Tuesday, February 26, 2013

My Barbie Dream House

We're trying to buy a house. A larger house for our family, but a smaller place for us. Make no sense? Well here's the deal. The house is bigger, with a family room downstairs and an extra bedroom to be a toy room. But the master bedroom is much smaller than what we have now. And the master bath, ugh! They took about 2 feet off the end of the bedroom and built a shower stall on one end of it and a 4 or 5 foot closet on the other end.  In that closet they put a toilet facing a sink with a door in between. So when you go poo, you step out and bang your shin on the dresser. When you shower, you step out naked into the bedroom. And between the shower and the pee closet is a giant mirror and vanity just open to the room. We have to wall all that in at some point.  Also, the kitchen is smaller than our current one, but there's a dining room so it sort of evens out. Less cupboard space, a very small single sink so I don't know how we'll wash the pots too big for the dishwasher, and the fridge sticks weirdly far out into the kitchen. But it'll work better for our family and that trumps personal space. Ooh, and it's by the woods! Last night I bought a hammock online! A hammock! With which to flip my kids on the ground. Yay! And trees to walk around between and try to climb and fall out of. Lots of little boy things for my little boys. And Ryan loves to draw trees and can take long walks in the woods with her sketch pad. All around a good thing. So wish us luck on this house thing. The home inspection is in 4 days so if it's all going to fall apart, that'll be when.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Trapeze or clown car?

Years ago I worked at a convenience store and there was a lovely customer who came in every night with her teenage son to get a cup of coffee for her and a doughnut for him (free doughnut with coffee). I don't know why they were out every night at the same time, but they'd stop by and over the years we'd make idle chit chat. She had a very heavy accent (some sort of Hispanic accent) but we'd talk a little. Her older son had left with the circus right after high school. When I commented that I didn't think people really did that she looked confused. A lot of his friends had joined the circus after school because it paid so well and they gave you a place to live and you could travel. I agreed with her and every once in a while she'd come in happy because her older son had called her, or sent her a post card.

One night the teenage son came in alone to get the coffee and doughnut. When I asked him where his mom was he replied, "She's in the car with my brother. He's home for the weekend." "Oh, was he nearby?" I hadn't heard of any circuses in the area but I could have missed a poster or radio ad.  But nope, the brother had flown in with some of his friends. "Friends from the circus?" The kid looked confused. "Noooooo. No circus friends. Why?" "Because your brother's in the circus." Wow, what a clueless kid! Then he started laughing at me! His brother was'nt in the circus; he was in the Army. He'd left home to join the service, and no one but me had misunderstood before. He and his mother laughed about that for weeks.