A little gloomy around here

Well, I'm not going to lie to you, things could be better. A whole bunch of people at my office were laid off yesterday. Last week I went to a funeral. And with the exception of two rooms -- the kitchen and bathroom, obviously the most important rooms ever invented -- most of my house is still an avalanche of boxes, bags, piles and many other varieties of mess. If you know me at all, you know what a very special brand of torture this is. Fortunately our house is big enough that I can still create tiny pieces of pretty and organized outside of the moving wreckage. For instance, see the lovely roses I picked from my front yard on Sunday night:

Then again, there are other parts of the yard that aren't looking quite so vibrant. One plant in particular is ailing something awful, and every time I go out there it looks worse. I don't know what to do. I'm not even sure what kind of plant it is, and I have no idea how to find out. What am I going to do, google "Big leaves, crispy, brown edges"? So I took a picture of my dying plant, and maybe you can tell me what it is. Perhaps this clue will help: When I inspected it closely, I saw some old black sticks that had little crunchy, dead blossoms on the end. Please, save my crunchy blossoms!

We have a winner

I'm pleased to announce that my very dear friend Amy, who lives in Missouri, has named the lions, who live in my back yard. For this, Amy should keep an eye on her mailbox, because very soon she will receive a "rockin lion guitar pick pendant," which I just purchased off Etsy. Etsy is a cool site my friend Robyn turned me on to, and it's full of lovely handmade things. I picked this trinket for Amy because she plays guitar and she named my lions. I TOLD YOU THE PRIZE WOULD BE APPROPRIATE! Do you know how rare a "rockin lion guitar pick pendant is"? You wear that baby proudly, Amy! And thanks for naming my lions.

I'll let Amy tell you her idea in her own words:

"I think you should name your two lions after Gog and Magog, the porcelain dogs on either side of the hearth in the "Anne of Green Gables" series.They always stuck in my mind for some reason, and I thought, "Maybe someday I'll have a Gog and Magog of some sort." Your lions are perfect. (Of course, there is actually some fairly frightening imagery regarding a Gog and Magog in the Bible, but as far as I can tell, no one has really been able to tell what it means!) In case this does not ring a bell, here's the reference from the book (yes, I'm a huge nerd!):"

From "Anne of the Island," chapter 10, "Patty's Place":

The girls rang rather timidly, and were admitted by a grim and ancient handmaiden. The door opened directly into a large living-room, where by a cheery little fire sat two other ladies, both of whom were also grim and ancient. Except that one looked to be about seventy and the other fifty, there seemed little difference between them. Each had amazingly big, light-blue eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles; each wore a cap and a gray shawl; each was knitting without haste and without rest; each rocked placidly and looked at the girls without speaking; and just behind each sat a large white china dog, with round green spots all over it, a green nose and green ears. Those dogs captured Anne's fancy on the spot; they seemed like the twin guardian deities of Patty's Place.

(The girls agree to rent the house while the ladies go abroad)

"Will you leave the china dogs?" asked Anne timidly.
"Would you like me to?"
"Oh, indeed, yes. They are delightful."
A pleased expression came into Miss Patty's face.
"I think a great deal of those dogs," she said proudly. "They are over a hundred years old, and they have sat on either side of this fireplace ever since my brother Aaron brought them from London fifty years ago."

"I shall leave the dogs where they are, if you will promise to be very careful of them," she said. "Their names are Gog and Magog. Gog looks to the right and Magog to the left."

So named are my lions. Now, a couple of updates on my other mystery, the snail-shell thing in our laundry room. First of all, my husband points out that it is not a snail at all, but rather a "mollusk with a pretentious name," otherwise known as a "chambered nautilus." Does that help? No. But it's good trivia. Also, that photo I posted might make the little panel seem bigger than it really is. It's about the size of my hand, or even smaller. It is very firmly attached to the wall, and that space between the front of the panel and the back isn't very big at all. You can't push anything, swivel anything, or move any part of it. But it's not exactly, you know, cute. So it definitely seems like it has an actual purpose, as opposed to being decorative. What the hell is this thing?!

Also known as "charm"

I suppose a house built way back in 1916 is bound to have developed some unusual features by the time it's nine decades old. Ours has several notable peculiarities. Have a look:

THREE DOORS

It is kind of hard to see in the photo, but I'll try to explain. So, to get to our bathroom, you walk through this little hallway. Only it's not so much a hall as it is, well, a square. It's a squareway! First you walk through one doorway, and then right in front of you is the bathroom door, and to your left is a door to the second bedroom. So it's a square room, with no windows and no real place to put anything, but it has three doors. It's, like, our very own Winchester Mystery House room!

