After receiving the go-ahead from our bank, we started looking at houses in earnest. One of the first we saw didn’t particularly grab us, but the realty duo did. We were charmed by one half of the female team. We immediately loved Hazel, a tanned older lady with the gift of gab and a keen fashion sense. Hazel’s partner, Tara, was clearly the more learned of the two, but was younger, more brusque and considerably more, let’s say, “rural”. It didn’t help that, on one of the house hunts, her giant SUV slid down the icy driveway into the grill of my otherwise perfect car. We came to understand later, however, that the two were a great team and played the classic “Good Cop/Bad Cop” roles perfectly–Hazel charmed contractors and worked her ample contacts to answer every question we had. Tara was almost immediately (and necessarily as it turned out) a terror to our bank. (Seems our small town small bank was a little lax in procuring important paperwork and was still learning new regulations that had come into effect just a month earlier.) Tara rode herd on the bank while Hazel showed us more houses than we had ever imagined we would see.

In the market for a new house? Take my advice: Get used to being on the phone. A lot. You’re going to be on the phone a lot. Also, try to be a math whiz with a long attention span and a fascination with baffling forms, formulas, rules, regulations, and acronyms.

Armed with our requirements–3 bedrooms, at least two bathrooms, a two car garage, central air, relatively new construction–Hazel and Tara set to work. And work they did. I don’t think a day ever passed without some sort of contact from one of them. We became a couple of middle-aged Goldilocks(es?). The tiniest imperfection would send us packing. We arrived at one home, took a look around the neighborhood, and told the ladies there was no need to go in. The home, while lovely in and of itself, was in as sketchy as a neighborhood gets around rural Ohio. “Next!” we said. The ladies took not one bit of offense. “Next, indeed!”

One house clearly didn’t fit our “relatively new construction” criteria, but we looked anyway. We met the current owner, a dear old woman who clearly took a great deal of pride in the home–with good reason. The house was immaculate. Immaculately preserved in the year 1967. The bathroom was a powder-blue time warp in which Betty Draper would feel right at home. Not me, though. “Next!” It was the first home we felt badly turning down, simply because the owner was such a doll.

We moved our search from homes around “town” out to a planned community called Apple Valley several miles out of Pigspittle proper. There were scores of homes available in Apple Valley due to the real estate crash. All of the homes in the community are on or near the small, man-made Apple Valley Lake. Waterfront homes regularly sell for three quarters of a million dollars even if they’re not especially aesthetically appealing. Because of these high-dollar waterfront homes–most of which look like they were designed by Mike Brady–people in Pigspittle speak of Apple Valley with a reverence reserved for tony enclaves of the rich and privileged near actual cities. Apple Valley is The Hamptons of Pigspittle County. This reputation is entirely undeserved and, frankly, ludicrous. I’ve seen houses of the rich. There are, perhaps, two houses like that in AV. And there are hundreds and hundreds of homes in the community.

We scheduled a looking spree during which we were going to tromp through three or four houses in quick succession. All were homes of young folks with small children who had found themselves behind the eight-ball once their balloon mortgages blew up or one of them lost a job. It was a bit joyless to be wandering through the homes of strangers who had found themselves on the wrong side of the mortgage boom. Almost all of them were decorated with “country” decor. This was when Melissa and I began to notice that virtually every one of these home had some variation of the phrase “LIVE. LOVE. LAUGH.” hanging on the wall somewhere. So much so that this became a running joke. How quickly can we find the “LLL” plaque or individually cut-out words displayed on the mantel.

A quick note to those of you with young children: Sorry about your house. Many of these homes had areas of utter destruction–railings pulled from their moorings, poorly patched holes in the walls of the boys’ rooms, drawings on the walls, sticky everything. You name it. Bottom line: Kids fuck houses up, son.

We looked at another nondescript three-bedroom which boasted a full, unfinished basement. Tucked under the stairwell in the damp, cinder-block basement was a large bed at the foot of which sat a large, flat-screen monitor connected to a computer–all surrounded by burning scented candles. The candles did little to mask the acrid aroma of mildew and stale cigarette smoke. Clearly the basement had been overtaken by a freeloading WoW addict. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Too much bad mojo and I knew there would be at least one poopsock somewhere down there.

