Well hello there.
Long time no see.

I really want to type "things have been crazy here and there is just no time to blog", but when people write that I roll my eyes.  So I won't do it here.

Even though I really want to.

***

Work has been wild, but steady.  For me.  Not so much for a lot of people I work with.  There is a huge scramble all over the place these days.  Lots of layoffs and funding cuts and big changes in all the little places.  It's scary.  Philadelphia, and social services in particular, were hit with job losses but no where near what seems to be going on in other places.  It's catching up with us though.

***

Remember how I kept trying to get you guys to move two doors down from me?  Too late.  The house sold, finally.  The old owner was asking 240K for it, I wonder how much she got.  You know I'll be scanning the real estate stats for details.  The seller paid 158 for it in 2005.  I'm guessing she may have at least sold it for 200, the house is almost 1000 square feet, so that would be about fair.  It's nice to know that the housing market is still relatively stable in these parts.  By the way, in the early 2000s, houses were going for around 50 or 60K in my neighborhood.  Shame I didn't buy then, but it wasn't as nice then either.  Just lots of old people and their punk ass middle aged kids still living with them.  When we bought the house in 2005, we paid more than 120K more than the people who we bought it from paid in 2001.  And we stole that house.

I love the way the world works some times.  The good thing is (wait until you hear how good this is) that the lady we bought it from came down with a nasty case of crippling lupus right around when her daughter had a baby with Downs Syndrome and there was some other family crisis she didn't feel comfortable sharing over the closing table.  So her and her boyfriend really needed to get out of a two story house and move in with the daughter to help out with all of the grandkids while her daughter took care of her new baby's needs.  So hopefully all that money went to a good place.  Hopefully.

***

What else?  I'm reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Trying to read it.  I'm not loving it, and I'm wondering if this is a boybook.  I feel the same way I did when I tried to read stuff by Tom Clancy.  Not that I like any romance or whatever in my books, but I hate financial scandals (and war details).  I just zone out.  I'll keep reading since this is, like, totally the trendiest book in America right now. 
You know, I found five different printings of the books when I went to the bookstore on Friday.  The hardback, of course.  And then four paperback versions, ranging in price from $19.95 down to $7.95.  The difference was in the quality of paper and the size of the page.  The $7.95 copies were on the regular shelf, the more expensive ones were showcased on endcaps and table displays.
I'm finding that the same is true for the John Irving books I'm reading.  I haven't paid more than $7 for any of them yet.

I should just get my lazy arse over to the library.  But when I love a book, I like to pass it on and I've found that the library isn't too keen on me lending their stuff out.

***

Jake went to the dentist today.  He got the all clear and I felt like the World's Best Mom for twenty minutes.  Brushing is of prime importance to me, so I'm glad it's paying off.

***

I've been having dreams about you guys.  Well, not all of you, and I'm certainly not going to tell which ones of you, but lots of you are major players in my night vision.  And to narrow it down, I haven't been dreaming of anyone I know in real life.  It's nothing weird or sexy or anything.  Just us doing normal stuff.  BBQing, shopping, sitting the kids down and watching a movie.

***

I really want to thank all of you who donated to the PHIT theater.  I was totally riveted when I saw a few names up there that I knew from blogging.  I need to expand my vocabulary for saying thank you, because I don't have the words to say how much it means to me that you guys do a little somethinsomethin just because I toss the idea up here.

That said, the campaign is still going on and even though we've surpassed our goal, we are pushing forward.  The actual fund raising effort goes through December, this is just the first phase of it all, and if the theater raises $50,000 an anonymous donor has promised to match it.  I heard that this was the most popular theater project ever on Kickstart (the Amazon fueled host that is keeping track of the contributions) and I think the most popular comedy project too.

It's awesome because  you can pledge as little as a dollar, and just by doing that you make the project more popular because it counts names as well as dollar amounts.  It's also awesome because you get something in return for your donation.  Whether it's a name plaque for $10 or a toilet in your honor for $750 (god I want a toilet in my honor) you get something.  So, yeah.  Toilets.

Thank you.

And if you find yourself with a surplus of cash for some reason, check it out:


I gave a few dollars when the project started with the intention of either taking another class this summer or giving the cash to the cause.  Well, I'm not taking the class because I've already had the teacher before- I like to mix it up- and the class starts a half hour after my team practice and it's in another part of town.  But now I'm thinking of all the other things I could do with that cash, so I'm a little torn.  But I promised myself.  But I can use it somewhere else.  But I promised myself.  But I can use it somewhere else.

It's hard to be charitable.

***

So, a few weeks ago I started a Flickr stream for Oh, the Urbanity! because my blog kept getting full (Picasa only lets you put so many pictures up).  Not twenty minutes after I opened the account and posted pictures- before I even told anyone about the thing- I got a comment on one of the pictures. 

The comment said?

"nice pic.  that's my house."

holycrapholycrapholycrap.whatnow?

So I went to that person's photos and said something like "thanks, I do this thing where I take pictures of interesting things all over town and put them on the internet and if you don't want that up there I'll take it down I just thought it looked cool and by the way, if that's your house then I'm your neighbor". 

I freaked because I've never gotten caught taking a picture and I've certainly never been called out on the internet as taking a picture of someone's something or other.  I also freaked because I thought that house was empty, but in this dude's photos, it shows him and his lady doing work on the house for the past few years. 

And to make a weird story weirder, I actually saw the guy and his girlfriend on the street that same day, and they were talking to my neighbor that I hate, but I wanted to introduce myself.  And that went well.  Even the part about me telling the girlfriend that I took pictures of her scaffolding and put them on the internet and her boyfriend found them and sent me an email saying so.

Awkward.

At least it was just some scaffolding and not something I was making fun of them about that got some comments making even more fun of them.

At least that.

***

 

I think that just about covers it.  Blah blah work.  Blah blah kid.  Oh, Father's Day.  That happened.  So did Mother's Day last month.  Fake holidays are so effing stupid.  But we did bake a cake both days.  Jake picked the types of cake for each.  Mother's Day was a white poke cake with strawberry jello topped with Dream Whip and  sprinkles (even those little silver bb ones!  I love those, and found them after a decade-long search that ended at the Reading Terminal.  Of course.  All food searches come to an end there) and Father's Day was a strawberry cake with white icing and chocolate chips sprinkled on top.  It's way too intense for me.

Jacob can write his name now (JAcob, he doesn't get the lowercase thing, and doesn't want to stop making capital A's) so it's adorable to see him sign the "card" which for Father's Day was a piece of typing paper with DAD jakewritten on the front, a bunch of stuff that Jacob dictated to me that I handwrote and Jake's signature.  Cute.  Now Dave has to find a place to put it, because there is nothing worse in the world than throwing out a piece of paper that your kid wrote all over.

Especially when your kid is a trashpicker and catches you every time.