Home Sweet Nowhere

I think I hate house hunting. It's taken me four fruitless Saturdays with our realtor to come to terms with this.

To start with, our realtor is a friend of a friend of my father's. He works as a team with his wife. The wife used to navigate, but they got GPS for Christmas, so now I'm not really sure what her purpose is. The realtor has a strange pitch and rhythm to his speech and abnormally large, strangely flat ears. The ears are very distracting when one is trying to concentrate on remembering to see if the appliances look like they are Fred Flintstone's cast offs.

Then there's the fact that the Kentucky boy and I are having a hard time agreeing. That's a whole separate domestic squabble that simply means that I see a place an really like it and he sees a place and sees nowhere to park or high heating bills.

I've now seen the full world of houses out to offer. My favorite are the ones that fall into the realm of "creative description." The "nice Cape Cod with summer kitchen in the basement" is a run down mess that smells like something died in it, until you get to the summer kitchen in the basement, wherein it smells like mold. The house that is "currently set up as a two family home, but easily converted to one" is actually two decidedly isolated units which appear to have been created by dividing a series of already tiny rooms in half.

Then there was the home with a massive great room that was beautifully decorated like something out of a magazine, but was surrounded by disgusting, poorly cared for, filthy other rooms.

Then there was the home we visited where the owner didn't bother disclosing that he was a licensed Realtor. And he was home. With two half dressed, unwashed teenagers who seem to think that living in a condo in Bridgewater, NJ makes them "street" eating bacon in the kitchen. This was clearly the home of a divorced man as the entire master bedroom had a jungle theme. I'm pretty sure I was the first female to stop by in several years.

And we get to do it all again tomorrow.

The .longest hours

As promised, my actual flight back into Kentucky gets its own post.

We finally boarded our 8:15 flight at 10:30 pm.

I always end up in the last row of the plane. On small commuter jets this means an extra cramped, extra warm seat mere inches from the toilet. I think it has something to do with the fact that my company has booked my last few flights for me. Maybe they think I'll be safer back there. Or the woman in corporate travel just doesn't like me very much.

This time, I had the added bonus of a rather large, solid-looking Southern Indiana man as a seat mate. There was no room to put the arm rest down. There was no room to not be sitting actually touching hips with this middle-aged stranger. Did I mention that it was unbearably warm on this particular aircraft without the forced snuggling with a stranger?

He immediately endeared himself to me by ranting for several minutes about how he flew to San Francisco once and a male flight attendant had the nerve to try and hit on him. And as if he had not suffered enough, on the way back home to the greater Louisville area his seat mate was not only African American but an actual transvestite with braided hair and a dress who was part of an entire choir of gay men that were on his flight. Gasp. Oh yeah, I was headed back to Kentucky. I just remembered what that's like.

We were getting one of those mid-Atlantic drizzles you always hear about in nostalgic Christmas songs, which on an airplane translates to feeling like my two year old nephew is holding the plane and bouncing it through the air. It was late, I was tired and firmly believed that falling asleep was the only way to keep my lunch from having a repeat performance. My new best friend wouldn't have it.

When we finally finished circling in the air over Louisville and were set free from our steel torture chamber I nearly kissed the nearest gate agent as thanks for my freedom.

I'll be somewhere for Christmas

In the grand tradition of Americans everywhere (even the Jewish ones), I find myself traveling for Christmas. The father-in-law's birthday is Christmas, so this will be how it is for the forseeable future.

When you are new on a job, you have no vacation. It doesn't matter that the entire company is empty for a week and a half, from December 18 to New Year's Day. The new people soldier on. This translates to the dreaded "just before the holiday" flight.

Newark airport on a good day is a ridiculous place. On a clear, sunny Tuesday in April with no holiday in sight, you will board the plane a minimum of 35 minutes late. The plane will then sit in line on the runway at least another 30 minutes. This is how life is if you want to leave New Jersey. We've come to accept this as the price we pay for living near cool things.

December 22nd at 8 pm on a rainy Friday, leaving Newark is like trying to flee a dictatorship. Everyone wants to be somewhere else and no one is getting there fast or without some sort of trauma. My general approach to airports is to find a corner and park myself on the floor with my iPod and a book. This time, my corner on the floor was next to a trash can.

I did get good seats for the floor show, though. A young couple and their associate 60-something mother-type ignored all admonitions to remain in the gate area and managed to miss their flight. They were ranting and raving at the poor gate agent (whomever you are Continental airlines gate agent at gate 113 on Dec. 22nd, you were amazing) about how they were "right there" in the bar across the terminal looking at the gate (why didn't you see all the people getting on the plane, then?) and that the plane was still there. They wanted to poor man to delay all these other grouchy Christmas travellers and bring the plane officially back to the gate (the doors were closed) and kick off the newly-happy standby passengers to let them on. Funny, he wouldn't do it.

I did finally get on the plane. My seat mate warrants his own post. I'm happy to be with my loving redneck again. I'll be happier still when someone invents a teleporter.

Negligence

Utter chaos has prevented me from posting lately.
I'm living in my parents' guest room (still). My life right now exists mostly in scattered cardboard boxes and my car.
The husband and I have been having a battle of wills over just what sort of house we intend to live in.
My computer died a slow and ugly death from which it may never return. This will require the copying of all of my music from my iPod onto a new hard drive (again). This is a slow and painful process.
I suck at holiday shopping and just when I thought I was done, my mother thwarted my plan of giving her a bluetooth headset by getting one free when she changed her service.
The buyer for our old home wants to be in before my husband can be out. This is no problem, except that we need a foster home for our kitties. And the aforementioned buyer is being a pain.
On happier news, just after Christmas, we will be in temporary housing, which means I'll have regular internet access again.
I'll be back soon!