Edgy Mama

The building around the corner from my home, at the stop light where I often have to wait for the interminable light to change, used to house a travel agency. In front of the building is one of those high signs that you can change the letters on, although you need a special long pole (or a ladder) to do so. When the on-site business was a travel agency, there often were wonderful words on the sign. Like “Imagine the Caribbean. You deserve a break.” Words evocative of sandy beaches and coconut-laced rum drinks. I loved sitting at the stop light, imagining the Caribbean. Knowing that, yes, I did deserve a break.

Now the travel agency has moved. In its place lives an insurance agency. Today the sign reads: “You’re out of town and a tree falls on your house. What do you do?”

Already I’m dealing with traffic and long stop lights on crazy Merrimon Avenue. Now I have to think about a tree falling on my house while I’m out of town?

I want the travel agency back.

The Musical Kegger ! Yes, it sounds like the name of a kletzmer band, but it’s actually a party. Some of you came to the last “sing if you want/drink all night” par-tay at the pnav. The next one will be next Saturday, August 25, starting at 7:00 p.m. I may have e-mailed some of you already, and E-spouse has e-mailed half of Asheville, but I don’t want to leave anyone out (unless you’re crazy or a stalker, in which case, you’re not invited).

So if you like to sing with a buncha sometimes on-key people playing a variety of instruments or if you like to drink beer with disaffected writer/blogger types and make fun of the folks singing, come on over. The couch will be on the lawn. The keg will be on the screen porch. I’ll not be singing. Unless the beer takes over.

E-mail me for directions if you need them: janusatannefittenglenndotcom. Parking might be tight, so carpool if you can. Hope to see you here!

He who has yet to be named is a Dorkie Poo (daschund/yorkie poo blend). He’s absolutely adorable. Vital stats: born March 11, moved to the pnav May 5, very unhappy with the night-time crating, very happy with the non-stop kid love, doing a great job of peeing outside, rightly scared of Rocky, the sumo-cat, cutest puppy ever!

…because I’m engaged in an ongoing war with a horde of pantry flies.

Yes, I’ve cleaned out the pantry. TWICE. I’ve thrown out all the old pasta and cereal and tortilla chips. I’ve put all the flour and corn meal in the refrigerator. I’ve filled like eight pantry fly traps with dead flies. My pantry reeks of female pantry fly pheromone.

My latest theory is that they’re hatching and procreating in the dry cat food. And I don’t have space in my small, enviro-efficient fridge for 15 pounds of cat food. And since Rocky eats five pounds a week, and I refuse to shop for cat food more than once a month, I guess I’ll have to live with the damn flies.

From a positive perspective, they provide extra exercise for the kids, who chase them manically around the house, crushing them between their small hands. Good for hand-eye coordination too.

And pantry flies don’t bite, like bedbugs, which are supposedly making a comeback since we stopped spritzing the world with DDT. The pantry flies just flutter around and leave dusty black spots on the wall when I mash them there. And they provide extra protein right? Since my kids have chosen not to eat meat, extra protein, even in the form of hatching pantry flies, is good.

Back to the war. Maybe if I smoosh enough flies on the wall, it’ll look artistic. Like I painted it that way.

Doesn’t that feel good?

This is the s**thole of a house that sits 20 feet behind my home. And yes, those are raccoons, just some of the myriad wildlife occupying the house. Cute, aren’t they? And possibly carrying rabies, which is rampant in Western North Carolina.

This house is now an environmental health hazard (that’s lead paint flaking off of it into my yard), a fire hazard (for obvious reasons) and a wildlife habitat.

We’ve talked to the guy who owns the house about all this and more. Hell, we’ve offered to buy the house (as have others). The guy is, ironically, a respected businessman. But, clearly, something is way off. One of the neighbors says that if he sells the s**thole, half the money goes to his ex-wife, which is why he doesn’t want to sell.

In the mean time, I don’t allow my kids to venture behind our home because of the dangers. It sucks, really.

I’ve talked to a city home inspector and read the housing code on-line. I’ve talked to the county animal control unit. No one wants to do anything. The city wants a complaint signed by at least five neighbors. Then they might come take a look. Last time I called animal control, they came by and left a note on the guy’s door. Then nothing happened. I don’t want the house condemned, because then the city will just board it up and leave it. But I’m tired of asking the owner to fix stuff, and then having nothing change. I’m tired.

UPDATE: Writing this got me fired up, so I called the city housing complaints office. Again. They promised to send an inspector out today. I told them that I want follow-up, dammit. Now I’m mad.

to write wittily or well.

Although my upstairs heat is working again–after four of the coldest nights in Ashvegas in many years. I know it’s been at least five years since it’s been so cold, because that’s how long we’ve had our solar hot water and heating system.

If you’re considering solar, and you have an ancient cinder block home, and you have to run the water pipes to the upstairs air exchanger outside the house, on the north side of the house, and you neglect to properly enclose and insulate them because you’re lazy and it would cost more cash, then you can count on them freezing and screwing your upstairs heating capacity–when it is ass-cold.

Single supa Edgy (that would be me–partnered with traveling enviro-dude who was off saving the world elsewhere while we shivered under our blankies) did crawl into the attic with the intention of trying to figure out what the problem was when the heat initially failed. I also needed the phone number of the heating company, which they kindly emboss on their air exchanger. I could have used the phone book, of course, but that would have been the wimpy way out. There, in my shredded paper-filled attic, I discovered two things one never hopes to find in one’s upper story. One would be a large hole in the side of the house. Two would be small beady eyes and a swishy gray tail. Yep, I initially blamed the squirrel for the heating debacle. But it seems she’s just an additional problem.

Solutions? Fliss suggests acid rock. Mom suggests cut-up Coke cans glued to the hole. I suggest calling in the professionals and paying them tons of money to take care of everything.

And then I’m going to sleep. For a long time. In a warm, squirrel-proof home.

1. Someone who can advise me on computer technology for some rather vague plot twists I considering for my Edgy Mama mystery novel. Al, you might just be my man?

2. Suzanne Somers in my living room for 30 minutes every day to make me abdocize (that’s what she does to tighten those abs, right?).

3. Some more Cortisone cream for the weird rash that I have on the back of one leg and somewhere else on the back of my bod.

4. A really good kid sitter who can work on week nights.

5. To stop eating Valentine’s candy because it’s taunting me from the kitchen. What, you didn’t know that chocolate can talk? Try listening.

6. A new toaster oven. Word to the wise: if you put potato chips in a toaster oven to crisp them up, they will spontaneously combust and send foot-high oily orange flames shooting out of the oven door. And throwing the pan of flaming chips into the sink is an okay idea. Unless you have dried herbs hanging over the sink that can also catch on fire when you dowse the flames with water and they respond by shooting even higher before sizzling to death.