crossthreaded

I saw this Volkswagen Bug the other day that I can’t stop thinking about. It was one of the new ones, all silvery grey. This little car has adopted the best of the Honda racing world and that of muscle cars, or at least it tried.

I‘ve seen Civics with shopping cart handles and huge tailpipes that make them sound like mutant bumblebees. I’ve seen Chevelles and Camaros with dual exhaust and way bigger engines that, to me, just sound awesome. And then there was this little Bug with a big tailpipe. That is funny in and of itself. This isn’t some race Beetle from the ’70’s. This is a modern-day, bumblebee Bug.

The best part was the accompanying bumper sticker. All it said was Flowmasters. Perfect.

I suppose that there are very good reasons for FHA loans to have the maintenance and care standards that they do. For one thing, if a house is dilapidated, a person who is a first-time home buyer likely won’t have the money to fix it up. That can bring property values in the area down.

Something I’m learning, however, through the process of our home buying experience is that houses that first-time home buyers can afford are ones that need a lot of work. We keep running into the worry that FHA won’t approve a loan on a house that we like because the paint on the house might have lead in it, or the roof or heating systems need to be replaced/significantly repaired. I don’t want to move into a dump, granted, but it’s still frustrating that we can’t find a place to live that’s our own that we can afford for having to worry about whether or not our loan will be approved.

I work at a non-profit and my husband isn’t a corporate climber, either, so we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, it seems. Houses in the price range we can afford in this state are generally in need of a lot of repair and in, to quote our realtor, “dicey” neighborhoods. We lived in Texas before moving here, and it’s amazing the difference in what you can buy for the same amount of money between the two states.

We found a great little, Victorian house in town to buy. It was within our price range, but all of the down payment and closing costs would have stretched us pretty thing financially. The backyard was beautiful, with fruit trees and flowering bushes. There were wood floors, too.

The owner counteroffered and wanted an answer from us by noon today. We were going to have to work with our banker and realtor to figure out some last minute changes to the offer they made. Between all of the back and forth negotiating and the stress this house would put on our finances, coupled with some health issues we’re working through at the moment, we decided last night to forego this beautiful little home. It’ll be good for someone else, Lord willing.

So, we keep looking and hope that God throws the perfect house and opportunity into our laps.

We are still looking for a house to buy. We looked at one on Monday that was built in 1910, and it’s only 900 square feet. I adore the Victorian look it has, along with it’s original wood trim around the doors and windows. The backyard is huge, and it was supposedly landscaped by a master gardener. It has wood floors, too!

On the back side of the house, however, up high near the roof, there is a section of what you might think to be some siding painted blue. The blue is very bright, like the sky this time of year. The pictures make it look fine and well done. Up close, however, the siding magically disappears into a few rows of asphalt shingles put up on the side of the house, slathered in that bright blue paint. Creative and resourseful, that’s all I have to say.

I wouldn’t have thought that you could take the face from a dead person and put it on what is left of the face of another person that used to have one. Apparently, I am a bit behiand the times. This has been done four or five times already.

One of the latest ones occurred at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where a lady whose face was shot off with a shotgun by her husband received a face transplant. She’s undergone 30 or more surgeries, had several skin grafts from her thighs, and even had part of a rib removed to build her a new jawbone.

Can you imagine what she must have gone through? The simple answer is probably, “No.” Her husband then proceeded to shoot himself after he tried to take her out. God does do some amazing things. This whole procedure is a modern-day miracle. This woman can now breathe on her own now that she actually has a nose, and she can also taste cookies and pizza again!

Read here for more information: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090506/twl-shotgun-face-transplant-unveiled-41f21e0.html

I’ve looked at 7 houses in this town, and not one of them is one that doesn’t require a lot of work or one that we want to put a lot of work into. I think the situation revolves around the fact that we are looking in a very low budget range for housing in this area.

Still, we’re waiting for the “moment” when we both know that this is home, even if carpet, other flooring, trim, and paint all need to be changed. I think I am anxious to get into a home of our own, but I know at the same time that if we get something we both don’t love, we’ll be stuck with it for a long time. That doesn’t sound appealing either.

