So yesterday i was “walking” the property with our builder/seller, pricing out our fencing options. At one point, in the back yard, the builder said “yep, looks like you’ve got some wild life”–pointing to a 4 or 5 inch hole in the ground.

uh…what is it..?

‘well i’d say a rat hole, could be bunnies, but i’d put my money on a rat”.

rat hole–priceless, i have never heard that before.

I am going to start using rat hole all the time. “You rat hole” (ala bevis and butthead’s dillhole) “wow this place is as rat hole” (instead of shit hole) oh boy oh boy this will be fun.

Now, i have often wondered where rats hang their rat hats and set up shop. I have seen clips of the documentary about rats in NYC, and all the scenes of million of rats in sewer pipes and shit, but our house is a bit out of the hardcore city, so i wondered where they sleep and shit. I have seen some big ass rats in the alley ways of ballymore. and well i’d like to keep them as far from me as possible.

So the recommended course of action was to 1)close up the hole 2) monitor it for activity 3)if there is activity–bring in the poision–

now maybe it’s the rats of nyhm, or maybe watership down–in fact i’m sorta angry at the whole early 80’s cartoons with animals and morals and subplots and shit. I need to clear out my yard dammit, and suddenly i’m contemplating the holocaust and the evils of animal testing.

So i closed up the hole with some dirt. and stuck in a stick, kinda blair witch style so i know where the hole was. I’ll keep you updated. you ratholes.

ugh

Wednesday nite:
Painted and had an estimate for an alarm system for casa de jefke (and natty) it took 2 hrs, the sales guy was nice.

Thursday:
Took the day off from work. Painted. Discovered that phones inside house did not work, though service to the Network Interface Device did, very strange. Packed things at the apartment. Realized that nothing was working out correctly, so called in to take off of work for friday.

Friday:
Took the day off from work. got up early. went to house. Started painting trim in the bedroom. Trim may suck as much or perhaps a bit more than painting ceilings. the jury is still out.
The alarm guy showed up late. but did show up. initally he thought that the system would not be possible, then we talked over some different options and he figured a way out to save me big $$. Turns out the guy used to work for the phone company, so he figured out what was wrong with the phones…bonus! Did some more painting. went to apartment, packed some more.

Saturday:

got up early, gave cats drugs to try to calm them for the ensuing chaos. Movers showed up on time, right on time. we were not really ready for them but oh well. I took the cats to the house. let them out in the back bedroom, they were all dopey, confused and angry. Came back to apartment. Natty’s mom came over and helped to pack up the kitchen, I walked around in awe of the moving doods, as they had pretty much packed up all our shit in the 45 mins from when i left, amazing. Then went to the house and helped them move stuff in. one small casuality, an Ikea lamp shade, but other than that…nothing broken. I will never move my shit again. movers are the best thing ever. well perhaps painters are the best thing–but we haven’t gotten there yet.

the rest of saturday was spent ferrying shit from the apartment to the house. natty borrowed this kick ass hand truck/cart from work, so we have been able to get stuff from teh apartment to the loading area very easily. the cart is insane, it has 3 or 4 different configurations, all the pieces are all somehow attached to it. it’s like a big transformer, more than meets the eye. as a homeowner i might just have to get one of these things.

Natty’s mom took us out to dinner, i had the biggest order of general tso’s chicken i have ever seen.

Sat. nite we stayed at the house. it was so quiet that i had some trouble sleeping…no buses, not one fight outside (no bar anymore). no drunk smart johns hopkins kids yelling at each other all nite, no downstairs neighbo(u)r having tribal drumming seminars. it was pretty fucking sweet.

Sunday:
slept in a bit. cleaned the bathtub and tried to take my first non-community/shared-hot-water-heater shower. but i couldn’t get the water to get scalding hot like it like it…..i got all homeowner and took apart the access panel and tried to adjust the hot/cold mix- BUT you can’t. So then i was very unmanly and got out the instructions for the faucet thingy. i learned there is supposed to be a piece that limited how hot the water can get, to prevent rainman incidents and shit. So i take apart the faucet. but there is no piece. so WTF. i put it all back together and take a luke warm shower.

So get this: natty later discovers that the shower does get hot, very hot, IF you don’t actually turn the knob thingy all the way to the end of the hot spectrum. She took great delight that i didn’t figure this out. well crap, there are some thing you just assume work a certain way, for example, that when you want hot water, the more toward the “H” you go, the hotter the water gets. you don’t push the gas pedal down half way to go really fast…? no you floor it. anyway. that takes care of that.

off to home depot. dropped more cash on shit. i love it. i can’t wait to get a home depot credit card, and apon and hat and shoes and tattoo.

Then ferried more shit to the house, then put the computer to gether, then had dinner. After dinner, i scraped the leftover debris in to the DISPOSAL SINKERATOR and then place the plates in the DISHWASHER. man, modernity (technoligically speaking), it’s fucking amazing.

you still there?

wow
you get a prize for getting to the end. (thanks don)

the new category “home owning” has been changed to ‘mijn thuis’, which should be ‘my house’ in dutch. but i could be wrong, i only know those 2 words from the stella artois ad campaign “mijn thuis is waar mijn stella staat” (don’t get all uppity about the spelling…it’s been 5 years now) which means, “my house/home is where my stella is” which, to be honest, is pretty much true. though i’m not sure what this means for family life, since my stella is usually at a bar. but what ever. you get the gist.

carry on.

i think it’s safe to say that the only way to paint is drunk, and/or painters are drunks….

that is all.