In Which We're at Home with Nature's Architects

 

When I was just a young and impressionable peenee, I was presented with a diagram of a Beaver Lodge and I was instantly enchanted.  Yeah, I realize now it is dark and wet and muddy and cold and smells like stinky old beavers, but at the time, and even still, it seemed so cozy.  And it has secret entrances! What could be more cool? 

Since then I have fallen for other animal habitats that give off the same sense of a safe enclosure.  Surely I was not the only one to be disappointed to find out turtles don't wander around with an empty house on their back, but rather, a skeleton stuffed full of gooey organs.

Ditto snails.

Top of the charts of course are rabbit warrens.  Not just one hidden away snug little room, but an entire complex of them.  Nooks and crannies and rooms and hangout spaces.  Salons even.  All of it full of bunnies.  What could be better? 

So along has come the wholy misguided fascination with tiny homes.  They seem like something that would be right up mrpeenee's fascination with snug animal asylums, but oh nuh uh.  I am a tall guy and when I speak about having a roof over my head, I want it to be considerably farther over said head than these little toy houses allow. So you can keep your cramped little shacks.  I would rather live with the beavers.  

Guys I want to snuggle up with: 

So Merry Christmas to all you naughty pusses from mrpeenee and Sam Dekker.

I'm not going to even bother asking who's on the nice list because what are the chances with my readership?

I know perfectly well what would happen if some hairy old man appeared in the homes of you bitches. 

Steve Kelso, now with candy cane. 

I don't know who that sort of feral looking top guy might be, but that is our old favorite Jay Tee on cocksucking duty. 

Speaking of pornstars I can identify, here we have Jaxton Wheeler.  Look, I didn't misspell his stupid name, he just showed up with it like that.

And to, all a good night. 

But keep an eye out for Krampus.

A Master of Distraction

 So this is the moraine of paperwork on my desk I'd sworn to get to this evening; some of it goes back to December.  Taxes to file, bills to pay, snark to snark.  But first I had to find the camera to take a picture of it and then Saki wouldn't get off the chair and then I had to go get some cookies and then I remembered that when Secret Agent Fred and I were watching reruns of RuPaul's season 4 Drag Race, I had meant to find a picture of Fred's favorite member of their Pit Crew, Shawn Morales.

So obviously I had to get all that out of the way and now Saki is back demanding I make a lap for him to sit on.  Who knows if, or when, any of the paper beast will be tamed.

And once again, Saki commandeers the good chair.  Am I supposed to file taxes standing up?

In Which Cash is Dropped

Crepe myrtles, one of my favorite Southern flowers, in bloom

Attention, People of Earth:

So anyway, I got a charming postcard from an old friend (isn't that quaint?)  which reminded me I needed to attend to my own quaint writing medium and now here we all are.  Welcome back.

New Orleans?  Fabulous, darlings.  I swept through thrift stores,  junk malls, and Good Antique Shoppes with equal abandon, flinging the bucks like a drunk sailor in a cathouse.  mrpeenee's credit card has a new, possibly permanent dent in it, but it was worth it.

I found a beautiful big dining table with a huge dark green marble top, a pair of charming antique armchairs, reupholstered in a lovely grey and white stripe,  a couple of chest of drawers, a very pretty chandelier that will be much improved by having some of its fussier crystals removed, lamps and a vase.  I also met with the cabinet maker who's doing the kitchen and picked out the marble and tiles for the baths and the kitchen and the bricks for the patio.

Also, I got to see for the first time the couch I bought online.    Sweet.

Ooh, also, a lovely little drop leaf desk.  We must have seen fifty of them, or more.  Where on earth could they all have come from suddenly?

Chandelier in a box.  I rather like the minimalist implications, but I think I might hang it without the cardboard, what the hell.

