What is it about terrorists and the 11th day of a month? Other than the UK (7/7/05) train bombing, the Americans (9/11/01), Spaniards (4/11/04) and now the (East) Indians were all attacked on an 11th. Of course that doesn't take account of the attacks in Egypt or Bali...
Moving on... I stayed up late to loiter online with the Duckie. GammaDuckie was scheduled for major surgery. Hope things went (are going?) OK. I thought about them several times throughout the day.
Around 3pm I walked to make the mortgage payment. To my surprise there was no waiting at the bank. It's not like the old days where it was always crowded! I didn't see the homeless guy on my walk. Coming back I decided to detour to a new housing development and saw they had a model open. Well, I had little else to do except come back and eat a meal so I went for a look-see. The houses range from $600-800,000 (far beyond reason). For $600,000 you get three bedrooms. Yes. Three. But I'm getting ahead of myself. There was this mammoth black guy all by himself at the model. He easily weighed 400lbs (180kg). From my experience (and probably poor memory) usually new home developments have a rail-thin woman pitching the models. Perhaps this is a single they're looking for a particular market... affluent minorities from traditionally male dominated cultures. That would fit this community.
For some reason the entry door is on the side. I asked him if that was normal on the model since I had seen him through a door at the front of the house in the office. He said that was the fifth bedroom. That is the only bedroom on the first floor of any of the homes. Like a knot-head, as I toured I was thinking, "Mother would not like that," "I'll have to tell Mother about this..." It was instinct. Instinctually, I wanted a ground-floor bedroom for the infirm parent (grandparent) or guest. Ok, back to the home... the countertops were the same old beige granite. I noted the top cabinets were full cabinets while the bottom cabinets were just fronts and shelves so you could see the painted and textured wall at the back! This is criminal cost-cutting for $800,000 asking price!
There is no yard to speak of in the back. It's probably close to the size of a single car garage! There's even less space out front. There is, however, lots of driveway which the brochure describes as "courtyard!" On two of the models the driveway comes up the side of the house to the attached garage. In addition to a door from the house interior to the garage, there is a smaller sliding glass door to the driveway which is across from the kitchen so visitors will probably come in there rather than the regular entry.
One of these high priced models triggered a mild claustrophobic reaction in the downstairs area. Upstairs, one had a long hall with tiny windows on the right and a series of five doors on the left, it reminded me of a university building! At the end of the hall to the right was the master, positioned over the garage. Those five doors were a bedroom, laundry room, bedroom, bathroom and another bedroom. There was also a bizarre alcove that you would put either a tall faux plant or suit of armor (if it were small enough)!
Clearly the crack whores are still designing homes as I enjoyed the wasted space from one model to the next. The master suites all had separate toilet rooms from the shower, sinks and bathtubs. However, in once case there was a large open area next to the toilet with no obvious purpose! Still another had actually slipped a door to a small storage room in the toilet closet! The largest model, the five bedroom, had the walk-in closet at the end of the bathroom so all of your clothes can be steam cleaned by the foggy mists of your shower or bath! This is just not reasonable design. It's simply crazy.
The smallest home, three bedrooms, lacked space for the modest furniture that is in this house! There's a designated dining area but it can only handle a small four person table--forget anything larger! Oddly enough it seemed to have the largest kitchen. Perhaps your guests are meant to sit at the long bar as if they're at an all-night diner! Maybe I can get Brother to take a half-hour walkthrough.
OK, so I got out of there and walked up the street and saw the neighbor watering his lawn. We chatted a bit. Later he had his wife outside and I visited. I guess her health has slipped. There was a change of at least one medication so he has to keep an eye on her blood pressure. He didn't get into much detail but he had talked to the doctor about end of life, whether to go with dialysis and so forth. He said a couple things said scared him. I know Mother was thrown off kilter when she was told "for all intents and purposes you are a widow" all while talking about Father's care. When the end did come for him, she never did quite embrace widowhood until near her own unexpected end. I think that came when I reminded her she had done her duty--till death do us part, so far as many Christian faiths (she believed as a Catholic though was not formally*) are concerned she was free to date, remarry, just live until her own end...
Ok, where was I? I was going to lay down for awhile this evening but the neighbor invited me over. I thought I best go since I didn't know when I might get another opportunity. We caught the end of the "All Star" baseball game, then switched to Food TV and off to Ted Danson's "Becker" in syndicated repeats. Wasn't great TV but it passed the time. The grandson was over this evening. His all-star team won again. If they win this weekend, the next game take place out of state--pretty exciting way to cap off a "little league" career!
I'm loitering a bit to see if Duckie shows. I'll probably watch Jake 2... err... Kyle XY.
* She (and Father) had been active in the altar guild and taught Sunday school for their Episcopal parish but left that church when they voted to ordain women when I was a toddler. Other folks in the guild didn't believe her threat that she would leave but the priest knew better. I don't know why we didn't join the Catholics but in those days this area was very underdeveloped. As it happens, when the SIL's church refused to marry her and Brother (for political reasons) they turned to Mother's old parish who did marry them. The family had been founding members. They did run a scam on the Church because they were shacking up, Brother was perhaps a bitter atheist at the time... of course now he's an evangelical so I guess things evened out.
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