One Room Down, Eleven to Go

“When I get a house, I’m installing automatic doors just like in Star Trek,” my oldest son said.  “I already figured it out. I’ll put a motor inside a pocket door, and sensors on the top and bottom.  When anyone comes close, the door will automatically disappear.”

He came over to look at the new bathroom.  He went straight for the Canadian washer and dryer to have a closer look.  They do resemble something from Star Trek, come to think of it.

“We’ve done other stuff,” Charlie said. 

“I can’t get past these,” he said.  “They’re cool.  Did I tell you I got a bunch of components for my apartment?  I’m rewiring my sound system.”

“Are you opening up walls?  I thought you were going to move.”

“I am.  This is stuff I can take with me.  No, you guys scared me off from doing anything like construction.”

“Scared us off, too,” Charlie said.

The General came downstairs with bags of girl-stuff, armed to settle into the new bathroom.  We haven’t seen her since last night, when she pulled me aside and said, “I need to talk to you.”  She looked me straight in the eye like she needed to tell me a big secret.  I knew better: she needed money. 

“I have a lot of plans,” she said.  We were heading out the door with plans of our own, not that she noticed.  “I’m completely out of gas.  I don’t even know how I got home.”

“Oh,” I said.  “I hate it when that happens.”  I opened the door to leave.

“But I won’t be able to go anywhere.  I need money.”

“I know the feeling,” I said.  “I just did bills.  ‘Bye.”

I thought she’d be annoyed since we went out and she stayed home.  Instead, the first thing she asked me today was what she could do to earn money.

“You want to do my errands?  We have no food and I need stuff from Office Depot and Target.”

Her face lit up like she won the lottery.  “Make a list.”

She doesn’t realize shopping for things you need is different than shopping for clothes for yourself.  If it were fun, I’d do it.  It turns out that the five hours of work she does each week for the privilege of driving is the exact amount of time it takes to do all my errands.  I’ve turned into a Princess: I write a list and everything magically appears.  The only way this situation could improve is if I didn’t have to pay.  Using credit cards, I can pretend this until the end of the month.

She came upstairs and opened the bathroom door where Charlie started working.  “I am totally obsessed with that bathroom,” she said.  “I moved all my stuff down there.  I’m obsessed.”

She shut the door and looked for me.  “I want to show you what I did down there,” she said.  I was up on a ladder, cutting in the ceiling.  It took me three weeks to get motivated to put a paint brush back in my hand.  If I stopped, it might take me another three weeks.  I made her wait until I got to the corner, so at least it looked like I meant to stop.

She gave me a tour of where she’s put away her brushes and make-up in the bathroom cabinets.  I realized she’s never lived in a nice house.  As soon as we fix up a fixer, we move on.  It’s been four years since we’ve finished anything.  We suck.

On the way out the door, armed with my shopping lists and credit card, she said, “There’s something wrong with my tire.  It’s all wobbly.”

I interrupt Charlie pulling tile from the moldy bathroom wall.  I opened the door and got a big whiff of 32 years of bathroom smells.

“I’m sending the General on four hours of errands,” I said, holding my nose.  “Can you have a look at her tires?  She says they’re wobbly.”

He saw the General sitting in her car with the radio on full blast, honking the horn.  She gestured for Charlie to hurry up.  Her windows were rolled up, so Charlie knocked to get her to open the door.

“What do you mean, ‘they’re wobbly?’”

“What?”

“Turn the radio down,” he says.  “What’s wrong with your tires?”

“I don’t know.”

“I need more information.  Is one part of the car lower than the other?”

“I don’t know.”

He put his foot on the tires and shook them to see if they were wobbly.  He checked the lug nuts to see if they were tight.  He couldn’t find anything wrong. 

“Does it vibrate?” he said.  “Does it wobble?”

“I don’t know.  It’s probably my driving.  I gotta go.”

She backed out of the driveway and stalled, right in front of Charlie.  She pretended not to be embarrassed, started it up and drove off.  With all the peace and quiet, we got a lot of work done.  We decided to reward ourselves by going to the Kennedy School.

The Kennedy School is a once-abandoned 1915 elementary school, remodeled into a beautiful hotel, restaurant, movie theater, and McMenamin’s brewery.  Remodeled is the key word.  Everything we do, even those things we do to get away from our remodel, has to do with remodeling.  This is not recommended for one’s sanity.

Going to the movies on a weeknight is recommended.  You don’t have to park three blocks away and walk by all the cute Northeast Portland bungalows.  This would be a nice treat, except we’re always late.   We drove right up and parked in the tree-filled lot, like normal people do.  As I got out, I noticed Charlie standing.

“Listen,” he said.  “You can hear the ice on the tree branches.”

You miss a lot when you’re in a hurry.  The tree branches had a thick coat of ice and when the wind blew, they sounded like chimes.   With the clear night sky, all you could see was moonlight reflecting on the ice.  It looked like a movie. 

Good thing, because five minutes after the movie started, Charlie said, “Haven’t we seen this before?”

The movie was my choice.  I talked it up all day.  Charlie wanted to see something new.  I wanted to be spoiled.  When you watch a movie at the Kennedy School, you can sit on a couch and eat pizza and drink whatever you want as long as you want.  No one under 21 is allowed, so the loud bratty teenagers have to hang out at the multiplex.

Five more minutes and it was obvious we’d seen this movie before. 

“It’s okay,” Charlie said.  “At least it’s good.  I just don’t like the end where he gets all shot up.”

I couldn’t remember the ending.  One good thing about being us: movies are new even when we’ve seen them before.

I kept nibbling on the pizza sitting in front of me even when I was getting sick of pizza.  This is the only problem with going to the Kennedy school.  Charlie thinks of it as an advantage.  We’ll drive across the greater Metro area for free Diet Coke refills.

I reached for another crust as something moved on the floor in front of us.

“Is that a rat?”

“It looked like a lobster.”

“That was a big-ass rat.”

No more pizza for me.

When it was over, Charlie said, “that movie was better the second time.”

“Especially since nobody got shot.” 

The wonderful guy who supplies our refills waved good-bye.

Charlie responded with, “A big rat ran across the floor.”

“Serious?” 

“Yeah.  Right in the middle of the movie.”

“You’re serious?”  He started laughing and couldn’t stop.  We started laughing, too.  If McMenamin’s could attract tourists from all over the world and still have rats, maybe someday we could attract some buyer from somewhere and still have some sanity.  This doesn’t mean we’ll remember movie endings, though.

A little help? [] 2:01:46 PM