Blessedly, our landlord will let us go month to month on our rent when our lease is up. That will give us a little more time.

It’ll be a wonder if this market ever turns around, given that there are people like me that want a house, but can’t afford it (and don’t qualify for much of anything in the way of special housing programs).

I’ve come to the conclusion that dog parks really don’t serve much of a purpose. My dog is a lazy bum, and I think he spends a good portion of his time at the park under our feet, laying down and panting.

I guess dogs are initially excited when they run through the gate of the park. They sniff each other in places they shouldn’t and have a jolly good time doing so. Then they bark and pounce around a lot, maybe sending out a yip or two.

Our dog chased the tennis ball a couple of times tonight when we took him to the park, but I don’t think he was that into it, really. Sometimes, he just lays down and shreds a stick into toothpicks. He’s good at that, and I believe that that is his favorite past time by far.

Now, he’s laying on the floor, exhausted and silent. That might mean that dog parks really do serve a purpose. He’s not under my feet, putting his toy in my lap to throw against the wall of our apartment.

I learned a lot about the uvula last week. Unintentional though it was, I am quite proud of my new-found knowledge of this little-known part of my body. It seems that the thing can cause quite a bit of trouble, too.

I was happily snoring the other night, flat on my back, trying to re-create the deafening sound of a freight train in my room. All of a sudden, I woke up, feeling like I was choking, like there was something caught in my throat. IThis has happened once before, but it was years ago. It felt like I needed to cough something up, and, when I looked in the mirror at the inside of my mouth, I could see whatever it was staring at me at the back of my mouth.

My lymph nodes swelled up some, it hurt to swallow. . .I wasn’t sure what was going on. I called the 24-hour nurse from my insurance company, and she thought I was having some sort of an allergic reaction to something, and her ultimate decision was to tell me to go to the emergency room.

I did a quick WebMD search while I continued to feel choked from the inside, and I found everything from evil bacterial infections to allergic reactions as being the possible cause of my unhappiness. There were pictures of inflamed uvulas, or the hangy-ball things at the back of my throat on my computer screen, but not much else to tell me that that was my problem or why it might be so.

So, I go to the emergency room at 1:20 a.m. and stay there until about 3:40. The final result? I snore, and it made the uvula swell up like an old bullfrog.

Have you ever had one of those weeks, days, hours that just never seems to go quite right? Like you’re just waiting for the next big problem to pop its head out of nowhere?

This week has proven to be such a one. I haven’t seen things this way in some time. I guess my little happy bubble just got burst. In reality, there’s nothing that wrong. I’m still well, able to write, able to do the things that I want. That is all a bunch of blessings I just want to selfishly skip over in order to complain, I think.

My significant other is away for work right now, I ended up in the emergency room the other night because I snore (Don’t even ask.), I locked myself out of the house when I was trying to go to the library to check out the movie “Aladdin” while I recovered from the emergency room visit the next day, then there was a blizzard yesterday (No problems other than a lot of snow! Yeah!), and today was awful at work.

So now that I got that out of my system, I’m going to watch another movie and chill for the next two days in my apartment with my dog and be happy. I did get an $8.96 Schlotzsky’s turkey sandwich, root beer, and a bag of chips to make it all better for my dinner tonight.

I felt sort of like I was entering the opening scene of one of the old “Planet of the Apes” movies. The Salt Lake was laid out flat and dull grey in front of me, and there were distant snow-capped mountains sort of hovering on the horizon. The sun was out, and there were lots of people out on the water in their sailboats. It still felt a bit desolate and eerie.

I saw the flagpole near the marina with the concrete cylinder at the bottom, holding the pole and keeping it from falling over. Salt Lake 2002 and the five Olympic rings were imprinted on the concrete base. The flag pole was a bit rusty at the bottom, and the concrete itself showed signs of, well, runny rust and sitting very close to the Lake, which is five times saltier than the ocean. Only little brine shrimp can survive. It was something left over from ages ago, it seems. The Olympics were only seven years ago, but I felt like I was looking at it in the year 2150, or something.

Now, pan the camera out to focus on the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and you have the right idea. The American flag was still flying at the top of the pole, though, so that helped bring me back to the here and now.