rooms

this is our old house. i do miss it. good old house. multicare (which incidentally employs both kara and me) was after us for months, wanting to buy it, finally we let them. they're just going to tear it down. pave paradise, as joni has said, and put up a parking lot. not that it was quite paraside, as our neighbors to the left (from your point of view) were hellacious and obscene white trash beasts. and from the big front window we had a smashing view of multicare's speech & hearing clinic.

but it is a great house. a built-in sideboard, built-in bookshelves ... i miss that stuff. all the windows (but for two) have the original glass (from circa 1926). there are orignal sconces on the walls. there's the original octupus furnace in the basement, powered by nothing but gravity. there's a coal room in the basement too, complete with coal! a picture rail, a plate rail, me oh my.

not that i'm totally down on our current digs. this house is a good house. also old, actually even older. 1900. but it's been stripped, don't you know. very few of the original features remain. there is something to be said for modernization. our heating system here is more efficient than that octopus. the electricity and plumbing have been updated. there are more outlets in this house than in that. and of course the location is considerably better. but it does lack charm.

kara's cousin lexie (hey! she's my cousin too!) is visiting us from texas, staying a week. we took her to see the old homestead yesterday. she kept stomping her feet on the floor and saying how solid it was! they don't build houses like this any more. these days they're all prefab and boxy and heinous. then we did a spot of shopping. lexie's great; it's good having her here. it's too bad i have to go to work tomorrow!
lexie has been talking to us about rooms. as children, many of us have our own room. as we grow old, we get more rooms, in apartments and houses. then the number of our rooms reduces again as, at the end, we wind up in extended care facilities or hospital rooms. "you're going to end up in a room," says lexie. lexie has these things on her mind; she's had an inconceivably traumatic time these last several months.

there's a big storm going on right now. mostly wind, a bit of (wait for it) rain. the windows rattle. i think we'll stay in today. make a fire in the woodstove. cook up some chili.

big news! cheerier news! our tickets for ira glass and julia sweeney arrived in the mail yesterday. they'll be together on stage at the paramount in seattle on may 6 (happy birthday, mom!). we're going! back to seattle! we love ira! we're thinking of doing another two-night thing, sort of an early my-birthday celebration thing (my birthday's may 13).

i'll be looking into hotel rooms in the next few days.