Deanna's Wiener Story

And then I came home with someone else's socks on. There isn't really a coherent story there, it just sounded like a good way to start.

I would say the bulk of it began when my friend gave me new curtains. To be truthful they weren't exactly new to her since she replaced them with newer ones but they were new to me because the torn ones they were to replace looked like they were hun(g) in about 1950 the year my house was built. My friend (the kind curtain giver with newer curtains and Max's official photographer) was quick to point out that han(g)ing the "new" curtains was probably the biggest home improvement project I'd undertaken since buying my house six years ago. When it comes to Trading Spaces imitators I'm not exactly the example you want to follow.

Some have dubbed my modest little brick abode as the "ice palace" since to afford to live in such a palatial estate I have forsaken heating it. Poor shivering kitty. About the second week I lived in my new home I broke the doorknob from the outside door into my kitchen, one of only two ways in and out. I have yet to get around to fixing that little problem. My home decor is comprised of stuff people have given to me free. It's a mixture of some really crappy stuff and some stuff I would keep even if I had the dough to replace it. Comfort is what I strive for and comfortable is what my life never seems to be about. And the fight against cat hair? I gave up on that a long long time ago.

The "new" curtains make the rooms they adorn take on a completely different mood: not quite stately but certainly more adult like and a bit of a disguise that a bachelor (quite the catch ladies!) male lives mostly alone in the house. The non-shades almost made as much of a difference as the day not too far before where I finally got tired of having just one working light bulb in the entire house and splurged by buying a bunch of light bulbs. Halogen, fluorescent, standard filament I spared no expense to illuminate things again. "I can see clearly now," I sung merrily to myself.

If there is but one person in this world I wanted to tell this story to it was the girl next door. But you see we don't exactly talk much, just sort of awkwardly smile and minimally greet one another. The day before we all were to be thankful I walked into a break area and saw said girl next door sitting with several other ladies and I just wanted to obscurely walk to the back of the room and heat up my daily bowl of oatmeal. The girl next door looked up at me and sort of did something with her lips, maybe it was a smile, maybe she just had some gas. One of the other ladies was holding court. She told them all on her drive home the night before she stopped at a Holiday service station and after filling up her car she decided to fill herself up with a Holiday hot dog. Nobody reacted to this news but I couldn't stand it any longer so I blurted out an, "ewww, you ate a gas station hot dog?" And the girl next door guffawed and joined my side and told us she used to work at an Amoco station and the hot dogs there sat all day. We shared a common bond, something I've sensed all along.

What does all this have to do with socks? Bundles my friend. Next my foot warming friend with and most recent home purchaser invited me over to see, if not smell, the hyacinth. We also resumed our old mission days by setting out to save $130 by renting out a carpet cleaning device rather than pay professionals to do the job. This marathon friend, the one who when told I was driving to a meeting next to the nuclear power plant told me to look at the stars. She has perhaps the most wondrous personal decorating taste (if not the best although entirely different from my own, go figure...) of anyone I have ever known. She hasn't had much of a chance to move into her new place let alone enjoy it yet the work she has managed to somehow complete made me feel ashamed at my recent good feelings over my new curtains (and light bulbs). Her place looked great other than the black spots in her carpet caused because the previous owners didn't believe in furnace filters (against their religion I guess and did I tell you the time I read up on Seventh Day Adventists just so I would know?).

We worked our arses off from nine until six (or a little past sundown and newsletter time) only taking breaks to enjoy her mother's homemade tort (oh man) and her own peppery and most tasty turkey salad. Her dog Kurbie was a bit frightened by all the commotion and noise but he kept looking up at me with those bright and alert rat terrier brown eyes as if we shared some similar vision thing. Moving the furniture around to get as much of the carpet as we could, my marathon friend and I did our best to get the darkest spots out. The mixture of carpet cleaning shampoo and water that turned from water color (or clear) to a disgusting black (that fortunately indicated our hard work was accomplishing something) markedly moistened our socks. So she was kind enough to give me some of her clothing to wear home.

Hearing all this the pigeon psychologist, tending to be more calculating than spontaneous, might reveal some simple lesson about seeing the light and always having at your disposal the proper material to move forward. Nevertheless now you know the rest of the story.