rustypants speaks

not gone yet, but what a couple days this has been!

the previous post talks about my whirlwind day on tuesday with the realtor and getting a contract on the house. what has ensued since then has been an edge-of-your-seat thriller involving the ability of the buyer to secure financing that satisfies her needs as well as the needs of the bank.

when i didn’t hear anything by the end of wednesday, i wasn’t worried but i was wondering if maybe our celebration was premature. by the end of the business day today, i was a bit worried.

then tonight, rakesh (our realtor) called and said the magic words: she got financing and the house inspection is this sunday morning at 9am!

my first reaction was not a pleasant one and i’m a bit surprised at myself.

our move to florida has been the best thing that could have happened to lise and i. as i’ve mentioned before, i believe that it literally and figuratively saved our lives. we’ve sacrificed a lot in the process, but in the end we’re happier than we’ve been in years and feel alive again. we’ve made decisions and changes regarding how we live and what we need / don’t need to get by – it’s only been a good thing! we miss our families and friends terribly but we’re in a better place to appreciate and love them where we are than where we were.

so my first reaction tonight was one of melancholy, fear, and sadness. i want to be happy about selling the house but wow – we’ve spent the last 16 months working towards selling it, and with so much frustration, loss, and disappointment – the reality of selling our house has finally hit.

we thought we were going to die in this house when we bought it. we thought we were going to host parties and dinners and get togethers here until we were little old folks. we loved coming home to all this space and room. we didn’t have to worry about whether the tv was too loud or the music too loud or whether we had clothes on (not that this one has ever stopped me…) we got to have our own rooms / offices to have our own space we had a huge basement and got couches and the tv and were going to have youth group over here every weekend and kids and we put our pictures up and had cookouts and played cards and friends came from out of town and stayed with us and there are things i’ll never forget about this place.

and i’m sad. sad for things lost. sad that things didn’t work out the way we had envisioned them. sad that the freedom and independence we felt with the house didn’t continue. i’m melancholy because of an ideal that we had built in our heads about what Having A House meant. I’m scared because of losing our last physical tie to cincinnati, having an “out” if we decided that moving to pensacola was a mistake, not being able to just cruise into town whenever we are able.

and then after i had a good little pity party and shed some tears over these things, i’m happy and relieved.

i’m happy because this is the end of the process we started so long ago. because we’ll no longer be losing huge sums of money to a place that sits empty. because this will allow us to build our savings back up and move on to this next phase of our lives begun last summer when we pulled up to the sandy shore and dug our toes in and let our hair down. relieved because i know that the house has been a stressful thing and causes me to cling and hold on to things that are no longer there. relieved because that ideal was not realistic in the long haul and in the face of an ever-changing thing we call life. i’m happy. i’m happy because lise and i can now focus completely on what we need to focus on: each other. i’m the luckiest guy on earth – my wife is the best!

sorry for the long post but it’s helped me process.

teaching has many perks, not the least of which is having holidays off. good friday is on the school calendar and my plan was to spend most of it on the beach, reading, biking, etc. then thursday night, lise makes a few calls and finds that her office is going to be closed on friday! woo-woo!! a three day weekend TOGETHER!!

it started off on the right foot – we both slept in and caught up on the beauty rest. lise took the dog out for a good long walk, and we hung out with him until around noon.

then we were off.

we loaded our beach bag up, grabbed the cooler and hit the road. first stop: The Bead and Crystal House. lise has been working hard making earrings and other jewelry in the last few months and this place has a great selection of cool, unique beads to choose from. this does scott no good, of course, so while lise went shopping, scott went to joe patti’s seafood and loaded the cooler up with raw shrimp and some of their delicious spinach dip.

then it was off to captain joey patti’s seafood deli / restaurant. plastic spoons & forks, paper plates, bare bones surroundings, but some of the best and cheapest seafood in the area.

we ordered and devoured a bowl of their fantastic seafood gumbo…

and ate a basket of their catch-of-the-day, some hushpuppies, and baked beans. mmmm-mmm!

a side trip to wal-mart was needed as i had left all my sunscreen in my car. wal-mart is never a fun trip for me, but there was an ulterior motive involved:

hershey’s ice cream parlor is a block away from the one near perdido key. and i knew we needed some ice cream to get the lunch settled correctly. we’ve not been in months, but we’ve agreed for years that hershey’s makes the best freakin’ ice cream out there. we weren’t disappointed this time when we saw a new flavor: girl scout thin mint chocolate ice cream. oh. my. gosh. it was awesome. little chunks of real thin mint cookies all mixed up in there – it was heavenly.

