Y'all. It's kind of ridiculous how many times I say I'm going to write and then I just up and disappear. It's not on purpose. I just get busy. And too lazy and/or tired to write at night after I get home and do the bazillion things I have to do when I get home.
For instance, the last time I wrote on here which was Thursday a couple of weeks ago, I went to the mall after work (and I wish I could tell y'all how much I hate going to the mall but there are not words sufficient to describe my hatred) because the lady who sits next to me at work also has plantar fasciitis and she told me about some flip flops that people say are good when you have yourself some hurty feet. So I stampeded over there in my ugly ass shoes with the hard inserts in them because I wanted a pair of flip flops. Yes, even though that's how I broke my arm a couple of years ago and ended up in a body brace. I went and paid sixty-five damn dollars for some flip flops and, while they don't hurt my feet while I'm wearing them and walking around all day, my feet hurt like a mother-you-know-what the next morning. But I've worn them a few times anyway because I spent sixty five of my hard earned dollars on them.
Anyway, I got home late that night is what I'm saying because I battled the Buckhead traffic, spent some miserable time at the mall, bought some ridiculously priced flip flops, and then sat in more traffic to get home. I had decided on the way home that what I was craving for dinner that night was breakfast food instead of the chicken and vegetables I already had cooked that just needed to be heated up.
We are already having summer temps here in Atlanta and when I got home I was sweating like a snowman in a sauna, so I decided that I would run upstairs and put on my pj's and release the girls from my bra before I started cooking eggs and whatnot. Right before I ran upstairs (and I use the word "run" loosely) I set my home alarm system because I had no plans to go back out in the awful heat. Y'all, I took off my bra and put on the rattiest, most worn out white tank top you've ever laid eyes on and a pair of super thin, super comfortable pj bottoms that happened to have a giant hole in the crotch. I did not care because I felt a good ten degrees cooler.
I went back downstairs, pulled out a skillet, turned on the stove, and opened up a package of bacon. That's right. Bacon for dinner because I have given up all the white foods - bread, pasta, rice, processed sugar (except for Cake Day at our office once a month), white potatoes, etc. because I need to lose 8 million pounds - but I did not give up bacon. I had just put two slices of bacon in the pan when my cell phone rang. As my cell phone rang, I heard sirens coming up the street but that happens multiple times a day so I thought nothing of it.
I didn't recognize the 800 number but I answered anyway and it was my alarm company calling to tell me that they were showing a fire alarm going off at my house.
"Um, no. There's no alarm going off. I'm standing in the middle of my house and there is nothing on fire, and there is no alarm going off in here," I told her.
She then said they had tried to call me a minute or two earlier and didn't get an answer (I had my cell phone upstairs with me when I was putting on my beautiful and fancy pj's and it did not ring and there was no missed call from them) so they had gone ahead and dispatched the fire department and then she asked if I wanted them to try and cancel the call. I had a sinking feeling in my gut but I told her to try since, you know, MY HOUSE WAS NOT ON FIRE.
And that's when two fire trucks pulled up in front of my house with sirens wailing.
"OH MY GOD! IT'S TOO LATE! AND I HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW!" I screamed at her. "Two fire trucks full of probably hot firefighters just pulled up in front of my house and I am in a white tank top with NO BRA on. I have to go put a shirt on! Thanks for your help!" I yelled right into her ear. She laughed as she responded, "Okay....good luck to you."
And a firefighter was looking right into my front window as I ran up the stairs to go find a shirt. And this time I am not using the word "ran" loosely. I was hauling ass as fast as I could. But I'm fat so it really wasn't that fast at all. I didn't have time to worry about the giant hole in the crotch of my pants because by the time I found a t-shirt that vaguely matched those awful pants, the firemen were ringing my bell. So to speak.
I ran back down the stairs and I was huffing and puffing like I had just run a damned 10K, got my alarm system turned off, and then casually opened the front door as though I was expecting two trucks full of loud sirens and hot firemen to show up that evening while I was trying to make some dinner.
"Ma'am, your alarm company called us because you have a fire alarm going off," Hot Guy #1 starting saying.
"Yes, well, I'm sorry that y'all wasted your time coming out here because my house is not on fire and there is no alarm going off so I don't know why they are showing that it is. I just turned the stove on and I haven't even had time to burn my dinner yet. Y'all are early!"
He cracked up. And then I yelled, "OH MY GOD! My stove is on! Can I please run in and turn it off before we finish up here?"
Hot Guy #2 said, "Yes, ma'am. Please don't burn your house down while you're standing on the front porch talking to the fire department. That would be really bad." I told Hot Guy #2 that I agreed with him 100% on that.
So I ran back in and turned my stove off and when I walked back out to talk to all of the hot firefighters hanging out with me, I saw one of my neighbors walking up to check on me. "I'm fine!" I yelled to him. Then Hot Guy #1 said, "Wow, this is a really nice house you have. And it's huge!"
"Do y'all know ___________ and __________?" I asked them. The contractors I used when I first bought my house are full time firefighters with the City of Atlanta and they own a contracting business on the side.
"Oh yeah, I know them" about 3 or 4 of the hot firefighters said. "_________ is over at Station 13 now," Hot Guy #1 said. I told them they had done a bunch of work on my house and we discussed what all they had done. That's right, y'all. I stood on my porch with a hole in the crotch of my pants and with no bra on and talked about home remodeling with hot firefighters while my bacon was in a pan getting all soggy. Because that's just a typical Thursday night for me.
I asked them if they needed to check my house and they said as long as I didn't smell smoke and there was no audible alarm going off they did not need to check anything.
They left after a few minutes and I went in and finished making bacon and eggs.
Y'all know this now means that in the past two and a half months I have almost gotten arrested by the police in a county just outside of Atlanta, had the Atlanta police show up at my house because someone emailed them and said I had a huge cat fight going on at my house when I was actually in bed watching Everybody Loves Raymond re-runs, and the fire department showed up because apparently a silent fire alarm was going off in my house. And I had a hole in the crotch of my pj bottoms for two of those incidents. That's right. Same pants both times.
Showing posts with label I live in the 'hood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I live in the 'hood. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
The one where I tell you how my house was about to fall down.
Oh. Hey, y'all!
Has it really been 3 weeks since I wrote something on here? I've been kind of busy, yo.
So 3 weeks ago I told y'all I was having a bunch of work done to my house. (Again.) I had my deck refinished last June and huge chunks of the paint (it's not really a normal paint - it's stuff meant to restore old decks) had started coming off. My contractor looked at it and said he's used the same product on other decks and has never had that happen so he would re-do it for free. He has been more than fair on a ton of stuff he's done on my house so I told him since it's not his fault, I would pay for the product if he would provide the labor at no charge because I didn't want to take advantage of him. (I think this was a good move because he then gave me a really good deal on something else that happened which I will tell you about in a minute). So on the Wednesday before Easter, he and his crew came out to spend the day working at my house and one of them repainted my deck. And on Easter morning, my mom's husband went out to blow my deck off because I had 25ish people coming over, and chunks of the finish blew off again. Sigh. So my contractor came back out again yesterday and worked on it some more at no charge to me. And how much do I hate my deck right now? A lot.
I also had to have my front door replaced. Did I already tell you I had gone through 3 deadbolts in 2 years and my contractor discovered my front door was the wrong size, was probably an interior door, the door frame was not done correctly, the door was sagging and out of alignment, etc.? Well, when he took the old door down and then took the frame out to re-do it, he discovered that all underneath my door, the wood was rotted out from water damage. And the frame halfway up the wall was rotted out from water damage. So he spent two and a half days putting in my new door because he had to replace all of that.
I trust him with my life so I leave him there when I'm not home because I would hardly work a day in my life if I had to stay home every single time something was wrong with my house. He has the code to open my security gate and to get in my garage. And one evening he called me and said his whole day had gotten off schedule and even though it was 7:00 he was still going to come to my house and get a couple of hours of work done. I was standing in the middle of the grocery store when he called and a marching band had just come in, played a little song and left (for real) and I told him I would be home within an hour and would see him when I got there. Not 15 minutes later, the guy who just installed my security cameras and gates called me and said, "Beverly! There are some guys at your house! Do you know there are guys at your house? I just saw them on my phone!" I had been having some issues with the DVR and he and the camera company had been working on my equipment remotely that day and he just happened to log on to make sure everything seemed to be working when Tim had shown up. So I told him, "Oh yeah, that's Tim that you met," because these past few weeks I've had so much crap being done to my house that my contractors have been meeting and exchanging business cards with each other on my front porch. Anyway, once I got off the phone with my contractors and finished my grocery shopping, I went home and I was standing on the front porch talking with Tim while he was working on the front door and I noticed when he stepped right inside the front door, I could see the floor of my entryway kind of sag down and I decided that was probably not a good thing and was probably an expensive thing and I was right on both accounts.
So the day before Easter and the day before I had 25 people coming to my house, he and his crew were at my house cleaning out gutters, installing gutter guards, finishing up insulation work, and he was still working on my door. He and his guys went up under my house and came back out with a beautiful picture. It was a picture of one of the main support beams under my house which sits on top of the foundation and holds up a bunch of other support beams and it was also completely rotted out from water damage. I said, "Oh crap, Tim. How much are we talking to fix this?" and he said, "Miss Beverly, I don't even want to go there because it's going to make you want to cry. But I'm trying to think of a less expensive way to fix it."
About 20 minutes later, he came in and said, "Okay. Here's the deal." Whenever someone says "here's the deal" I always know bad news is probably coming. "To do this the technically correct way, we need to jack your house up, remove that beam and replace it. And that would be about $6,000." And I almost fainted on the floor. "BUT! We're going to do it not technically the correct way, but it will still fix the problem. It's simply a much more cost effective way." My mom's husband was standing there and I'm glad because what he told me they were doing made no sense whatsoever to me, but my mom's husband said it did to him and it should fix the problem just fine and last for another 100 years. But most importantly he told me that if I had called him out just for that one issue, he would charge me $1,500 but since he knew all of the crap I've been through with my house since he's fixed the majority of it, and he knows how much money I've spent, and he knows I'm one of his excellent customers and he knows that I'm going to have 500 more things break in my house that I'll call him for and because he was already at my house doing a few thousand dollars worth of work on other stuff, he would only charge me $1,000 to do whatever it is he did to shift the weight of my entire house.
And that's a little story about how the day before I had 25 people coming to my house I ended up having guys on my roof, guys in my crawl space, guys finishing up a new front door, and guys shifting the weight of my house so it won't cave in.
I'm going to try to write again tomorrow. Pinky swear! Tonight I'm going to go try to buy YET MORE SHOES to try and help my stupid feet.
(I haven't even had time to proof this so probably lots of typos and mistakes.)
Has it really been 3 weeks since I wrote something on here? I've been kind of busy, yo.
So 3 weeks ago I told y'all I was having a bunch of work done to my house. (Again.) I had my deck refinished last June and huge chunks of the paint (it's not really a normal paint - it's stuff meant to restore old decks) had started coming off. My contractor looked at it and said he's used the same product on other decks and has never had that happen so he would re-do it for free. He has been more than fair on a ton of stuff he's done on my house so I told him since it's not his fault, I would pay for the product if he would provide the labor at no charge because I didn't want to take advantage of him. (I think this was a good move because he then gave me a really good deal on something else that happened which I will tell you about in a minute). So on the Wednesday before Easter, he and his crew came out to spend the day working at my house and one of them repainted my deck. And on Easter morning, my mom's husband went out to blow my deck off because I had 25ish people coming over, and chunks of the finish blew off again. Sigh. So my contractor came back out again yesterday and worked on it some more at no charge to me. And how much do I hate my deck right now? A lot.
I also had to have my front door replaced. Did I already tell you I had gone through 3 deadbolts in 2 years and my contractor discovered my front door was the wrong size, was probably an interior door, the door frame was not done correctly, the door was sagging and out of alignment, etc.? Well, when he took the old door down and then took the frame out to re-do it, he discovered that all underneath my door, the wood was rotted out from water damage. And the frame halfway up the wall was rotted out from water damage. So he spent two and a half days putting in my new door because he had to replace all of that.
