Poor RT. Not only is he a member of the Young Republicans at L-T-DHS, but he was almost late for school today. We were all groggy, slogging in bed late this morning from a busy weekend and his alarm neglected to go off. Well, that’s actually not accurate, because one has to set one’s alarm for it to “go off.” So at quarter to seven — 15 minutes before the Princess leg of the L-T-D carpool arrives, I barrel out of bed to run down to get his lunch, and grab some cold cinnamon Pop Tarts for his breakfast. Mmmm… cold Pop Tarts… Cinnamon… The MoH trudges upstairs to get the RT out of bed — not an easy feat because the MoH is quite less than a morning type of guy. Ever.

But the RT is quite the flexible adolescent human and arrives downstairs with a pleasant, albeit dazed look on his still boyish face and commences with the shoving of Pop Tarts into his mouth while I check that he’s got his back pack and swim stuff for P.E. He’s set, but as I reach into the bag crammed with swim stuff, I immediately know that the damp items have been in this bag lost in his room since last used on Friday and they’re, well….stinky. Sour gross and stinky. A quick change of towel, a nudge to get him back upstairs for a cold water face splashing, teeth brushing, shirt changing — because I recognize that the one he’s currently wearing has been on for a couple of days — and then he’s back downstairs with a few minutes to catch his breath and read Garfield in the morning paper. Whew! We did it. He’s out the door at seven on the nose, and actually has to wait for 5 minutes because the Prince-ass is late again. You gotta like the RT. I do. I’m thinking I wouldn’t be a very good Princess mother. I’d be snapping her up one side and down the other every minute of the day, or digging around for a needle to pop her self-inflated bubble-type existence here in L-T-D Mc Neighborhood Land.

Yes, it was quite the weekend for the Slug Family, and for less than sunny Paradise in So Cal in general. Cocktails on the Green — Ahem — for MoH and I on Friday evening followed by dinner and a casino night; baseball coaching and golf; the RT’s cousin sleep over and birthday get together; dinner with friends Saturday night; and Art Walk on Sunday downtown. The home team Pads (no, not like Kotex, say Pods, and no, not like Invasion of the Body Snatchers) were playing the rotten Dodgers in town, and OMG…

…The Dems were here, too. But the news is out — they weren’t really into smoochin’ babies — well, except one. Like I said — quite the weekend.

Yes, the Dems were finally here in Paradise, because someone was able to scrape up enough union member staffed hotels to house the delegates. Give me a break. Evidently, this is the very first time Paradise has hosted a convention of the CA Dem Party. They’ve even held one in San Jose before. Give me another break. Have you ever been there? It’s all spiffed up because Silicon Valley is a hop skip and a jump away, but you can wander around down town in the morning right before lunch and it’s a big yawner. Seriously. I’m thinking Paradise always gets nailed because everyone figures the sun shines all year (not), and that there are palm trees and beaches, so nothing else matters. But hold onto your shorts — or your livestock. The next one may be in Fresno. Uh…Fresno?

It was interesting reading the local paper form of news Sunday morning and trying to get my head around the whole “Why are the Dems here Now?” thing. Well — CA has, over the last many years, moved its primary up from June to March to February. So everybody’s hopping — including the candidates. Otherwise, they’d never give our palm trees a glance. They didn’t anyway. There was generally no glad-handing, or baby smooching, or anything other than giving a face to the talk for the delegates who attended the convention. Has anyone figured out this is an arcane practice at this point? Can anyone say In-ter-net? And how much does it cost for all this nonsense, anyway? According to the paper, Barack Obama “blew in”, “belted out,” and then “high-tailed” himself to L.A.

