11 posts tagged “home”

Someone tried to get into my backyard (and then, I'm assuming, my house) Saturday morning. I'd gone to read, so it happened between 7:45 and 10:15 am. Early risers these MoFo's.

They almost broke down my wooden gate, that's how I noticed when I pulled in the driveway. I'd been out there the weekend before working on it because it wasn't staying closed. That's how I know it was closed. Locked. A cinder block on the other side to help hold it closed.

It's troubling. Is it the same robber coming back? A new set?

Well, I feel like I am making head-way getting other people to do stuff for me:

• got the yard done yesterday
• got huge bush trimmed back to scale today
  
• having ceiling fans installed right now
  

Today, I got some dog food. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and to visit Gerry. Yep, that about sums up my participation in the cleaning/organization process. If only I could afford to pay someone to do *that* for me!

*sigh*

Yesterday mom cried on the phone. She was down because she feels like she complains a lot. She doesn't. I mean, not really. Pain is what her life revolves around right now. Feeling it and trying to relieve it. How do you not talk about that?

She cried that she thinks this is how I will remember her. As a whiner. I assured her that won't be the case at all. That I will always remember her as the woman who ran circles around me until she was 80. That she is my inspiration of how to live life as I age. That seemed to make her feel better. Which is good, because it's the truth.

My neighbor catty-corner across the street had a party last night. It must've been pretty fancy because she had a DJ. I know this because I could hear every word he said. In my bedroom at the back of the house.

I think he stopped around 11p, but the party went on until sometime between 3:30-4a. I know this because I looked at the clock at 3:15a.

Why they were in the front yard I have no idea. It had to be 40 degrees or below. I understand during the dancing and while most of the crowd is there -- just to stay cool. But when you are down to say the final four or five, you should move it inside (yes, I looked out in the 3:15a range).

I was not awake all this time. When I turned off the TV and lights, Gigi laid there and growled for a while. We live in a quiet, older neighborhood. This was probably the loudest party I've heard in the 5+ years I have lived here. Which is why I didn't complain. It was Friday. It's the holidays. She's never thrown a party like that before. Now, if she has another one next week . . .;-)

As I left this morning to go read, I checked out her porch. It was a mess. Although, I was particularly impressed by the tall martini glass triangle (for lack of a better word) that they'd built.

I got home from the grocery store about 30 minutes ago and she was just then starting to clean (and still in her robe!). Unfortunately, the wind must've blown some of the glasses over. Sad. It was so pretty.

I've mentioned a couple times about my being an inner-city dweller dealing with country critters. I'm pretty sure I have a posse of skunks living under my house.

Last night there was a smack down outside my bedroom window and at some point one skunk bombed the other.

Yes, my house smells as lovely as you might think. Bleh.

Cory is just a ball of nerves. Very skittish, jumping at any noise. Last night a pretty big storm blew in and she started crying. She got up on the bed and I talked to her some and that seemed to calm her down. Poor baby. I feel sorry for her.

So yesterday I decided that in addition to being robbed, they also took my sense of safety with them.

There's never been any place that I have not felt "safe." In every home I've felt safe -- to the point of my detriment sometimes. Just always feeling that I would be ok there. That nothing would happen there.

In the dreams I've been having, I'm dying. The one I remember from this morning, I was drowning. I know now that's because a little piece of me has died. That part of me that felt safe anywhere. Anytime.

This thing has literally knocked me off balance. I've been having a hard time with my vertigo. It's something I've struggled with since I was a child, but has gotten better as I've gotten older.

Well, except for the falling part. I fall more than anyone I know. And this morning was no different.

I didn't lift my foot high enough and hit the edge of my back deck this morning. I hate that moment when I realize I am going down.

I landed pretty hard on my left knee. For some reason it always seems to get the brunt of my falls. It's been a couple years since my last really good fall at Uncle Bud's house. It is swollen and the skin is scraped off, but I'll survive.

I'm at the library right now because I was having writing withdrawal. Yet at the same time I am afraid to buy a new computer because they might come back to get it. I hate to think I'll need an alarm system before I can feel safe in my own home again.

I like to collect magnets when I travel. They are small, inexpensive reminders of where I have been. I have some stuff I want to put on my fridge as daily reminders, but there's not much room once you get past the magnets!

Top

Bottom

Side

The top door includes an editorial cartoon about 9-11. There's also a smaller Cathy 9-11 animal-related cartoon near the bottom. There's a note from my Godson. The South Beach Diet "Foods You Should Eat" list. A list of steaming times for veggies. The rest are magnets!

The lower door includes a photo of my Godson when he lost his first tooth. I think that is my most favorite picture of him ever. In the baggie is my Winter Fruit Pie recipe. Down at the bottom is Gigi's city license. Huh. I see some of those magnets are still in their baggie. Sad.

The side holds a Pei Wei menu and an address list of my street neighbors. Everything else is a magnet!

I have been to: Vegas, NYC, Birmingham, Walt Disney World, London (2), Universal Studios (CA), Vancouver, Boston (2), Chicago (3), Shedd Aquarium, Tulum, Salt Lake City, Red Rock (2), Kansas City, State Fair of Texas, Disneyland, Smithsonian, Minnesota, New Orleans (2) and Seattle.

There are 13 magnets with sayings, 11 hearts, two photo frames and two Dixie Chicks. Plus many random ones. It totals to 32 on top, 17 on bottom and 18 on the side. Huh. 67 is probably a lot, right?

Next month I will have lived in my house five years.

What’s interesting to me is that five years later I still wake up at night and don’t know where I am. I have to lay there and think about.

I very often dream that I am living in the wrong house. It’s generally the same dream. That I am living at my mom’s house and I need to go back to my own. But when I go, it’s not the house I live in now. It’s a different place. It’s always the same place, and in my dreams I know it is the wrong place. Yet, it’s my house.

I think my psyche is telling me I’m living in the wrong house.

So I expect I will move some day. But not as long as mom is alive. Right now she lives just close enough and just far enough away to be just right.

It's now on the short list of places I could live if I didn't live here. I've visited cosmopolitan cities and little hick towns. I have loved many of them, but very few make me think, I could live here. Other places on the list (alpha order)?

Chicago

Kansas City

London

Seattle