I trust him with my life so I leave him there when I'm not home because I would hardly work a day in my life if I had to stay home every single time something was wrong with my house. He has the code to open my security gate and to get in my garage. And one evening he called me and said his whole day had gotten off schedule and even though it was 7:00 he was still going to come to my house and get a couple of hours of work done. I was standing in the middle of the grocery store when he called and a marching band had just come in, played a little song and left (for real) and I told him I would be home within an hour and would see him when I got there. Not 15 minutes later, the guy who just installed my security cameras and gates called me and said, "Beverly! There are some guys at your house! Do you know there are guys at your house? I just saw them on my phone!" I had been having some issues with the DVR and he and the camera company had been working on my equipment remotely that day and he just happened to log on to make sure everything seemed to be working when Tim had shown up. So I told him, "Oh yeah, that's Tim that you met," because these past few weeks I've had so much crap being done to my house that my contractors have been meeting and exchanging business cards with each other on my front porch. Anyway, once I got off the phone with my contractors and finished my grocery shopping, I went home and I was standing on the front porch talking with Tim while he was working on the front door and I noticed when he stepped right inside the front door, I could see the floor of my entryway kind of sag down and I decided that was probably not a good thing and was probably an expensive thing and I was right on both accounts.
So the day before Easter and the day before I had 25 people coming to my house, he and his crew were at my house cleaning out gutters, installing gutter guards, finishing up insulation work, and he was still working on my door. He and his guys went up under my house and came back out with a beautiful picture. It was a picture of one of the main support beams under my house which sits on top of the foundation and holds up a bunch of other support beams and it was also completely rotted out from water damage. I said, "Oh crap, Tim. How much are we talking to fix this?" and he said, "Miss Beverly, I don't even want to go there because it's going to make you want to cry. But I'm trying to think of a less expensive way to fix it."
About 20 minutes later, he came in and said, "Okay. Here's the deal." Whenever someone says "here's the deal" I always know bad news is probably coming. "To do this the technically correct way, we need to jack your house up, remove that beam and replace it. And that would be about $6,000." And I almost fainted on the floor. "BUT! We're going to do it not technically the correct way, but it will still fix the problem. It's simply a much more cost effective way." My mom's husband was standing there and I'm glad because what he told me they were doing made no sense whatsoever to me, but my mom's husband said it did to him and it should fix the problem just fine and last for another 100 years. But most importantly he told me that if I had called him out just for that one issue, he would charge me $1,500 but since he knew all of the crap I've been through with my house since he's fixed the majority of it, and he knows how much money I've spent, and he knows I'm one of his excellent customers and he knows that I'm going to have 500 more things break in my house that I'll call him for and because he was already at my house doing a few thousand dollars worth of work on other stuff, he would only charge me $1,000 to do whatever it is he did to shift the weight of my entire house.
And that's a little story about how the day before I had 25 people coming to my house I ended up having guys on my roof, guys in my crawl space, guys finishing up a new front door, and guys shifting the weight of my house so it won't cave in.
I'm going to try to write again tomorrow. Pinky swear! Tonight I'm going to go try to buy YET MORE SHOES to try and help my stupid feet.
(I haven't even had time to proof this so probably lots of typos and mistakes.)
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
And I've now had my second run in with the cops in the span of a month or so.
So I mentioned my latest crazy story on BBP and on Facebook, but here's all the detail about it.
Last Thursday night, I was having my normal exciting night of running an errand or two after work, walking in my house completely exhausted, eating some little thing, doing a couple of things around the house that needed doing, and collapsing into bed.
I had been in bed for a little while and I was watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond and starting to doze off and on because that's just how interesting my life is, when I suddenly thought I heard someone knocking on my front door. It's very hard to hear stuff on the back of my house where my bedroom is (the night two cars got totaled on the street in front of my house I heard nothing, nor did my mom or her husband who were in the guest bedroom which is on the back side of my house). But this wasn't normal, friendly neighborly knocking. It was urgent knocking and it sounded like they were hitting my stained glass front door with something. As I was trying to determine if I really was hearing knocking or if I was dreaming or hearing something on TV, I suddenly heard the doorbell ringing. And whoever was at my door rang it about six times. And then the knocking on my glass door started up again.
"Aha!" I thought to myself. "I can flip my TV over to my security cameras and see who is knocking!" Little did I know that 4 days after I had cameras installed around my house they would come in so handy. My security guy was still working on them to do all of the networking stuff so I can see them from my phone, laptop, and tablet they were so newly installed, but luckily I could already view them on my TV.
Imagine my surprise when I saw three men wandering around my front porch, shining flashlights into my windows, and picking up different items on my porch checking everything out carefully. I guess birdhouses and flower pots are the official hiding places for bad stuff. Then one of them turned and was facing a camera and I saw his police badge. And his guns. "What in the hell?" I thought because I'm just a middle-aged, severely overweight woman watching sit-coms in bed on a Thursday night at 10:40 p.m. and certainly hadn't called the police out to my house for anything.
The knocking was continuing.
I then looked at the camera pointing up my driveway towards the street where I saw an ambulance. "What in the hell?" I thought for the second time because I may be middle-aged and severely overweight, but I wasn't dying and had not called for medical assistance.
As I went to the closet to put on my robe since I was wearing the most awful pajamas in the history of ever (a worn out, stained tank top and my pj bottoms had a giant hole in the crotch but oh my dog they are so comfortable so I keep wearing them) I thought to myself that maybe there was a gas leak in the 'hood and they were evacuating everyone or something. Or maybe something had happened out on the street in front of my house and they saw my cameras and wanted to see if it had recorded an incident (my neighbors had the police come to their house for that one time).
I turned on the light on the staircase and as I walked downstairs there was an officer shining his flashlight into my dining room window. I got my alarm system turned off and opened the front door.
One officer was standing right at the door. Another one was in the center of my front porch. A third one was standing at the bottom of the steps watching up and down my driveway. A fourth one was standing at my front gate with it closed (so no one could easily escape I suppose).
"Ma'am, are you okay?" asked the officer.
"I'm fine. What on earth is going on?"
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I was in bed almost asleep. May I ask why you're here?"
"Are you alone, ma'am?"
"I am."
"Are you sure?"
"Unless someone broke in and my alarm system didn't go off then I'm sure I'm alone."
"And you are positive that you aren't injured?"
"I'm 100% sure that I'm not injured. What is going on?"
"Someone from Forsyth sent us an email and said we needed to send an ambulance and officers to this address because there is a large group of women fighting each other."
"Um, WHAT?! I can assure you there is nothing of the sort going on here. I'm fine, I'm alone, and y'all are more than welcome to come search my entire house if you need to verify that there are no women in here fighting."
"So, there's nothing happening?"
"No sir. Again, I welcome you to search my house if you need to. Who would do this? Was it an email from someone in Forsyth COUNTY or Forsyth the city?"
"I'm not really sure ma'am. Our dispatch would have to confirm that."
"And you're positive they said my address?"
He then asked me to confirm my street address and his partner looked on some sort of device at the call they received and he confirmed my address was the one reported.
"Well, I just had security cameras installed and the guy is still working on them so I'm not even sure how it all works yet, but if you want to see if we can figure out how to review the recorded footage, maybe a huge cat fight was going on out in the street in front of my house?"
"No, ma'am. The email said a big group of women were fighting inside your home."
"I'm so sorry someone wasted your time having you come to my house. Thank you for checking on me, but I promise there is nothing interesting going on here and I am fine. I was in bed watching Everybody Loves Raymond not doing anything remotely exciting."
He laughed.
I then flipped on my overhead light in the living room which is right next my entryway and again told them they could come in to look around if they needed to. The officer stuck his head in the door and looked around, said everything looked like it's in place and asked me once again if I was absolutely sure I was okay and didn't need any assistance.
I opened my robe, looked down at my hoots and said, "Nope, everything seems to be okay."
He laughed, wished me a good night and they walked away.
How weird is all of that?
The next morning I called the Atlanta Police Department and asked if I needed to get a copy of a report for any reason and they told me since the police came and checked on me and I told them I was okay, there would be no report. "But what about the fact that someone made a false report?" I asked them. "We don't investigate those." When I see my brother, the cop, and about 5 of his cop friends this weekend I'm going to ask them if they investigate them in the suburban city they all work for. My guess is either someone transposed some numbers and maybe there was a bunch of women fighting somewhere but the wrong address was reported or maybe some kids out on Spring Break got really bored and decided to play an awful prank and randomly chose my address.
My security camera/gate guy called me when I was driving to work the next morning and I told him all about it. He was as shocked as I was. He was at my house most of the day on Saturday and part of Sunday working on my system and he found the recorded footage of everything. I think he watched it 3 or 4 times because he couldn't believe it.
I may be spending a small fortune on gates and cameras, but I can't tell you how happy I was that I had it last Thursday night so I could see it wasn't someone meaning to do me any harm who was banging on my door.
Next up on my home adventures list: This week I'm getting my deck repainted even though I just did that last June (there is a story about that), I'm having tons of insulation put in my crawlspace and attic space (there is a story about that), and I have to have a new front door put in (there is a story about that too and no, the police didn't break it banging on it the other night). And my mom and her husband are coming from Texas on Friday while all of that is going on. And I'm having 20 people at my house on Sunday for Easter/my brother's birthday so I have to prepare for a party while contractors are working. And I have to put together a ton of Easter eggs for a bunch of kids to hunt. And I have to go buy my brother a present this week one night. And buy a ham. And a birthday cake. And a lot of other food. And I volunteered to put together a whole bunch of gag gifts from my mom and I since my brother is turning 50 because apparently I thought I would have time for that kind of nonsense. And let us all pray the weather is nice on Sunday so I can put some people outside on my deck to eat. And let us all pray the paint is dry by then.
Please send wine. Gallons of it. I think I'm gonna start drinking soon.
Last Thursday night, I was having my normal exciting night of running an errand or two after work, walking in my house completely exhausted, eating some little thing, doing a couple of things around the house that needed doing, and collapsing into bed.
I had been in bed for a little while and I was watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond and starting to doze off and on because that's just how interesting my life is, when I suddenly thought I heard someone knocking on my front door. It's very hard to hear stuff on the back of my house where my bedroom is (the night two cars got totaled on the street in front of my house I heard nothing, nor did my mom or her husband who were in the guest bedroom which is on the back side of my house). But this wasn't normal, friendly neighborly knocking. It was urgent knocking and it sounded like they were hitting my stained glass front door with something. As I was trying to determine if I really was hearing knocking or if I was dreaming or hearing something on TV, I suddenly heard the doorbell ringing. And whoever was at my door rang it about six times. And then the knocking on my glass door started up again.
"Aha!" I thought to myself. "I can flip my TV over to my security cameras and see who is knocking!" Little did I know that 4 days after I had cameras installed around my house they would come in so handy. My security guy was still working on them to do all of the networking stuff so I can see them from my phone, laptop, and tablet they were so newly installed, but luckily I could already view them on my TV.
Imagine my surprise when I saw three men wandering around my front porch, shining flashlights into my windows, and picking up different items on my porch checking everything out carefully. I guess birdhouses and flower pots are the official hiding places for bad stuff. Then one of them turned and was facing a camera and I saw his police badge. And his guns. "What in the hell?" I thought because I'm just a middle-aged, severely overweight woman watching sit-coms in bed on a Thursday night at 10:40 p.m. and certainly hadn't called the police out to my house for anything.
The knocking was continuing.
I then looked at the camera pointing up my driveway towards the street where I saw an ambulance. "What in the hell?" I thought for the second time because I may be middle-aged and severely overweight, but I wasn't dying and had not called for medical assistance.
As I went to the closet to put on my robe since I was wearing the most awful pajamas in the history of ever (a worn out, stained tank top and my pj bottoms had a giant hole in the crotch but oh my dog they are so comfortable so I keep wearing them) I thought to myself that maybe there was a gas leak in the 'hood and they were evacuating everyone or something. Or maybe something had happened out on the street in front of my house and they saw my cameras and wanted to see if it had recorded an incident (my neighbors had the police come to their house for that one time).