After walking through and quickly nixing the remaining homes on the spree, Tara mentioned she’d just heard of a foreclosure coming on the market. We couldn’t take a tour because it was “open” yet, but we were welcome to take a drive past it. We were intrigued. We parted ways and headed to the new foreclosure.

“Holy shit! Are you serious?” we said as we sat in front of the place. An abandoned truck sat in the driveway. A No-Parking sign was screwed to the outside of the garage. The house had been unoccupied for over a year. And we loved it. We wanted it. We called Tara.

“We want it.”

More later.

As I was saying, quite a bit has changed in my life since I last updated this blog with any regularity.

Let’s talk about buying a house.

I don’t remember when it was, but I remember having a conversation with my dad while we drove somewhere. It was probably during a particularly dark and jobless period, considering what he said to me. He said “You do know that you’re never going to own a house, don’t you?” At the time, he was well within his rights to say so. I probably hadn’t worked in well over a year. I’d probably recently shaved my head. I was probably on my third day in the same pair of sweatpants. It wasn’t a huge stretch to assume a guy like me wouldn’t be owning a house any time–well, I was going to say “soon” but we can just end with “any time.”

No one likes hearing something like that, but it was true.

Flash forward five or six years: My then-girlfriend, now-wife was living with me in my two-bedroom apartment in downtown Pigspittle. Upsides: Low rent, low expenses. Downsides: Low space, high noise, high neighbors. Having moved from a three bedroom house of her own, my girlfriend was getting a little stir crazy. Not to mention virtually everything she owned was in a storage unit on the outskirts of town. She suggested we think about possibly visiting a local lending institution to explore the notion of buying a house. Of course, I scoffed at the idea, telling her my credit rating was likely less than my IQ. But, I didn’t think there would be any harm in a simple visit to a bank.

In the meantime, we drove the surrounding country roads, looking at houses. We agreed we wanted to live “out in the sticks” and weren’t opposed to buying an old farm house on several acres of land. There were several houses on our wish list. One was a property of roughly four acres with a large, 100-year-old house, two barns, and a large horse pasture. This was where the romantic and utterly naive notion of living in a hundred-year-old house was jettisoned out of my head forever. I had what I’ll call “The Soffit Revelation”.

No one was living in the house when we toured the grounds, unaccompanied. We peeked in the house, explored the barns, visited the horses being there, made friends with the barn cats. It was a gorgeous summer evening. As we took another loop around the house, my girlfriend mentioned that the exterior would need some attention, particularly a paint job. I joked “It shouldn’t be much problem for you to reach those soffits.” which were easily thirty feet above us. She laughed and said “Yeah, it won’t be hard for you to do.” It was then that I realized I would be on a ladder, thirty feet in the air, scraping, priming, and painting a hundred-year-old house from top to bottom. And not only would I have to do this once, I’d have to do it every several years. As soon as I would forget how to paint a house, I would have to do it again. And we would undoubtedly fight over exactly when the house would need to be painted and surely–inevitably–her idea of “needs to be painted” would occur years before my mine. I could feel the sweat pouring off of my forehead. I could imagine the sun blistering and peeling the flesh off of my shirtless back. I could hear the neighbors retching at the sight of their obese vampire of a neighbor broiling in the sun. I would have no part of it.

On the way home, we decided that something a little newer might make more sense. After all, if I was having a panic attack over the idea of having to paint a house I didn’t even own yet, how crazy would I be when I had to start working on all of the other things wrong with the place. So we decided to split the difference: Let’s get as far out of “town” as we can and still get a house that’s relatively new. That part was settled pretty quickly.