My talent for arbitrary decisions stood me in good stead; I chose the bricks in under five minutes.  It probably took us longer to park.  I just don't see the point of dithering, especially over something like patio flooring.  I've discovered it seems so overwhelming when you're standing in the middle of eleventy million options, but then once they're installed you never critically look at them again.  After all, they're just bricks, or light fixtures, or faucets.  You see something you like, take it.  Perfection is not achievable, says the buddha.  Or mrpeenee.  One of us, anyway.

Quiet, please.  Can't you see tattoo buddha is taking a nap?

But that's only in person. I came home to nail down the bathtubs and sinks and stoves and whatnot online and once again the internet with its vast universe of choices reduced me to a blob of indecision.  Until, that is, I recalled how effective cutting myself off from porn until I at least picked out a goddam tub had been.

And it's a good thing naked muscly men are such an effective driver for me since renovation on the house has suddenly shifted into some kind of warp speed.  When I left there, all the interior walls had been ripped out and the floors in the bathrooms were nonexistent.  Now word reaches us framing has finished and walls are going up.  Hoo hoo!  Walls!  Floors! All kinds of cool house stuff.

Reporting Live from New Orleans, Part 2

Secret Agent Fred and I are back in New Orleans, living the high life.  Fred is, anyway.  We got here at midnight last night and he has already snagged more pussy than I have in the last three years.  Not that I mind, of course not.  One has to admire both his talent and his dedication.

The nominal reason for the trip is shopping; I have realized that if I wait until the house renovation here is finished and then try to fit out the whole place at once, I'd be just overwhelmed.  Plus I like decorating.  Also, I wanted some shrimp.

It seems our appearance brought with it a tremendous storm.  I grew up with these Gulf Coast downpours and even I am impressed.  And wet.  Fred wanted to know if I planned on going out tonight.  Go out in a drowning downpour to visit tired gay bars I didn't like that much thirty years ago? No thanks.

We stopped by my house to get a peek at the work wrought on it so far.  The roof has been replaced and all the nasty, stinky old plaster and lath walls have been ripped out, great progress.  Less thrilling was the revelation that termites had eaten so much of the studs, the only thing holding the whole place up was inertia and love of Baby Jesus.  The crew is just about finished with replacing all the studs in the house.

That means the roof, the wiring, the sill and all the interior walls of the house I bought three months ago are now gone, so what's left is pretty much the siding and the ground the place sits on.  This just in: some of the siding has to be replaced.    I'm beginning to believe that soon I will only own the concept of a house here.

On the bright side, Sister Mary Legs in the Air is leading a charge into renovation that is nothing short of inspiring.  When he's through with it, the whole place will be snug and solid.  And pretty much rebuilt from scratch.

Oh well, I am a mere vessel, facilitating the spread of Fred's slutty reign over New Orleans.  And I plan on shrimp for lunch tomorrow, so, you know, yay.

House Party

Oh, hello, there, how nice to see you again.  I had to dash off to New Orleans last week to meet up with the architect handling the plans of the renovation of my house there.  I was sort of dreading this, in part because my previous experiences with architects have been very much of the "I am an Ayn Rand sized diva and you had best watch out" type of soul withering punishment, and also because I assumed all the ideas I had for revamping the shabby little joint would be kicked to the architectural curb.

Instead, Katherine, Queen of Architects, was supportive and interested, complimentary about my ideas and made all of them work and improved even the most crack pot ones.

So now, demolition is proceeding with speed and my friend Stephen, who is running the project, and whom I think we can refer to as Sister Mary Legs in the Air from now on, is a genius.  He's very practical and so energetic about getting this crap done, I have to go lie down after watching him dervish around, ripping and tearing and nailing and all kinds of other butch things.

He and my friend Magda whipped up a pair of temporary gates from some scrap fencing in an afternoon.  This was after some riff raft had busted into the house the night I got in town, so some more secure access seemed like a good idea.

I also had dinner with Jason from Night is Half Gone who was down with pneumonia just a couple of weeks ago.  Everyone should go tell him they wish him well, although I have to say the whole story sounded suspect to me.  He just happens to have pneumonia the night my house is burgled and then is up to (not particularly outstanding) dinner and drinks on the town?  Hmmmm.

