Rural Dreams

"I'll be right ... here"

"I'll be right ... here"
Most of the time I exist here in the midst of America feeling like I don't belong. I have always felt this way, and as a child I think it was even more pronounced because children are unable to surround themselves with people who are like them. You live where your family lives, you go to the local school - you don't really understand that you don't fit in because your politics are radical (for America) and your spirituality is radical (for America) because you have no frame of reference for such things.

Last night I saw E.T. with my son and that experience was manufactured for ME. Baby, I belonged! ET came out the summer I turned 9 years old. Spielberg, being a master of emotional manipulation, stole my heart with that movie, along with probably every other kid of my generation. To take my 2 year old son to see it twenty years later, listen to him say, "E.T.... E.T." as E.T. first starts to talk, gasp as bicycles become supernatural flying machines and get nervous as Elliot's home is invaded by government scientists was a tremendously satisfying experience.

All of the kids in E.T. were great actors. Drew Barrymore was especially beloved for her role in it, but the actors who played her brothers were really wonderful too.

I imagine that Harry Potter will be the E.T. of kids today.

Easter Aidan went to bed

Easter
Aidan went to bed a little bit early last night and I boiled some eggs to color today. This morning I pulled them out of the fridge while I was making breakfast for Aidan and he got very excited. He ran away and when he came back he created this lovely picture:

Thanks for the chicken, Nana Kay.

We are going to go over to Will and Val's for brunch for Easter. Will warned me that he gives a long sermon on Easter - heh heh.

Spring is really here - the weather has been gorgeous and there are multitudes of birds everywhere. Where ARE the birds in the winter? I didn't see ANY 2 months ago. I know that some migrate, but the difference is so dramatic. Where do the songbirds go? And the turkeys? I see turkeys now and I never saw any before. I was sure I saw a turkey flying yesterday - do turkeys fly?

I can't decide if I should make a vegetable garden or not - it is frustrating not knowing if we are going to be here, and we are in serious deer country so if I wanted to make a serious garden I'd have to fence it in. We signed up for a CSA so we should get a good amount of produce from that.

It takes ALL OF

It takes ALL OF MY STRENGTH to not buy a package of peeps when I'm out at the store with Aidan. I have a policy of not eating anything around him that I wouldn't let him have and so unless I want sugar coated toddler teeth, NO PEEPS. But I tell you, as soon as I am out without him, I'm buying a package and eating every one of them in the car.

The homeowner just countered our

The homeowner just countered our offer. He must be nuts, he barely came down from his asking price and its been on the market for at least a year and a half. I'm not going to bother mentioning any more real estate deals until we are in contract.

om I just attended my

om
I just attended my first yoga class up here. At the end of the class we chanted om three times - it was more like toning - and I could hear how off my om was from everyone else's. I almost started weeping. It's why I don't sing - that feeling of not being in harmony with other people is just dreadful to me.

Mom called at 5:02 -

Mom called at 5:02 - but that's just because I was on the phone before that and she couldn't get through.

I looked at a property on Friday that I had been meaning to go and see for a long time - it was a run down cottage on 25 acres right in Chatham VIllage. Will and Val came with me - they had contacted the realtor about that same property - Will being interested in having a retreat for musicians. It happens to almost touch their property on one side, with just RR tracks, a lot and a street in between. We all liked the property very much, it doesn't feel at all like you are in town and the Stony Kill runns through one side of it.

The price was a bit out of our range, so I didn't get too excited about it. I spoke to my pal at the toy store about it - he suggested a very low offer price. When I came home, Steve was home - I had forgotten that he was working a half day. Aidan was asleep in the car so we turned around to look at the house again. Steve checked out the structure more than I had. It will need a septic, but the foundation seems good. The house is very small, but there were things that we thought we could do to improve it. We were more detatched about it than usual - but I think that that was probably because it was out of our price range.

We almost didn't bid on it that day - but at about 5:00 the realtor called to see what we thought. Steve told her that we would think about it over the weekend and then suddenly changed his mind about half an hour later. He called her back and drove back to Chatham to her office to submit our ridiculously low offer.

We didn't talk about it much and I didn't mention it here because we'd made offers before and fully expected this one to not happen - we really couldn't afford his price and would have been shocked if he came down to our price. On Monday the realtor left a message that someone else had submitted a bid on the property that weekend. I spoke to her this morning to see if we could compete with the new bid and she told me that she couldn't tell me the bid amount - its against the law. I am going through all of this really blindly and was really shocked to hear that. Then, she sort of coached me toward what a competitive bid would be. So I spent a few minutes on the phone with her trying to estimate what the taxes on this property might be and then I called Steve to propose a monthly payment that would be a little higher than any we had paid before. We decided to go for it.

