mom and dad bought a new house. yes, they did just move a few years ago, but they moved into a duplex with a neighborhood association and many neighbors whose only purpose in life was to make sure that mom and dad were following all the VERY IMPORTANT RULES. like, for example, having dead vegetation in pots outside in the winter was VERY VERY BAD. also their red gazing ball, CLEARLY A HORRIBLE SIGHT TO THE ASSOCIATION. many, many, many rules and really, why?
to me, the most irritating thing about the association is that mom and dad couldn’t build a little fence for shortie and gizmo. this means that dad has to go out in cold weather and walk them, and dad’s lungs are not up to that at all. it is beyond annoying to me that if you buy a place, you can’t even put up a little fence. plus, i never actually saw anybody out in their back yards, so why would it bother the neighbors anyway?
plus if you own a duplex you are sharing a wall with somebody, and what if that person happens to be a deranged, evil, psycho lunatic? yeah, not good. i will tell you more about him when mom and dad are safely out of their current home, hopefully within the month of march.
so mom and dad are moving into a cute little house not far from randy. it is almost ready to move into, except there is nothing on the windows. i said that kevin and i would be happy to put up blinds, so on sunday we all went over and started that.
here is mom in front of the lovely curtains that kevin put up in the living room. mom picked them out, and they’re quite nice. they’ve never had curtains in any houses, or so they say, but i have a vague memory of curtains in the living room of the house i grew up in. but i could be mistaken.
here’s kevin, hard at work installing the rod for the curtain in front of the back door. so when i said that “we” would come over and put up the curtains, i mainly meant that kevin would do all the work and i would sit around and take some pictures.
we brought mollie with us. she was excited to be someplace new, but she wasn’t happy that she was in the presence of dad and he had no treats for her. when she goes to their current house, he always has gobs of treats that his dogs are only marginally interested in, and mollie sits at his feet and paws at his pant leg so he’ll give her more and more. she also didn’t like it that there was no bed in the new house for her, so we’ll have to bring one next time.
david after installing lights under the cabinets in the kitchen. mom wasn’t entirely sure that she trusted david’s ability, but of course he did a fine job and was very cheerful about it.
on wednesday we went back over to put up more blinds and curtains, and i wish david had been free to help then. kevin was installing a curtain so he showed me how to put up the blinds. i DID NOT CARE FOR THIS ACTIVITY AT ALL. for one thing, the step stool was just a little too short, so i wasn’t quite high up enough to get the right angle with the drill, which HAS TO BE DRILLED VERY PRECISELY, because if it is crooked then the screw will go in crooked and kevin said they are CHEAP SCREWS FROM CHINA, which means they are soft and very bad and if i screwed them in crooked, they would get stripped and you wouldn’t be able to get them all the way in or out and then you’d be screwed.
so i did that to the very first screw that i attempted screw in. kevin had to somehow get it out of the wall and put in a new one.
i did get slightly better at doing it, but i never did care for it. there were eight blinds to put up, and there are still two left, but hopefully somebody more competent will put them up.
as i said, the house is in very good shape with new lovely off white carpeting in the living room and three bedrooms, freshly painted walls, updated lighting and stuff. more pictures soon, probably.
there’s also a very large fenced-in backyard, and mollie had a fabulous time running up and down the fence line with the little dog in the house across the way. i went out to see her, and then went back inside and eventually was sitting on the carpet in the main bedroom.
i looked down and there was what appeared to be mud on the carpet. i picked it up and NO, IT WAS DOG POOP. uh oh. SOMEBODY HAS DOG POOP ON THEIR…i announced loudly, and then i looked down at my shoes and OF COURSE THAT PERSON WAS ME. a huge glob of dog poop, and i realized that there were several spots of it on the BEAUTIFUL BRAND NEW CARPETING.
the only cleaning product they had was some soft soap, and paper towels to clean it up, which didn’t do a great job. there was also a big trail of poop from the door to the kitchen sink.
yes, i was very, very helpful with the whole getting the house ready thing.
when we go back, i will bring some stronger cleaner and something more durable than paper towels for the scrubbing.
ok then,
mrs. friday hughes.