Anyway, photographic proof:

Before

After.  Or actually, during.  We'll see about after in a few months.

Also, Saki has sort of tentatively decided the cat tree is not an instrument of torture from the devil.  Sort of.  Yay.

Reporting Live from New Orleans

Secret Agent Fred and I are in New Orleans, The City that Care Forgot and the Quite a Few of Us Remember Fondly because I had to come here to buy my house (quaintly, everyone, sellers, buyers, agents, lawyers, hangers-on, and paparazzi for all I know, have to sit down together and have a big ol paper signing party) and to celebrate the madness of Mardi Gras.

The first part is nailed, I just got back from the closing and inspecting the house again.  The house is still quite charming, especially now that the hillbilly tenants are gone and the closing was most amusing.  One of the sellers was this vision in orchid/lavender/plum.  Her eye makeup, lip lacquer, jewelry, scarf, and pumps were an absolute purple symphony.  She wasn't just co-ordinated, it was more like some fashion cloning process.

It's thrilling ti be here talking with my friends Rich and Stephen, who will be handling the renovation for me, since they understand all my vague pronouncements about the changes I want, or at least pretend they do, and are generally able to avoid my sweeping hand gestures.  Photos to come.

Our first parade is Saturday night.  Fred's never seen one, so he's a virgin.  I'm sure it will be pretty hilarious, unless we all wind up in jail.  But isn't that always the way?

The House That Wouldn't Die

You remember I was trying to buy a house in New Orleans, but the deal went all to hell because the sellers were too greedy?  As I told them to get stuffed, I thought how gratifying it would be to have them come crawling back, the way you fantasize about the cute guy at the bar who rebuffs your very sensible suggestion that he allow you to spooge all over his face.

Imagine my surprise then when that's exactly what happened (the house, not the spooge faced cute boy.)  My realtor there (who I now think of as She Who Must Be Slapped) forwarded me an email from the sellers' agent asking if I'd be interested in trying again.  I should mention that I've been stalking this house online and I had seen it had gone into contract after I dropped out and then that fell through, so I'm assuming bitter experience made my offer look more appealing.

The final deal came out $15,000 more than I had offered, but that's still $37,000 less than they were asking so, yay, I win.  We're supposed to close on Feb. 21, fingers are crossed.

And speaking of my weasely agent, when I called him to say I would accept their offer, he attempted to cover his surprise by saying something like "I'm so glad I reached out to them for you."  Bitch, I saw the email from them, it was entirely their idea.  I realized when I first met him that I would eventually know the urge to hold him face down in a toilet, I just hadn't expected it come about so soon.

New Orleans, it's calling me.

Houseless

Oops, I forgot to mention after all the drama about trying to buy that house in New Orleans that it didn't work out.  Oops.  The rapacious sellers simply wanted too much money for a house equipped with an antique electrical system and plumbing that was essentially a bog.

I looked it up just now and it's back on the market with an increased price tag.  Wow,  just wow.  When I was considering it, the price they were asking was a chunk over comparable places in the neighborhood, so how they're justifying this is beyond me.  They do mention in the description it has "updated" plumbing, which I assume means they've patched up the sewer.

I'm still looking for a place there, but there's nothing on the market and probably won't be until after New Year's.

Maybe I'll just invest in muscular Australian youths.

Inspect This

So it all looked so innocent, just a shabby little house needing a little mrpeenee love and decorating to turn it into a swell New Orleans pied a terre.  And then came the inspection from hell.

In my post about buying the house, I mentioned I was going back for the inspection and that "unless it turns up a nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms, I'm set."  How was I to know that would wind up being pretty much the whole truth?

My realtor, my friend Stephen, who's going to be in charge of the reno, and I met up at place with the guys who would handle the inspection, a jocular gang and who rapidly confirmed all the worst fears a prospective home owner could have.

