At the 11th St. House…

After 10 months, we’ve finally made it out of the duplex and into a house!!! The move couldn’t have gone any smoother. We even got free towing, thanks to that other coworker of his. I can’t believe someone did us a favor like that. Lately, no one does shit for us and we never seem to get any kind of break. Poor Tom was compensated for it, though, with a flat tire. He rode his bike over a nail yesterday. It’s a good thing he now only has a 6-minute walk to work.

I am so glad I’m not in the duplex right now! Mondays were always one of the busiest, barkiest days there, though that beast had come to bark several times a day every day of the week. This place has the potential for trouble too, though not nearly the potential the duplex had. My saying that if we had a good neighbor, she’d move, is a total understatement. I can’t say for sure that she’s really moving, but she appears to be. Her mailbox seems to be unchecked as if she’s forwarded it somewhere. She also comes and goes a lot, though she’s quiet about it. She was only out for 10 minutes on two of the trips which suggests she’s bringing stuff somewhere. Besides, I heard her close several doors on her car and probably her trunk too, before she left on one such trip. The first short trip where I heard all the doors was in the early afternoon. The second one was right before midnight, but I had the air cleaner running, so I never heard any doors (I decided to use the air cleaner and not the fan because it’s louder, and I also wouldn’t want such a small room to be so drafty once it cools down). Another thing that makes me think she’s moving is because the trash bin was barely an eighth full on Saturday. The next day it was overflowing. One of the things Tom said she threw in there was a broken picture.

I only caught one quick glimpse of her as she was leaving on Saturday. She’s fat and ugly with short blond hair from what I could tell. My guess is that she’s in her 20s or 30s, but I can’t say for sure. Anyway, I’m just so pissed at whatever’s up there because I know it’s going to send someone with a loud stereo or that will work on their car in the driveway, gunning engines, slamming doors, hoods, trunks and then some. It’s a super narrow driveway too, but as Tom and I both agree, it doesn’t look like a garage she’s living in that was converted. Maybe it was some sort of workshop or storeroom. It’s very small. I’m glad we no longer have to worry about blaring TVs, stomping kids or cabinets slamming, but that driveway’s bound to be a problem at some point since I’m here now. The house across the driveway has an 80-year-old woman in it from what Tom saw, but the house on the other side could be a problem right along with the driveway. The picket fence is only about 5 or 6 feet from the wall of our house and extends in front of the house as well as in back of it. It’s their side yard. Their backyard’s not nearly as big because it can only go so far back because of the canal. It’s a two-story house, and again, once it’s either sold or rented, I can’t imagine anyone not having kids in it, and I certainly can’t imagine them being dogless. The houses in this area are older and uglier, and some are two stories.

Let me back up to the move before I go on. I was up by 7:00 and Eddie was there by 8:00 on Saturday morning. He sounded gay but looked straight. He is married, too. He was somewhat shy and quiet. Tom said his neighbors complain about him for making a racket when he works on his vehicles. He should move to Arizona. He’d never get complained about there! However, if he thought Fresno was too hot, which is where he’s from, he’d never be able to handle Arizona.

Tom had told him that he thought it’d take 1 or 2 truckloads to move us (Eddie has a full-size pickup) and that I said it’d take 3 or 4. Well, it ended up taking 3, and of course, Tom jammed the truck with a bunch of stuff too, that got towed down here. During each load that they’d take off to drop off, I made a huge point of stomping around the place as loud as I could, and she was sure to blast her TV, no doubt knowing we wouldn’t have music going to drown it out. The week before we moved she stopped blasting it in the daytime probably because she was escaping my chaos under headphones. Nonetheless, while she blasted the TV, I got good exercise by running around and around the place and slamming cabinets. When I’d get tired, I opted to lay on the bedroom floor and listen to next door’s chatter rather than the bitch’s TV. The dog never barked that last day. I was almost sorry I told her when we were moving so she could line up a friend to take our place, but it saved me from having to play show-and-tell. I can’t swear that that’s why I got out of having to do that, but it seems like a logical guess.

The bad news is that we did have to sign a lease, but the good news is that it’s only for 6 months. It expires February 28th (I just say March) and whether or not we’ll move then, we don’t know.