Hilary Clinton “parachuted” in, “delivered”, “shook” hands, kissed one baby and then “jetted” out. I did notice that the red suit she wore resembled some kind of futuristic flight suit. Sweet! But Al Gore was no where to be found even though a reported group of “dream-team” followers were promoting the idea of a Gore/Obama ticket. Hmmm…

Of course, you can always depend on someone like Ron Nehring, the CA Rep Party Chairman to throw in his 2 cents over the weekend’s event, letting us know that — just in case we didn’t have ears or a brain with ability to process information — the Dems are not focusing on issues that “really matter to regular people,” but instead “obscure issues” for the “extremists.” I guess those might be serious lefties, right? Palm tree huggers, vegetarians, and surf bums? Those of us crippled by the sunshine tax?
The other five of the eight considered serious con-ten-daz supposedly “hung around,” but interestingly enough, Republican Dennis Kucinich attended a fund raiser in O.B. That’s Ocean Beach for those of you unfamiliar with Paradise. It’s a serious beach town that protested a Starbucks on the corner almost as much as the Vietnam War, loves Dog Beach, its pier, hamburger joints, surfing, and everything left over from the late 60’s. You know, like head shops. Huh?

What’s a Republican doing in a place like this? Widening his horizons. Expanding his mind. With a bunch of stoners? Well, I’m sure he drew an interesting crowd, because at only 20 bucks per attendee, I can guarantee that everyone else was either at the Padres game (which lasted 17 innings and they lost to the rotten Dodgers anyway) or at Art Walk in Little Italy, where all the tasteful folks were. Like us.

Art Walk is in its third year and is a pleasant diversion for house slugs who forget that we live in a nice city and there are things to do occasionally besides taxes or sit in front of a computer. We purchased a Grant Pecoff giclee here a couple of years ago, and this year discovered many new artists whose work caught our attention:

• Like photographer & Fire Escapes -- Xavier Nuez" target="_blank">Xavier Nuez who captures stunning energy-filled images of abandoned urban buildings and alleys, and
• Robert Holton from Anaheim who has an interesting take on Pop Icons, or
• Stephanie Clair who is has a gallery nearby and whose paintings convey soothing memories of soft moments in life — with a contemporary look.

Little Italy is a little bit of old and quaint mixed with trendy, sometimes edgy looking buildings that house shops, restaurants, and homes. It’s fun to look at the art, enjoy the setting, and take a load off in the middle of it all to get something to eat and drink.

Italian food? Well, maybe since you’d expect to enjoy that in Little Italy — and we have before, but we’re still waxing over our trip to England and Wales last summer so squeezed into a pub instead for some bangers and mash, a roast beef sandwich with pub chips, and Boddington’s, Old Speckled Hen, and Belhaven Scottish Ale to help wash it all down.

Absolutely no calories there… What Phoodplan? Ciao Bella…

Good news for those of you seriously interested in the Paradise real estate market. You have heard it’s a buyers market, right? What that means to everyone is that you can assume sellers have gazoodles of equity in their homes, and you can casually expect them to knock a 100K or more off the sale price of their old homestead. It means that after months on the market — months — and only 5 offers have fallen through because your real estate professional couldn’t manage to get them off the table, that you have reached desperate measures.

The free labor family mules have come and gone, the stager lady has cute-si-fied the place to help dim-witted dorks prospective buyers focus on things like super glued window valences, or a small pot of fake flowers instead of things like square footage, tile, and fireplaces. It’s dusted and polished and ready to go back on the market with a new and even lower asking price during the Grand New Re-Opening Open House. Everything’s lookin’ swanky. But then The Woodster, professional realtor that he is, says, “What about the rope?”

“Uh…What rope?”

“You know. The one hanging in the pool area. Somebody needs to cut it down.”

And the stager lady says, “And can you dust off the skylites while you’re up there?”

You’re desperate to sell your hacienda. You’re so desperate, you would do anything. Anything…

But what do you know? You aren’t the professional. And The Woodster is, so the rope must have done the trick.

Less than one week later, an offer is in, escrow is open, and the soon to be new owner of your old homestead in East Paradise McNeighborhood Gated Community has said, “I thank God for this blessing,” and has asked The Woodster to communicate her thanks to your family, and its mules.

So the moral to this story is, when in doubt — cut the rope.

Somewhere in between beginning this post and now, I’ve had a person on a white horse save me. Well, maybe he was just sitting in front of a white horse, or something. Anyway, it completely helps to have a techno-geekster in the family. That would be the MoH’s family. The MoH’s youngest brother who just finished an hour or more on the phone with me fishing around in the cPanel of my web host. Fun, fun, fun. But Wooooo-Hoooooo! It’s up and running. So cool, don’t you think?

