The urge to make things go kablewie!*

(you may or may not be able to tell from the above title I read way too much of mad and cracked magazines as a kid)

So, Saturday night we decide to blow our little popsicle stand in the 'shwa and go visit Jodi and Andrew in swanky-town (aka Burlington). There, being the lovely people they are, they have a lovely new house with lovely new fence, lovely patio furniture, and landscaping. It was Jodi's birthday, and a little get-together was planned. It's so nice catching up with friends, having a few laughs and relaxing in the gorgeous weather we've been having. We reminisced so much about our undergrad days together in rez that Dave said "wow I really wished I'd lived in residence" the next day.

When you see their house all you hear is the chorus of angels going "aaahhhhhhhh!" and everything is all sparkly and clean and new. Then you see our house and hear a combination of frogs ribbeting, swampy noises and the porch monkeys down the road belching and swearing.

So, not surprisingly on the way home, the little green monster snuck up on me, and since then I've been barely able to speak a sentence that somehow didn't involve us getting a patio.

I am hell-bent that we need to blow out our dining room window (which I like to imagine would make a Kablewie! noise) and replace it with doors (otherwise we'd have more animals than we currently have and likely be breaking some kind of by-law, to say nothing of moral codes) and build a deck. Where we can drink booze! And grill things! And have friends over! And tie people to posts for using too many exclamation points in blog posts!

I've had this thought before, and I think it's a completely do-able idea, given that the window is pretty big, I think it'd be about the right size for just such a project.

All of a sudden, reality hits though. It's not like we have nothing else to do in our house that should take priority. Or, I dunno, about 8 weddings including our own to plan/attend.

We have MOST of the wallpaper stripped from our front and upstairs hallways (save the tall bits which require a ladder which is something we do not own, and the ceiling), but some serious plaster work needs to be done after that's done, then sanded, then primed and painted.

Our kitchen? We think it's original to this 1942 house. Apparently they didn't care to do things like actually store goods in kitchens back then. I am dying to get a new kitchen (and even have a line on a place for granite countertops for cheap!) and know it'd be a good investment when we officially grow out of this house.

The basement? Lately it seems that it's barely a step above a dirt floor. It's been a bit weepy and in dire need of some measures to make it un-leaky. I've already done some patching with quick mixing concrete (which, if you're wondering I will remind you mixes to a solid REALLY fast, so don't turn your back on it for even a second, or you'll have sore arms for a week from trying to stir solid concrete, and a hoarse voice from swearing at the damn container of solid concrete), but it's in dire need of more attention, and, after that, some painting over it to add another moisture barrier.

The living room/dining room? Still BEIGE! We're not beige people (gah I hope we aren't!), but we're living in a very beige house. We're actually hoping to have the woman/genius who re-did my parents' house come over and give us some colour ideas, but so far? Still beige! Also on our big to-do list. There are parts of the ceiling that need work as well.

The original hardwood floors? Look in some spots like a hungry beaver inhabited the house for a while. Neighbour down the street gave us a SWEET price on re-doing them and I know he'd do a fantastic job. Sadly we'd actually have to leave this place for 3 days and find a spot to put the crap that's currently occupying the living room/dining room/front hall in the meantime while they were being re-done.

The bathroom? Yeah there's still vinyl wallpaper in there. It really would be a one-weekend job to strip, paint and prime it along with the ceiling, but we seem short on weekends of late so that has yet to be tackled.

But right now? I'm still obsessed about having a deck and place from which we can enjoy our under-used but full-of-potential back yard. Think of the margarita parties! We could have sangria! Think of the vines I could try to coax to grow along the top of the deck to create shade! Think of the extra living space we'd have a few months a year!

I spent last night obsessing over the home hardware catalogue/web site. I got my tape measure out, looking at how big our deck should be (I've decided! 16x10 so it'll almost be the exterior width of the house! (and yeah, our house isn't actually much more than 16 feet wide. Yes, that is probably smaller than your garage). I am also in love with the idea of having a roof that's just posts across the top like this trellis, only spaced further apart. Then, we get clematis, and other viney plants to scrawl across the top of it giving us interspersed shade (something I'm big on as a pastey person with a family history of skin cancer). And, think of all the cute little patio light sets there are out there! The possibilities are endless, and my mind is racing with every one of them at once. Ooh how it would be nice to sit out on hot summer evenings and relaxing.

Dinner last night (which I thought was especially yummy) could be repeated regularly. We had grilled zucchini strips (about 1/8th inch thick) with olive oil and salt, grilled corn on the cob, and I had a grilled portobello mushroom while Dave had locally raised organic beef. With that we had warmed bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dipping. Leftovers for lunch today were SO good.

So, I think the new goal is to get the other work done on the house between now and early next spring, when some true kablewie work can happen to replace the window in the dining room with a patio door (or maybe french doors!) and a deck can be built.

Hmm anyone in the GTA feel like a good old fashioned deck building party next spring? They're almost as cool as barn raisings, only without the manure smell!

