At 11:30 last night I got an email from my mother with the subject of “Robbery” and the only line in it saying “are you up?”. I called and Mom said that someone tried to rob my father in their front yard but that he overpowered the kid and took his gun from him. Apparently the only injury he sustained was a dislocated shoulder.

It’s just another example of how my father continually amazes me. He had gone out to make sure the cars were locked, armed only with his trusty flashlight (it’s really more of a spotlight). When he was out at the street he noticed three teenagers walking down the middle of the road. Once he had made it back to the middle of the front yard, he heard the “whump whump whump” of someone trying to stop after a sprint. He turned and there was a kid, maybe 15, hopping around and waving his extended arm in his face.

My father’s first reaction was confusion at what his problem was. Then he saw there was a handgun at the end of that extended arm and confusion turned to rage. My father made a noise like a grizzly bear, shined his trusty spotlight right in the kid’s face and lunged for him. In the scuffle the light hit the ground just before Daddy and the kid hit the ground. He managed to get both of his hands on the gun so the kid let go. At that point, he had the kid pinned behind him on the ground and had turned the gun over his own right shoulder, trying to fire it at the kid with his thumb. That’s when he realized the chamber was empty and wouldn’t fire. That’s also when the kid realized he was in way over his head and took off in a sprint.

My mother had heard the commotion and came out just as they had hit the ground but all she could do was scream angrily from the front porch. After the kid took off, my parents just stood in the middle of the street and called 911. Then Mom came inside to email me.

When I first heard all of this, I was furious. I wanted to take a baseball bat to the punk who tried to ruin it for everyone in MY neighborhood. That worthless criminal was in the front yard of my childhood home. I had been out walking my dog not an hour before this thug had accosted my father. What if it had been my mother out there? Who does this kid think he is?

After talking to my father more, I was actually more angry at their next door neighbor. He was in his conversion van in the driveway next to this scuffle and DIDN’T DO A GODDAMN THING. He can’t call 911? He can’t peek out the window to see if maybe my father is making a noise from the Edge because he’s wrestling with some kid one fourth his age 30 FEET AWAY. Fuck him.

So to recap, I’ll be taking a 9 iron with me on my evening walks, my parents are getting a new light in the front yard, their neighbor is a coward and my father is a one man Neighborhod Watch Machine. As Rich noted, the kid tried to rob an old man and that old man kicked his ass and took his gun from him in front of his friends. Short of peeing on him I’m not sure my father could have shamed the little shithead any more.

I promise to tell you all about how successful the Nosy Neighbor Open House was, but right now I’m weary from moving and could use some cheering up.  I took another truckload of junk from the old house to the new house and then decided to wander around our new home marveling that we’re actually living here.

So to share in the fun and to spare you my whining about how much crap we have moved this week, let’s take a close up tour of some of my favorite parts of the new home.

This house was originally built in 1947, and while we’ve upgraded many things (can I get an AMEN that I can print and the lights don’t dim?!), we have tried to keep many things as they were. One of the little joys I have is the doorknobs downstairs. Some are glass and some are cast metal but they’re all precious and remind me of my grandmother’s apartment when I was little.

Our front door has a snazzy feature of its own, in that the door knocker is a chime. No one will know how to use it without instructions and you can’t really hear it beyond the front room, but it’s a very pleasant chime all the same if you happen to be within 20 feet of the front door.

When we created the new master bath, I lobbied for a double vanity. My father thought it was extravagant and Rich reminded me that he does most of his morning ritual in the shower so he doesn’t really need his own sink, but I wanted some breathing room and a place for all my stuff without being crowded by all his shit (as George Carlin would say). This vanity will save us a lot of money in marriage counseling at some point down the road, I’m sure of it.

After the construction fiasco was over, we still had to decide on flooring for the house. I got fairly fretty about all of our flooring options because none of them were cheap and they were all a commitment to what would be all under all our furniture for many years to come. We decided to re-carpet the entire upstairs in a light something-or-other that had something to do with ducks as far as stain resistance. Within 24 hours of moving into the house, Emily couldn’t bear the stress of it all and showed it by puking on our brand new carpet. I got it up with paper towels and a smidge of 409. It was wonderous. Whatever marketing they used for this carpet about water off a duck’s back was right. This carpet kicks ass. It’s also about 4″ thick so it’s like walking on marshmallows. I love our carpet (and so do the kitties).

Speaking of kitties, we added a door from my sewing room out to our new laundry room in the remodel. Last night we added a cat door to that door so the kitties can get out to the laundry room to get to their litter boxes. This is great because we don’t have to create elaborate defenses against the dogs around the boxes and we no longer have kitty poo in our living space. With three indoor kitties that’s a lot of poo and I’m happy to provide them with their own doorway to get to their facilities. While they’re out there, you’d think they could be helpful and move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Ungrateful cats.

While driving home from work, I realized that today would have been my tenth wedding anniversary with Jeremy had we not divorced in 2002. Today is also my husband’s birthday and I was heading home with his birthday present (a new compressed air tank for his paintball gun) so that we could pick up supplies to move into our new home this weekend. It’s funny how life stacks things up like that.

