Today's Art Picture

"Ponzi scream: In Beijing, the sculpture "What You See Might Not Be Real" by artist Chen Wenling portrays the golden bull of Wall Street goring a horned Bernie Madoff in the assets."

Photo: Ng Han Guan / AP

Sewer Scare

So far, the inspections have gone incredibly well. Then we got to the sewer scope. Here in Portland, when you buy a house, you have someone come out and put a camera down from the house, out the sewer pipes, and out to the sewer main to make sure it's clear and not broken or leaking.
While I wasn't there for this one, it sounded weird. He couldn't tell where the scope went, it went out for a realllly long way, stuff like that. It was a "party line" (connected with your neighbors - not good) and he saw broken pipe (also not good). This was going to have to be fixed prior to the closing and it might take a while to complete that process. It could put off closing by a while. Part of me relaxed because it gave me more time to take care of all the things I need to do to move, but it also meant waiting, another month's rent, and moving in November - October is a much better month to be crazy in with respect to work. BUT, the next day I got a call from my agent telling me it was a mistake, it's all good and in fine condition. The scary part is the City's problem, not mine (confirmed with the City's sewer people). Phew. It means the closing date is still the 8th and I'm starting to have that deer-in-the-headlights look about me.

I bought a house.

Yeah, I bought a house. What a freaking week! Last Thursday I went to look at yet another house. I've been house hunting for a looooong time. I don't get too excited about these things anymore, but when I see what looks like a good house, reasonably priced and pretty close to where I'd ideally live, I had to go. Not too much time to think about it: wander through for a bit and make a decision. A house like this will be snatched up, so you have to jump on it. I did. By Friday afternoon, I was officially "sale pending." Things have gotten progressively stressful since then. I spent several days in agitated turmoil trying to figure if I was nuts, what was I doing, and it's not perfect - should I keep searching for perfect? It hasn't been pretty. (A huge thank you to those of you who have been listening to me babble on - more than normal - about my house angst. You know who you are.)

Main inspection was yesterday and, happily, very clean. A couple of others are in the offing. If all goes well, I will have a new home October 8. The previous owners maintained the house very well, but had not-great taste. They did some seriously "unfortunate" updating, which stopped sometime in the 70s. This will be a long-term-project house. I have grand plans, but not a grand bank account. Baby steps. There will be future pictures of the paneling, various wallpapers and peculiarities as I document the "before" of the house.

Did I mention that my stress level is through the roof?

Today's Laugh

Unexpected Bounty

Ok, maybe bounty is too broad a word for this...
Last spring I found this onion happily growing in my cabinet. --->
I thought two things: 1) I really should cook more often, and 2) if this onion is trying so hard to grow, I really should plant it. While I only cook a bit more than before, I did put the growing onion in a planter box I have. I live in an apartment, so this was as good as gardening was going to get for me. I even remembered to water it every now and again! It seemed to doing ok, but it wasn't really flourishing and after a fashion I gave up on/forgot about it. Yesterday I was poking around in the dirt and pulled out what I thought would be the shrived roots and found this! Guess I'm going to have to cook them this time.

09/09/09

Once in a lifetime.*


* Usually.

Upcycling

I don't often buy the just-add-water-type of meals. They usually aren't very good and they tend to come in packaging that just goes straight to the landfill. But, I was out the other day picking up a couple of things for camping and thought I'd try one that looked better than most (how easy when camping to pop it open dump in some boiling water and have a semi-decent hot meal in 3 minutes?). Honestly, it was ok, not great, just ok. And then I was left with the packaging.

The container the "Auntie Chun's" soup bowls come in is actually a harder plastic and it has a lid. Had to use it for something. Ding: new planter.


I marked some spots and drilled a bunch of drain holes in the bottom and along the bottom edge with my flex-shaft.



The containers are a nice, innocuous beige and when using the lid as the planter bottom, the name is even hidden. It's big enough for smaller plants or starters, and the lid has divots that collect a bit of over-watering. Although I didn't try, I'm guessing they are also paintable with the right material.

Both me and my plants are happy with the results.

Is it really September already? What happen to August? Where did the summer go? I'm trying to make up for it be going on a couple of short camping trips and eating as much as I can of the last of the summer fruit. Both things have had a positive effect.