I turned on the light on the staircase and as I walked downstairs there was an officer shining his flashlight into my dining room window. I got my alarm system turned off and opened the front door.
One officer was standing right at the door. Another one was in the center of my front porch. A third one was standing at the bottom of the steps watching up and down my driveway. A fourth one was standing at my front gate with it closed (so no one could easily escape I suppose).
"Ma'am, are you okay?" asked the officer.
"I'm fine. What on earth is going on?"
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I was in bed almost asleep. May I ask why you're here?"
"Are you alone, ma'am?"
"I am."
"Are you sure?"
"Unless someone broke in and my alarm system didn't go off then I'm sure I'm alone."
"And you are positive that you aren't injured?"
"I'm 100% sure that I'm not injured. What is going on?"
"Someone from Forsyth sent us an email and said we needed to send an ambulance and officers to this address because there is a large group of women fighting each other."
"Um, WHAT?! I can assure you there is nothing of the sort going on here. I'm fine, I'm alone, and y'all are more than welcome to come search my entire house if you need to verify that there are no women in here fighting."
"So, there's nothing happening?"
"No sir. Again, I welcome you to search my house if you need to. Who would do this? Was it an email from someone in Forsyth COUNTY or Forsyth the city?"
"I'm not really sure ma'am. Our dispatch would have to confirm that."
"And you're positive they said my address?"
He then asked me to confirm my street address and his partner looked on some sort of device at the call they received and he confirmed my address was the one reported.
"Well, I just had security cameras installed and the guy is still working on them so I'm not even sure how it all works yet, but if you want to see if we can figure out how to review the recorded footage, maybe a huge cat fight was going on out in the street in front of my house?"
"No, ma'am. The email said a big group of women were fighting inside your home."
"I'm so sorry someone wasted your time having you come to my house. Thank you for checking on me, but I promise there is nothing interesting going on here and I am fine. I was in bed watching Everybody Loves Raymond not doing anything remotely exciting."
He laughed.
I then flipped on my overhead light in the living room which is right next my entryway and again told them they could come in to look around if they needed to. The officer stuck his head in the door and looked around, said everything looked like it's in place and asked me once again if I was absolutely sure I was okay and didn't need any assistance.
I opened my robe, looked down at my hoots and said, "Nope, everything seems to be okay."
He laughed, wished me a good night and they walked away.
How weird is all of that?
The next morning I called the Atlanta Police Department and asked if I needed to get a copy of a report for any reason and they told me since the police came and checked on me and I told them I was okay, there would be no report. "But what about the fact that someone made a false report?" I asked them. "We don't investigate those." When I see my brother, the cop, and about 5 of his cop friends this weekend I'm going to ask them if they investigate them in the suburban city they all work for. My guess is either someone transposed some numbers and maybe there was a bunch of women fighting somewhere but the wrong address was reported or maybe some kids out on Spring Break got really bored and decided to play an awful prank and randomly chose my address.
My security camera/gate guy called me when I was driving to work the next morning and I told him all about it. He was as shocked as I was. He was at my house most of the day on Saturday and part of Sunday working on my system and he found the recorded footage of everything. I think he watched it 3 or 4 times because he couldn't believe it.
I may be spending a small fortune on gates and cameras, but I can't tell you how happy I was that I had it last Thursday night so I could see it wasn't someone meaning to do me any harm who was banging on my door.
Next up on my home adventures list: This week I'm getting my deck repainted even though I just did that last June (there is a story about that), I'm having tons of insulation put in my crawlspace and attic space (there is a story about that), and I have to have a new front door put in (there is a story about that too and no, the police didn't break it banging on it the other night). And my mom and her husband are coming from Texas on Friday while all of that is going on. And I'm having 20 people at my house on Sunday for Easter/my brother's birthday so I have to prepare for a party while contractors are working. And I have to put together a ton of Easter eggs for a bunch of kids to hunt. And I have to go buy my brother a present this week one night. And buy a ham. And a birthday cake. And a lot of other food. And I volunteered to put together a whole bunch of gag gifts from my mom and I since my brother is turning 50 because apparently I thought I would have time for that kind of nonsense. And let us all pray the weather is nice on Sunday so I can put some people outside on my deck to eat. And let us all pray the paint is dry by then.
Please send wine. Gallons of it. I think I'm gonna start drinking soon.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Well. That didn't go as I had planned. At all.
Poor Amanda.
Amanda came to Atlanta this weekend to stay with me and thought we would have a party, do some touristy things, and eat at some good restaurants. We did have a party. And that's about all we did on her list.
(I'm not sure if y'all have ever picked up on this, but my plans seldom go off without a hitch or like I think they're going to.)
She had some delays trying to leave to come down on Thursday, so she didn't arrive at my house until sometime between 10:00 and 11:00. Around 1:00 a.m., I started saying we probably should go to bed because I had to get up early because I had two contractors coming to my house on Friday morning. We finally stopped talking and went to bed at 4:00 in the morning.
Guess what?
I'm way too old to stay up that late.
I also am a terrible sleeper, so I was wide awake by 6:30 and got up at 7:00 a.m. and tried to be very, very quiet so I wouldn't wake Amanda up since she was right across the hall from me. She said she never heard me so one thing in my life went according to plan. Go, me.
The guy who is installing my new gates and security cameras arrived Friday morning and he said he thought he would get the cameras done that day. He worked from 9:30 - 6:30 on Friday. He worked from 9:30 - 3:00 on Saturday. He worked from 10:00 - 5:00 on Sunday. He'll be back next Saturday.
(I'm not sure if y'all picked up on this, but the security guy's plans didn't go off without a hitch or like he thought they were going to.)
My regular contractor also came by because, and I know this will come as a surprise...I have some stuff going wrong with my house. I've replaced 2 deadbolts on my front door in 2 years. Now a third one has broken. Now I have to buy a new front door and have it installed. It turns out the front door that was put in by the previous owner was not done correctly. It should have been 36" wide. Instead it's 30" wide. The door jamb was not put in properly. Nothing is aligned correctly. My contractor said the lady apparently tried to custom fit a door but failed miserably. Amanda and I were talking and the stain glass on the front door matches the stain glass in a transom window inside the house so the door was probably originally an interior door that she moved. And now I'm gonna have to pay a bunch of money to fix it.
I have paint cracking throughout my house on bead board and paneled doors. My contractor believes it's because I have no insulation in my crawl space and very little insulation in the attic space. So I'm gonna have to pay a bunch of money to fix that.
I have two outlets that don't work on my deck because the wire has been cut in the crawl space. (It's been like that since I bought the house. It's not another security issue.)
I need my gutters cleaned.
My deck that he refinished last June is messed up (the paint is coming off). At least that won't cost me anything because he stands behind his work.
One of my neighbors wanted to meet with him so I walked down the street to introduce them.
Amanda and I ran around all afternoon getting food prepared for my sex toy party on Friday evening. I warned my security camera guy that he might want to be gone before 6:00 because a lady with purple hair and a bunch of tattoos was arriving at that time with cases full of vibrators and lube. And then around 7:00 my house was going to be full of women. I'm kind of surprised he showed back up on Saturday.
In the middle of all of this activity, my brother called me. He said he'd tried my work number but I didn't answer so he decided to call my cell phone. I said, "I'm off work today because I have two contractors here at my house, company from out of town who arrived last night, I'm having my sex toy party tonight, I have more company spending the night tonight, and I will have a houseful of people here in a few hours so I'm in the middle of preparing a bunch of food."
"Oh. That's right," he said as though all of this was even a tiny bit normal.
He went on to tell me that my niece/his daughter (16-years-old) was in the hospital because she had run over herself with her own car. For real.
They have two dogs which are of decent size and they are ill behaved and not trained. They had both escaped from the house so my niece jumped in her car to go drive around their neighborhood to look for them. She saw a neighbor out walking her tiny dog on a leash. My niece stopped to speak with her to see if she had seen the dogs running around. As they were talking, her two dogs came running up towards them. My niece was afraid her dogs would attack the neighbor's smaller dog so she jumped out of the car to try and grab them, but forgot she had not put her car in park. As the car started rolling, she tried to get back in but the door hit her, knocked her down, she was dragged down the street, she finally had to let go and the back tire rolled all the way over her down the left side of her body. The car kept going, went through two yards where it eventually rammed through someone's garage and into a closet where it finally stopped.
The neighbor called 9-1-1 and apparently it is normal procedure when a minor is involved in a serious car accident that they get air lifted to the hospital so they flew her by helicopter to a hospital in Atlanta. She has a very deep puncture wound to her ankle, severe road rash down both legs and on her bottom, a liver laceration, and a partially collapsed lung. They took her into an operating room but I don't know that you'd call what she had an actual surgery. The wound on her ankle was cut roughly so they put her under, had to cut it a little more to have clean lines so they could get it to heal properly, they irrigated the wound so it would be clean and hopefully not get infected, and then put staples in it. Both legs are bandaged because of road rash, and they put a chest tube in to re-inflate her lung. Her liver seems to be doing okay at this point but they still don't have the lung where they want it to be. Right now we're waiting to see if she will be released this evening.
So instead of going to the Margaret Mitchell House or the art festival we had thought about going to, Amanda got to go to the hospital on Saturday afternoon and meet part of my family.
While we were there, they decided to take the chest tube out so we stepped out into the hall while they were working on that. Her room is the last room at the end of the hall so there was a big window there and we stood in front of it. About 30 seconds after walking out in the hall, a gun battle broke out in a park across the street from the hospital. We saw about 20 people running from the scene. Nurses, doctors, etc. came down to watch out the window with us. My brother came out of my niece's room when he heard the gunshots and because he's a cop he told us we might want to not stand in front of the window while people are shooting at each other. Good point.
After we left, Amanda wanted to stop in Trader Joe's so we did that and it was 6:00 p.m. and all I had eaten all day was four M&Ms because I'm the healthiest eater that ever was. I was starving so we stopped at Roasters because I was about to pass out and I ate chicken fingers, a sweet potato, and some green beans because I'm sort of healthy but not all the way. I scarfed it down. We were both exhausted so we decided to go back to my house and just chill.
And as we sat out on my front porch in the middle of Atlanta, we heard a monkey at a neighbor's house. I have no idea what neighbor around me has a monkey because I've never heard it before, but we both heard it plain as day.
So yes, Amanda thought we would have good tours, good art and good food. Instead she experienced contractors, a grocery store, visiting someone in the hospital, and Roasters.
Tomorrow I will tell y'all about the party and how One Fabulous Mama almost ran over my feet with her mini-van and she slightly damaged a part of my house. Apparently we were trying to be like my niece. On a much smaller scale.
Amanda came to Atlanta this weekend to stay with me and thought we would have a party, do some touristy things, and eat at some good restaurants. We did have a party. And that's about all we did on her list.
(I'm not sure if y'all have ever picked up on this, but my plans seldom go off without a hitch or like I think they're going to.)
She had some delays trying to leave to come down on Thursday, so she didn't arrive at my house until sometime between 10:00 and 11:00. Around 1:00 a.m., I started saying we probably should go to bed because I had to get up early because I had two contractors coming to my house on Friday morning. We finally stopped talking and went to bed at 4:00 in the morning.
Guess what?
I'm way too old to stay up that late.
I also am a terrible sleeper, so I was wide awake by 6:30 and got up at 7:00 a.m. and tried to be very, very quiet so I wouldn't wake Amanda up since she was right across the hall from me. She said she never heard me so one thing in my life went according to plan. Go, me.
The guy who is installing my new gates and security cameras arrived Friday morning and he said he thought he would get the cameras done that day. He worked from 9:30 - 6:30 on Friday. He worked from 9:30 - 3:00 on Saturday. He worked from 10:00 - 5:00 on Sunday. He'll be back next Saturday.
(I'm not sure if y'all picked up on this, but the security guy's plans didn't go off without a hitch or like he thought they were going to.)
