it's hard to see, but imagine if you will...

the cat training arena will be in the upper left hand room, as seen without a wall here. the roof rafters are where we will hang the hobos in the drying process of my new brainchild: hobo-jerky (patent pending).

stairs to the top of the water slide! (currently, a tie vote has brought the entire water slide idea to a temporary, albeit screeching, halt.)

and a roof. yes, where the go carts and summer bible school classes will be.

before...

ahh. before. remember before? barely. flowers. green grass. my brain tells me it was pretty and clean and tidy. maybe not tidy, but perhaps whispers of organization.

next stop

so, we were finally booted out of our digs across the street from the job site. yes, the neighbors got paroled. we packed our bags and moved downtown to what i like to call some fancy ass high rise living. the walls are made of glass! there's a concierge! the air is circulated! garbage chute? yes! a garbage chute! and, as a bonus, there's no lawn to mow and no firewood patrol. let me back up. firewood patrol: where i wheelbarrow around the yard picking up scraps of lumber while at the same time making a number of highly-technical, potentially-critical wood decisions. a. is it plywood and is small enough to be recycled? b. is it plywood and big enough to be used for a picket sign in the future? c. is it burnable and can we use it this winter for firewood when the heat still isn't installed? d. is it pressure treated in which case using it as firewood would destroy 16% of my remaining brain cells? e. is that another splinter in my finger? f. i'm hungry. i wonder what we have for snacks in the makeshift kitchen.

it's hard. i'll be standing there with a piece of wood in my hand, running options a through q and joren will shout down, "Hey get a move on, wouldja, Sweetie?" so i do. sort of.

so, here we are. 15 floors up. almost in heaven, except we're still alive to enjoy it! no harps or wings, though. damn, i've always wanted a harp. AND there's a dollar store just out the front door! have you ever been? things are A DOLLAR. each. a modest sized bag of pork rinds? one dollar. really thin foil? one dollar. a bag of what i thought was shredded cheese, only to take it home and read on the packaging "not intended to be melted"? ONE DOLLAR. so, there you have it. we're officially fancy in the building right next to the dollar store. i'm going to get a roll of quarters this week to start tipping the guy who opens the front door for me every time i leave or come back from the dollar store. which is a lot.

and i'm not sure who's reading this, but it looks like at least 13 of you are followers. i'm going to say one word: lame. i'll be honest. i'm interested in creating a larger group of followers at this point in my life and i can promise you i'll be a dutifully irresolute leader. dithering with a hint of indecisiveness. hemming one day, hawing the next. vacillating constantly, unwaveringly ambivalent and accurate a solid 66% of the time. so think about it.

thoughtful joren

no no no. not that way. don't be ridiculous. not the flower-buying way. or the holding-doors-open way. i've given up on all that craziness. 16 or 17 dropped doors on a girl's head will knock those wacky aspirations loose for good.

exterior

wow! i know. the birch trees behind the house are com-pro-mised. some sort of a beetle infestation. dropping leaves everywhere. and who gets to rake them all up? who knows. maybe they'll blow away.

this is mostly where the gawkers stand. they shout things a lot and we pretend can't hear them over the noise of the compressor.

yesterday's conversation with a lady i don't know: her: "it sure looks big" me: "it's the same footprint of the old house." her: "well, it sure looks big." me: "it's got to be if all 16 of us are going to be living there."

lady's pie hole? closed for business.

upstairs

"in your face first floor! you look like an idiot!" the second floor seems to say.