To wit:

The electrical system consists of the knob and tube wiring from when the house was built in the early 1900s.  When I enthused over all the original fixtures being preserved in the house, I meant the pocket doors, the charming transoms, the mantles and such, but certainly not the antique wiring.  Everyone meticulously avoided the term "firetrap" but it hung unspoken in the air.   So the entire electric system needs to be replaced.

The plumbing includes a gigantic crack in the downspout from the bathrooms so that sewage flushed from them simply gushes out onto the ground under the house.  Maybe that's what's kept the whole place from burning down in a tragic electrical fire.  Who knows?  I do know the plumbing has to be replaced.

The sellers had proudly advertised the roof as new, which is true.  Unfortunately, it was installed without the proper plywood decking under the shingles and tarpaper so it turns out to be more decorative than functional.  Roof, has to be replaced, got it.

By the time the inspector even mentioned the sill, which is the beam the house rests on above the foundation piers, I assumed it would have to go.  Sure enough, but just the back one, and about a third of one of the side ones.  All right!  Only thirty per cent of the foundation!   Score!

Oddly, I'm still interested in the house.  The realtor is supposed to meet with the sellers on Monday to hash out a deal where they come down enough on the price to cover the extensive repairs.  If they do, then at least I'll know all the systems in the place are new and as good as I want them to be.  If they don't, I'll walk away from the deal and call the health department on their sorry asses.  We'll see.

At least there wasn't any nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms.

Rats

Oh Blanche. You know we got rats in the cellar?

Last week, a quiet night perusing a selection of really useless web sites was interrupted by a racket downstairs.  I went to investigate and narrowed it down to a section of wall that encloses the pipes that go back up to my tasteful pink bathroom.  Creepy.

Saki, the fearless terror of everyone stupid enough to try and pet him, stood next to me with an air of polite interest, looking in the opposite direction of the brouhaha thumping away right next to us.  He seemed embarrassed for me.  "Hey do you hear something?   I think I'm going to go take a nap," was pretty much his entire contribution.

I set up an appointment with an exterminator, but it didn't take long after he showed up for me to start wondering if living with rodents wasn't maybe preferable.  He was probably normal as anyone you meet through a Google page in San Francisco (which isn't saying much,) but the longer he was here, the more erratic he became.  Sometimes he managed blandly chatty and sometimes he was flat with no affect at all.  It was like he'd read a book on how to make conversation but occasionally forgot parts of what he'd studied.

He insisted on a tour even though I told him I knew the rats were down in the furnace room.  When we finally fetched up there he pointed his little flashlight and said "See?  Droppings.  Vermin." as if I had been vigorously denying the very possibility all along.  I suppose it's not realistic to expect too much from someone whose title is Rat Guy, but still....

Yesterday, one of his minions (and think about Rat Guy Minion being your lot in life) showed up and turned out to be just as peculiar.  Again, we'd be talking along and it was like the frequency would sort of change.  "Hello?  Hello? You with me Rat Guy?"  Do you think they're drinking the stuff they're supposed to be spraying around?

He checked the traps and seemed crushed when they turned up empty.  I felt bad for him, as if I had personally let him down.  My rats were not cooperating.  I guess I should have stuck with him, but I snuck off to see if the internet had improved (it hadn't) and when I looked out the window he was up in the yard, spritzing poison around.  I certainly had not requested that ("You know what I would like?  Random toxins in my garden.  Yeah, that's the ticket.") but he seemed to feel better afterwards so I suppose I shouldn't be churlish.

He assured me he'd be back next week.  I hate to think I appear that needy.

In Which mrpeenee Hugs a Tree

Before I start whining again, let me clear up an earlier misunderstanding.  Last spring I wrote about the canyon I call home, including this shot of neighborhood eucalyptus,

and dear NormaDesmond commented something along the lines of being surprised since he thought I lived in San Francisco.  SIGH.  As a matter of fact, I live not only in San Francisco, but in the very center of it, geographically.  It just happens that my neighborhood is a huge canyon (the unimaginatively named Glen Canyon,) undeveloped except for the street I live on.  I suspect this represents real estate development shenanigans, but it's ok with me because I get to live like Lisa Douglas from Green Acres: a big city gal surrounded by greenery.

