The Eleventh

I was at the office at 7:30 this morning, preparing to write an offer with clients I showed houses to last night.  They found a drop-dead fantastic craftsman bungalow in a very desirable neighborhood at a price that was just stupidly reasonable.  On the market 2 days, and of course, we were competing to get it since another Realtor was writing an offer as we were looking at the house.  We put together a good offer, I got pulled over for speeding (just a warning, thanks Officer!) on the way to deliver the offer, chatted with the listing agent, and then got the call that my clients didn’t get the house.  Poopy. 

At mid-morning, already highly caffeinated and all jumpy from the adrenaline of writing real estate contracts, I met my friend Linda for coffee at Starbucks.  Had a good time and then left, returning about a thousand phone calls.  Saw one of the kids I know from youth retreats as she drove past, so called her and she regaled me with a story of how she had just returned from a mission trip to Texas wherein an 8-year-old inner city kid groped her boobs during a game of “touch football” that she’s pretty sure he knew did not sanction feeling up the 18 year old girl from Nebraska.  Apparently when he was later forced to apologize, he did it in a voice that conveyed he did not appreciate being narced on and was only saying he was sorry because someone forced him.  Then, she said, he high-fived one of his little friends.

I received a generous gift card to a nice restaurant from a past client last month on my birthday.  So this afternoon, I treated my friend Mary to lunch (because she’s the nicest person I know, and she bakes the best cheesecake I’ve ever tasted, and because she is always helping other people and totally deserves someone waiting on her hand and foot).  It was so fun to just say “Get whatever you want!” and she did.  She had seafood bisque and crabcake salad and a peanut butter fudge cake.  I had rare seared tuna with chili sauce, cilantro cashew rice with asparagus, and creme brulee for dessert.  No children in the restaurant, beautiful black, white and grey decor, fountains and quiet music.  It was heavenly. 

I got home and took a nap for an hour.  We considered going to watch the horse races tonight, but it’s supposed to rain so we nixed that.  Rabbit is having a snack and then the three of us are going grocery shopping together.

Not a bad day at all.

This afternoon, we snipped oregano, thyme and chives from our garden, harvested ten more grape tomatoes from the seemingly unkillable tomato plant, and picked one big tomato from the other plant.  We picked some butter lettuce, also, but I had let it get out of hand and it’s bitter.  The sweet potato from the cupboard is now almost ten inches high, and there are tiny jalepenos on the pepper plants.

PC finished a big painting project in the garage, and spent the late afternoon putting things back to order and restoring the man-cave.  Tomorrow, we’re picking out paint color for the house trim, and next week, he’s painting the carport ceiling and the ceiling of the porch, as well as the porch posts, all white.  The window trim and the wooden screen doors on the house and garage, as well as the big garage door, will be painted whatever darker color we agree on.  I’m lobbying for a dark, dark bluish grey.  We’ll see. 

Rabbit’s room has stayed relatively orderly for over a week now, thanks to the basement play room.  All of her art supplies are down there, as well as 90% of her toys.   This afternoon while PC grilled chicken outside, Rabbit drew cheesecake and witches on the patio with sidewalk chalk. 

I scored a great deal on clothes this past weekend, and bought an unprecedented FOUR PAIRS of capri pants in one outing, and have been enjoying the novelty of wearing a new pair of pants four days in a row. 

PC started reading Lonesome Dove last night and is already on page 195.  He loves it so far, which makes me happy.

I am unable to write tonight, as I just finished reading Lonesome Dove and feel that all the good writing in the entire world was contained in that masterpiece. 

I cannot conceive how to describe adequately the impact of a book that begins with pigs eating a rattlesnake and ends with the word “whore,” except to say that it is as close to the Great American Novel as we are ever likely to get, and as a bonus, it’s damn fine writing and a revelatory pleasure to read.

This afternoon, I had about 100 pages left of the book and left the office at 4:30, drove to a park, and sat in my car under a tree, my windows open, a cool breeze ruffling the pages.  I had to stop before 6:00 and show a house, and hustled back to the car.  I drove home as fast as I could, because I had only one chapter left to finish.  I even contemplated stopping at two different parks along the drive home because I didn’t want to have to wait the six extra minutes to get to my house before I could stop the car and read more.