All but two of my predictions came true. The house is a two-bedroom with small rooms, it does have dirty white peeling paint that Mr. Colorblind calls pale yellow, but the trim is medium green and not dark red. The only other thing I got wrong was saying it wouldn’t be managed Triple-A because it is. The other things I was correct about are that it is fenced in both the back and front, has no garage or cellar, it’s not near the duplex, it is in an area where the houses are older, and there’s a driveway to the right, even if it’s not ours. It’s a little closer to the train tracks, we can get/send mail from the house, it is closer to the street, although not by much, and it is square, even if the whole damn thing is tilted. There’s an older man involved too, even if he’s just the handyman. I’d say I did a pretty damn good job overall. That’s one of the things a psychic is supposed to do is see future events and places they have yet to see in person.

After the third pickup load, Eddie dropped his truck off at his house near the duplex and took his wife to work in their car. Then he came and picked me up while Tom went with the guy towing the truck, so he could direct him down here. The towing company is actually in Dorris, just under the Oregon border, so the guy didn’t know K-Falls well. I didn’t think to lock the front door or shut the garage door because I didn’t know if Tom would be back, but everything was fine the next day when he did go back. If there is anything better about the city it’s that it’s safer. There’s safety in numbers, and with Shasta being so busy, a break-in there is next to nil, not that they could’ve taken anything more than some cleaning supplies. Anyway, he cleaned up the oil leak as best he could and sopped up the water that spilled out of the refrigerator and onto the floor because I forgot to set the tray up to catch the melting ice. Still, we think we’re going to lose a large chunk of our deposit because of the oil and the fact that we didn’t have the carpet cleaned. We didn’t read the lease clearly which states that you must have it cleaned and then show them a receipt for proof that you did it. To have it cleaned seemed so silly anyway. It was brand-new carpet and we never spilled anything on it or messed it up in any way. The rat sure did piss on it a few times, though!

Blondie rode over on my lap and behaved just fine. He’s got to be the most traveled rat as much as these plants are the most traveled plants! It’s a funny thought to know that the rude bitch I’m so happy to be detached from might’ve seen me moving him out on my shoulder. She’d have been like, oh my God! You mean I’ve been living next to that thing for 4 months?!

I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’m going to send a more detailed email to Pam pertaining to the bitch or not. I don’t think I’ll bother. We’re out of there and she’s a closed chapter in our lives.

Although I still say it’s a shame that his own family cares less about him than his coworkers (though I still think we’ll hear all about the letter), it’s so nice all the offers he’s gotten to help him with various things. He still hasn’t checked that guy’s furniture out yet that he wants to get rid of, but I’m kind of glad he hasn’t. See, when he said the house was small I didn’t think he meant microscopic! I had hoped Pam was exaggerating when she told Tom the place was small, but the old living room is easily as big as this living room and kitchen. The place can’t be more than 600 square feet. We could really use one more room and a ¾ bath to go with this full bath that’s a third of the size of the master bedroom closet in our Maricopa house. The bedroom closets here, which are the only closets in the place, are barely 2’ wide, but the ceiling here is higher, so we can at least stack shit pretty high. I’d say they’re closer to 10’ high. That’s not good for in the winter, but the living room has a fan that can be reversed to blow warm air down from the ceiling.

Anyway, I’m glad we didn’t get any furniture yet to have to work around. We barely had room to unpack shit as it was. The bedrooms, which are about the same size, are about 12x12 and the living room and kitchen can’t be much bigger. Perhaps 13x13. The layout is simple. The living room and kitchen are to the left and the bedrooms are to the right with the closets and bathroom sandwiched in between. I don’t like how you have to go through the bedrooms to get to the bathroom, and I sure as hell miss the vanity in the old bathroom, but the bathroom’s been modernized so I like that much. We can get shelves for extra storage space. The shower pressure is wimpy, but the toilet and both sinks in here have good pressure. The kitchen sink is stainless steel which I prefer over the porcelain sink the duplex had. The tub is also plastic rather than porcelain, another thing I like better. The bathroom sink is plastic too, and there are pretty floral tiles on the back wall of the tub. Although the window in there isn’t frosted, it’s set so high that privacy wouldn’t be an issue, even though the blinds are much better here. They’re newer and whiter and the slats are closer together.

My bedroom, being in front, was rather light at night, so we got these new ready-shades that are so way cool. Tom says they’re the best thing they’ve ever made. There’s no hardware or labor involved. You just stick them on and they come with clips so you can raise them if you want to. They’re much cheaper and you get a more snug fit at the sides. He got the room-darkening ones that not only block out the streetlights but makes daytime sleeping in there not so bright, too.