Soon after those independent property investigations, we visited a local bank to make our initial inquiry about the possibility of our securing a mortgage loan. We filled out the requisite paperwork, waited a while, then were ushered in to the loan officer’s office. She informed us that, while there were a few rough patches on my report that would need to be buffed out, everything looked just fine and they were prepared to loan us far more than we’d been imagining. I was stunned. My girlfriend was overjoyed. We fairly skipped out of the bank to the car and talked like two over caffeinated teenage girls the whole way back to the swiftly shrinking apartment.

“No more stomping from upstairs!”
“No more jockeying for parking spaces!”
“No more diapers in the trees outside!”
“No more raccoons, stray cats, and opossums!”
“No more cheap rent!”

More later.

The blog’s been back a few days now and I know everyone who has visited personally. So it was odd to find a fairly flamey comment in response to this three-and-a-half-year old post so soon after my return.

I want to ask all the Obama supporters, especially the white supporters, what made you become a fan of and/or vote for Obama? Was it the hyped up band-wagon propaganda? Or, to prove to non-whites you are not racist?

I find it very hard for the educated, hard-working, taxpaying citizen to believe in the, “blow smoke up your ass campaign” of the Obama, (it is extremely hard to call it this) administration. I thumbed this guy as a fraud, a tool and incompetent to hold office. You can argue and b!tch all you want, but proof is in the JELL-O pudding.

Of course, the guy posted anonymously, but I’m sure I know him. He’s got to be a former member of the RRC forum or a friend from the old days. No one is going to simply stumble upon the blog out of nowhere.

And he’s clearly not interested in a conversation or actual answers to his questions, but I’ll answer them anyway.

I want to ask all the Obama supporters, especially the white supporters, what made you become a fan of and/or vote for Obama? Was it the hyped up band-wagon propaganda? Or, to prove to non-whites you are not racist?

Dear Guy I Don’t Know (But Probably Do Know),

You’re giving us a binary choice here: Either we voted for Obama due to “hyped up band-wagon propaganda” or we voted for him to “prove to non-whites [we] are not racist.” Before I address your binary choices, I’ll tell you the actual reasons I voted for Barack Obama.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve got three basset hounds: two of our own and one foster. They don’t play with dog toys so much as methodically destroy them. If the toy is stuffed, it will be unstuffed in a matter of minutes after first presentation. If the toy is not stuffed, it will be quickly probed for points of weakness or vulnerability and those weaknesses/vulnerabilities will be exploited. Either way, the toy is going to be destroyed.

Today’s toy is the KONG brand Snugga Wubba, or as we call it “Granny” due to its resemblance to the character of “Granny” on the animated series Squidbillies.

We’ve had two “Grannies,” actually–a smaller one when the girls were pups and the XL size now that they’re full-grown. Here is what “Granny” looks like today:

Not the best photo, but it gives a good sense of the merciless destruction to which these toys are subjected. As you can see in the photo, “Granny’s” skull has been completely removed–and make no mistake, it looked exactly like a skull. In fact, this is always the first order of macabre business with the dogs: Remove and skeletal elements that may support the toy. And if you have a squeaker? Well, may God have mercy on your soul.

More dog toys to come.

Nearly three years between updates? Inexcusable! What can I say, people? I’ve been busy. Here’s what’s been going on:

1. That woman I was dating in the last update? I married her.
2. We bought a house.
3. We lost a dog. (Well, she passed away. We didn’t “lose” her.)
4. We lost a cat. (Same deal.)
5. We got two dogs.
6. We’re fostering another dog.
7. I got fatter.

So, I’m a married homeowner with two cats and three dogs.

Here’s a strange thing that happened: Back in March, I was approached by a pal of mine who was getting into the venture capital game. He wondered if I’d be interested in reviving my old site rockandrollconfidential.com. I’d been considering a revival of sorts before her contacted me, but the prospect of having an operating budget was exciting to me.

We went back and forth for a few months, plotting, scheming, wheeling, and dealing. (I did more of the first two and he did more of that last two.) Then the wheels came off and the deal was dead.

Initially, I was convinced I would soldier on without an operating budget–that I’d build the RRC I’d planned on my own. Yeah, that didn’t work out, either. After a few months of fits and starts, I uploaded the old RRC and called it a day on that idea.