I made it home and went directly to the basement, to the comfy recliner, where I opened the book and finished it.  When I was done, I sat there a minute, and almost opened the book to start it over from the beginning. 

Yes, it really is that good. 

I called my sister in Texas and we talked about the book.  She seemed very pleased that I had liked it so much, as I rambled on incoherently about the parts I liked. 

Please, if you haven’t read it, put it on your list.  If you like it, let me know.  If you don’t….well, don’t!

I am nearly 2/3 of the way through Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, and I cannot stop reading.  I cannot put the book down.  It’s like Mark Twain got hold of David Milch’s Deadwood scripts and squeezed all the Shakespeare out of them and made the storylines more humane, more real, funnier and sadder.   My sister is appalled that I haven’t read it before now, but sometimes, there are books you read late in life because that’s when you are meant to read them.  I feel that way about this book. 

Today I went to an office supply store to get a rolling file box for the stuff I have to take with me to the youth retreat trainings.  I was wandering up an aisle searching in vain for this box when I heard a voice say “Can I help you find something, ma’am?”   I turned and a young male employee of the store was walking toward me and I blinked and shook my hair out of my eyes, but I wasn’t seeing things:  more than half his face was covered by a grotesquely swollen blue and red birthmark.  I was in a flurry to reconcile my embarrassing revulsion, my admiration that he had such confidence, and my determination to not blurt out “BIRTHMARK?!”  He helped me find what I needed and then got on his little walkie talkie and radioed to cashier who’d done the price check for him.  “She’s headed your way and she likes the price,” he said in a low voice as he walked away. I’m still confused about the whole incident.

I refuse to feel Amish just because I’m not on Twitter.

Still working through writer’s obstruction.  It’s not even a matter of inability to write something, or get a particular phrase right.  It’s the absolute lack of desire to participate in the process at this point.

It feels like writer’s rebellion.  My creativity is throwing a tantrum, my ability to write is telling me “Screw you, I want to read, not write.”

My brain is currently in absorption mode. I’m reading old blog posts, I’m reading good books, I’m reading news stories, I’m watching movies, I’m having conversations with kids and adults, and I’m busy with work.

Sometimes lately, I feel like I’ve been spent, or that I’m accumulating blog fodder for the leaner months ahead.  Other times, I just feel like blogging is a giant pain in the butt.

But I feel like skipping a day would be admitting failure.  That it would be one more in the long list of things I’ve not followed up on, things I’ve let defeat me, things I’ve turned into a giant disappointment. 

This writing thing:  it is the only resolution I’ve really ever kept.  I love that people read here, but mostly, this is for me.  This is to prove to myself that I can stick with it, that I can keep going.  I think it’s like when long-distance runners hit that wall and then push through and keep going.

I’m taking a little break from blogging tonight.  I have a terrible migraine, and I seem to be out of things to write about.

I was searching on my computer for an image from the 1980’s that would capture the era, since I spent so much of today listening to Michael Jackson music and watching videos of the 80’s on YouTube.  I found a few, but the one below is probably my favorite. 

It is from 1982, and is of my dad trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube.  I think the fact that he’s doing this while sitting down on his way up a hill on a trip he made to visit my brother and his family in California is even funnier.  The ever-present cap, his cowboy boots (I’ve never seen my dad on a horse.  EVER.), the bifocal glasses.

It just kind of settled me, seeing that picture.  The 80’s were iconic, but people didn’t all dress like the Cosby kids or wear a sequined glove.  The everyday things were handled by everyday people.  Yes, watching those videos brought me back 27 years.  But so does this picture, probably more. 

PC is fishing this evening with a friend.  Rabbit and I ran an errand for my boss, and then we went to Target.  Rabbit had a hot dog and a slushie, and I had a club sandwich and soda.  The sandwich was so big that I couldn’t finish it, and had to wrap the lefotvers back up in cellophane.  It is still in my purse.

While we were driving to Target, my sister called to tell me Michael Jackson had died.  When I got in Target, I saw three people on their cellphones who were excitedly telling others that Michael Jackson was dead.  I mentioned it to the cashier in the food court and she told the security guard who was standing by the entrance to the store.  As I watched from our table, employees and customers told each other the news and made phone calls.  It was all just surreal.

