rustypants speaks

drive together in perfect harmony?

we got lise a new car today. pretty little 2003 Saturn Ion with 28,000 miles on it in excellent shape and taken very good care of by previous owner. her old 2000 Saturn SL2 has 156,000 miles and, while it’s been very dependable, i’ve been concerned about moving 1,000 miles away from her family and her obvious desire to visit as often as possible. this was my solution.

so my black ion, her white ion, living together in perfect harmony.

my car’s name is Shaniqua (because she’s black and beautiful). i’ve suggested that lise name her car something like bob. or jim. or steve. we’ll see.

are things like

waterdeep coming out with their first album in years.

…

today in maryland

while lise and i were out acting strange with old (young) friends…

(pretending to catch flies?)

(imitating a cat throwing up?)

(doing a bill the cat impersonation?)

…

dolby sat at home and wondered…

…

will they ever be back??

…

and don’t they WUV ME???

today, after my saying something stupid, the following exchange took place:

me: “why do you bother keeping me around? it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

lise: “i figure, ‘it’s extra income.’”

i was offered a teaching position down in pensacola today…

holy moley!

much has been going on lately (like, duh) = it’s time to stop and process some of the muck accumulating in the crevices of my brain. sit tight and read on:

• the house has been up for eight days now and we’ve not gotten a single call. am i freaked? am i worried? naw. not yet. we knew this was gonna be a tough row to hoe when we set out to sell. the market is poor and there’s a glut of houses in cheviot / cincinnati up for sale - some better, many worse than our nifty little place.
• i’ve got my first interview this thursday with the principal of a school in pensacola - much excitement, obviously!
• lise’s been in toledo for a couple days visiting with her mom. a good visit was had and she’s all rested, relaxed and ready to hit maryland for a couple days.
• my wife = pure awesome. even with my mom’s finger up her nose.
• we leave for maryland later this morning for what will likely be our last trip there for a while. from cincy to maryland, it’s 550 miles. from cincy to pensacola it’s 750 miles. from pensacola to maryland it’s 1000 miles. zowie! but we’re not focusing on that - we’re looking forward to hanging with barb & joe plus seeing many of our kids from youth groups past. it’s gonna be a great time.
• and speaking of youth group kids: when did i give them permission to get jobs, get married, move away, start families, etc?? i thought they were supposed to stay 16 forever? hee hee. the truth is, this is where a lot of the fruit of ministry is seen - to watch them take the foundational things laid in years past and put them to work as adults - priceless, dudes, priceless.
• i’m almost finished with the book Wicked - and i liiike it! my friend amanda calls it her favorite book and she loaned me her copy. it was one of those books that you take, flip through, get discombobulated by big words, confusing names, unknown places and decide, “i’ll lie and tell her i started reading it, didn’t like it, and am just giving it back” but then… yeah, i decided to read two chapters, just so i wouldn’t have to lie. next thing i know, it’s 4/5 of the way through the book and i’m wondering how it’ll end!
• new tunes i’ve been listening to & like: sarah carr told me to check out augustana and snow patrol, so i did. they’re both pretty good, but i’m leaning towards augustana. chris brown’s self-titled album is pretty cool. alan parsons put an album out a couple years ago i just recently got called A Valid Path. a techno-alan-parsons? veddy iiinterestink!
• new tunes that aren’t impressing me: joss stone (borrring). john legend. acoustic alchemy (Zzzzzzzz…).
• new tunes i WANT SO BAD TO LIKE and i DON’T HATE but…: ry cooder’s My Name Is Buddy. hearing cooder do dustbowl-like tunes is… i dunno. i just dunno.
• i get shocked every other day or so when i realize: we’re moving the last week of july to pensacola. that’s 4-5 weeks away! holy CRAP! people to see, family to hang with, things to pack, apartment to find and rent, people to say goodbye to - we’ve been so busy getting the house ready that the time has just flown by.

if you’re in the area, please make it a point to holler at us and lets get together before we go!

and now, it’s almost 2am. sleep is welcome.

g’night.

i have a phone interview with a principal in pensacola this thursday and i wonder…

should i dress up for this?

hee hee

one thing i don’t talk about much is the age of our house (81 years) and the joy of some of the architectural features found inside.

when we first bought this place, there were many things that needed to be replaced or fixed or just plain thrown out. the wiring is a brittle cloth romex - wires covered in cloth. the panel in the basement was a vintage 1927 fusebox with three different boards and no central switch. the light fixtures in the ceilings are architectural antiques and (in my opinion) are butt-ugly. among the things that needed to be replaced were some light switches that were ancient and scary. i had a great time with several of the switches, but when it came to the one in the bedroom, i didn’t know what to do.

it sparked. it worked. usually.

it clicked LOUD. LOUD!

i bought a switch, popped the plate off, and couldn’t figure out what had exploded inside. what a mess! the switch was like nothing i’d ever seen before, and to top it off, the previous folks had plastered around it, so you couldn’t even get the thing out (if you even knew where to start!!) - i was at a loss, and was spooked.

i put the plate back on, prayed that the thing wouldn’t spark a fire (and with cloth-covered wiring)…

well, this sucker finally gave up the ghost about a month ago. we resorted to using the bedside lamps instead of messing with the switch, and i swore i’d figure out a way to get that thing out of the wall and replace it.

thank gosh for uncle ken.

this guy is the king of old houses - he and aunt sharon lived for decades in what used to be a mid-1800’s one room school house in Milford - he’d done everything you can imagine to keep up, replace, fix, and renovate this old place.

he and sharon were in town last week and they came over to the house - i snagged him part way through the party and asked him to take a look at the switch. 15 seconds later he’s hammering at the plaster around it, yanking on crumbling old wires, tugs, pulls, and asks me if i’ve got a new switch. dashing madly, i find the replacement, bring the needed tools, hit the circuit to turn off the current, and next thing i know, he pulls what you see in the pictures above out of the wall.

it’s one of the simplest switches i’ve ever seen, housed in a ceramic base. never seen anything like it before. the reason it wasn’t working was that the ceramic base cracked in two and the connection wasn’t being made with the terminal.

oh, but the joy of owning an older home.

check out the house listing.

and please call if you’re wanting to buy a charming home in Cincinnati.

or putting it up - one of the two.

after months of preparation and work, the house is finally listed and up for sale. mike, our realtor, came by yesterday, took pictures, put finishing touches on the contract, got the last of the information we needed, signed here, initialed there, and we were set. as a free service, he reminded us of what we’re getting ourselves into - both an encouragement and a warning, given the current market.

but we ain’t worried about it.

yet.

we’re hoping for a quick sale at the price we’re asking, but we’re not really putting any hardcore expectations on it and not getting excited about the possibility. we’ve rolled with everything so far, there’s no sense in stopping that mindset now.

it’s a funny thing: through all this work on the house, we honestly didn’t realize how beat up the place was. chipped paint, bad paint, old fixtures, caked on dust and dirt, grime, grease, non-working parts, etc. - we were so happy to have the place at all that we didn’t notice the stuff. now that we’ve completely redone the appearance of much of the inside/outside, it looks better than it ever has.

i’ve put some pictures up of how things look now - feel free to browse and make comments.

i expected to be much more melancholy about the whole thing than i am - we’re so relaxed and at peace about this move to pensacola that it’s an unusual sensation to be just completely chill about it all.

many thanks to family and friends who have been so supportive - helping us paint, wallpaper, clean, encouraging us each step of the way.

i’m afraid that if i continue to paint, clean, move, scrape, chisel, sand, seal, sweep, paint, tape, paint, move, box, pack, paint, etc. this house…

i’m going to go fricking nuts…