So gallant MoH-in Law…

How do I thank thee? Let me count the ways.

I thank thee to the depth and breadth and height

My blogging fingers can reach, when up late at night

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace….Huh? I never have really understood that part Elizabeth, dear, but you get the idea, right? Oh, and don’t forget about the swell dinner out I promised you and your wifey. I’ll tell the MoH to get right on that with his check book. And Phil at Though Sparks has also been persistent in his support with emails and suggestions, and time spent creating helpful posts, and comments made. A totally great guy with a resourceful site. If you haven’t bookmarked him yet or made him a Technorati favorite, what the hell are you waiting for? He has a great piece today on “Post to Blog from MSN Messenger with Plug-In.” Standing ovation from me to both of these swell guys!

So now that I’ve had my blogging butt saved, I can go back to the business of — well, what is it I do? Talk about things like the odd combination of junk I got yesterday in my email. The junk shows up as brown, and I get an option to justify its state of junk-ness. But when I get to see one right after the other like:

“Right Bra Size — Right Attitude” and “Spring Break Travel” and “Looking Good — Make your day a bodywrap day. Lose 6-20” of unwanted size in one hour,” I’m thinking, this isn’t junk. Someone out there in webland knows that I’m rolling on the floor and kicking and screaming over my sad blob and is in some mysterious way trying to reach out to help. Come on, think about it. But there’s only one flaw — An attitude adjustment with the correct bra size is going to be royally effed up if the hooters are caught up in the bodywrap. Then on the spring travel gig, I’d be walking around hooterless with a brassiere flapping in the wind. Ugly, but hilarious. Okay, maybe it’s junk after all.

And on that note….it’s Friday! Yes! I haven’t quite figured out why that still matters to me as I sit here daily in my non-employed state, but somehow it does. One of the ways we celebrate the weekend around here is, of course, eating and drinking merrily into the night. This really begins on Thursday night, because we’re getting ready for Friday. I know you agree with me and probably do this, too. So last night, I celebrated almost Friday by making a fabulous Sharp Cheddar Souffle while the MoH played on-line poker on his laptop at the counter. He actually won about $9 on his $2 investment for the evening, and by the time the souffle was done, we were flopped on the couch watching To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Yes, the RT, too, who didn’t quite get the whole drag queen thing. But he watches Monty Python, so same difference if you ask me. To Wong Foo was a totally great movie to go with the souffle and also learn a lesson to go with my whole frustrating blob day. Patrick Swaze’s character Vida Boheme states at one point that, “The solution to most of life’s problems is to dress really fabulously, girls.” So who knows. Maybe that has been my problem all along. If I looked as good as Patrick Swaze and Wesley Snipes in a dress — seriously — I’d change out of my jammies every day, and then everything else would be perfect. Feh. Right.

So celebrate! Get out the Barbie — the one you grill on, not the blow up doll. And if you don’t have a good burger recipe, check this one out. Go ahead. You won’t be sorry. And if you’re not a carnivore, then wait for the recipe on the cheese souffle. Mmmmmm…

Well clearly, the histrionics below have passed or you wouldn’t be looking at a finished site.  But on the morning this post was written, not only was the WordPress Classic default theme (Blue Blob) not there — no theme was there.  Alas, things are now changed…

For two days now, I’ve had memories of all the times in my life that I just wanted to quit. You know. Those stress-filled, “What was I thinking?” or “Oh my gawd, I can’t do this — let me out!” kind of things, like going off the high dive when you’re 12 and everyone at the pool is staring at you. Or when that boy you thought was really cute is standing in front of you now getting ready to kiss you, or is kissing you, and you’re thinking you’d rather just hold hands, because kissing is kind of gross when you’re 15. Well, I thought it was. Maybe that boy was just gross.

Or, other terrifyingly stressful events such as getting on that roller coaster that’s even bigger than the last one, or giving birth, or studying for seven final exams my last semester in college as a single mom with two kids, or trying to figure out and submit a viable school budget of several million dollars. But I survived all those things — and with flying colors. So why? Why if I was able to do those things, can I not get this GD Stoopid SOB MF-ing website to do what I want?