Rabbit and I finished eating and did a little shopping. We found a dress and nightgown for Rabbit, did not find sandals that fit, pondered a booster seat to replace the regular toddler carseat Rabbit’s been in forever, got some laundry detergent and a headband, and left the store.

Rabbit had behaved so well at the store, but when we finally got home, it was almost shower time, which meant it was almost bedtime.  “But I didn’t get to play!” she protested.  And she didn’t:  we’d been on the go since she got home from daycamp. 

So I got the shower started for her and as a treat for her good behavior, took a can of PC’s shaving cream and sprayed thick lines of it on the tiled walls of the shower.  Rabbit was thrilled.  “Shaving cream!” she shouted joyously.  The next 20 minutes, she smeared the shaving cream all over, wrote in it, rubbed it on her arms, rinsed it off, drew in it and sang about it at the top of her lungs with a hearty vibrato. 

Now she’s Q-Tipping the shaving cream out of her ears and getting ready for bed. 

Hazel and Flower are sprawled on the floor.  Even though it’s cool in the house, their postures reflect the ghastly heat outside.  I weeded the garden last night and picked more basil.  I made pesto, but it was too salty, so I’ll freeze it and after I get more basil, I’ll blend more into it so it’s more subdued. 

The lavendar in the garden is beautiful and fragrant, and the herbs are doing very well.  Our pepper plants are doing great, and the nasty sweet potato that sprouted in the kitchen cupboard is now planted in the ground and has sent up a delicate vine that’s trying to train up the garden fence.  In front of the house, my rosebush leaves are chewed up by God only knows what.  The Stella d’Oro daylilies are a week or two away from being finished for the summer, but the other lilies in the back yard are just getting buds.  After they are done, the pale purple blossoms on my hostas will bloom, and then in August, the resurrection lilies will come out.

After Rabbit goes to bed, I’m going to pour myself a tall glass of iced tea and sit on the patio, and continue reading Lonesome Dove (which my sister Liz was appalled to find out recently that I had never read).  I’ll lose myself in the incredible writing, sip my tea and watch the fireflies emerge for the night.

In the town where I grew up, Fourth Street runs from the offshoot of the main highway through town up past the courthouse, the old Catholic church, my parents’ house, the new Catholic church, Finnegan park and up to a street where the “newer” houses started being built in the 1960’s. 

The western end of Fourth Street is lined with older houses, most of them small.  In fact, there are more tiny houses in my dusty hometown in western Nebraska than large houses.

One of the main exceptions is the large Victorian house at the top of the hill where Fourth crests and then slopes down toward Main Street.  As a child, I learned from my brothers that it was known as “Pill Hill” because the house used to belong to the town doctor.  But that was decades before I was born, back at the turn of the century. Town gossip had it that the doctor had killed himself in the house, and haunts it still.

We would walk past the house to my sister’s friend Fay’s house, and dutifully crossed to the other side of the street rather than walk along its broken and rutted sidewalk.  The stucco on the bottom half of the house was dingy and coated with grime, and the painted frame siding above it was peeling.  Overgrowth of shrubbery and tree limbs, weeds and choked out honeysuckle bushes completely choked off any view of the back yard, which was fine with me.   My memories of the house were all terrifying, its spookiness amplified by the wild and preposterous stories that generations of town children had scared one another with, year after year.

A couple of years ago, my hometown went digital with its property tax assessment information.  As a matter of public record, anyone could go to the courthouse and look up information on properties, but now, a person could punch in an address and on screen would pop up the owner’s name, a photo of the house, and its assessed value.

I spent hours that first day, searching for the homes of my childhood friends, my parents’ neighbors, the homes of my former teachers.  As a Realtor, I use our own county assessor site every day, but it was fascinating to look at the homes of my childhood and see the photos, see how the houses had changed or how differently they compared with my memory.

Most shocking to me was Pill Hill.  The terrifying house of my memory did not appear on screen as I recalled.  Instead, I saw a well-maintained house with cheery yellow stucco, brilliant white trimwork, tidy lattice under the porch, trimmed hedges, a fence and lights glowing from one of the windows.  For some reason, I was expecting to see a replica of the Radley place from To Kill a Mockingbird. 

I suppose there’s some lesson here, some deeper meaning, perhaps some tidy metaphor.  Or not.  I’m just oddly happy to see a place from my childhood look better than I recall, rather than diminished as I had become accustomed to.