I thought about it again when I almost took the wrong turn to go to our new house and had to keep going that extra 3/4 mile to our old house for the moment. I realized I would have to get used to a new section of beach that’s two blocks east of where we’ve been hanging out for the last few years. The last time I’d spent any time down there was when I was living in one of my parents’ properties after leaving Jeremy. I had some bitter lonely walks on that beach six years ago and it will be nice to have some fresh memories made on that patch of sand.

Last night Rich and I walked around the block at our new house leaving Nosy Neighbor Open House flyers on everyone’s doors. I waffle between excitement about this weekend of home tours and moving and stomach-knotting nervousness. No one is going to come to our open house. Everyone is going to think we’re insane for inviting them to snoop through our empty house. It’s silly to waste a day we could be moving with this frivolity.

But dammit, we’ve gone through a lot to get here - more than just the last three months of construction. This upcoming weekend has been years in the making and I’d like a few hours to revel in it before we get all dirty and tired from moving boxes. I’m excited about this weekend like it’s Christmas Eve. We just happen to be the elves who have to pack up all our furniture toys in the pickup truck sleigh before we can open them.

I’m looking forward to our new home, baby. I’ll be there with bells on.

I posted some more pictures from our adventures in Texas earlier this week. I totally need one of those writing chairs. I promise it would allow me to post only the best electronic prose to this forum. I would have added more pictures I not so sneakily took from my iPhone but the upgrade to 2.0.2 trashed my phone so I lost all my notes and photos from a corrupt backup file. No more running Christmas list and no more pictures of 16th century globes or Edgar Allan Poe’s writing desk.

This has been an incredibly long week, one that I’m not even sure when it started. I spent nearly all of Saturday working only to get on a plane for Texas on Sunday. Wednesday started at 3:30am local time in order to make our 5:30am flight back home. That whacked out my entire sleep schedule. Given the timeline of this week the house has gone completely to seed and is littered with dirty cereal bowls, tumbleweeds of dog hair and boxes of books. I’m hiding in the office in front of the computer because if I look around the house at all that needs packing/cleaning/sorting I may just sit in the floor wringing my hands.

We would hire someone to pack our home for us except that a) it costs approximately $856,742 and b) I don’t want other people “messing in my goodies.” My mother is perhaps the queen of shooing others away from her goodies and has remarked that someone throwing away her belongings was the only unforgivable act in her eyes. As my mother’s daughter, I can’t imagine someone coming into our house and packing the nine Splenda packets in front of my keyboard to carry to our new home nor can I imagine someone else deciding they were disposable. Perhaps I should get my mother to pack my medicine cabinet, dishes and piles of knick-knacks since she is the one I can trust the most with all these treasures amongst trash.

The new house is basically done except that we have to put the bath fixtures back after the vinyl flooring was installed and call about two transition strips from the hardwood to vinyl downstairs. Our tentative plan is to move next week over Labor Day weekend. To be optimistic about it, I suppose moving gives an opportunity to take stock of one’s life and decide what is really important or not, Splenda packets and all.

Oh, and it’s not just you. Rich snickers every time my mother or I talk about messing in our goodies.

Things that take less time than our 10+ week home renovation project.

• Tidewater Community College’s Summer Session (5/19-7/29/2008)
• My parents’ engagement (10/31-11/26/1967)
• Growing a new fingernail
• Sailing around the world (~50 days at fastest pace)
• Growing tomatoes from seedling to fruit 
• The Neapolitan War (3/15-5/20/1815)
• Typical American maternity leave
• The Summer 2008 Olympic Games (8/6-8/24/2008)
• The D-Day battles of World War II (6/6-8/25/1944)
• The 2008 Tour de France (7/5-7/27/2008)

No, they’re still not done.  I e-mailed the contractor a three page “punch list” of items left to be done on Sunday night.  He claims they will be done on Thursday but we don’t believe him (they did absolutely no work on Monday).  We signed the paperwork (and paid our 30% deposit) on the evening of May 27, 2008 and the contract was supposed to be completed by July 25, 2008.

There were many things I thought I wouldn’t be doing until after the house was finished.  First it was ALA (June 28), then BlogHer (July 18-19), then the conference I’m attending in New York this week.  Every time I’ve gone for a hair cut, doctor’s appointment or to get my nails done I’ve thought, “the next time I’m here we’ll be in the new house.”  My hair is getting embarrassingly multi-colored, partially because I hoped I could report that our house is done for those two hours Joseph is coloring and cutting my coif.  

I try to not script things in my life.  I don’t want to paint a picture of what my August or September will be like, because if for some reason it’s not like that I’ll be disappointed. My father has quipped several times that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” in an attempt to be positive about this huge project we’ve taken on. And I admit in my research for the list above, I found a few things that took quite a while to finish. Michelangelo’s statue of David took three years to complete. It takes five to seven months to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (which only about 25% of those who attempt finish). And Rich and my relationship has blossomed over ten years to where we are now (he and his ex were guests at my wedding to Jeremy, ironically).

So perhaps instead of trying to guess where I will be in X number of days I should just be happy with where I am now.