My regular contractor also came by because, and I know this will come as a surprise...I have some stuff going wrong with my house. I've replaced 2 deadbolts on my front door in 2 years. Now a third one has broken. Now I have to buy a new front door and have it installed. It turns out the front door that was put in by the previous owner was not done correctly. It should have been 36" wide. Instead it's 30" wide. The door jamb was not put in properly. Nothing is aligned correctly. My contractor said the lady apparently tried to custom fit a door but failed miserably. Amanda and I were talking and the stain glass on the front door matches the stain glass in a transom window inside the house so the door was probably originally an interior door that she moved. And now I'm gonna have to pay a bunch of money to fix it.
I have paint cracking throughout my house on bead board and paneled doors. My contractor believes it's because I have no insulation in my crawl space and very little insulation in the attic space. So I'm gonna have to pay a bunch of money to fix that.
I have two outlets that don't work on my deck because the wire has been cut in the crawl space. (It's been like that since I bought the house. It's not another security issue.)
I need my gutters cleaned.
My deck that he refinished last June is messed up (the paint is coming off). At least that won't cost me anything because he stands behind his work.
One of my neighbors wanted to meet with him so I walked down the street to introduce them.
Amanda and I ran around all afternoon getting food prepared for my sex toy party on Friday evening. I warned my security camera guy that he might want to be gone before 6:00 because a lady with purple hair and a bunch of tattoos was arriving at that time with cases full of vibrators and lube. And then around 7:00 my house was going to be full of women. I'm kind of surprised he showed back up on Saturday.
In the middle of all of this activity, my brother called me. He said he'd tried my work number but I didn't answer so he decided to call my cell phone. I said, "I'm off work today because I have two contractors here at my house, company from out of town who arrived last night, I'm having my sex toy party tonight, I have more company spending the night tonight, and I will have a houseful of people here in a few hours so I'm in the middle of preparing a bunch of food."
"Oh. That's right," he said as though all of this was even a tiny bit normal.
He went on to tell me that my niece/his daughter (16-years-old) was in the hospital because she had run over herself with her own car. For real.
They have two dogs which are of decent size and they are ill behaved and not trained. They had both escaped from the house so my niece jumped in her car to go drive around their neighborhood to look for them. She saw a neighbor out walking her tiny dog on a leash. My niece stopped to speak with her to see if she had seen the dogs running around. As they were talking, her two dogs came running up towards them. My niece was afraid her dogs would attack the neighbor's smaller dog so she jumped out of the car to try and grab them, but forgot she had not put her car in park. As the car started rolling, she tried to get back in but the door hit her, knocked her down, she was dragged down the street, she finally had to let go and the back tire rolled all the way over her down the left side of her body. The car kept going, went through two yards where it eventually rammed through someone's garage and into a closet where it finally stopped.
The neighbor called 9-1-1 and apparently it is normal procedure when a minor is involved in a serious car accident that they get air lifted to the hospital so they flew her by helicopter to a hospital in Atlanta. She has a very deep puncture wound to her ankle, severe road rash down both legs and on her bottom, a liver laceration, and a partially collapsed lung. They took her into an operating room but I don't know that you'd call what she had an actual surgery. The wound on her ankle was cut roughly so they put her under, had to cut it a little more to have clean lines so they could get it to heal properly, they irrigated the wound so it would be clean and hopefully not get infected, and then put staples in it. Both legs are bandaged because of road rash, and they put a chest tube in to re-inflate her lung. Her liver seems to be doing okay at this point but they still don't have the lung where they want it to be. Right now we're waiting to see if she will be released this evening.
So instead of going to the Margaret Mitchell House or the art festival we had thought about going to, Amanda got to go to the hospital on Saturday afternoon and meet part of my family.
While we were there, they decided to take the chest tube out so we stepped out into the hall while they were working on that. Her room is the last room at the end of the hall so there was a big window there and we stood in front of it. About 30 seconds after walking out in the hall, a gun battle broke out in a park across the street from the hospital. We saw about 20 people running from the scene. Nurses, doctors, etc. came down to watch out the window with us. My brother came out of my niece's room when he heard the gunshots and because he's a cop he told us we might want to not stand in front of the window while people are shooting at each other. Good point.
After we left, Amanda wanted to stop in Trader Joe's so we did that and it was 6:00 p.m. and all I had eaten all day was four M&Ms because I'm the healthiest eater that ever was. I was starving so we stopped at Roasters because I was about to pass out and I ate chicken fingers, a sweet potato, and some green beans because I'm sort of healthy but not all the way. I scarfed it down. We were both exhausted so we decided to go back to my house and just chill.
And as we sat out on my front porch in the middle of Atlanta, we heard a monkey at a neighbor's house. I have no idea what neighbor around me has a monkey because I've never heard it before, but we both heard it plain as day.
So yes, Amanda thought we would have good tours, good art and good food. Instead she experienced contractors, a grocery store, visiting someone in the hospital, and Roasters.
Tomorrow I will tell y'all about the party and how One Fabulous Mama almost ran over my feet with her mini-van and she slightly damaged a part of my house. Apparently we were trying to be like my niece. On a much smaller scale.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The boogie man
And now for the latest in my dumb life......
I think someone tried to break into my garage and possibly my house last week.
I drew y'all the most awesome picture in the history of ever to try and explain all of this. You are welcome.
I think someone tried to break into my garage and possibly my house last week.
I drew y'all the most awesome picture in the history of ever to try and explain all of this. You are welcome.
My property is completely fenced in. And unlike my incredible picture above, the fence on the right side doesn't curve. It's straight. Anyway, when I get home I drive down the world's skinniest driveway and have to pay close attention because if I move approximately two inches too far to the left I will hit the side of my house. If I drive approximately two inches too far to the right I will crash into some columns or into my fence. (This drawing isn't accurate enough for you to tell all of that by looking at it.) Then I get to my two crappy gate doors at the back edge of my house and I can't move 1/2 inch too far either way or I will crash my car.
I've had problems with those gate doors since I bought my house. I had some guys work an entire day on them to try to put extra support on the posts holding them up because they were sagging so bad they dragged on the ground. And now they are sagging so bad again that I can't close them because one has sagged more than the other so the latches on each door don't come close to lining up with one anther. So I leave them open all the time and I have to prop them open with bricks because they swing all willy nilly. After I get through the willy nilly gate doors, I pull into my detached garage.
I didn't draw this in my beautiful picture either (I'm starting to wonder why I drew a picture for y'all at all), but my garage is a two-car garage and it has a storage area in it. There is the big rolling door that you drive in and out of and you can access the storage area from inside the garage or there is a regular door with a dead bolt and door knob you can use to access the storage area from outside. I think I've opened that door about 3 times ever. Which is why I have a giant trash can sitting in front of it.
When I left for work last Thursday, as I was backing out of my garage I noticed the handle of the trash can was visible in my rear view mirror and it's normally not. I got out of my car to check things out and the trash can had clearly been moved and there was a cigarette butt on the ground in front of my garage. I know I haven't taken up smoking so it's not mine, and I haven't had anyone over recently who smokes. When I got to work, I immediately contacted my awesome neighbors who have been after me for two years to contact their guy to get a remote put on my crappy gate doors so that I can close them other than when I'm driving in and out. They've also been after me to put cameras around my property. My brother the cop has been after me to do all of this as well. Because I live in the 'hood and we have a lot of crime. I called their gate/remote guy and he said he could come out on Saturday to look at my property and give me an estimate.
I had to work late that night so it was dark when I got home and I didn't notice anything else.
On Friday I had to leave work early because they have started coming down on us about overtime so I got home when it was still light out and I decided I was going to work on a couple of spray painting projects. I walked out to the garage so I could get some cardboard to put under my stuff while I spray painted my little heart out. I have a keypad to open my garage door and when I went to it, the cover was open. I never leave the cover open because I had to pay good money to have a new keypad put in last year because the cover was missing from the prior one when I bought the house, and the whole thing had corroded from rain, etc. I put my code in and the door wouldn't open. I put the code in again and it still wouldn't open. I then hit the star key and it opened but I have never had to hit the star key before. So I think someone had been trying to hack their way in using the key pad. After that, it seemed to work fine with just my code.
A little later I went back up on my deck and was about to open up one of my french doors to go in my sun room when I saw a partial hand print on the glass. The reason it stood out to me is because it was about 3 fingers worth in a white powdery substance. I really don't ever touch the glass when I go in and out of the door and I knew I hadn't had white powder on my hands. Luckily when you look in that door, you would probably see the motion detector from my alarm system up in the corner of that room (especially if you're a criminal looking for stuff like that before you possibly break into a place). And if you look in the other french door on my deck you can see an alarm system control panel. After seeing all of this stuff, I was feeling really glad that the gate/remote guy was coming the next day.
He arrived at my house Saturday afternoon and I walked down the driveway with him to show him my existing crappy gate doors and as soon as he hit the corner of my house and could see in my back yard the conversation went a little something like this:
"WHAT? THIS IS HORRIBLE BACK HERE!!"
"Um, I know I need to cut the grass and weeds. I'm planning to do that next weekend."
"NO, NO, NO!" he yelled. "That's not what I mean. Look at all of the blind spots back here! I HATE BLIND SPOTS! We need to fix this and fix this soon! Someone could be hiding behind your garage. They could be on the side of the garage. They could be under your deck, down this little "alley" running down the side the house. THIS IS TOO DANGEROUS! The garage should never have been built where it is. It should have been put in the very far back corner so no one can be hiding around the side or back. Why would anyone put a garage here? You live here alone and come home to this every single night by yourself??"
"Well, um, yes. Yes, I do."
"I would never allow my wife to get out of her car into a situation like this even if I was inside the house," he told me. "Aren't you scared?"
"Not really. Until now anyway."
"I don't understand why you young ladies live alone in neighborhoods like this."
"Because these are the neighborhoods we can afford houses in when we're buying house on our own," I mumbled.
So we talked for a while and I told him I was fully expecting him to tell me that my crappy gate doors need to be thrown in a trash heap and that I need a new door. And he told me he's glad I already knew that and he said he could put a remote on the existing doors but he would just be stealing money from me if he did that because I would then be calling him every couple of months to come out and fix them. So we agreed I need a brand new gate with a remote because it's better to do things right the first time.
He then asked me if I've thought about installing cameras around my property and I told him I've been looking at them online and asked if he does that too and he does. So I told him to include that in his quote. We discussed how cameras are one of the biggest deterrents for crime you can have because criminals do not like them. He said between cameras, my alarm system, signs saying I have an alarm system, and the closed gate, someone would really have to want to get in my house rather than going to hit an easier target. He's going to put in the same camera system he has at his own house and that he just installed in his neighbor's house. So for those of you who come to my house for Pie parties, don't pick your underwear out of your butt or pick your nose when you're walking up to any of the doors because I will probably see you doing it.
He then asked if he could come back by on Sunday with his welder so the welder could take some measurements and see the property and where the gate would be installed, etc. and I told him that would be fine. About an hour after he left, I was in my kitchen when I heard something repeatedly whacking against the bay window in my living room. I looked in the living room and saw a bird flying into the window over and over again and then it disappeared. I ran over to look and see if it had been hurt and fallen on the ground, and as I looked out I saw that the fence on the front corner of my house was pulled away from my house and the side fence. It's not something I would have noticed because you really have to be looking at a certain angle to even see that section of fencing. (The bird was apparently fine by the way.)
When the gate guy came came back on Sunday with his welder, I showed them the fence that had been knocked away so they suggested I add another gate on that side in the scary "alley" running down the side of my house so that if someone kicked in that fence again they still won't be able to get in my back yard. The alley is not really an alley. It's just a very skinny strip between my house and the fence where the a/c units, gas meters, etc. are located.
My brother, the cop, came over Sunday night to help me put my new deck furniture together (LOVE) and then I took him out to dinner as a thank you. He nailed my fence back to my house for me and I showed him everything else and then I told him I need to get a job as a detective because I think I know who was messing around behind my house.
There was a crew putting in a driveway next door to me on Wednesday.
