I can’t keep up!

Today I contacted a teacher whose first name is Peter, as notification that I was a late addition to the class. The teacher responded. This was added to the end: “Also, please call me “Hyacinth”, and never “Mr. (Surname)”. I am not a man, but an androgyne.”

Jaw drop.

I have just recently skimmed the “Hispanic” out of my vocabulary in favor of the “Latino”, and have gotten used to “African American” instead of black. I’ve learned the right terms for male and female gay people. Now I still need to learn the term for people who either have both sexes or identify with both…it’s confusing. In the teacher’s syllabus, there is an additional note: “Preferred Gender Pronouns: Ze & Hir”.

I wrote back and complimented the name “Hyacinth”. Not sure how else to recover.

He thinks he’s a Texan.

On the way to the train, there was a car in front of us the exact make, model, and color as mine.

“Joe, that Dodge has a Ram symbol on the trunk. Why can’t I have a Ram symbol?” I was doing my charming Veruca Salt imitation.

“Oh darlin, that ain’t a Ram. That there is a long-horned steer.”

“I didn’t know the word ‘steer’ had two syllables.”

“Down South it does.” He pulled up beside the guy at the stoplight. “I b’lieve this boy is an Aggie.”

He started making a horn sign with his fingers, which is also like that sign we used to make as teenagers to feel cool at rock concerts (actually, I think I know some grown adults, and a cartoon falcon, that still make that sign).

“Stop, Joe. Just…stop.”

The house. Always, the house.

Guess what? We still have a house for sale. And believe me when I say that an hour’s notice before a midday showing is getting really, really old.

Our house, along with three billion others in our area, has been on the market since May and no real estate is moving. But the wait is giving me time to get used to the idea of moving. I no longer cry at odd times when I catch a glimpse of the realtor sign, and I’m getting better about not calling things mine: it is not “my kitchen”. Those are not “my rose bushes”. I am taking care of them for someone else.

During school holidays, in between sucking up sleep like the dead, we have been working on this house, a few updates that make it show better. Want to see? Here’s what we have been doing.

In our dining room/front room, there was a wall-length mirror that was cracked and damaged. My dad and brother-in-law helped take it down and replace the drywall.

 

The cat thinks she’s helping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After.

 

 

 

 

Jenn’s former bedroom, once painted “Satan Red”, is now a neutral cream.

 

 

 

 

 

And then there was the kitchen. I have learned that when you tell people your old oak cabinets look dated, anyone with wooden cabinets will take it personally, even if your cabinets are thirty years old and theirs are five. Regardless, my cabinets needed updating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also learned that painting cabinets is much more work than painting walls. I was glad to be done with the job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Christmas Eve, it looked like a new kitchen. Now we just need a buyer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

House Stalking

(Did you remember that I have a house for sale? A lovely home with an enormous fenced yard RIGHT NEXT TO EVERYTHING but far enough away to be quiet, and I also have the most amazing neighbors on the planet, little kids to play with, teen lawnmowers and babysitters, and a free kitten. Act now, and this home can be yours!)

One recent realtor showing happened on a night when Joe was out on a business call, and since we only have one car, I planned to go for a walk when the family arrived. I was studying my Brit Lit when I heard them come in, so I left through the sliding door and through the back yard to the nature trail.

After I strolled around our block a couple of times, I decided to just wait across the street for the homebuyers to leave. I sat down under our neighbor’s pear tree. The sun finished setting and I started to wonder what was taking the people so long.

I also started to wonder what a neighbor, glancing out a window, might make of a person sitting under a tree in the dark, staring at a house across the street. Would they think I was staking out the house for a heist? My clothes, black pants and a navy sweater, began seem less like an invisibility cloak and more like a screaming sign of a dangerous loiterer. I stood up to take another walk around the block, thereby relieving the fears of any neighbors.

That’s when the realtor and the viewing family walked out of the house.

I was trapped by the tree. If I walked away, I would call attention to my robbery-clothes-wearing and furtive  tree-lurking behavior. The only thing I could do was step partly behind the slender-trunked tree and hope they didn’t see me. As they backed out of the driveway, I realized that my glasses would reflect their tail lights. Crap! I bowed my head and let my hair cover my face, and that’s how the neighbor walking the dog found me: hiding behind a tree, pretending to be invisible while staring at a passing car, with my hair in my pasty white face like the little girl from “The Ring”.

I hope I didn’t scare anyone.

Awkward.

I wish I had an “impending danger” meter that would warn me when I’m about to do something stupid…but perhaps it would be red-lining too often. Share my latest embarrassment in class with me.

Me (to a kid who’s packing up after class): has anyone ever told you that you look like Wayne Brady?

Kid: yeah, the ladies I work with tell me that all the time. I don’t know if that’s a compliment, though.

Me: Sure it is! Wayne is hot!

Kid: Well, then…

Me: …and I think I just accidentally told you that you’re hot. That was inappropriate. I’m sorry.

*leaving without eye contact*

How would you redeem this situation?