My daughter A came over last night. She's in the terrible throes of mid break up (again. Yeah, but maybe it will stick this time?) and was feeling at loose ends and lonely. So, since M was over at his friends' house for the night, we sat around and drank beer and talked and it was very nice. I did have plans to do nothing whatsoever last night - I have discovered the Sci Fi Channel and it is good - so it took me a little while to switch gears but then it was fun.
Supposedly my new landlord is going to call me or appear at any minute this morning to fix the steps to my deck of death. We call it that, or sometimes the Collapsapalooza stage because, as I explained succinctly to someone at DL the other night, it was built by hippies. Out of hemp. Well, no, not actually out of hemp - out of untreated lumber of various sizes and a whole lotta nails. This being Asheville, however, you can say "It was built by hippies." and everyone immediately understands what you mean: a certain unique je ne sais quoi approach to home improvement, done with a fine disdain for the structural engineering of The Man. My various carpentery friends have been under the deck and declared it not quite on the verge of imminent collapse. I would be more inclined to believe them if they didn't emerge from under there so quickly, looking a little worried and suggesting mattresses or bales of hay under it. Yeah. Maybe a lot of small trampolines. Then they ask me if I have any lumber lying around and say that well, probably it wouldn't be a bad idea to shore it up some. When there are more than 3 people out there it sways like the Titanic during those last fateful moments, which is a bit unsettling and makes me dubious about the current plans to host the blogapawhateverwhatever annual party here in July. Bloggers Killed In Freak Deck Accident makes for a good headline and possibly even a Metafilter thread full of dots but it's not really what I want to do this summer.
Also, young M went right through one of the steps the other day, which is why I played the Summon Landlord card which is also why I rolled out of bed this morning and started cleaning like a lunatic. Now he is 15 and thus inclined to thump about a bit, but still. The board just broke right in half and all the steps look to be in the same condition, which is extremely unnerving all the time and particularly if you happen to be wearing a skirt and high heels and are cursing the dogs at the top of your lungs for wiggling out of the (still incomplete, sheesh) fence when you have to go to work. Not that that has happened. More than five times.
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4 comments:
We had a deck like this out in Fletcher, even the cat looked at it funny and always ran across it, never walked, tho I was not built by hippies, but rather a crazy baptist lady...YOu can always try laying a net down on top of it, that way if it falls...
Speaking of your house. I think I got a picture of your house in the mail last week. On the recurring David Wall "Let me sell your Historic West Asheville House!" mailings that arrive every so often. It says it sold for $177k. So if it got sold, it should have had a Certificate of Occupancy inspection from The Man. That collapsing step that could have injured your child is wicked tort-feasing.
Yeah, it got sold alright - to David Wall. He's my landlord.
LOL! He mails out the card showing how well he's doing at selling all the houses in "Historic West Asheville," and in fact, he's actually buying them himself.
That does seem like a good deal for that house based on the little I know about the fairly big yard, 70's den, and wobbly deck. So I can't blame him for snapping it up.
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