I less than love the blue blob at the top of the page. Morgan, if you’re reading right now, you were correct. It’s a blob, not a blog. It’s official folks, and you heard it here first. Yes, I’ve valliantly read and reread, and questioned, and forum-ed myself to death — well almost. Over and over. To no avail. Held a nice on-line chat with Azir, who pretty much said something I hadn’t thought about. That I need an FTP client. Huh? You know. In addition to my hosting service. This is the part where I sigh, with absolutely no exasperation at all an put up another stick and a plate to spin in the air. This is the part where I pull up the WordPress directions again and question the syntax of their sentence that says, “There are two ways of getting files onto your site, and once there, changing them.

1. By using your cPanel, or whatever file manager is provided by your host.
2. By using a FTP client. This guide whill show you how to use FileZilla.”

The directions imply — no — state that this is an either/or situation. So I’m safe with number 1, I’m thinking. Besides, number 2 is a problem because I use a Mac (which I expect to be cremated with) and so I’m SOL about these directions even if I want to use them. And if I use one of the other FTP clients recommended for a Mac, I’ll have to use their directions, if I can find them. More downloads, more fees. Wah-wah-wah.

So my pathetic point here is that this technological debacle is way easier — relatively speaking — than any of the events I’ve experienced and mentioned above. Way way. I have slotted this experience appropriately, have smacked down my whining self, and am going to approach “it” with a different plan of attack today which includes maybe starting over.

The real problem here is that I completely lack patience. I didn’t get in that line when I was getting my parts. So I have to spend my life getting in the rental line every time I do something challenging to get myself a bit of patience. And I stand in that line patiently. (For those of you who have either stopped reading, or are scratching their heads and muttering, Huh? just skip this part and know that I love you anyway for tolerating my blathering.) I stand in that line — you know — the patience line? Patiently because others are watching. I can’t throw anything, or lay on the floor and kick and scream and thrash back and forth. But it’s a great image, isn’t it. Can you even imagine seeing that? My animals aren’t even up here with me today. They know when to duck and cover.

But as I was saying, I’m a Martha through and through. Sorry, but it’s very true. I love things to be Just. So. Like. That. But not in lines. Elegantly organized in their artful chaos. Really. Picture something like decorated disaster. That’s me. And I want this site to look simply marvelous. Then I can just write. Maybe about purposeful things instead of this ridiculous ranting kind of thing I’m engaged in today. Even my doggo is not her usual self about this. She’s downstairs somewhere, howling in one of her dreams about fire engines.

Have you stopped reading yet? Don’t worry. I’ll find myself again. But right now, I feel like I’m trying to learn to read, write, and speak some Chinese dialect and use the information I’m gaining to decorate my house. Huh? I know. Can you imagine what it’s like being in this brain?

Things are never, ever dull or boring. Well, to me they aren’t.

So, I’m off to the salt mines to check out the download of Captain FTP this morning. Which is better than what I did yesterday morning spending two hours on line and then on the phone trying to purchase health insurance. No wonder everyone goes to the ER when they get sick. Two hours to fill out the paper work on line and then it wouldn’t process. I’ll spare you that story. But the lady next door working on her patio sprucing it up before her gardener arrived got to hear the whole thing. I guess now we’re even. At least she wasn’t throwing snails at the cars. But I do know she was really sprucing up her patio because mine looks better than hers. Snort.

If you’re looking at this page, then congrats — you found me. And thanks for your persistence — especially while I figure out how to make the adjustments I’d like.

But for entertainment value, I’d like to say that several performances on the American Noodle were fab tonight.

