Jen and I drove down in advance of the moving vans with our ancient Volvo wagon packed squeaky tight with delicates -- sculptures, paintings and the monster cats. Roads hadn’t been salted or plowed yet -- we skidded, skittered and fishtailed every inch of the way. The Amazing Bob and Oni stayed behind with the 2 teams of high energy, crazed movers (who were racing to see who would finish first....in the ice and snow. Maniacs!).
Lest you think, when I refer to where we live as Heaven, that all is splendiferousness on the half shell, I provide you with a small list of things that went off the rails within the first few months of living here.
1) 6 weeks after moving in, on a freezing January morning, the kids’ basement backed up with 3 inches of the most vile, evilly, noxious, cold soup you can imagine. We were fairly certain the bouquet wasn’t caused by angel farts. And it wasn’t. The cause? Sewage pipe back up. Who could know that heaven’s basement could smell like that?
Turns out we have to call the city twice a year to come snake the tree roots out of the pipes. Good to know, good to know...sigh.
2) The furnace in our house died in early February -- we think it was early onset old age. Or, you know, it might have been suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder and just couldn’t go on another day. Hard to know for sure.
3) Next, the dryer croaked with the washer following it's lead shortly after. Clearly, one couldn’t live without the other. They were soul mates. I understand.
4) We found out that the kid’s house (did I mention that our 2 houses are connected through a secret passageway in the basement and YES that’s half of why we bought the place. Too fun!) had some serious sill issues and part of their kitchen floor was collapsing. You really don’t want to know the rest of that sad drama. It involves crooked contractors and mondo stress. No. Honest and true, you don’t wanna know more.
5) The ovens in both houses died within a week of each other. We suspected foul play.
The list just goes on and on and on. Rilly!
It was still winter and had become evident that the houses didn’t want us to be warm, dry or clean and were none too keen on the idea of us baking either. We started to consider hiring, or studying to become, exorcists. I hear the boards for that are way rough though.
The worst part of all this? We had to leave each day to go to work to, you know, pay the mortgage and repair bills on heaven.
We live with out best buds, have the greatest neighbors, hot and cold running cats and, and, and...the ocean and beach. Did I mention ocean yet? It's Heaven.
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