next, we hit one of pensacola’s three tiny used bookstores. i had forgotten my book to take to the beach and had to have something to read! after much searching, snow falling on cedars was purchased, and we continued our trip to the beach!

it was a gorgeous day out – temps hit the low 70′s and the sun was out the entire day. the beach got chilly as the sun was going down an hour or so after we arrived, but that didn’t take away our enthusiasm for seeing the sunset.

being a relatively cloudless day, the sunset was not quite as spectacular as some, but it was still an awe-inspiring sight. we sat a bit after the sun disappeared, contemplated what a great day it had been so far, packed up our stuff and headed home to the big dog and some delicious shrimp just waiting to be cooked.

dinner was delicious. several years ago, my dad gave us a medium sized foreman grill – the old ones are a pain to clean as nothing detaches, but folks, when you want shrimp cooked right, the foreman is one good way of doing it. it was worth the cleaning job.

we ended our evening by catching up on Lost, season two. we’re late-comers to the whole Lost phenomenon and have been renting for the last couple weeks from netflix season one. that was finished on thursday. now we’re on season two and we’re hooked.

it was a good friday, indeed.

this past saturday was our 17th anniversary and we decided to celebrate pensacola style.

we slept in that morning (always a good thing!) and lounged around a bit before taking off. we gathered the dog and his stuff up and took off in the car for the afternoon.

our first stop was J’s Pastry Shop on the east side of town (about a dozen blocks from my school). J’s has been rumored to have the best sweets and pastries in all of p-cola and lise and i have to concur: if you’re in the area and you neglect to stop in on this icon of our town and treat yourself to a sweet, well you’re just plain crazy, i reckon. a couple maple walnut pastry thingies kept us held over while we skipped lunch.

we then took a drive around this area as it’s near escambia bay. almost all of the waterfront is taken by houses but it’s a pretty drive and the houses are gorgeous. there’s a dog park on this bay as well but i didn’t understand at the time that it was several miles further south than where we were. oh, well – dolby didn’t complain when we took him to my school playground and ran him around with the frisbee and sticks.

he’s a good dog and we love having him around. he loves his frisbee (to death) and running around like a nut is a specialty of his.

we got him plumb wore out (like my southern-speak here?) and hung out together a bit longer before cruising around a bit more and heading home to drop him off.

then the real party could begin.

we gathered all our beach things and hit the road to p-cola beach. we’ve been sad lately because of the early sunsets that prevent us from visiting the beach as much during the week. being on central time here has messed with our internal clocks – the sun sets around 4:45 and lise works til 5:00, so we’re limited for the next few months in when we get to sit and watch the sun go down and the waves crashing.

but watch we did – and get in, too.

the locals are funny in the way that temperatures hit the low 70′s and everyone says, “oh, beach season is over. bummer.” and they abandon the gulf. me? i don’t get it. we hadn’t intended on getting into the water but the conditions were right, the shells were washing up and down the water and there just was no denying the inalienable right to strip down to one’s underpants and get into the surf in the name of a couple cool seashells. my apologies to anyone offended by my boxers.

oh, hell. deal with it.

well, the water was a bit cold and really, for all the shells floating around out there, not a WHOLE lot was caught. but we had a good time. it was overcast so our evening sunset was somewhat canceled, but it was replaced by a cooler sight: a great blue heron that has been following us around on the beach the last couple weeks.

it was back in maryland where we first fell in love with great blues. they were all over the place – they live mainly in wetland areas on the east coast and there was plenty of wetland in our location. pensacola is a semi-tropical region and has a good amount of wetland areas as well.

this heron has flown up within 10 yards of us several times in the last few weeks and it’s an awe inspiring thing to see. most herons we’ve ever even gotten within 20-30 yards of have flipped out and taken off. not this guy. the above picture was taken with him about 15 feet from where we were standing. he stood still long enough for me to take this shot and a couple blurry others, then walked off. we were also rewarded with a brief flash of color in the sky behind him before the sun disappeared for good. we spent a little time reflecting on all the things we’ve done over the last 17 years, watched the sky and the heron a bit more, then took off.

