May 16, 2009

9:42 a.m.

Amazingness

Well! We played our Long Island gig last night, got through the sticky places, enjoyed a much shorter ride home than the ride out (no traffic after midnight!), and I got in safely around 2:30am.

We'd done this one a couple of times before, and when Carol booked it at the tail end of our winding down period, she did so with some ambivalence. It's not the gig that will send us out with a bang. It's a pesky drive (Friday traffic down 95 etc.), they don't feed us and there's no place really to go so we bring our own food, the sound is pretty bad and check takes forever because they don't know what they're doing. It's a bit excruciating. Well, it's a lot excruciating. Oh, and their guarantee is very low and so is the percentage of door that they give us, so after all that we don't even make very much. They're very nice, and they like us a lot, but our experience there is consistently disappointing.

The only thing recommending it is that it's the only L.I. venue with which we're currently connected. That doesn't seem to be enough to book it again unless they can pay us more.

Anyway, we did have some funny moments and some old friends of Carol's came, and that was nice. When it was done I felt very relaxed and relieved.

I gave them a little "happy sabbatical" gift -- a Putumayo Salsa CD so they can practice their new hobby at home (salsa dancing!), and a chocolate bar. Their anniversary is on Monday, too. Carol's taking Chris on a secret date to Boston tonight and wanted restaurant recommendations, so I told her to call Dar. He knows all the great restaurants there. Then they're going up to the house in Maine for a couple of nights, to open the place up for the season. It looks like, once again, Chris's siblings won't have time to really go up there until Fall, so if C&C want to go up some more it'll be free.

********

Meanwhile I'm inching closer to my own house coup. I just noticed something on the printout of the listing Angela sent me last week -- I don't know why it escaped my eyes before, because it's there big as day. There is a description of the house, and it says, "Estate sale needs a lot of work; sold as is."

As Is. That means Son is not coming back up to clear anything else out. He signed over power of attorney to a lawyer and washed his hands of any more involvement with the terrible family history.

That means the antique treadle Singer sewing machine in the basement comes with the house; likewise the '50s antique electric sewing machine upstairs, and the lovely cedar chest still in the bedroom.

Also the cat and dog piss, and the random other furniture that will have to be moved and either discarded or passed along. Some of that is really big.

And the fantastic wood stove in the basement that can be hooked up to the fireplace so the basement can help heat the house.

And all the photos and the broken Christmas ornaments in the attic, and the dead son's golf trophies in the basement, and the enormous locked file cabinets with dead father's drycleaning business files (and the whiskey bottle), and the dead flat mice on the floor and the dumpster's worth of other junk scattered all over. The Lysol and the broom and the big trash can. The mattresses still in the driveway.

The spiders in the upstairs bathtub.

I called Marc and he didn't realize he had only discussed this with Angela, not with me -- but, yes, he said it means the sewing machine et al would be part of the deal.

Oh, there's an enormous old commercial washing machine downstairs, too. I think that would go out with the rest of the jetsam.

Anyway, tomorrow is the day we go in with our realtor, and make our list. I've missed being in the house. I've missed it like a dear friend, or something closer.

********

It's warm and gorgeous today, and I'm sleepy! I didn't get enough sleep but was glad to get up by 9:00. This morning I'm doing a little fingernail-clipping ritual. Because I don't have to play the guitar for a long time, I'm cutting the nails on my right hand. It'll make it easier to deal with whatever is flaring on my fingers, for one thing, but also will be a freeing symbolic action -- reclaiming my fingers for whatever I want to do with them, without always having to be careful of breaking a nail. I've peeled the supporting nail patches off already. I cannot remember the last time I was able to cut them short on that hand!

On a final note, as I was shopping for C&C's gift yesterday I picked up some sweet little impulse purchases for myself. A gardening apron, some gardening gloves and some work gloves, and a book of songbird calls with a CD. I can't wait to use them all!