They would certainly have had a white powdery substance on their hands. They were also working right next to where the fence was knocked down at the front of my house. Also, they saw me leaving for work that morning because they had just arrived and had parked on the street in such a way in a large truck that I had a very hard time getting out of my driveway without hitting them and they all stood there and watched as I inched and inched out.
When I got home that evening they were still working and I walked over to see the driveway and check to see how close it is to my fence. They would hardly look at me. I was very friendly and told them how nice their work was looking, etc. and they barely glanced at me.
Anyway, I am going to live in Fort Knox by the time all of this stuff is done to my house. Unfortunately I will have not a penny left to keep inside of it because all of this is going to cost me a small fortune. So it will be more like Fort Poor. But I really do think it's going to give me so much peace of mind, that it's a great investment in my house, and that if I ever sell I will get my money back for doing all of this. But I may be eating ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for a while. (Luckily the fake kids left three huge things of ramen noodles when they moved out.)
Yesterday I negotiated the cost of the gate down by $200 from the quote and felt a tiny bit bad-ass for doing so. And they should be installing everything next week. I'm glad because after that guy came to my house I was completely terrified when I got home at 9:00 last night because I took a little trip to Ikea after work. I was running up my driveway so whoever might be hiding in all of the blind spots wouldn't grab me. And I'm horribly out of shape so I couldn't breathe by the time I got inside. And the gate guy called me about 3 minutes after I got inside and I had to try and not be huffing and puffing while I was talking to him because I didn't want to have to tell him he scared me so bad that I ran up my driveway when I got home so the back yard boogie man/men wouldn't get me.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Moby Dick
So now I'll share with y'all my ridiculous battle with the water department. If we're friends on Facebook, you've already heard a bit of it, but here's the entire stupid, insane story.
Last Monday when I checked my mail, I had an envelope from the water department. And for those of you in the Atlanta area, if you ever watch the local news you already know just how messed up the City of Atlanta's water department is since there is a story on the news almost every week about them for the past 10 years (at least).
When you open an account with the City of Atlanta for water service, you have to drive downtown to city hall, get a number, sit in a run-down waiting area, fill out an application, and then wait to be called for someone to enter everything in their system and tell you if you've been approved or not. Yes. YOU HAVE TO APPLY IN PERSON and they only have one location for this circa 1972 way of doing business. Who does that anymore? The City of Atlanta does. And it's the dumbest thing ever.
When I lived in my last apartment before buying my house, I was in the city limits so I had done this ridiculous applying in person back in 2003. I had to take a half-day off work to get water service. I was miraculously able to transfer service to my house when I bought it without appearing in person, but I had to have my closing attorney fax a copy of a bunch of paperwork to them to prove I had bought my house. No other utility company required that, but the City of Atlanta water did. Because they are ludicrous. But not cool Ludacris, the rapper.
So I've lived in my house for 2.5 years and I've gotten a bill every month from the water department and my other utilities and I've paid what they told me to pay because I've grown to enjoy having lights, a/c, and to be able to flush my toilets and stuff.
But last Monday I had an envelope from the City of Atlanta water people and it was addressed to "Customer" because they like to personalize stuff apparently and it had my address with "Unit B" added to it. And it was a label that had been cut from a piece of paper and taped on the front of the envelope very professionally with all of their state of the art office technology. And then it had a fancy bright yellow star burst design with red letters in all caps saying "IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING YOUR WATER SERVICE!" I figured they were raising their rates again even though we already have some of the highest water and sewer rates in the whole entire country.
But that's not what it was. The first line said, "We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you as a new customer to the Atlanta Water System." Um. Thanks, City of Atlanta but I think your letter is a bit tardy since I've been a customer for 11 years.
The second sentence said, "To convenience you, we have left the water and or [no slash in between] sewer service active for your home." Then it said, "However, it is vital that you immediately make the necessary application for service in your name."
It went on to tell me that they STILL MAKE YOU APPLY IN PERSON at City Hall. I received the notice on March 10th and was told if I didn't apply in person by the 12th my service would be shut off. What the what?
I called the next morning and a customer service rep answered. I was very polite and told her I needed to straighten out an odd situation and I told her how I've lived in my single-family home for 2.5 years and how I've been a customer of theirs for 11 years and I wanted to make sure they would get this fixed and not turn my water off.
"You live in a duplex," she responded after looking up my account.
"No, I do not."
"Yes you do.
"No I don't." Because we are 5-years-old.
"We show it's a duplex."
"It's not a duplex. It USED TO BE a duplex, but it was converted to a single family home almost 20 years ago," I explained to her.
"It's a duplex."
Son of a biscuit eater.
"It's not a duplex!" I said with my voice raised because I was irritated by then. And I was thankful I had warned the lady who sits in the cubicle next to me that she might hear me yelling at someone before I called them because I've dealt with them for 11 years now and I know they make you want to raise your voice.
"Our records show it's a duplex," said the robotic lady.
"I'm telling you it's not and hasn't been a duplex for almost 20 years since the lady before me bought the house in 1996. She converted the house to a single-family home. It's not my fault your records are wrong."
"We've been reading the wrong meter at your address since you moved in then."
"Okay. That's also not my fault. There are two meters and they are ONE INCH apart. How can someone not notice that for two and a half years and not check both of them?"
"We have no way of knowing when a house has been converted."
"That's understandable. EXCEPT I TOLD Y'ALL WHEN I MOVED IN THAT IT'S A SINGLE FAMILY HOME!" I yelled. "And I can't help it that the lady who used to own the house may or may not have told y'all. I don't know that lady and have no control over her."
"Well, you need to come down here today and fill out an application or we'll turn off your water."
WHAT?
"I am not about to take time off from my job to drive downtown and fill out an application when I've been a customer for 11 years!" I yelled at her.
"I have to advise you that if you do not, your water will be turned off tomorrow."
"Oh no it will not! And I'm not driving down there today. You need to get this fixed right now while we're on the phone. Do you not think it's completely ridiculous that you are asking someone who has had an account with you for 11 years to come in person to fill out an application so you can open up an account?!"
"I have to advise you that if you don't come down, your water will be turned off tomorrow."
And that is when fire started spewing from my mouth and smoke from my ears and I thought my head may pop clean off.
"I am telling you this again - I will not come down there in person and fill out an application since I have HAD AN ACCOUNT WITH Y'ALL FOR 11 YEARS. And YOU WILL NOT TURN MY WATER OFF TOMORROW!" I yelled.
"Can you please hold for a minute?" she asked.
"Yes, I certainly can if you're putting me on hold to fix this."
I held. And held. And held. And held.
She finally came back on the line and said, "I spoke to my supervisor and we're going to put a stop hold on your account until we get this straightened out."
"So my water will not be turned off tomorrow?"
"No it won't. But I need to warn you that next month you will be receiving a very sizable bill because we'll be adjusting your account from the past 2.5 years."
I VERY sarcastically responded, "So let me get this straight. I don't have to come down there today, my water won't be turned off tomorrow, but next month I get to pay a super gigantic water bill because y'all have screwed up and not done your jobs correctly for two and a half years? YOU ARE SO AWESOME!"
"Thank you!" she cheerfully replied because she does not understand sarcasm even a tiny bit.
"I am probably looking at a bill of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, right?" I asked because I've seen the stories on the news and I know how they do this to people.
"Yes, ma'am."
I then went on Facebook and talked about it. It just so happens that a sweet couple moved in two houses down from me just before Christmas. And the wife just so happens to be a reporter on one of the local news channels. So I asked her if they might be interested in covering it. She said she'd pass it along to the consumer guy because he LOVES covering these stories and has fought the water department for years.
The next day a very nice guy called me from the water department. He confirmed my address and then asked if I lived in _________ (name of my neighborhood). I told him I do and he said he used to live right around the corner from me. He then asked me if I've ever met the crazy one-eyed lady or the lady who walks to church several times per week and judges everyone for their lifestyles if she doesn't agree with them and preaches to them about how they will go to hell. And I immediately knew I was going to like this guy. He also told me about the time he looked in his backyard and a lawn mower had suddenly appeared and he found out someone stole it from his next door neighbor but just threw it over the fence into his backyard. And those reasons are how I knew he really did live around the corner at some point in my insane 'hood.
He then mumbled how much he hates working for the water department, how much he wants to find a new job, that he has 3 college degrees but because of the economy he's been stuck there for 10 years, and how happy he is that he moved outside of the city limits and does not have his service with the City of Atlanta water. And I that's when I decided I wanted to marry him and have his babies.
In the hour we were on the phone, I told him all about the situation that needed to be straightened out, I told him how rude the lady had been to me on the phone the day before, and I told him if I heard of any jobs in his field I'd be sure to call him if he gave me his direct number. We then discussed our love lives and he told me after his last crazy girlfriend he decided to take his love life out to the backyard and shoot it and bury it and he was swearing off dating for a while. And I told him a very short version of my crazy situation with Hot Brazilian. And then I asked him how old he is. He's 36. I told him that I'm 45 so I'm too old for him but I would put some thought to whether or not I had a non-crazy friend in his age range to set him up with. He said, "But you and I could still hang out sometime as friends." I responded, "We COULD hang out! In fact, we could meet up for a drink tonight if we wanted to!" "Yes, we COULD!" he replied. (We didn't.)
The entire time we were having this quite professional conversation, he was inputting figures into some sort of spreadsheet and formula trying to figure out how expensive my bill was going to be after they adjusted it.
He told me the lady lied the day before because they would not be back billing me for 2.5 years since it was all their fault. They would only back bill me for a year for the adjusted fees. He was super pissed at the way she had talked to me.
After an hour, he said, "Okay, I have a number for you. After factoring in all of the payments you have already paid, you are going to owe us $90."
"$90? Are you serious? That's it? The lady yesterday said I was going to owe hundreds if not thousands of dollars."
"Nope. You will owe about $90. And I'm going to see about getting rid of that."
Then he told me a guy named Homer would have to come out to my house and go through it to confirm I only have one kitchen and it would then be put on record that I do not live in a duplex.
The next morning Homer came to my house and he looked around and verified I only have one kitchen. Then he went out to the two meters which are one inch apart and wrote down some numbers off of them and said he would get things straight. Homer was a cool dude. He told me I could use the second meter to hook my sprinkler system into and then I will only have to pay water fees but no sewer fees when I water my grass.
I went to work and about an hour later I got a call from the nice young man from the previous day.
"I have good news and even better news!" he said. "We have your meters straightened out so this should not happen again. And I've gotten approval to write off all of the back charges so you will not owe any additional charges from the past year!"
I then asked him about the second meter being used for the sprinkler system and he said once I have a plumber connect it to call him back and he'll set all of that up on that end.
Do y'all want to hear the best part of this crazy story in my opinion? You know that famous book about a whale and the opening line is "Call me __________"? That was this guy's name. A guy with that name working for the water department just kind of cracks me up. (I'm not putting it in here in case he googles his name on a regular basis. Who knows? He might.)
And that is the exceptionally long and completely ludicrous story of how I fought the water department and won with the help of a guy with an awesome name.
Last Monday when I checked my mail, I had an envelope from the water department. And for those of you in the Atlanta area, if you ever watch the local news you already know just how messed up the City of Atlanta's water department is since there is a story on the news almost every week about them for the past 10 years (at least).
When you open an account with the City of Atlanta for water service, you have to drive downtown to city hall, get a number, sit in a run-down waiting area, fill out an application, and then wait to be called for someone to enter everything in their system and tell you if you've been approved or not. Yes. YOU HAVE TO APPLY IN PERSON and they only have one location for this circa 1972 way of doing business. Who does that anymore? The City of Atlanta does. And it's the dumbest thing ever.
When I lived in my last apartment before buying my house, I was in the city limits so I had done this ridiculous applying in person back in 2003. I had to take a half-day off work to get water service. I was miraculously able to transfer service to my house when I bought it without appearing in person, but I had to have my closing attorney fax a copy of a bunch of paperwork to them to prove I had bought my house. No other utility company required that, but the City of Atlanta water did. Because they are ludicrous. But not cool Ludacris, the rapper.