The walls in here are old but in ok condition. The house was probably built in the 40s or 50s from the looks of it, and the floor creaks more than the duplex which was newer. That place was probably built in the ’70s. We shouldn’t need the AC in here due to a combination of the higher ceilings and the fact that we have about an hour less of direct sunlight here, thanks to an even bigger hill than the one we’re on off towards the west. Even so, the house is brighter overall than the duplex, and I like that. I’m sure the plants will appreciate it, too.

The house seems to mostly tilt towards the center, though the kitchen and living room do slant towards the side as well. Eddie said there was once an earthquake here, so if that’s what set it off-kilter, I don’t know. If not, then I guess it was just the ground settling under the pillars over the years, though this is awfully tilted for even 50-60 years. Everything’s off-kilter, including the windows. The screens are brand-new, which is nice, but we can’t open most of the windows because the casings are off which allows for the midges to get in between the windows and screens. That’s what they call the little gnat-like bugs that are in abundance here due to the canal running along back. I both like and dislike the canal. It’s cool to see the fast-moving water when we cross over it when we go to the store after living without any bodies of water for 12 years, but it calls for so many bugs. They don’t bite or sting, but they’re a pain. They should be gone when it gets cold. It’s already starting to cool down. It’s only going to be 38º tonight.

He’s going to hose down the porches next weekend because there are tons of webs with midges stuck in them, then I’ll hang my wind chimes. The last people left one in front. It’s kind of nice, even though it’s tangled. It’s got pink butterflies.

There are houses across the canal and we can hear dogs barking from over there in the back of the house at times, but it’s not nearly as loud as it would be if there was a dog next door. That would be as bad as the beast at the duplex in the living room and kitchen and I sort of worry about that happening eventually because of the noise curse that’s on us. It just seems inevitable.

I wish we could see the water in the canal from the place, but we can’t because it’s too steep of a drop-off. You have to get up to the chain-link fence in order to see it.

There were tons of car stereos going by on Saturday night, but not as many as on Shasta on Sunday and today. We’re still going to get sheets of 4” thick foam for the bedroom windows, even though the driveway has yet to become a problem, and I slept just fine the last two nights. I’m also not on nights yet, so that’ll make a big difference right there since it’s always harder to sleep during the daytime. I’m now getting up around noon.

It’s nice to be able to pee in peace and not have to do it to the tune of catcalls and door slams. I like not having to worry about running kids shaking the place down, too! The only thing I miss is the vanity and extra space. We had cabinets we never even used there. We’re very cramped in here, though we’re both way happier. I not only lack the space for knickknacks but also for boxes of stuff we can’t set up or wish to store. God only knows where I’ll keep my exercise ball when I’m not using it. We’re going to get shelves, bookcases, and whatever else we can fit in here to utilize the space better. The gas heater takes up a fourth of the living room as it is. It’s in the center of the house and so that whole corner’s useless save for the wooden shelf suspended by chains that runs along one wall there. It’s great for setting up some of the dolls. The heater sits on a brick hearth with fake brick along the lower part of the wall in that area. The gas heater itself isn’t that ugly. It’s just a large black box. The silver pipe that runs along behind it to the ceiling is what’s ugly, along with what looks like a metal paper plate with an ugly winter scene in the center of it that’s stuck to the wall behind the pipe. We think that originally there might’ve been a fireplace in here. There’s what appears to be an old chimney on the other side of the wall that they capped off when they replaced the roof with a metal one. It’ll make the rain sound neat if it ever rains again. It hasn’t rained since some time in June.

The front door is new and sealed up well, but the old back door has gaps all around it and so we need to weather-strip it. Neither door has a screen door which kind of sucks. We should be able to open the front living room window when the weather’s nice because that seems to be the only one with a well-sealed screen, and as small as this place is, it should air out nicely with the fan going.

As much as I’ve always hated old places with molding around the doors, the moldings are great for added knickknack space as long as the items are small like Barbies. I have tons of them over the bedroom, bathroom and closet doors and they look cool. A bit high, but cool just the same. The bedrooms are only a couple of degrees cooler than the other rooms, unlike at the duplex where you had a 10-degree difference between the bedroom and living room when the sun was beating on the bedroom window.