1. Jordin is so going to win. Period. I love “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from the old musical, Carousel — an oldie that I thought would be a risk, but was just perfect. She’s amazing. Great performance.
2. And Blake was pretty good, but it’s hard to listen to anyone not John Lennon sing Imagine. Not too bad, even though we had to suffer through inane comments about it just being “all right” from Randy, because I guess you’re supposed to rock ‘n’ roll on that one. Not. But Blake was looking a bit bored with the whole she-bang, don’t you think? What’s up with that? Too cool for school? Hmmmm…..
3. The Chris kid has a good voice, but if I turned on the radio to listen to something besides NPR, he’d sound like too many others. Nothing makes him stand out. And he’s a cute kid, but always looks a bit like he’s going to cry.
4. Melinda is always very good. So whatdahyahsay beyond that? Her hair looked great, too? It did, and so did she.
5. I think that LaKisha is going to lose the vote tomorrow because Phil has some kind of might supporting him like the San-jan-man did.

Unfortunately, the sparkle that last year’s performers brought to the show still isn’t there. It’s a complete bummer. But I’m still watching.

Sometimes, life leaves you little packages. Some are pleasant, and others require thought. A few are earned, and the rest may be deposited with you whether you want them or not. They make you wince, hold your breath, shake your head in disgust, or shed tears of remorse. Yesterday was one of those days. A thinking type of day. Thinking about things like:

• What that thing was on the third riser from the top on the staircase. That rounded, dark-looking, too big to be one of the RT’s mishmash of military paraphernalia. That…glob…leaning up against the wall. Did the doggo drop a piece of her load on the rug? No. Can’t be. But there it was in all its glory, a turdlett, most likely left accidentally on her way out the door first thing in the morning. She just couldn’t make it. Somehow she knew that I had found it, and avoided making eye contact as I carried it to the trash, her eyes flicking up and away, knowing she had been caught and was embarrassed.

• Or the sweet little yellow-headed bird Blaxter brought up to me like he was awarding me a bouquet of roses — his mouth full of feathers after laying the no longer breathing feathered beauty softly at my side on the rug. His green eyes searching my face for a response for his deed of gift-giving. What possessed him after eight years to catch a bird? I patted him on the head, gave him a few scratches and rubs, and carefully scooped up the poor bird to take it somewhere a bit more respectful for a while. No little boys at home any more to coo over the loss, and with whom to hold a ceremony. And just a patio with no land or space of dirt to dig a hole and bury it.

• Or the report card. The RT’s. One last stretch until the end of the semester. Until the end of his first year in high school. A decent report card — excellent in some areas (Biology), definite work needed in others (The Geometry Teacher’s Class). The report card felt more mine than his. What can I have done to support him more? How do we instill in him the need to engage? To connect the dots. To join the world of the practical. Maybe he has it right, and everyone else has it wrong. “RT, I really need you to hop up and down, pull your hair out, look generally miserable about school and stress out about everything that’s going on. You know?” It’s funny that when I remember being in ninth grade — and I do clearly — homework was insignificant, the assignments required little thought, and my classes were less than inspiring. I went every day, did what was expected of me, and spent almost no energy on any of it — but not consciously. So what the hell am I complaining about?

My ultimate report card? You got it. Today was weigh-in day for the Phoodplan. Sigh. I’m not feeling very babe-i-fied this morning, and it isn’t because of the wrecked hammy in my left leg. Check the photo yourself. Notice that the toes are painted a different color to celebrate, but alas, there’s nothing to celebrate. Well, except my health, and all that kind of good stuff we often take for granted. I’m back up about a pound. It must be Thursday night’s very reasonable portion of Chocolate Mousse — Banana Split Style which was so delicious I could have eaten all of it myself, but didn’t. Or pasta a couple of different ways over a couple of different days, or the pizza on Saturday when we were working like dogs, or the Eggs Baked in Cream yesterday morning…Whoa. Oh, and the wine. And the beer. Looks like I’ll have to pop that celery out of the veggie bin. Dinner needs to be on a smaller plate. And I probably don’t need sugar in my coffee.

But on the brighter side of things… a few weeks back, I received a very pleasant review of my blog which I believe I neglected to share — or if I did, well, then I forgot, and I’m sharing again. A bit of press never hurt anyone and I can’t wear red toenail polish for nothin’! In his review, Billy Mac said, “New kid on the block Kellementology is on the path to stardom. She has all the right who…what…where…and whens in order, her format is set up nicely and she posts on a regular basis. What else can you ask fro from a blogger. Now it’s the waiting game to watch the blog blossom. Keep up the good work…keep the content as good a s it is…and good luck.” How cool is that? So check out Critique My Blog and if you haven’t submitted yours, give it a go. It’s a great place to find new places to explore as well.