So I've lived in my house for 2.5 years and I've gotten a bill every month from the water department and my other utilities and I've paid what they told me to pay because I've grown to enjoy having lights, a/c, and to be able to flush my toilets and stuff.
But last Monday I had an envelope from the City of Atlanta water people and it was addressed to "Customer" because they like to personalize stuff apparently and it had my address with "Unit B" added to it. And it was a label that had been cut from a piece of paper and taped on the front of the envelope very professionally with all of their state of the art office technology. And then it had a fancy bright yellow star burst design with red letters in all caps saying "IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING YOUR WATER SERVICE!" I figured they were raising their rates again even though we already have some of the highest water and sewer rates in the whole entire country.
But that's not what it was. The first line said, "We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you as a new customer to the Atlanta Water System." Um. Thanks, City of Atlanta but I think your letter is a bit tardy since I've been a customer for 11 years.
The second sentence said, "To convenience you, we have left the water and or [no slash in between] sewer service active for your home." Then it said, "However, it is vital that you immediately make the necessary application for service in your name."
It went on to tell me that they STILL MAKE YOU APPLY IN PERSON at City Hall. I received the notice on March 10th and was told if I didn't apply in person by the 12th my service would be shut off. What the what?
I called the next morning and a customer service rep answered. I was very polite and told her I needed to straighten out an odd situation and I told her how I've lived in my single-family home for 2.5 years and how I've been a customer of theirs for 11 years and I wanted to make sure they would get this fixed and not turn my water off.
"You live in a duplex," she responded after looking up my account.
"No, I do not."
"Yes you do.
"No I don't." Because we are 5-years-old.
"We show it's a duplex."
"It's not a duplex. It USED TO BE a duplex, but it was converted to a single family home almost 20 years ago," I explained to her.
"It's a duplex."
Son of a biscuit eater.
"It's not a duplex!" I said with my voice raised because I was irritated by then. And I was thankful I had warned the lady who sits in the cubicle next to me that she might hear me yelling at someone before I called them because I've dealt with them for 11 years now and I know they make you want to raise your voice.
"Our records show it's a duplex," said the robotic lady.
"I'm telling you it's not and hasn't been a duplex for almost 20 years since the lady before me bought the house in 1996. She converted the house to a single-family home. It's not my fault your records are wrong."
"We've been reading the wrong meter at your address since you moved in then."
"Okay. That's also not my fault. There are two meters and they are ONE INCH apart. How can someone not notice that for two and a half years and not check both of them?"
"We have no way of knowing when a house has been converted."
"That's understandable. EXCEPT I TOLD Y'ALL WHEN I MOVED IN THAT IT'S A SINGLE FAMILY HOME!" I yelled. "And I can't help it that the lady who used to own the house may or may not have told y'all. I don't know that lady and have no control over her."
"Well, you need to come down here today and fill out an application or we'll turn off your water."
WHAT?
"I am not about to take time off from my job to drive downtown and fill out an application when I've been a customer for 11 years!" I yelled at her.
"I have to advise you that if you do not, your water will be turned off tomorrow."
"Oh no it will not! And I'm not driving down there today. You need to get this fixed right now while we're on the phone. Do you not think it's completely ridiculous that you are asking someone who has had an account with you for 11 years to come in person to fill out an application so you can open up an account?!"
"I have to advise you that if you don't come down, your water will be turned off tomorrow."
And that is when fire started spewing from my mouth and smoke from my ears and I thought my head may pop clean off.
"I am telling you this again - I will not come down there in person and fill out an application since I have HAD AN ACCOUNT WITH Y'ALL FOR 11 YEARS. And YOU WILL NOT TURN MY WATER OFF TOMORROW!" I yelled.
"Can you please hold for a minute?" she asked.
"Yes, I certainly can if you're putting me on hold to fix this."
I held. And held. And held. And held.
She finally came back on the line and said, "I spoke to my supervisor and we're going to put a stop hold on your account until we get this straightened out."
"So my water will not be turned off tomorrow?"
"No it won't. But I need to warn you that next month you will be receiving a very sizable bill because we'll be adjusting your account from the past 2.5 years."
I VERY sarcastically responded, "So let me get this straight. I don't have to come down there today, my water won't be turned off tomorrow, but next month I get to pay a super gigantic water bill because y'all have screwed up and not done your jobs correctly for two and a half years? YOU ARE SO AWESOME!"
"Thank you!" she cheerfully replied because she does not understand sarcasm even a tiny bit.
"I am probably looking at a bill of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, right?" I asked because I've seen the stories on the news and I know how they do this to people.
"Yes, ma'am."
I then went on Facebook and talked about it. It just so happens that a sweet couple moved in two houses down from me just before Christmas. And the wife just so happens to be a reporter on one of the local news channels. So I asked her if they might be interested in covering it. She said she'd pass it along to the consumer guy because he LOVES covering these stories and has fought the water department for years.
The next day a very nice guy called me from the water department. He confirmed my address and then asked if I lived in _________ (name of my neighborhood). I told him I do and he said he used to live right around the corner from me. He then asked me if I've ever met the crazy one-eyed lady or the lady who walks to church several times per week and judges everyone for their lifestyles if she doesn't agree with them and preaches to them about how they will go to hell. And I immediately knew I was going to like this guy. He also told me about the time he looked in his backyard and a lawn mower had suddenly appeared and he found out someone stole it from his next door neighbor but just threw it over the fence into his backyard. And those reasons are how I knew he really did live around the corner at some point in my insane 'hood.
He then mumbled how much he hates working for the water department, how much he wants to find a new job, that he has 3 college degrees but because of the economy he's been stuck there for 10 years, and how happy he is that he moved outside of the city limits and does not have his service with the City of Atlanta water. And I that's when I decided I wanted to marry him and have his babies.
In the hour we were on the phone, I told him all about the situation that needed to be straightened out, I told him how rude the lady had been to me on the phone the day before, and I told him if I heard of any jobs in his field I'd be sure to call him if he gave me his direct number. We then discussed our love lives and he told me after his last crazy girlfriend he decided to take his love life out to the backyard and shoot it and bury it and he was swearing off dating for a while. And I told him a very short version of my crazy situation with Hot Brazilian. And then I asked him how old he is. He's 36. I told him that I'm 45 so I'm too old for him but I would put some thought to whether or not I had a non-crazy friend in his age range to set him up with. He said, "But you and I could still hang out sometime as friends." I responded, "We COULD hang out! In fact, we could meet up for a drink tonight if we wanted to!" "Yes, we COULD!" he replied. (We didn't.)
The entire time we were having this quite professional conversation, he was inputting figures into some sort of spreadsheet and formula trying to figure out how expensive my bill was going to be after they adjusted it.
He told me the lady lied the day before because they would not be back billing me for 2.5 years since it was all their fault. They would only back bill me for a year for the adjusted fees. He was super pissed at the way she had talked to me.
After an hour, he said, "Okay, I have a number for you. After factoring in all of the payments you have already paid, you are going to owe us $90."
"$90? Are you serious? That's it? The lady yesterday said I was going to owe hundreds if not thousands of dollars."
"Nope. You will owe about $90. And I'm going to see about getting rid of that."
Then he told me a guy named Homer would have to come out to my house and go through it to confirm I only have one kitchen and it would then be put on record that I do not live in a duplex.
The next morning Homer came to my house and he looked around and verified I only have one kitchen. Then he went out to the two meters which are one inch apart and wrote down some numbers off of them and said he would get things straight. Homer was a cool dude. He told me I could use the second meter to hook my sprinkler system into and then I will only have to pay water fees but no sewer fees when I water my grass.
I went to work and about an hour later I got a call from the nice young man from the previous day.
"I have good news and even better news!" he said. "We have your meters straightened out so this should not happen again. And I've gotten approval to write off all of the back charges so you will not owe any additional charges from the past year!"
I then asked him about the second meter being used for the sprinkler system and he said once I have a plumber connect it to call him back and he'll set all of that up on that end.
Do y'all want to hear the best part of this crazy story in my opinion? You know that famous book about a whale and the opening line is "Call me __________"? That was this guy's name. A guy with that name working for the water department just kind of cracks me up. (I'm not putting it in here in case he googles his name on a regular basis. Who knows? He might.)
And that is the exceptionally long and completely ludicrous story of how I fought the water department and won with the help of a guy with an awesome name.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Um. Yeah. So all of this happened recently. And it's not even everything.
Oh wow. It's been two weeks since I've posted, huh?
I think I've been busy doing a lot of things that I could blog about, but now I can't remember a lot of it. But here are a few things.
1. I almost got covered in a lot of jelly at the grocery store and then I saw some cowboys riding horses through downtown Atlanta on my way home. No, that's not a dream I had one night. It actually happened.
You see, I was on an aisle where I was looking for a marinade and it was near the jelly. An employee was stocking jelly and he had boxes of it on a rolling cart. The cart was right in front of the sauces, marinades, etc. and I was leaning around behind the cart to get the bottle I needed when the employee picked up a box of jelly, the entire bottom of the box fell out and a whole box full of jelly jars crashed to the floor and broke. There was jelly every freaking where and I was crunching all over broken glass. Miraculously I had no jelly on me at all even though this all happened approximately 6 inches from my feet. He looked at me with such a horrid look as though he couldn't believe what had just happened. I looked back at him with a sad face and said, "Oh no," because I know how to react and make people feel better. His co-worker simply mumbled under his breath, "I guess I'll go get a mop." Yes, dude. I guess you will. Then I was driving through downtown on my way back home and I saw 3 cowboys riding horses through the middle of Atlanta. So all in all, that was kind of a weird day.
2. I used the marinade I got when I almost bathed in sticky jelly to grill out the next evening. A couple of days after I was outside in a tshirt in spring like weather grilling chicken and vegetables, this happened:
And I know for those of you who live up north that looks like a light dusting of snow. That is not snow. It's solid ice. I stepped out on my deck with all of my body weight (which is a lot) and it didn't crack, it didn't leave a footprint, etc. Solid ice.
Overnight that night is when the snow came and then we had this:
I stocked up on paint for the two huge commission pieces I needed to work on. Especially because the guy had just emailed me two days previously wanting to know when they were going to be done and I really had barely started on them. (It had only been a week or two since we finalized all of the details so it's not like I had been putting him off for months or anything.)
He wanted abstracts with lots and lots of texture. Do y'all know what I've never painted before in my life? Abstracts with lots and lots of texture. He showed me photos of a painting he wanted me to base the pieces on - not to copy them identically, but he wanted me to use the same colors, same texture, etc.
And I said, "Oh sure! No problem! I can do those. Easy peasy." I said this because I'm a fool. I'm used to painting not abstract and not textured paintings on canvases that are 16x20". He wanted 24x48" and he wanted two of them. That's 8 feet long and 4 feet wide total, y'all.
So I took the photos he gave me to the art supply store and looked around and found a product I thought would work for the texture (a product I've never used in my life) and consulted with an employee in there and she agreed it would give me the closest look to what he wanted from me.
This is the canvas with the texture stuff. It looks like the ceiling of the house I grew up in:
And then I started with the 1st of 5 colors:
Y'all try not to be jealous of my gorgeous neon fish tablecloth, okay? It was on clearance for $3 somewhere and I knew I would be getting paint all over it so I didn't really care what it looked like.
TWENTY HOURS later, this is what they look like. I don't enjoy spending more than about 2 or 3 hours on a painting. I was ready to stab someone by the time I got done with these.
A close up of the texture if you care:
The next time someone asks me to do humongous abstract paintings with lots of texture I will say this to them:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Unless they want to pay me about twice what I quoted this guy.
So yes, while my neighbors all walked up to Little 5 Points and hung out together in a 'hood bar to enjoy the ice/snow day, I did my taxes and painted these *^&%$ commission pieces.
3. The snow ended on Thursday around noon at my house. On Friday night it rained.
And oh yeah, we also had an earthquake.