our last stop for the anniversary day was Landry’s Seafood House. we’re not rich folks and we don’t go out eating expensive chow very often, but for special occasions, you’ve got to splurge a bit. landry’s serves some delicious seafood with a very nice, attractive but informal atmosphere. service has been great each time we’ve gone and this night was no different. lise’s mahi-mahi was good and my broiled seafood platter was exceptional. topping it all off was a free piece of chocolate erection cake (ok, ok – it’s actually “chocolate eruption but we shared a huge laugh with the server when we went on lise’s birthday when she talked about another server who kept mispronouncing the name of the cake to customers – it’s stuck and we can’t stop laughing about it). this 7-layer chocolate beast came swimming in a delicious custard sauce that was out of this world.

decency laws and basic respect prevent me from posting pictures of what happened next when we got home, but you can imagine that after 17 years together, we’ve learned how to have a good time. it was a great day and it’s been a great 17 years.

can’t wait to see how the next 17 years unfold.

the days continue to be sunny and warm, temps still hitting the low 80′s and upper 70′s, and the evenings are getting a bit chilly. to wrap myself in a toasty pullover (Xavier!) is becoming commonplace as the sun sinks below the horizon. the trees have still not begun to change colors here in pensacola but i imagine this will commence soon.

the red tide alert was lifted this past week and lise and i joyously returned to the beach friday night to celebrate clear waters, dead-fish-less shores, steamed shrimp, and…

lise’s new job(s).

it’s been a rollercoaster of a ride these past weeks as we’ve dealt with some crippling blows to our adventure in southern living – the financial crisis has sapped me of mental strength, the job crisis has sapped lise’s. she’s been a real trooper, though, and doubled up her efforts to find employment.

and between thursday and friday, she was offered four positions. one of them was easy to turn down. another was accepted on thursday, then turned down on friday upon receiving the other two offers. she is now the volunteer coordinator at Learn to Read of Northwest Florida, an adult literacy program here in pensacola. she’s quite excited, as the director was very complimentary, friendly, and encouraging as she applied, interviewed, was highly recommended, then offered the position. it’s not a high-paying job, but the hours are good (9-5, M-Th) and the organization seems solid.

she’ll also start subbing at escambia county schools on fridays off and on to get into the system (and get some extra $$).
are we excited? definitely. are we relieved? yes and no. we’re far from being out of the woods of our crisis, but this is such a wonderful first step – lise’s been working her butt off to get work and it’s been so depressing and frustrating – this removes much of that and the obvious feelings of rejection that are felt during fruitless searching, applying, calling, interviewing, etc.

the next big thing on our hope / prayer list is: getting the house sold. we’ve dropped the price again and now we begin to lose money on it. we’re very sad that it’s come to this but honestly, a key part of our being able to make it down here will be unloading that house that we love and miss so much. we’ll be working again to save money over the next few years for a down payment on a home in florida, but having that drain on our finances sold will make things much easier.

we’re hitting the beach again tonight to continue our celebration and relax before lise rejoins the rat-race. thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement over the past few weeks (and months)!

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but that didn’t stop us.

wednesday was lise’s birthday and we were down in pensacola. now, normally, sitting on the beach as the sun goes down gives you a spectacular sunset, a salty taste of the gulf on your tongue and some sand in your sandals.

not so this time.

the initial sight was clear sun and balmy heat. we looked around for some seashells and hung out together.

and then the sun was blotted out by some cool cloud formation. we still had no idea what was coming so we settled in to see the sunset.

before long, the sky to the northwest has gotten pretty dark and scary looking. the clouds envelop us overhead and lise and i start making some mental contingencies for a quick run to the car, should the heavens open and dump their load on us.

we weren’t worried when the beach east and west cleared out. we weren’t worried when the lightening started from the north. we weren’t worried when it was obvious that it was raining just across the bay on the mainland.

we got worried when the sight became what you see here on the left. THAT, my friend, and the sudden 10 degree drop in temperature, made me look at lise and go, “i think we need to get the hell out of here, pronto.”

so we snapped this last shot on the right of the two of us on the beach just before 50,000 volts of electricity were scheduled to be unleashed on our fool heads. and we ran like crazy to the car, careful not to have our metal chairs up too high. why encourage it with lightening rods?

this last picture is the sight of the beach taken from the relative safety of our car just before the rain came down hardcore. couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us. wind went nuts and we looked at each other and went:

“um. ha. ha. we’re fricking nuts!“

it was a beautiful storm and worth every minute.