And finally, Cherann from Confessions of a Former Bookworm has annointed me with a Thinking Bloggers Award, and in very good company, as well. Tah-Dahhhhhhh. Now you can see why I gave you all my pensive blathering above to think about while I was thinking about it. Just sharin’ the thinkin’ one post at a time, whomever, and where ever you are out there. One of these days when I get around to it, I’ll actually adjust my BlogRoll in the sidebar to update the links of those of you I routinely read. Credit where credit is due.

It’s a pretty diverse list, but the following people give me pause in their various regions of blogland, sometimes like a cold splash of water, or others like the brush of tall grass in a gentle breeze. I discovered Wonderland or Not fairly recently. I like her edgy, witty point of view and general voice in whatever she writes — even though I have to scratch my head occasionally, and stew over it. And Dave, of course, at Wandering the Ether, who never fails to make me feel guilty for writing about American Idol, or the RT’s messy bedroom instead of societal issues that are perpetually swept under the rug. Or like Writing Under a Pseudonym whose writing on life and its trials is hauntingly beautiful at times, and so achingly sad others, that I feel as if I’m an intruder as I read, and don’t know how she makes it from one day to the next. I don’t read these blogs the same way, for the same length of time, or for the same reasons. I respond to one, and hover around the other two. They simply make me think each time I check on each of them. They coerce me into a world more serious than the one I’ve wanted to be a part of recently and I appreciate that.

The Thinking Blogger Award was started by — whom else? The Thinking Blog. And if your name has been mentioned here, you have the opportunity to bring attention to another blogger whose work you admire by linking them in your post. And if you are so inclined, you also may display the Thinking Blogger Award icon on your site in either this color, or this.

So in the spirit of thought, I’m off for my walk — early today — to think. Free as a bird, listing to the left a bit, weighing more than I want, but ready to pound the streets in search of anything a bit less serious in Paradise. Because a bit of levity is good for the soul. Would you put this on your house? Really? Shhhhhh…..I’m thinking.

My sister has had her former home on the market for months. Her husband retired from the navy and took a job across the country, so they slapped a For Sale sign out front and blew out of here in January. Unfortunately, the house is still there, unsold, and no one seems to love it. And it’s a bit stressful trying to manage this business when she’s so far away. Things just don’t go the way she’d like them to all the time.

So she flew out from VA this past weekend to make sure her recent investment in trying to get her house sold in East Paradise Gated McNeighborhood works. What that entailed was rounding up the family mules: Gramster Mule, Betty Mule (yours truly), and Officer Mule, the brother who keeps his distance from the female crazies in the family. It also involved rounding up as many yard tools as possible — either by begging, borrowing, or stealing — to get the whole curb appeal thing done, because all her yard tools moved to VA with the family. And most importantly, it meant checking out what she’d very recently paid $20K for on the inside to get the old homestead securely into someone else’s hands as soon as possible (new counters in the kitchen, new appliances, new light fixtures, new light switch plates — yes, I said light switch plates, and new hardware for the front door). It seems reducing the price $100K wasn’t enough for the fickle and taste-lacking Paradise bargain shoppers, (Example: two women who offered $70K under the asking price, with no money down, wanted $20K out of escrow in cash, and could they please rent it cheap and live there until escrow closed?) Uhhhhhh…..And the turnip truck you just got off of is parked where? So a bit of surface glam was called for, as well. You know, staging the house. You’ve heard about it on TV. But the price tag was so high to have furniture sit in the empty house, that props had to suffice. Tricky.