I had just gotten in the bed and about 2 minutes later, my entire house shook. My bed shook, my windows rattled, the chain on my ceiling fan was bouncing against the lights, and I couldn't figure out what it was. It lasted for probably 5+ seconds. I immediately looked at the clock so I would know exactly what time it happened in case I needed to know for some reason. It was 10:24 p.m. and I was watching the local early news like I'm 85-years-old. I thought something had fallen on my house. Or a group of people were running across my wooden deck. (Because I don't know about y'all, but that shit happens a lot. I often have groups of people come to my house, open up my front gate, come down the driveway and walk behind my house, and run back and forth across the deck while it's raining outside and the deck is covered in thick ice.) Then I realized I didn't hear anything fall or anyone running. All that happened was everything shook. I thought, "could that have been an earthquake? Naw. People will think I'm crazy if I say I felt an earthquake."
About 10 minutes later the anchor on the news said, "We are getting reports of an earthquake hitting a few minutes ago." And I felt an inkling less crazy than I normally do.
4. So on Tuesday it had rained almost 24 hours straight. Between Wednesday and Thursday, we had approximately 34 straight hours of sleet, freezing rain and snow. On Friday night we had rain and a freaking earthquake. And on Saturday this was happening in my back yard:
I think I've been busy doing a lot of things that I could blog about, but now I can't remember a lot of it. But here are a few things.
1. I almost got covered in a lot of jelly at the grocery store and then I saw some cowboys riding horses through downtown Atlanta on my way home. No, that's not a dream I had one night. It actually happened.
You see, I was on an aisle where I was looking for a marinade and it was near the jelly. An employee was stocking jelly and he had boxes of it on a rolling cart. The cart was right in front of the sauces, marinades, etc. and I was leaning around behind the cart to get the bottle I needed when the employee picked up a box of jelly, the entire bottom of the box fell out and a whole box full of jelly jars crashed to the floor and broke. There was jelly every freaking where and I was crunching all over broken glass. Miraculously I had no jelly on me at all even though this all happened approximately 6 inches from my feet. He looked at me with such a horrid look as though he couldn't believe what had just happened. I looked back at him with a sad face and said, "Oh no," because I know how to react and make people feel better. His co-worker simply mumbled under his breath, "I guess I'll go get a mop." Yes, dude. I guess you will. Then I was driving through downtown on my way back home and I saw 3 cowboys riding horses through the middle of Atlanta. So all in all, that was kind of a weird day.
2. I used the marinade I got when I almost bathed in sticky jelly to grill out the next evening. A couple of days after I was outside in a tshirt in spring like weather grilling chicken and vegetables, this happened:
Overnight that night is when the snow came and then we had this:
Which I know still looks like nothing for those of you up north, but for Atlanta that is a giant mess. Two days later, it was in the 50s and over the weekend it was in the 60s but I still had ice on my deck until yesterday because it was so solid and thick.
Since I was stuck inside for two days, I decided to get some fun stuff done. So I did my taxes.
Also, I know those of you not from around here know that when they call for snow down south we all decide we need to make French toast suddenly so we all stampede to the grocery store and fight each other over bread, milk and eggs. They were telling us this storm was going to be catastrophic and Biblical (yes, they used those words) so I had friends who said they couldn't even find any frozen vegetables by the time they got to the store.
I live alone and buy groceries each Friday evening for the following week because I'm a partier who hangs out at the grocery store on Friday night so I had stocked up way ahead of time before I even knew we were supposed to get snow.
This is where I was the night before the storm:
He wanted abstracts with lots and lots of texture. Do y'all know what I've never painted before in my life? Abstracts with lots and lots of texture. He showed me photos of a painting he wanted me to base the pieces on - not to copy them identically, but he wanted me to use the same colors, same texture, etc.
And I said, "Oh sure! No problem! I can do those. Easy peasy." I said this because I'm a fool. I'm used to painting not abstract and not textured paintings on canvases that are 16x20". He wanted 24x48" and he wanted two of them. That's 8 feet long and 4 feet wide total, y'all.
So I took the photos he gave me to the art supply store and looked around and found a product I thought would work for the texture (a product I've never used in my life) and consulted with an employee in there and she agreed it would give me the closest look to what he wanted from me.
This is the canvas with the texture stuff. It looks like the ceiling of the house I grew up in:
And then I started with the 1st of 5 colors:
Y'all try not to be jealous of my gorgeous neon fish tablecloth, okay? It was on clearance for $3 somewhere and I knew I would be getting paint all over it so I didn't really care what it looked like.
TWENTY HOURS later, this is what they look like. I don't enjoy spending more than about 2 or 3 hours on a painting. I was ready to stab someone by the time I got done with these.
A close up of the texture if you care:
The next time someone asks me to do humongous abstract paintings with lots of texture I will say this to them:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Unless they want to pay me about twice what I quoted this guy.
So yes, while my neighbors all walked up to Little 5 Points and hung out together in a 'hood bar to enjoy the ice/snow day, I did my taxes and painted these *^&%$ commission pieces.
3. The snow ended on Thursday around noon at my house. On Friday night it rained.
And oh yeah, we also had an earthquake.
I had just gotten in the bed and about 2 minutes later, my entire house shook. My bed shook, my windows rattled, the chain on my ceiling fan was bouncing against the lights, and I couldn't figure out what it was. It lasted for probably 5+ seconds. I immediately looked at the clock so I would know exactly what time it happened in case I needed to know for some reason. It was 10:24 p.m. and I was watching the local early news like I'm 85-years-old. I thought something had fallen on my house. Or a group of people were running across my wooden deck. (Because I don't know about y'all, but that shit happens a lot. I often have groups of people come to my house, open up my front gate, come down the driveway and walk behind my house, and run back and forth across the deck while it's raining outside and the deck is covered in thick ice.) Then I realized I didn't hear anything fall or anyone running. All that happened was everything shook. I thought, "could that have been an earthquake? Naw. People will think I'm crazy if I say I felt an earthquake."
About 10 minutes later the anchor on the news said, "We are getting reports of an earthquake hitting a few minutes ago." And I felt an inkling less crazy than I normally do.
4. So on Tuesday it had rained almost 24 hours straight. Between Wednesday and Thursday, we had approximately 34 straight hours of sleet, freezing rain and snow. On Friday night we had rain and a freaking earthquake. And on Saturday this was happening in my back yard:
The flowers are blooming.
I have to run now, but I still have to share with y'all about an internet sensation who is coming to my house in April to sell sex toys (oh yes, that is true). And I injured myself again on Sunday. Twice. And some weird stuff happened on my drive yesterday. And my mom had surgery today. See? I have a lot to say!
Talk at y'all later!
Monday, January 6, 2014
My neighbors are the best neighbors of all the neighbors.
I told y'all I was going to write about Christmas Day with my neighbors.
Since we celebrated with my family on Christmas Eve, my mom, her husband and I accepted an invitation for Christmas Day to hang out with my awesome neighbors. Everyone brought a dish or two, a bottle of wine or two, and my mom said she was fine with going down there for just a little while. I didn't tell her that once you get to their house you never want to leave because it is always a blast. So we were there from 3:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m.
When we first got there, the 7-year-old was just getting home from some of our other neighbors' where she had been playing with their daughter. She was still in her pajamas and her parents didn't make her get dressed because she said she just wanted to keep wearing her pajamas while we ate Christmas dinner. And that is only one reason her parents are awesome.
She did want to show us her new bike she got for Christmas. So we went out in the driveway and watched her ride her bike in her pj's while their dog ran beside her with a big ball in his mouth. Coco is a pretty awesome dog. He also regularly steals beer and cigarettes from everyone.
We ate a wonderful meal and then as we were sitting around the dining room table, their daughter asked us if we would play some games with her. And that is how my mom and I came to look like this on Christmas night. And hello there, I'm apparently packing for a long international trip with those bags under my eyes:
After my mom figured out she was milk and I figured out I was a duck, and we played several more rounds of Hedbandz, we moved on and played another game. We played Boom Boom Balloon and I am here to tell you that I now want my own Boom Boom Balloon to play at my house. I think the adults had more fun than the 7-year-old.
But I also have to tell you about the funniest instructions I have ever seen in my life. Ikea needs to take note so I will say less curse words when I'm assembling their products.
Santa had given the daughter a Barbie Dreamhouse. It is gigantic. I think it's 3 stories tall, has two or three elevators in it, etc. And here are some instructions that were included with it (those white sticks go with the Boom Boom Balloon game - they have nothing to do with Barbie and her ridiculous house):
I know you can't read the instructions in that little picture, so Imma type 'em out for y'all nicely right now:
1. Congratulations! You are the lucky owner of a genuine Barbie Dreamhouse!
2. Follow these simple instructions for hours....that is, hours of fun!
3. Don't get discouraged. Tell yourself you can do this? [Yes, it has a question mark.] Focus, focus, focus.
4. Keep breathing. It's just a few pieces....
5. Now apply 1,000 stickers.
Piece of cake! Wasn't that fun?
And that right there is why I'm simultaneously very sad and ecstatic that I have no kids and thus no reason to assemble gigantic toys for Christmas each year.
The daughter bonded with my mom in a major way over Hedbandz and Boom Boom Balloon and then she invited my mom to come back from Texas in March to attend her 8th birthday party. They then decided it should be a Texas themed party and no one will be allowed in unless they are wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. I have a hat but no boots and I'm a giant and it's very hard to find boots for big calved people so I may have to paint boots on the bottom of my pants or something.
This all inspired the daughter to run to her room and change into jeans, a shirt, a denim vest, cowboy boots, and a hat.
And that's when the dancing started. She danced with her mom. She danced with my mom. She danced with her dad. She danced with an annoying guy who hangs out with us a lot. She danced alone.
And that's what made me ask my neighbors to put on their Billy Joel CD so they could sing their duet for us. Because they love to sing a duet to this song:
They play piano together while they sing their duet. And sometimes they play a horn:
And sometimes they just sing their hearts out with balloon people and chocolate chip cookies from a pizza restaurant on the table:
And then their daughter went and grabbed a guitar and joined them:
And then she played a guitar solo for all of us:
And this is the story of why I adore my neighbors more than a person should adore their neighbors.
Since we celebrated with my family on Christmas Eve, my mom, her husband and I accepted an invitation for Christmas Day to hang out with my awesome neighbors. Everyone brought a dish or two, a bottle of wine or two, and my mom said she was fine with going down there for just a little while. I didn't tell her that once you get to their house you never want to leave because it is always a blast. So we were there from 3:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m.
When we first got there, the 7-year-old was just getting home from some of our other neighbors' where she had been playing with their daughter. She was still in her pajamas and her parents didn't make her get dressed because she said she just wanted to keep wearing her pajamas while we ate Christmas dinner. And that is only one reason her parents are awesome.
She did want to show us her new bike she got for Christmas. So we went out in the driveway and watched her ride her bike in her pj's while their dog ran beside her with a big ball in his mouth. Coco is a pretty awesome dog. He also regularly steals beer and cigarettes from everyone.
We ate a wonderful meal and then as we were sitting around the dining room table, their daughter asked us if we would play some games with her. And that is how my mom and I came to look like this on Christmas night. And hello there, I'm apparently packing for a long international trip with those bags under my eyes:
After my mom figured out she was milk and I figured out I was a duck, and we played several more rounds of Hedbandz, we moved on and played another game. We played Boom Boom Balloon and I am here to tell you that I now want my own Boom Boom Balloon to play at my house. I think the adults had more fun than the 7-year-old.
But I also have to tell you about the funniest instructions I have ever seen in my life. Ikea needs to take note so I will say less curse words when I'm assembling their products.
Santa had given the daughter a Barbie Dreamhouse. It is gigantic. I think it's 3 stories tall, has two or three elevators in it, etc. And here are some instructions that were included with it (those white sticks go with the Boom Boom Balloon game - they have nothing to do with Barbie and her ridiculous house):
I know you can't read the instructions in that little picture, so Imma type 'em out for y'all nicely right now:
1. Congratulations! You are the lucky owner of a genuine Barbie Dreamhouse!
2. Follow these simple instructions for hours....that is, hours of fun!
3. Don't get discouraged. Tell yourself you can do this? [Yes, it has a question mark.] Focus, focus, focus.
4. Keep breathing. It's just a few pieces....
5. Now apply 1,000 stickers.
Piece of cake! Wasn't that fun?