That’s when it occurred to me to go back to my old home: RoundIsFunny. This blog is appealing to me now for the same reason it was appealing when I started it: I can post what I want, about any subject, at any time.

So, I’m back.

Ah, Valentine’s Day.

I suppose it’s as good a time as any to formally announce I’ve somehow managed to land an actual girlfriend. She’s biologically female, sane, responsible, smart, witty and so attractive she makes me pretty much legally retarded when I’m around her. (Seriously. When she answered the door the last time I visited, all I could think to say was “ICE CREAM!”) I am gratuitously, sickeningly, shockingly nuts about her. Inexplicably, she feels the same way about me.

Of course, if I’m going to blog blogs on my blog about our adventures, she needs a nom du Internet. Long-time readers of RiF and RRC know the folks in my neighborhood—Uck, Spike, Miss Black, my traveling companions, Cookie and Jens. My girlfriend needs a moniker, too. We discussed it over coffee last Sunday. That’s how much of a dork I am. I was compelled to discuss with my actual flesh and blood girlfriend what Internet name she would like while we sat in her real, actual living room. I’ve called her Missy D, Hamslice, Hamsizzle, Hamslizzle, and a bunch of sweety-poopy-moopy-doopy-type names, but nothing seems to stand out. I’d open it up to the floor, but I don’t think she’d appreciate a nickname like “You Poor, Poor Woman.” So, until I can come up with something better, I’m going to call her MK. You got that? My girlfriend is MK.

Back to Valentine’s Day.

Read the rest of this entry »

A bit down the page, you’ll see this post. In it, I describe, well, this:

Here’s a closer view of “Calvin”

I happened to see it again the other day and snapped a photo.

You can’t make this stuff up, people.

I went to CVS last night to pick up some cock lotion, or, as my dad calls it, PeterCetera. A lady was already speaking to the pharmacist when I arrived. I queued up behind her with ample distance between us, giving her a pharmacy-appropriate privacy zone. (I don’t want anyone listening in on my cock lotion order, so why would I crowd her?) It so happens that the privacy zone caused me to stand about ten feet into an aisle–the “Family Planning” aisle, actually.

I stood there, absent-mindedly gazing at the rubbers and the gels and the lubes and the creams while the lady finished her business. It barely registered I was looking at the stuff, in fact, until the lady had finished her business and turned around to walk out. The route she chose was between me and the sex goodies. She quickly glanced at the goodies, then at me, then slouched down and slunk past with this awkward half-smile/half scowl that seemed to say “I am visibly uncomfortable due to my intrusion on your selection of items designed specifically for sexual intercourse. Don’t get any ideas.” I snapped out of my stupor long enough to look at her slinking past, then at the goodies, then to think “Hey! This lady thinks I’m browsing for sex items! And I’ve been here the entire time she was at the counter yakking it up with the pharmacist! She thinks I’m putting a lot of thought into this!” I wanted to yell “But I…I was just…I needed to…” but I stuttered in my brain just like I would have had I spoken out loud.

When the pharmacist asked if he could help me, I explained to him that I was picking up a prescription. He told me I was in the wrong line–that prescription pickup was at the other end of the counter.

Stupid PeterCetera.

Nice.

Working so many late nights lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of music. I’ve got roughly thirty gigs of music on my machine at work–a lot of it completely new to me when it comes up on iTunes. Last night, I was in the mood for some Tubes. When “Don’t Touch Me There” came up, I was reminded how much I love it. It’s a spot-on, campy goof on a Phil Spector-produced paean to teenage leather and lust. Co-written by Jane Dornacker (pictured above), “DTMT” appeared on The Tubes’ 1976 album Young & Rich. Give it a listen.

Download The Tubes – Don’t Touch Me There

Singer Re Styles saying “Uh-huh.” after Fee Waybill asks “When I reach for your waist?”? Hot.

It is never actually explained where “there” is. The listener is left to ponder the question.

Here’s a pretty awful live version:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/jwivHPit22A" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Sadly, Dornacker’s real-life story ends tragically.