Who figured that after she took a red-eye flight out here and hit the ground running — or digging — that it would rain. And not just rain, but black clouds, wind, a perfunctory bolt of lightning and single clap of thunder just to make it official. But this didn’t stop our dusting and polishing, or our trip to The Home Depot for flowers and bark, our furious activity, or our end of the day sleepover in my mom’s absolutely freezing casita up in big, big hilly type mountainettes way east of Paradise. So freezing that we slept unshowered, with lots of clothes on, thinking that the dirt on us helped a bit with insulation, and that her head-light could double as a light to read in our dirt by. Or maybe ambient heat for our hands. Open and say Ahhhhh……

But we were halted in our fervor to get the place spruced up by the pond that the storm left on the side of the house. So much rain, that the “low spot” pond threatened to become a lake. The low spot that the realtor frets about where the downspout from the gutters sinks into the ground. Where the downspout appears to connect to some unseen drain that will conveniently, and efficiently take away the rain water. But no. The downspout just goes into the ground. There’s no drain. Not the thing an anxious to sell her house person wants. Not the day before the Grand Re-Opening Open House. Not.

The family mules set to the task of leveling a portion of the side yard, digging around the seemingly non-functional drain, and generally spiffing the place up and hiding the pond. And it worked pretty well until we wanted to walk on it, and it had a gelatinous feel to it — all quivery, and spongy. But we whistled while we worked, anyway, gossiping loudly about the neighbors who were in their yard next door, surrepititiously doing yard work even though my sister said they never went out in their yard. Some of us groused about the ridiculous hairs realtors split in doing their work, while blindly over-looking things that should be focused upon. I’m thinking you’ve got to have a bit of stoopidity in your system if you can say things like, “…and maybe you can put a bit of mulch around the roses while you’re at it…” on a Friday afternoon when a couple of rear ends are in the air , heads bent to their task of weeding, turning soil, and trimming brown plant edges. I just don’t think they get it. They seem not to see all the good things.

For example, you have to walk through the pool area to even see the roses. Or to wander up to the back part of the property to remember where the trampoline used to be, and where fruit trees are in bloom. And it’s quite the pool area that has hosted some pretty great parties over the years. My mom once broke some bones in her hand swinging on the rope before launching herself into the pool like the boys were doing. Pool floatie water polo battles were fierce. And many a young girl played water princess, exhibiting exotic underwater poses, and featuring gymnastic feats. The jaccuzzi? Well, the banana mudslides went down well as we stewed ourselves to a prune state. It’s a bit strange seeing it so empty and to know that as much as a family once loved it, others don’t seem to notice what made that family happy living here. In the end, it’s just a house, and there seem to be millions on the market in Paradise right now.

And the neighbors. Oh my gawd, the neighbors. Outside of one person who graciously invited the soaked, muddy, and fairly ugly group of us over to have wine and snacks after it became too cold and rainy to work, the rest were fairly grotesque in their behavior. Two were seen across the street smack-talking the fresh, deep green color of the front door, which couldn’t possibly pass the architectural committee’s approval. So we hopped into the car and took a cruise around McNeighborhood to write down the house numbers of those individuals who also had “painted” doors, instead of natural woodgrain doors — some in dire need of refinishing. Or houses that had beyond ugly screen doors, or fences in need of repair, yards in need of care, or just plain butt-ugly anything in front of the house. Routinely, neighbors drove by, slowed down to gawk like we were performing nude rituals in the yard, and to maybe slink over to the For Sale sign and take a flyer with up-to-date information. By the end of the day, the flyers were all gone. All in the hands of neighbors who anxiously waited with bated breath to see what the house could sell for. Waiting to know if they may continue to have the opportunity to brag to one another what they think their houses are worth — whether they actually are or not.

But my sister is going for the jugular. The house is going to sell or else. So she’s dug in there today with my mom, camped out in the back yard — mostly to keep the neighbors out, and to make sure the realtor is actually doing something to sell the house. — like answer questions about it that prospective buyers may have. What a concept, huh?

And when the house does sell within the advertised range this week, the McNeighborhood comps are toast. People will have to get off their high horses and get real about their property values in East Paradise Gated McNeighborhood. Perhaps thinking about the place where they live as being a home with a family and memories thrown in instead of a house that has a market value would be a great start. But the experience was enjoyable because my family did the work together — something that doesn’t happen often now. Being able to help in this little way just sort of cemented in the fact that my sister and her family are really gone from this home, and living on the other side of the country. Snif!