Another negative is that there’s no doorbell which could mean having to deal with the sales and religious pests knocking on the door. If they get to be a problem I’ll put a sign up.

The carpet is the exact same color of denim blue as what we had in the Maricopa house, though it’s denser and coarser. I don’t like it because it’s too dark and doesn’t hide lint or anything well at all. It hides the wrong things like the spiders I want to kill such as the big black one that was in here last night.

The kitchen floor is new and there aren’t any ugly dark oak cabinets. Some are that whitewash I like, but others are of old off-white paint. The cabinet and counter space sucks. I’m lucky if I have 3’ of counter space. I don’t know if the freezer is self-defrosting, but it’s newer and you don’t have to go through the refrigerator to get to the freezer. The oven’s a pleasant surprise, though, because while it has no window in its door or a working timer, it’s self-cleaning!

As small as it is in here, we’ll save a ton of money till some rude asshole drives us out. Yes, I hate it because it’s such a small, old dump, but I love it, too. There’s no comparison between heating 600 square feet with gas and 1000 with electric heaters. Not paying for gas for the truck helps, too.

We agreed to spend a little money, like $30, sometime this week at some of the shops downtown (we’re right on the edge of downtown). I saw some of the shops yesterday as we walked to Safeway for groceries. Some had incense and oils.

We still plan to get one of those cash cards so we can do things online like DVDs, Webshots, and premium membership for the sweeps, but not until we get back online. We were supposed to be online the day we moved, but they fucked up and didn’t get to us. This made us $20, though, which they guarantee to those they don’t get to on time. They’re coming tomorrow instead. If Charter fails us again, we’ll call Quest and get a DSL line. It’s faster than satellite but slower than cable, so I hope Charter shows up. As pissed as I am to lose a few days of entries, it gives me a chance to update my journal and write letters. I haven’t heard from Bob in ages, so I want to give him the new address in case he’s still alive. I want to write to Mary, of course, and Paula too, whom I got a letter from the day before we moved.

Although Safeway’s not as nice as Albertson’s because they don’t have as big of a variety and are more expensive, we’re closer to a wider variety of stores.

At one point Saturday evening, a really loud car stereo went by. Tom recognized the driver as being a coworker of his named Jesse and said he’d ask him to turn it down. I told him not to bother. People don’t get those things to be asked to turn them down. This street is still way quieter than Shasta was.

Later…

Tom dropped off the keys today and Pam said she stopped by the duplex earlier (I wonder if she heard the dog and TV). She never said anything about who was going in there next. Tom said he was worried she’d mention my stomping for the bitch. He would be paranoid about that, too. She just commented that we left it clean, but we still need to pay for the carpet cleaning, so I guess we’ll lose about $40 from our deposit. She never mentioned the oil in the garage so that’s good. Besides, it’s just a garage so who cares? I’m just glad she didn’t go there while its door was open and the front door was unlocked!

I think I’m going to win again on the 31st if I haven’t already because I had another win dream last night. I dreamt I won some beauty supplies, though I know that doesn’t mean that that’s what I’ll win. I didn’t win a giant doghouse (thank God) like I did in the last win-dream premonition. I just hope it isn’t a book. I want something good this time around. If I can’t get millions or a trip to Hawaii, I’ll take the $500 Visa gift card any day!

Right before we moved, around the time I had planned to, I told Tom of the letters I sent the folks and Tammy as a way of being “nice” without having to be buddies with them. I explained the tall tales I told them, not caring if they disbelieved them, just in case they may decide to leave me anything, but I don’t think they’ll leave me shit. They give thousands of dollars to their shit son for his business, but they let me live in the slums, so that alone tells me something right there. I told him I waited to tell him about it figuring he’d be paranoid they’d sic the pigs on me, though I never gave them the address per orders of the so-called witness protection program we’re in, my excuse to not contact them regularly. Instead, he actually got quite a kick out of it, though he doubts it’ll work. I doubt it too, but I thought I’d at least give it a shot.

I can feel the change in the air as the seasons change. Summer’s ending almost as fast as it began. It was 10º cooler in here today. It’ll be down in the 60s in here for sure by morning, so I’m going to set up the portable heater in the bedroom later on.

We can leave the kitchen blinds open on the side because there’s an apple tree in front of that window that gives us good privacy.