Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Our House In the Middle of Our Street

My darling isn't quite sure what to make of it and neither am I. This evening when I came home from work I was swirling, singing, smiling... oh fuck it... I'm on top of the world since I got my new job.

I'm not used to being this happy.

The only drawback to my new job so far is that I have less time for blogging and today I noticed that someone other than me has been using up my sugar free hazelnut flavored coffee creamer that I put in the fridge at work. I wrote my name on it in big bold letters with a purple Sharpie and put it in the fridge last Thursday and I swear that half of it is gone already. Next time I'm going to pull off the wrapper so that it's not readily apparent what it actually is and write "breast milk" on it. Or maybe "goats milk" -

Hmmm, I wonder, what's more repulsive to an office grocery thief?

It would be pretty funny for someone to come into the break room and see me pour liquid from a container that says "breast milk" into my coffee now wouldn't it?

Yes.

Breast milk it is.

If the pinched faced mousy lady who always wears a beret and has admonished me for forgetting to wear my ID badge happens to walk in to witness this I may just have to ham it up for her and start chugging it from the bottle until it's running down my chin and I have a fake breast milk mustache.

Anyhoo... my husband and I were talking about my sudden, and well deserved, mood upswing tonight and I officially decreed that this is the happiest that I have been in 4 years. Basically until a month ago I've been a miserable wretch since we moved to Michigan.

Less so since I quit my job and made some friends here locally and now suddenly since I've found a normal, non-traveling, work with people job I'm so happy that I come home in the evening singing and doing soft shoe numbers? How weird is that?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I still loathe it here and want nothing more than to go back in time and somehow change things around so that my husband wasn't transferred and that we never had to leave our beautiful home, in our fantastic neighborhood that was so close to all of our old friends.


The longer were are here the less I mind being here, but there are some things that I still miss so much that it is painful.

Now that I have found some happiness in this place I have for the first time begun to think that possibly we could be happy if we stayed here awhile longer. Possibly.

Also, although it needs some work and I bitch about that stupid, useless, broken hot tub, I really do like our house. It's big and pretty and has a lot charming features like built in bookcases, crown molding and pocket doors.

On the other hand this house needs some serious work:
The foundation is fucked up
The windows need re-glazed
We need a new furnace before next winter
The roof has some kind of bizarre algae growing all over it

Thinking about being happy here made think about what made me happy there and I thought that maybe you would like to see some pictures of what I miss - so I've interspersed this post with pictures from our old house and some people I love who were in it with us for my 36th birthday party.

Missing the last 4 years of watching my best friend Amy's daughter grow up is a big part of why I miss home. My girl just turned 12. I can hardly believe it! She gets taller and more grown up every time I see her. The kid has got legs for days.

I miss my blindingly bright yellow kitchen that always seemed to be filled with friends happily eating my food.

I miss the tall ceilings and general quirkiness of our old crazy house. We called it "charm", but it really amounted to several generations of bad remodeling jobs.
So the old house that I was so nostalgic about needed a lot of work too. We were planning to gut the kitchen (which was why I painted it such a whacky fun color), and blow out the entire back of the house and build an addition and build a garage with a one bedroom apartment on top.












I also miss The Drexel movie theater. It's where I saw well... everything -

If I were going to start a business in this community (I am not) it would be a great independent movie theater, modeled after the Drexel from back home.

13 comments:

WendyB said...

Happiness? I approve!

Anonymous said...

I have been pretty happy since I started the new job as well. Looks like we both drank from the same fountain of new job mojo back a month and a half ago. But, though happy, nobody will catch me doing soft-shoes and singing little ditties.

I fear putting my Vitamin Water in the work fridge. The office has 450 people in it, there has to be a grocery glommer in the place.

Tara said...

Great post, I love that you come home singing after a day of work! That is a good sign. :)

That was a beautiful house you had, it makes me miss my childhood home. It too had problems with it, but I have more happy memories from it than bad ones.

Claire said...

I'm glad you're feeling happy. My kitchen is almost, but not quite, that yellow, and I love it. Both of your houses look charming.

Anonymous said...

Happiness is a good thing...especially when it's kind of sudden and you can't really put your finger on why exactly you are happy.

Anonymous said...

I miss "home", too. I miss being close to family the older I get. I miss being closer to the girlfriends I've known the longest in my life. I miss where it is warm longer in the year than it is cold. I miss the south.

But I love all the friends from all over the world I've made in the different states that I've lives since moving away from home.

Dan said...

I personally would write "Hey, Fucknut, quit touching my milk!" on it, but that's me. Probably wouldn't make a good first impression on your new co-workers.

paperback reader said...

Happiness can only be expressed through the majesty of dance. Congrats!

Churlita said...

Good for you. I love it when people are happy. Although, I think I'd be happier if I didn't have to work...As long as I wasn't living under the rail road bridge.

Linka72 said...

I posted last year about a bitch, I mean lady from a different department, who TWICE ate my Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches..those things are expensive ya know. My co-worker watched her open "our" freezer, open the BRAND NEW box of them, heat one up and bound her fat ass back to her desk..huh?
I left a note in the box that said:
STEALING IS UGLY
She never touched them again.
Also, pubic hair sprinkled on your food item is just as effective..ask Clarence Thomas.

The Lady Who Doesn't Lunch: said...

WendyB - thanks! and it's about time too...

Evil - it's amazing how a little change of scenery and increased income can change a persons outlook.

Tara - I tend to sing a lot anyway, but not typically when arriving home from work in the evening.

CDP - I hated the layout of that kitchen and it only had one dreary little window so I gave it a shove toward happy with some gawd awful bright paint. The color was called Daisy Chain or something.

Silver N - I can put two fingers on it - I'm employed and leaving the house every day after almost a year of unemployed shut-in-dom.

Step - having made friends here now I feel a little guilty bitching about how badly I want to move back home and knowing that they read my blog. Can't help it, it's how I feel.

Dan - I would like to keep my job as long as possible. Besides they are all a bunch of non-cussing fucknuts. Hey Mr. DJ says "fudge" and "darn". I think he would keel over if he saw the word "fucknut" scrawled in Sharpie on my non-dairy creamer bottle.

Pistols - I am truly a sight to behold. Middle aged poetry in motion and would you believe that I've never had a lesson?

Churlita - I think the world would be a much better place if I could morph this feeling into tablet form and spike everyone's kool-aid.

Linka - having someone steal something that has my name on it is very weird. Hasn't happened since I had room mates. It's very distressing.

The Guv'ner said...

Man, your old yellow room was AWESOME. I'm all about colours in places. Down with white and beige. Colours are where it's at. For the record, your current abode looks lovely. And I'm glad you're getting happy in it.

Once again, that sentence sounds way dirtier than I'd planned.

Leonesse said...

This is an old post but I had to comment. I have been going through the same thing. If they are really, really going to clean up this town and get serious about it, I could be happy here. This town has the potential to be like Telluride or Park City, but nay, it is more like the backwoods of Mississippi.