______________________________________________________
*Dave maintains this is properly spelled "kablooey." I say he's wrong. Jury says? My blog! I win! :P

Hearing things

Last night Dave and I were lying in bed (don't worry, I'm not going there, you can stop recoiling in fear) last night, and I heard a noise outside.

It was faint but repetitive, and we had the window open to get fresh air now that it's warm enough outside. It's nice to have a breeze and a whiff of fragrance from the blossoms on the crabapple tree in the back yard wafting into our bedroom.

I thought the noise we'd heard was a cat fight, and that thought was based on a good deal of experience.

When I was a kid we had this completely lovable lump of a cat named Shadow. He was our first family pet.*

My sister and I were really excited to be getting a cat. There were two all black kittens left from the litter, a boy and a girl. For some reason we wanted a male cat, though the reason why escapes me now.

We asked the usual questions of the farmer about whether they had been vaccinated (they hadn't) and what their personalities were like. My sister and I were just so excited we were going home with a cat we didn't care which one we left with so long as we left with one. My grandmother had lent us an old picnic basket for the trip home.

He was really tiny so my dad asked how old he was. The farmer thought a moment and replied the kitten was "four weeks and, let me see, I guess nine days old"** to which I quizzically piped up "Dad! Dad!! DAD! Doesn't he mean FIVE weeks and TWO days old?" I was promptly told to "keep quiet."

On the way home in our 1979 diarrhea brown Datsun (not the pretty blue one here, but like it only diarrhea brown with two doors) my sister and I argued over who would hold him in the back seat most of the ride home. The kitten mewed what was quite possibly the cutest meow I've ever heard at the top of this hill on a gravel road. We stopped at the co-op on the way home to get him some food. He was so tiny he fell asleep in my ten year old hands with room to spare.

Neither my sister nor I would go into Zellers with my dad to get a litter box or scoop for him, fearing that the kitten would end up loving the other more in the impressionable first hours he was ours. We were too excited to leave the kitten in the car anyway.

The debate about what to name him raged on the whole ride home, and that night. Someone suggested we name him "Chip" because the colour of his black fur looked like the colour of a chocolate chip when he was sitting in the sun.

I, however, was none too impressed with this name. In fact I was so distraught with the idea of naming him Chip that I lay awake in bed all night and ran into my parents' room early in the morning when I thought I had a better name for him. Lucky for all involved his name became Shadow and I was celebrated for what was such a creative name for the cat.***

Shadow was allowed outside but he rarely strayed from our yard. When he did, it often ended in him being beat up by other neighbourhood cats. Shadow was the kind of cat the squirrels approached without fear, and who would come in the house after being outside with sunflower shells all over his head. He seemed to like the company of the birds, and it never occurred to him he should have some interest in attacking and eating them. Shadow was lover and not a fighter his whole life and loved nothing more than basking on the patio slabs in the sun and getting belly rubs.

The sound I heard lying in bed last night sounded like the noise that sent everyone running outside to rescue Shadow from being beat up when I was a kid. It sounded like cats off in the distance were fighting but it was faint. Our guys are indoor cats so I wasn't worried about them. I listened and tried to pinpoint where the noise was coming from.

Dave thought I was nuts though, and didn't hear the noise at first. Later he thought it wasn't cats, it was a table saw and the high pitched noise it makes when the blade spins through wood. He was convinced it was "mechanical in nature" (even though it was near midnight).

And thus, we had a stalemate.

We continued to listen, when finally, it occurred to me.

We were both wrong.

The sound we heard was a baby in a neighbour's house crying.

I don't know anyone who has an infant that young around here, but that's definitely what it was. The poor thing was testing out its lungs until the wee hours of the morning, probably leaving pacing and frustrated parents wondering how to soothe it.

And with that, I realized that if we can't tell the difference between a cat fight, a power tool, and a baby crying, we probably aren't ready for kids yet.

_________________________________________________________________

*Actually, a goldfish I had (and whose name I've since forgotten but it was probably something really cool like "goldie") when I was five was our first family pet. Sadly, it met an untimely demise when my dad was changing the water in its bowl, and filled the bowl with water from the hot tap with the fish still in the bowl. I can still remember him trying to explain why the fish was floating on its belly. I bring it up when I'm in need of political capital, "remember the time you killed my poor, helpless goldfish dad?" I even do a good impression of the goldfish in its last few moments. "Ooh good, clean water! Wait, what's this? OW! OW! It's burning my skin! Oooohhh nooOOO!" It's really quite funny, I promise. Reading it now though, I think you had to be there.

**We now realize the cat was WAY too young to leave its mother's side. The other kittens in the litter had already been adopted out so we thought it was okay and kinda figured the farmer knew what he was doing. Incidentally the girl kitten was named Cricket and we always regretted not bringing her home too. She stayed on the farm. I'm totally going to name a pet Cricket. The funny thing was that our cat Shadow LOVED eating crickets (real ones, not his sister) and ate everything but the legs. We used to find them strewn all over the garage floor.

***At least so we thought. Unfortunately this wasn't true because I think every time we took him to the vet's office in his 13 year life, there was always another animal named Shadow waiting to see the vet. So much for creativity.