this situation, I'll tell you what the on-line advice said and what my actual experience was. The expert advice I read on line said that I should tell him early in the day. I should tell him when we were alone, and in a setting where we both had the option of walking away if we needed to. Tony was home for a long Labor Day weekend. I knew I had to tell him because he was going to be shipping out for a 6 months on an aircraft carrier in October. I could not let him think things were okay for 6 months at sea and then tell him I wanted a divorce when he returned. I also needed to tell him now while he had his friends around to support him so he could come to terms before he shipped out. I had to tell him, but we had his nephew's wedding to attend on Saturday and I could not tell him before the wedding. That was awkward. The same minister who married Tony and me performed his nephew's ceremony. I knew that I couldn't wait until the end of the weekend and tell him on his way out the door. We'd been married for 18 years, and I owed it to him to do this right. I agonized over how to do it right. What no one really told me is that there is absolutely NO WAY to do it right. If I'd really known and understood that, I might have saved myself a lot of stress. As it was, I picked Sunday morning. I told him early... before the kids were awake. I stuck to the expert advice. I did not blame. I used "I statements." I didn't speak from anger. He was shocked. Devastated. Confused and Angry. It was hard and horrible. He knew it hadn't come out of nowhere. He knew we were having issues, but thought they were just the just due to the hardships of living apart. He wanted to know how long I'd been planning to divorce him. He wanted to know if my mind was made up or if there was anything he could do. There was nothing. We gave each other a lot of space that day, but we also spent time together with the kids (who did not know yet). We made it through Sunday and held it together through Monday. We talked a bit about things like money and telling the kids (he decided to leave that one up to me). For practical reasons, we decided we would wait until he finished his deployment before filing, but he agreed that he would not contest the divorce. It was terribly unfair because I had completely come to terms with the marriage being over and he was just struggling to catch up. He spent some time on the computer typing out long letters expressing his feelings. Mostly he was feeling deeply wronged and deceived. I kept those letters for a long time and felt deeply guilty. When I was packing to move, I found them and threw them away. They were written in a moment of hurt and anger and they were full of spite, venom and accusation. I wasn't ever going to read them again, and they were not something I wanted our children to ever read. I think I wrote him back. I vaguely remember responding in writing and attempting to calmly explain my position, point out all of my prior attempts to address our issues (it did not come out of nowhere like he accused) and provide my rationale for telling him when I did. He was really stuck on the dishonesty and betrayal of pretending like we still had a marriage after I'd already decided I wanted a divorce. By Tuesday I was emotionally exhausted. Tony was driving back to North Carolina that day and I gotta say that was a relief. I packed the kids off to school and when I came back from the bus stop I started getting ready to go to work. Tony was dumbfounded (and maybe rightly so). "You aren't really going to work are? We finally have a chance to talk alone and you are seriously going to walk out and go to work without talking this through?" Yeah, that had been my plan and maybe it was a shitty plan. I called an left a message at work that I was taking the morning off and would be in around noon. I knew Tony would need to be on the road by then. So we talked. Mostly he wanted to know what he'd done that was so horrible that I would take his entire world away from him. I tried to stick to the expert advice and not blame him, but all he wanted to know was why. What had he done? He told me I once told him there were only two reasons I'd ever leave him; if he cheated on me, or if he ever hit me. Since he hadn't done either of those things, he didn't understand how this was happening. I'm pretty sure I never said those where the only two reasons I'd ever leave, those were just the two most expedient ways to guarantee it. Here's the thing. It is impossible to stay away from blame and still satisfy his need to understand what he did wrong. At some point I realized that and started to bleed out all the years of eroded trust and pain and anger. He wept along with me and apologized and we both feeling emotionally wrecked. After it had all poured out, I opened my arms to him and said "Come here. Let's hug it out Bitch." This was not in the expert advice, but guess what... it worked. We both laughed, and it broke the horrible tension between us. It allowed us to regroup and say goodbye. |
| Working in DC has an eye opening experience for me. Working in the field of social services, I've always been required to attend annual training on cultural competency, but I've gotta say that working for DC government is the first time I have ever felt like I contributed to the diversity of my workplace. For the first month I worked there, I was pretty much known as "that little white girl." I'm not really "little" by any stretch, but I am pretty much the whitest, white girl you've ever seen. In fact, I've come to appreciate that one of the VERY best things about working in a predominantly black workplace is that I do not feel compelled to even bother with the self tanning bullshit in the summertime! Okay, sometimes I still do but not often. At my old job my coworkers would mock me mercilessly for being so pale. I didn't wear a lot of skirts or dresses in the summer because of my bare leg shame. Now, I may be the palest white girl in the world, but no one in my office is ever gonna point that out to me. No one is gonna look at my legs and complain about the "glare." And now I wear skirts and dresses almost everyday in the heat of the summer. We've had some pretty candid discussion about the Black Lives Matter movement in my office. Being a mom and sending your kids off to college and out into the world is always hard, but for my coworkers who are dropping their black sons off at college, there is an added level of tension. My friend Kevin is from Florida and he lived in Clearwater for a year. In that year he was stopped by the police 67 times, but was never issued a citation. He blames it on the fact that he was a young black man driving an Audi. I've been stopped by the police exactly one time in all the years I've been driving. My coworkers drill their kids on what to do and more importantly what NOT to do if they are ever pulled over. One afternoon I was chatting with a couple of the black women I work with and they were talking about how they use subtle signs to refer to race. For example, if someone says something about Mary and there is both a black and a white Mary, they'd indicate which Mary they meant by either touching the back of their hands (for black) or the palm of their hand (for white). My friend Jackie asked me what white people do. I had to laugh because I guess white people aren't that subtle and would either come right out and say "The black lady" or, if they were feeling the need to be discrete, they'd just mouth the word "black." We have a lot of discussion like that, they aren't always entirely comfortable, but they are always enlightening. |
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I too am house hunting. I'm off to do some viewing tomorrow. Not moved house in 33 years so it should be an eye opener. Don't think I'll be looking under any kitchen sinks, but will keep the advice about unwanted furry visitors in mind. I rather like mice though, but don't want to cohabit with any. 