And that right there is why I'm simultaneously very sad and ecstatic that I have no kids and thus no reason to assemble gigantic toys for Christmas each year.
The daughter bonded with my mom in a major way over Hedbandz and Boom Boom Balloon and then she invited my mom to come back from Texas in March to attend her 8th birthday party. They then decided it should be a Texas themed party and no one will be allowed in unless they are wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. I have a hat but no boots and I'm a giant and it's very hard to find boots for big calved people so I may have to paint boots on the bottom of my pants or something.
This all inspired the daughter to run to her room and change into jeans, a shirt, a denim vest, cowboy boots, and a hat.
And that's when the dancing started. She danced with her mom. She danced with my mom. She danced with her dad. She danced with an annoying guy who hangs out with us a lot. She danced alone.
And that's what made me ask my neighbors to put on their Billy Joel CD so they could sing their duet for us. Because they love to sing a duet to this song:
They play piano together while they sing their duet. And sometimes they play a horn:
And sometimes they just sing their hearts out with balloon people and chocolate chip cookies from a pizza restaurant on the table:
And then their daughter went and grabbed a guitar and joined them:
And then she played a guitar solo for all of us:
And this is the story of why I adore my neighbors more than a person should adore their neighbors.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Just another crazy night in the 'hood.
I'm still alive. I think. IT HAS BEEN A CRAZY TWO WEEKS THOUGH, Y'ALL.
I was on vacation the week of Christmas through today. I had internet issues and my laptop seems to be fried so I didn't blog. Now I'm back at work, trying to get caught up and I hope my life regains some semblance of normalcy again.
The past couple of weeks has involved gobs of family drama and gobs of 16-year-old-my-life-sucks-even-though-I-thought-I-was-in-love-and-already-had-my-entire-life-planned-out-drama (from my niece) which I can't talk about on here even though it took up about 464975613168797846431 hours of my life and aged me by many years. And now I am having a I-thought-I-knew-more-about-life-and-was-smarter-and-more-mature-than-this drama filled morning because of a stupid thing someone posted on Facebook earlier which I also don't want to talk about but I have sent a very pissy email to someone this morning already. And gawd, isn't it time for my lunch break yet? Because then I will be away from my computer and can't send any more emails I might later regret. My neighbor saw it too and sent me a private message and invited me over to drink wine at 11:45 a.m. But damn it, I'm at work.
My mom and her husband were at my house for a week. He did some of this:
It was a fine dining sort of evening is what it was. We might as well have been at the Ritz Carlton or the local uppity country club we were so classy that night. Wine through a colander, runny frozen mashed potatoes, and burned vegetables. Don't be jealous we didn't have enough to share, y'all.
After we made it through all of that, we played hand and foot for hours. My brother left my house around 12:30 a.m. and my mom's husband debated moving their car back in my driveway off of the street. I strongly advised him to do so, he still debated, my mom advised him to do so, he still debated, and finally he decided to wise up and listen to us and he moved their car back in my driveway.
Turns out it's a good thing he listened to us because something crazy happened in my 'hood about an hour later. Only we were all in bedrooms on the back of my house and never heard a thing.
The next morning my mom's husband was going to run up to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things we had forgotten and he came back inside after only a couple of minutes and said, "Um, girls. You were right. It's a good thing I moved the car last night. I was parked right behind your neighbor's car and their car got smashed. It's destroyed front and back. The entire back windshield is gone."
We walked outside and this is what it looked like:
That bluish stuff all over the street is the remains of his back window.
OMG. There are three people renting the house next door. It's a super long story as to why they are temporarily without a driveway and have to park on the street right now. I am friends with the owners of the house so I texted the wife to let her know what had happened as I was sure she would hear about it. A little while later I walked back outside to take these photos so I could show her how bad it was. There are two guys and a girl who are renting the house and the girl happened to be walking outside when I went back out. Their names start with J, A, and M so I'm going to call them my jam neighbors from now on. The black car belongs to A. He was in California when this happened.
M, the girl was outside so I asked her what in the world had happened. She asked if we had heard anything and I told her I wasn't sure how, but no, we didn't hear a thing. She went on to tell me that J had come home from work around 1:00 a.m. and he was awake but his room is on the back of the house like my bedroom is and he had not heard it either.
Her bedroom is on the front of their house and she heard a huge crash and A's car alarm went off so she screamed to J since A was out of town and told him someone had just hit A's car. They ran downstairs and out the front door and the girl was still on the scene but trying to pull away so they got her tag number, then jumped in M's car and followed her. The girl who did this lives right down the street somewhere so they followed her into her driveway and she jumped out of the car and ran inside her house.
M and J called the cops, obviously.
The reason they jumped in M's car is because J's car had also been smashed to smithereens. He had moved it to a street around the corner by the time I was out there the next morning so I haven't seen his car, but apparently his axle is cracked, his tires are all pigeon-toed, and his car is not able to be driven either. They said the girl's car was in really bad shape too and they were shocked she was able to drive down the street.
My immediate assumption was that she was drunk.
She wasn't.
Y'all, this is so crazy. The girl had caught her husband with another woman. She attacked the other woman. The other woman pepper sprayed the girl, she then jumped in her car and drove off with pepper spray in her eyes so she couldn't see anything and tried to drive home. She rammed into the back of A's car (the one in the photos), it shoved his car forward about 10 feet she hit it so hard, it whacked into the back of J's car, and then she drove home.
The cops had already been called by the husband and the other woman and they were looking for this girl because they knew she was a danger. So then my jam neighbors called them to tell them what she had done and when they arrived at the girl's house she was standing at her kitchen sink washing out her eyes. And she was arrested. Amen. That girl's Christmas and New Year had to suck though.
Later that day, A's mom came over and she and J borrowed my broom and dustpan and swept up all of the glass so I talked to them about it some but they really had nothing new to add to the story. I'm just glad my car was in my garage and my mom's husband wised up and moved their car off the street.
The owner of the house texted me a couple of days later and she said she drove by to see the car and she couldn't believe how much worse it is in person than in the photos.
Okay y'all, it's time for me to go eat lunch. You will just have to wait to hear the rest of the crazy of my week (hosting my family Christmas and having to make two different Christmas meals even though I swore I would never do that again, the mall the day after Christmas, my internet and television debacle, a trip to Athens, etc.). I was sick for the past 5 days and have hardly eaten. But today I'm starving. Oh, it was a peaceful vacation as you can tell.
I was on vacation the week of Christmas through today. I had internet issues and my laptop seems to be fried so I didn't blog. Now I'm back at work, trying to get caught up and I hope my life regains some semblance of normalcy again.
The past couple of weeks has involved gobs of family drama and gobs of 16-year-old-my-life-sucks-even-though-I-thought-I-was-in-love-and-already-had-my-entire-life-planned-out-drama (from my niece) which I can't talk about on here even though it took up about 464975613168797846431 hours of my life and aged me by many years. And now I am having a I-thought-I-knew-more-about-life-and-was-smarter-and-more-mature-than-this drama filled morning because of a stupid thing someone posted on Facebook earlier which I also don't want to talk about but I have sent a very pissy email to someone this morning already. And gawd, isn't it time for my lunch break yet? Because then I will be away from my computer and can't send any more emails I might later regret. My neighbor saw it too and sent me a private message and invited me over to drink wine at 11:45 a.m. But damn it, I'm at work.
My mom and her husband were at my house for a week. He did some of this:
I don't think Bailey was happy about having to share her sofa. But she didn't poop or pee on him thankfully. She just glared with her laser eyes.
On the Monday night before Christmas, I decided to make a nice dinner for my family since I don't cook. It was a pork tenderloin from Trader Joe's which is already seasoned and I just had to stick it in the oven. And I made some sauteed vegetables and I kind of burned them. And we had frozen mashed potatoes from Trader Joe's which actually tasted good but my mom made them and added too much liquid so they were runny. It was an awesome dinner as you can tell. My brother drove about 30 minutes from his house for this delicious meal.
They were all drinking wine and my brother broke the cork so we put a coffee filter down on the counter to catch spills, and strained the wine through a colander and this is what it looked like when we were pouring fancy glasses of wine at my house:
After we made it through all of that, we played hand and foot for hours. My brother left my house around 12:30 a.m. and my mom's husband debated moving their car back in my driveway off of the street. I strongly advised him to do so, he still debated, my mom advised him to do so, he still debated, and finally he decided to wise up and listen to us and he moved their car back in my driveway.
Turns out it's a good thing he listened to us because something crazy happened in my 'hood about an hour later. Only we were all in bedrooms on the back of my house and never heard a thing.
The next morning my mom's husband was going to run up to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things we had forgotten and he came back inside after only a couple of minutes and said, "Um, girls. You were right. It's a good thing I moved the car last night. I was parked right behind your neighbor's car and their car got smashed. It's destroyed front and back. The entire back windshield is gone."
We walked outside and this is what it looked like:
OMG. There are three people renting the house next door. It's a super long story as to why they are temporarily without a driveway and have to park on the street right now. I am friends with the owners of the house so I texted the wife to let her know what had happened as I was sure she would hear about it. A little while later I walked back outside to take these photos so I could show her how bad it was. There are two guys and a girl who are renting the house and the girl happened to be walking outside when I went back out. Their names start with J, A, and M so I'm going to call them my jam neighbors from now on. The black car belongs to A. He was in California when this happened.
M, the girl was outside so I asked her what in the world had happened. She asked if we had heard anything and I told her I wasn't sure how, but no, we didn't hear a thing. She went on to tell me that J had come home from work around 1:00 a.m. and he was awake but his room is on the back of the house like my bedroom is and he had not heard it either.
Her bedroom is on the front of their house and she heard a huge crash and A's car alarm went off so she screamed to J since A was out of town and told him someone had just hit A's car. They ran downstairs and out the front door and the girl was still on the scene but trying to pull away so they got her tag number, then jumped in M's car and followed her. The girl who did this lives right down the street somewhere so they followed her into her driveway and she jumped out of the car and ran inside her house.
M and J called the cops, obviously.
The reason they jumped in M's car is because J's car had also been smashed to smithereens. He had moved it to a street around the corner by the time I was out there the next morning so I haven't seen his car, but apparently his axle is cracked, his tires are all pigeon-toed, and his car is not able to be driven either. They said the girl's car was in really bad shape too and they were shocked she was able to drive down the street.
My immediate assumption was that she was drunk.
She wasn't.
Y'all, this is so crazy. The girl had caught her husband with another woman. She attacked the other woman. The other woman pepper sprayed the girl, she then jumped in her car and drove off with pepper spray in her eyes so she couldn't see anything and tried to drive home. She rammed into the back of A's car (the one in the photos), it shoved his car forward about 10 feet she hit it so hard, it whacked into the back of J's car, and then she drove home.
The cops had already been called by the husband and the other woman and they were looking for this girl because they knew she was a danger. So then my jam neighbors called them to tell them what she had done and when they arrived at the girl's house she was standing at her kitchen sink washing out her eyes. And she was arrested. Amen. That girl's Christmas and New Year had to suck though.
Later that day, A's mom came over and she and J borrowed my broom and dustpan and swept up all of the glass so I talked to them about it some but they really had nothing new to add to the story. I'm just glad my car was in my garage and my mom's husband wised up and moved their car off the street.
The owner of the house texted me a couple of days later and she said she drove by to see the car and she couldn't believe how much worse it is in person than in the photos.
Okay y'all, it's time for me to go eat lunch. You will just have to wait to hear the rest of the crazy of my week (hosting my family Christmas and having to make two different Christmas meals even though I swore I would never do that again, the mall the day after Christmas, my internet and television debacle, a trip to Athens, etc.). I was sick for the past 5 days and have hardly eaten. But today I'm starving. Oh, it was a peaceful vacation as you can tell.
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