Friday Fry Up

The Brit is fond of fry ups; me, not so much. In fact, I won't eat it, and prefer he cooks them when I am not home. A fry up happens when you throw all your leftovers into a pan, usually with eggs, and fry it up. I am terrible with titles and since I'm goint to write about a mish-mash of things, I thought fry up worked well for the alliteration value at the least.

The Debate Begins

Martin and I came to the decision that Indianapolis will be our home unless something extremely dramatic happens, i.e., he gets a huge promotion to a tropical locale or we hit the Hoosier Lotto. Which, at the pinnacle of irony, if we ever do hit the Hoosier Lotto, the first thing we would do is move out of the Hoosier state to a tropical locale.

Part of setting down roots is buying a home. Our goal is loosely set within the next year. There are a lot of options we can use financially that make it silly not to buy, even though we don't have anything close to a good down payment. Good for us, and the overall resettling of the middle class.

Already, we are disagreeing on what we want. I hate the cookie cutter subdivisions, known as "additions" or "vinyl villages" here. I loathe them. The idea of living in one sometimes makes me want to cry. When Martin sent me a link to a robin's egg blue member of a vast vinyl village, I actually got tears. The decor on the inside, which I realize is easily remedied but still difficult to get past, looked like Laura Ashely threw up. Any kind of surface that could have had a big ass flower or a precious tiny flower print of some sort on it, did. Why, people, why???

I'm all about a house with some character and unique charm. I love the mid-century modern style, anything modern for that matter. There are very few modern style homes I've been able to find that weren't way out of our price range, certainly no additions or villages of them, and although I love the MCM, which are fairly readily available here, most of the houses are in the area of fifty years old. We just aren't going down that road. We remodeled the house I grew up in, $17,000 over the budget we planned, and then it started to fall apart. Including three incidents of flooding in our finished basement. Which as part of that $17,000 overage, included an $8,000 repair to fix the leaking basement. Nope, not buying something that requires walls torn out or a new roof. I can handle tearing down wallpaper, tearing up carpet and painting, but nothing that requires a sledgehammer.

I understand the appeal of a new house. All the upgrades, wired for anything, big rooms, enough bathrooms and generally good use of space. The roof isn't going to fall off, the furnace isn't from 1970 and neither are the kitchen cabinets and the 14 layers of wallpaper.

The trick is going to be finding something that will suit what both of us want. A newer home that has some unique features and style. I pity the agent who ends up with us. I talked to one yesterday, and explained the situation; she sounded confident and up for the challenge, so I'm willing to give her a shot when the time comes.

The Christmas Underoo Bomber

Maybe I'm missing something. I've been following this story, and I'm a little confused. Why is no one getting all pissed off at Nigeria or Amsterdam about this guy? To paraphrase some of what Jon Stewart had to say and throw in my own ideas, he was coming from Nigeria, going through Amsterdam, had only a shoulder carry on and no luggage or coat, and paid cash for his one way ticket to Detroit. What was he going to do in Detroit? Start a new life? Look for a job? Why is all the blame falling solely on us? Regardless of whatever intelligence the U.S. may have had on him, none of those other things raised any sort of alert anywhere down the line? REALLY?

I also find it funny, that a passenger of the flight, when he figured out what The Christmas Underoo Bomber was up to, allegedly knocked the shit out of him. Like it's not bad enough you're ending up in Detroit, you have to deal with this joker?

It's All About The Hair

I am failing an innate duty to my daughter. Her hair is not beautiful and it should be, because she is a beautiful little girl, inside and out. I've tried to do her hair myself. She's not had great experiences getting her hair professionally done. The last time, Martin actually took her instead of me, thinking it would go better, and the stylist had some pretty negative things to say. In front of my daughter. About me and my care of her hair. In her defense, it was the Saturday before Mother's Day and it was very busy. In my defense, I had let her hair go a couple days, knowing she was getting it done. That still really soured me, at least on that salon. If she would have been kind, she would have been getting fifty bucks without fail every two weeks and I would have kissed her ass six ways until Tuesday.

I've tried with Mia's hair. I really have. It's been an ordeal for both Mia and me, no matter if I do it or someone else does. But we're getting her hair done professionally from now on and that's it. She deserves to look better than what I can do.

I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow. Wish me luck, say a prayer, light a candle, please feel free to add whatever positive spirits you can send our way.

Shut Up And Drive

I got a flyer form our local State Rep, Kathy Kreag Richardson. I should preface this by saying, I know nothing about her, her voting record, her policies, nothing. There was an invitation to a survey in the flyer, so being an active citizen who never passes up a chance to voice my opinion, I dutifully filled it out.

One of the questions was regarding enacting laws about the use cell phones while driving. This, my friends, should be a no-brainer. Just like seat belts. I realize that people can see this as an intrusion into your rights, but sometimes, it is necessary to legislate common sense. This is a most basic safety element that most people would have no second thought about. I think motorcycles helmets should be required as well, because while it's up to the rider if they want get on a bike, I have no issues with that; I've ridden on the back of my share of bikes and Martin has toyed with getting one to drive to work; I do, however, have issues with the fact that if something happens, I don't want to see the remains of your head smeared all on I-465.

Anyway.

Part of the charm of Indiana is the friendly attitude of just about everyone you meet. I can't count the number of totally random conversations I've had with strangers in which we shared a laugh. It's nice. Aside from that hairdresser mentioned up there.

This outlook spills over into driving; they just don't think that person is going to pull right in front of them because people are nice and don't do stupid things to you on purpose.

I think the average Hoosier driver just lacks that sense of defense. I know that some of my fellow Hoosier drivers find me to be terribly aggressive and quick with the horn, or hand as the case may be since the Mini's horn is inconveniently located. Most find Martin just plain ass-puckering scary.

People, here is a hint: While you are leisurely rolling along, your fellow drivers are out to get you. Hang up the phone and pay attention. Although you may have learned to drive by running a combine in the middle of a field where the worst that can happen is you clip a few rows of crop you shouldn't have or run over a nest of unsuspecting bunnies, you aren't in the field now and there is danger and it surrounds you. Stop being so trusting and please don't try to talk on the phone unless it's hands free, or heaven forbid TEXT while you are behind the wheel. Must we waste time and money making this a law, when you should know better?

Cousins

I grew up an only child and that's hard in so many ways. I spent a lot of time with cousins from both sides of the family as a kid. Vacations, holidays, summers. I have a lot of (mostly) good memories of those times. I've reconnected with many of them, through Face Book of course, and although sometimes I feel like I have nothing in common with them, I'm still glad to reconnect. I'm sure to some, I'm completely bewildering but I hope there's still something to make me likable there.