Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Last week, we moved in to our new house in Olympus Cove. We have already had many kind, welcoming visitors from the neighborhood, including one lady named Stacy and her teenage daughter Tori who live across the street.

When I answered the door, I stepped outside to visit with them rather than inviting them in because the punk was taking a nap and I didn't want to wake him. After taking a few minutes to get acquainted with my friendly neighbors, I turned to walk back inside... Denied! The door was locked.

When I had walked outside, I had twisted the dead bolt to open the door, but I hadn't realized the door knob was also locked, and remained locked from the outside even if I could open it from the inside.

No problem. There are three other doors: two in the back yard and one in the basement.

Locked, locked, locked.

I assessed the situation. I had no phone and no shoes. Tori let me use her phone to call my man, but I knew he was in a meeting at the time. I called my mother in-law to see if she happened to have one of our house keys: negative. Stacy offered to drive me to my man's office in North Salt Lake while Tori stood outside the punk's bedroom window, which was cracked, but was too high to crawl through.

I'm sure they were thrilled to have met me. Hello neighbor! Why don't you take an hour out of your busy day to drive a shoeless idiot around town while your daughter stands outside a window, listening for a sleeping baby, even though she can't do anything about it if he happens to wake up!

Halfway into our drive, my man finally responded to my repeated calls and told me to turn around; he would leave the office in 10 minutes. So home we went. In my absence, my mother in-law had arrived and popped out the screen to the window in the pink bathroom. Luckily, my man arrived shortly thereafter, so I didn't have to stand on his mother in order to squeeze myself in through a tiny square and most likely become stuck at the hips.

We entered the house to find the punk just waking from his restful slumber.

1962

As requested, here are some pictures of our new house in Olympus Cove. You decide which room should be updated first: the adobe basement or the pretty pink bathroom.

Bald & Blue-Eyed

Do you think on some level, my man knew when he was a child that his future son would look exactly like the Cabbage Patch doll his mother made for him?

Reprimanded by the Sewer Lady

We closed on our house today!

In preparation for becoming owners of the new (0ld) house, I had to make some phone calls this week. I called Salt Lake County to ask about setting up the water and sewer in our name. The bored-sounding lady at 411 gave me the number to the incorrect department at the county, but luckily, the lady at the county was very nice and helpful. She offered to give me the correct numbers for water and sewer. Yes, there are two separate numbers. Nothing is easy when dealing with this stuff, right?

So she rattled off the first number, and I said, "Okay, can you wait just one second while I write that down?" I put her on hold and wrote the number into my "notes" app on my phone. Did I mention I was driving at the time? Yes, I was driving. Last week I saw a story on the news about a poor, unfortunate soul who, while texting in his car, swerved into the oncoming lane and killed the two men in the other car, who both had wives and kids. The texter was so remorseful, so sad and small and broken that he made me cry. (Does anything NOT make me cry?) And he made me vow to never text while driving again. Yes, I've done it before. Not often, but once in a while. And I've Facebooked while driving too. I am the devil! But not anymore. The news story, which also stated that one is 26 times more likely to be involved in an accident while texting, convinced me to never text again at the wheel... until 5 days later, when I put the sewer lady on hold to write the number into my notes. I knew as I was doing this that it wasn't the smartest thing to do. If it were just one number, I could have remembered it and dialed immediately after hanging up with her. But no, another number was on its way, and one can't be expected to remember two 7-digit numbers at the same time, right?

So after I put the number into my notes and returned to my call with the sewer lady, she kindly asked, "Are you driving?" Immediately, I felt sheepish.

"Yes," I answered.

"In order to give you this next number, I am going to have to ask you to pull over."

It was a good idea. A solid, smart idea. But I was on the freeway.

Sensing my hesitation, she asked, "Are you on the freeway?"

"Yes I am. I will just give you a call when I get home; how about that?"

And the nice sewer lady then volunteered to call me back and leave the two numbers on my voice mail. Never had I worked with someone at a government office who was so accommodating, but who made me feel like I was in 4th grade all over again.

Now I have two reasons never to text while driving again. The news story and the sewer lady.

P.S. I took this picture while driving the other day. It made me laugh. Clearly, I have no self-control and someone needs to confiscate my iPhone in the car.

Where I Belong

Do you love your neighborhood? Your city? Your grocery store?

Yesterday, the punk and I drove by our new house in Olympus Cove, which we will move into in a couple weeks. With the realtor's sign still in the ground, I felt like a voyeur, but my heart beat a little faster and I had to try not to become too giddy. We drove around the neighborhood and I was pleased to see that the other houses and yards look even better than ours. ("Not for long," said my man.)

Then we drove to the place where we will spend a few hours a month... the grocery store. I just wanted to check it out, okay? It's a little weird, I know, stalking groceries. My best friend/cousin and I used to walk from her house to this very Dan's in the summer to buy ice cream cones. It has changed drastically since then; its ginormous natural foods section caters to the hippies in the area, and the faux wood floors and serious deli satisfy the needs of my new hoity toity neighbors. I passed one lady who was asking the person at the fish counter, "Has this sockeye been frozen? No? Oh good!" Perhaps after a few years of living near her, I will develop a similar taste for unfrozen things. There were real cheesecakes and fresh guacamole (not that yucky whipped green stuff) and... get this. The deli even had freshly prepared sushi! My new grocery store has sushi! I didn't dare buy it, but maybe someday the punk and I will give it a try. We walked a few doors down to the real sushi place for lunch.

I have never been so excited to be a resident of Salt Lake City. I guess living in the boonies for 5 years gave me a new appreciation for my home town. I'm not usually one for cheese (unless it's Camembert), but... I feel like I've returned home.

Living With a Murderer

Meet Bogey. He is our housemate this month as we are sharing a home with my man's kind parents. Bogey is a murderer. Last week, he killed at least five fluffy, chirping, innocent baby quails. I'm sure there were more, but my little sis found five tiny dead guys in the grass. Today, Bogey proudly brought this vole to me and said with his body language, "You are welcome. I am a warrior. Where is my treat?"

It is no secret that I am not an animal lover. (This is where half of you start judging me for being evil.) The last pet I had was a nasty little gerbil with a temper. I was 10. After a few months of becoming disillusioned with cleaning his cage, smelling his mammal stench, and being bitten when trying to show my affection, I accepted my dad's offer to take him to a place where he could roam free with friendly possums and rabbits. (My dad took him out to the desert where he most likely was eaten by an owl within 12 hours. Good riddance!)

So pets aren't my thing. I don't like the smells they emit even when they're supposedly clean. I don't enjoy it when they jump on me in greeting. I don't like having to brush their hair off my clothes, even if I am already covered in baby slobber.

With my in-laws out of town, Bogey has deemed me his temporary mother. When I leave the room, he follows me. When I go outside, that's where he wants to be. So yesterday, I was going to relax in my room while the punk was taking a nap. I noted that the pup was dozing in the living room and planned to take that opportunity to make my escape. As I silently stood from my chair, Bogey's eyes flipped open and his ears stood up. Dang. I casually started walking around the room, hoping he would just think I was moving to a different chair. No, he sensed my intent to defect. He stood up and started to follow me. I slowly walked around the corner and heard him casually saunter behind me. As I rounded the corner, I booked it up the stairs. When he realized I had started running, he came bounding up the stairs, closing the distance between us. My adrenaline was pumping as I wondered if I would make it to the bedroom door before he did. Yes! I made it! Sweet victory was mine! As I frantically shut the door behind me, I realized what I had just done. I had narrowly outsmarted a dog. Genius.