Anyway, I interrupted my demanding schedule of vicodin induced napping to bustle down to a meeting this afternoon at the Glen Canyon Rec Center (a Rec Center!  Complete with muscular young hooligans shooting hoops next door.) that had been called to protest over plans to cut down a bunch of the enormous eucalytus and other trees that fill the canyon.

San Francisco is a tiny peninsula wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the Bay with no rain nine months out of the year.  Before the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it had no trees, just windswept sand dunes and stunted scrub.  By the 1920's, agressive planting of eukes, cypress and pines in the parks and open spaces around town had helped alleviate that to a degree, but San Francisco still has one of the smallest surface areas covered by a tree canopy in America.  We have about 12 percent; not much more than Las Vegas, for christ sake, and far less than Houston's more than 30 per cent.

So it would seem like, with climate change looming, we would cling to each tree, tooth and nail.  Instead, the SF recreation and parks' Natural Areas Program pushed through city legislation to remove thousands of trees here to help restore the landscape to what it was originally.  Hard to argue with that, but I do because I do not think the trade off of all the trees is worth it.

The meeting was exactly what I expected, a roomful of old local hippies with a seasoning of crazy guys.  They're slated to start cutting trees in a couple of weeks and I don't know if this protest has any chance of working.

Again, sigh.

Why do I expect this is not what's in store?

Just Calm Down

I would just like to point out that even though I am the blogger who had to escape from a white trash childhood in Texas, it is my readers from presumably more civilized backgrounds and current locations who have so enthusiastically jumped on the "Kill the raccoons and eat them" bandwagon in my earlier Fucking Raccoons post.

Who knew I had a bunch of Jethro Bodine fans as commenters?

Also, this just in, if you Google "Shirtless hillbilly" in order to find an image to illustrate a post like this, you are going to be immersed in a universe of some really scary photos.  And also, Alexander Skarsgård, which is always welcome, but seems sort of unfair.

peenee Paint

In February, right after R Man died, I tackled painting the room upstairs we use as an office. I realize now it was grief triggered madness since I am, bar none, the worse painter in the world and should never be allowed near a brush that is not related to what little hair I have left. I understand this, and yet, this afternoon found me once again slinging latex and taking names. And not even a different room, but the same one I painted seven months ago.

Why? Well, yes, madness is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome, but besides that, it was the curtains. Earlier this year, I had some ravishing scarlet silk curtains made for our dining room. They're ravishing. People come over, see them and announce "I am ravished." Ravishing. But then I found an equally beautiful, dark magenta rug. Tragically, just like the tired old joke says, the rug and curtains did not match. Often I would come home to a strained, sullen silence in the dining room that let me know they had been squabbling again. I got new curtains last week, not as ravishing, but quite charming and capable of living with the rug.

I offered the scarlet curtains to Secret Agent Fred and as I was loading them into the car to take them over there, I was trying hard not to feel deprived. Fred is a good friend and deserved them, they'd be going to a good home and blahblahblah, but they're so pretty, it was hard to let go. Remember, ravishing? So when they turned out not to fit his windows., well, let's just say I was not conflicted about bringing them back.

What could I do? Giving them away was obviously going to bring on some kind of designer homo breakdown, but the only room that didn't already have curtains was the office. The lavender office. Lavender and scarlet. So very much not feeling the love there. Okay. Okay. Goodbye lavender, hello charcoal. Goodbye also to my vow to never, ever paint again.

Still, I've finished the first coat without killing myself , I should grind out the second one tomorrow morning in time for my chiropractor appointment in the afternoon (which I'll need,) and by this time on Thursday, I'll be al through. And I will never, ever, ever paint again. As god is my witness.