TWO LIONS

Leading out to the backyard is a little patio area, and guarding the steps down into the grass are these great lion statues. They are among my very favorite things about this house, which might be weird since they both grimace rather grotesquely. They also raise a paw like they are about to claw out one of your eyeballs. I would like to give names to these big kitties, but I can't think of anything that isn't stupid. If you have a clever idea, I'll send you an appropriate prize!

ONE SNAIL

This one really puzzles me. It's a small piece of wood attached to the wall above the utility sink in the laundry room. There's a little space between the front part of the panel and the back piece, like maybe it is supposed to hold something, but I can't figure out what or how. There's also a picture of a snail on the front. I e-mailed the previous owner to see if she knew what it was, and she replied: "that little wooden snail hanging on the wall? it came with the house. i have no idea what it is. it might be covering something up... perhaps you could give him a name. if it is, and i am not saying it IS, some sort of snail god/totem/protector used to ward off snails, it works like a charm. i have never seen a snail in the house. of course, my dogs could have eaten them and never told me. ew." But seriously, what is this cottonpickin' thing for? If you know, another prize, even more valuable than the first, will be yours!

King of his castle

Greetings from Casa de Chickenbone! Can you see the joy on this dog's face? In that picture up there, he's sunbathing in front of the garage, one of his new favorite pastimes. His other new hobbies include terrorizing the mailman, trying to catch flies with his tongue, and staring thoughtfully out the big picture window in the living room.


Yes, except for a slowly shrinking mountain of boxes in the dining room, our moving process is over at last. And what did we learn? That even if you pay people to do the heavy lifting for you, packing and moving is still the sucks. Of course, we took some steps to ease the pain.


Now we're home. And I'm not going to lie to you, it's kinda weird. Like, sometimes I bellow Sal's name, and he can't even hear me. Because he's THREE ROOMS AWAY. And there are all these doors to worry about opening and closing and locking. And, like, someone needs to mow that lawn. And the way we lose things in this place! Oh my god! It's like a black hole for car keys and cell phones and little red dogs with curly tails.

But we're adjusting. The first time I called to order pizza and was asked "Is that a house or an apartment?" I shrieked "IT'S A HOUSE!" But a few minutes ago when I had to answer that question again, I barely even chortled.

I'm on vacation this week, which means I don't shower and I drink beer all day. Of course, that combination perfectly matches my new hobbies of teetering on ladders with a screwdriver dangling out of my mouth and killing bugs with my bare hands. I'm not kidding, when you move into a house for the first time, you grow some BALLS. My First Real Home Project is the closet in the master bedroom. (Or maybe I should just call it the closet, seeing as how it's the only one in the house.) So if it's going to be our only closet, it damned well better be a good one, which it surely was not when we moved in. There were three pathetic little white shelves, one rung that was too high for me to actually hang clothes on, and the remnants of at least two older shelving units still jutting out of the walls. I spent Monday digging those old bolts and pieces of cruddy plastic out of the walls, and I spent Tuesday spackling dozens of holes and cracks. Wednesday I painted, and this weekend Sal is going to install a sparkly new shelving system the likes of which this old house has never seen.

And all the while, we celebrate. One of my favorite things about moving into this house is the endless stream of friends and family dropping by for a visit. Having people over to the condo was a pain, because guests had to deal with parking meters, gates and callboxes. Now they ring our doorbell and walk inside. We have had delicious dinners, sweet desserts, and lots of cold beer and champagne toasts on the back patio. The celebration is so delightful nobody even seems to notice I have paint in my hair.

Time to go

After many weeks of wringing my hands, pacing my floors and bracing myself for the last-minute snag that would unravel the dream, it is official: We really and truly have our house.

Sal picked up the keys Thursday afternoon and headed over with Chickenbone for a look. Unfortunately, because I was submerged in finishing a huge project at work, I had to miss the very first turning of the lock and creaking open of the front door. I also missed the dog's first poop, which I'm told occurred on the pavement of the driveway, despite the grass, dirt and woodchips in HIS VERY OWN BACK YARD, the back yard mom and dad were certain he'd love to poop in. Chickenbone, he's so urban.

But I joined the party right after work and spent a good half hour walking through the empty rooms, opening all the cupboards and drawers, flipping light switches on and off. We found a six-pack of Gordon Biersch in the fridge (a little housewarming gift from our real-estate agent) so we cracked open two bottles and sat on our front porch, basking in homeownership until the sun went down. Bliss.

Now comes the last hard part, packing, moving, unpacking. I think we plan to disassemble the home computer tomorrow, and I hope to christ I can limit my time at the office this week, so I might not be doing much in this space for a few days. But that does not mean, teeny little blog audience, that I won't be thinking of you.

"Flagpole Sitta"

We don't have this much fun at my office.

When you care enough

My lovely friend Beth sent me this link to some truly knee-slapping e-cards. I think you'd enjoy browsing through them.

Today, this one feels appropriate.