Rocky

Tomorrow is garbage day here in the beloved canyon mrpteene calls home, so that means tonight is Put the Goddam Trash Out Before Your Forget It Again night and all up and down the street the raccoons are singing their weekly songs of love and snack foraging. Have you ever heard raccoons? They make this weird, high-pitched chittering that sounds like when the aliens are chatting in some cheap sci-fi horror.

All of this winds Saki, the Evil and Adorable cat, into a frenzy, thrashing about the room claiming he can take those stupid critters, just let him at 'em. After about twenty minutes of this while I'm trying to concentrate on porn, I'm considering giving him his wish, but these raccoons are about five times as big as he is and fearless. Apparently that comes from living on a diet of tamales past their sell-by dates. I've seen these bad boys as I've been driving up to the house and I've been scared, in the car. They look like they know how to pick locks. If you want us, the houseboys and I will huddled in terror in the attic.

Break it down, houseboy, break it down.

Kichenless

Kitchen, before

Kitchen, during. Hopefully.

I decided to wrap up Gay Pride Week by renovating my kitchen. That's gay, right? Actually, the timing was my contractor's idea; he shows up when it's your turn in his schedule and you had better take it when you can get it.

So he blew in this morning and ripped everything out. Saki is not feeling the love about strangers banging around in his house and resents being locked in one room away from the action and temptingly open doors, even if it is the room he would be hiding in anyway.

I'm just replacing the counters, tiling the backsplash and having the cabinets stripped and re-stained. No new cabinets, no new floors, no new appliances. Still the whole thing will take the better part of a month which means on top of all the other "no's," no kitchen. The big holdup are the countertops. I'm having them made from the scraps left over from when they cut new granite counters. They grind up the scraps and mix it with resin and cast some obnoxiously eco-hip material. Apparently, it is then hand-polished by blind nuns who have taken vows of cabinetry, at least if the price is any indication.

Anyway, after today's demo there's a gap of a couple of weeks while it's being poured and set, so no kitchen for mrpeenee until the middle of July. Think Bastille Day. Already I hate living La Vida Sans Cochina. I had to empty all the cabinets and drawers last night and carefully set aside a bag of snack products to live on, which I promptly lost in the chaos.

I assume Saki and I will be fighting over the cat food soon.

Red Scare

When one is a middle aged homogay, there are times when the decorating sickness falls on one. There is nothing to be done, one must resign oneself to swatches. So let me tell you about my own particular Designing Women madness.

R Man and I had longed planned curtains for our poppy yellow dining room. He was holding out for hot pink and white stripes. Considering his very staid disposition, his occasional fondness for clown college style decor was always surprising when it reared its bizarre little head. I was actually all for it, but R's all-too untimely demise sort of derailed the project.

Since he died, I had periodically and with no great enthusiasm, hunted for fabric for the curtains. No dice. All I could ever find was excessively tasteful stripes and insipid flowers. One store where I described the chintz of my dreams, with monkeys and palm trees in pink and orange all but pushed me out the door.

Finally, though, I accidentally ran across a beautiful chinese style embroidered fake silk, with gold dragons and red thorn trees on a scarlet background.

I had our curtain lady (the amusingly appropriate Mrs. Draper. I'm not making that up) run them up, with a matching pair for the flanking windows in solid crimson silk.

Once that train had left the station, I found myself on a red roll. A coppery red mirror to offset the charming plum branches hand painted for us by the immensely talented Super Agent Fred.

A tiny tangerine glass vase.

And a beautiful oxblood lamp.

Lastly, at the store where I snagged the lamp and the vase, an enormous asian armoire in red lacquer waylaid me. I certainly did not need it. We had a perfectly good china cabinet that matched the rest of the mahogany furniture in the room. But you know, I never really liked that stupid hutch, and the armoire was on sale and it was red and all of a sudden I saw my hand passing over my credit card. The next thing I knew....

before

after

Saki scopes out the defensive possibilities of the new cabinet.

It's not my fault. It's The Sickness.