I thought that at that point the other bidder would be able to bid again. Turns out that's not the way it works. He gets one bid, we get two because we went first. Doesn't that seem like an important piece of information that your realtor should tell you about ahead of time? We almost didn't bid on Friday!

So now several things may happen - we may get the house and property no problemo. The owner could counter our offer at which point we would walk away because we already feel like we are over extending ourselves. We could find out upon inspection that the cottage has more problems than we think. The house may not be mortgagable for the proposed purchase price. This is the third offer we have made on something so I am trying not to daydream about the possibilities or get too excited about it.

I have big news -

I have big news - but I'm thinking that I may just leave it at that and see how long it takes to get a phone call

ps- I'm not pregnant

I just wrote the biggest

I just wrote the biggest most entertaining blog entry ever and blogger lost half of it so I am just replacing it with a hex on blogger.

Throwingcards.com I am working on

Throwingcards.com
I am working on a new web project: a site that gives tarot readings. It was Will's idea, but the way that we are doing it is that I will own and produce the site and he is going to provide the text for the readings and a schema for a database that will generate the readings in exchange for a percentage of each reading. I am hiring Christiane to do the backend stuff that will make it work. I am very excited about it - hoping that it might generate some income and allow me to work from home. I hope to have it launched by June.

I'm wondering if my text

I'm wondering if my text is going to now run into the right column so this is just a test to see...

That dog banning thing -

That dog banning thing - it didn't work. I'm afraid that sleeping in our bed is cemented in Wes' consciousness - it is the world as Wes knows it. Every morning Wes wakes up pressed up against Steve, soaking up his powerful sleep vibes, and this morning was no different, in spite of me kicking him out of the bed five times last night. I heard him walk down the stairs and jump on the recliner last night, but this morning, there he was.

So, following a suggestion of my mom's I ordered a new tick repellent and then I decided to get the the super toxic tick collar to go with it.

Last night Steve and I went out with Jes and Leland to see a band called The Rhythm Method at a club called The Old Egg. We thought that was pretty funny.

Just to show how far

Just to show how far I am from achieving Nirvana, I am going to talk about ticks some more.

Last night before we went to bed, Wes was rolling around on the comforter while Aidan and I tried to settle under the covers for a book. Suddenly I spotted, very small on our dark blue comforter cover, a tick. It was small, unfed, hungry for a meal - it must have fallen off the rolling around dog. Fortunately, I was able to snatch it up and drop it into the mason jar of alchohol that I keep by the bed for that purpose. I am so glad that Wes didn't roll back on it and obscure it somehow. That would have driven me crazy.

Not that I wasn't driven crazy anyway. Steve spent last night on Long Island, which made me feel slightly more vulnerable. I was itching all night with a bad case of the creepy-crawlies. And I had some of those dreams again - but this time the bugs were in my hair. And they weren't even ticks, they were lice, but they didn't look like lice, they looked like little green worms. So in my dream I cut my dreadlocks off and I woke up so very very sad about it. Because I can see it coming - I'm going to have to cut them off for my sanity. But I'm going to put it off as long as possible - and after I do, I'm dying my hair purple - so don't get too excited about me not looking like a freak.

And that's not even the end of the story.

Today, when Aidan woke up from his nap, I was hiding under the cover playing with him, hoping to distract him from his ritual of nursing upon waking. It didn't work and as I was nursing him I noticed on his scalp (music swells) a tick. It was still really small and came out really easily so I think that it had just attatched itself - so there is very little danger of Lyme disease - but hell, they're fucking with my son now so I am going to have to take some decisive action.

So here's what I'm going to do:
The dog is banned from the bed. I've been wanting to make him a dog bed out of an old futon of ours but I may just break down and buy him one.
I am getting all light colored bed linens for the bed so that if there is a tick we can see it easily.
We are all getting ritual tick checks every night.
I am going to mentally prepare myself for cutting off my locks. This one makes me terribly sad - maybe I won't feel like this is necessary if I can keep the dog off of the bed.

I really really really hope that I can think of something better than ticks to talk about tomorrow.

While Aidan was napping and getting attacked by the tick, I came across an inspiring website called Dollar Short. I spent some time coloring in the picture from Mena's Christmas coloring contest. It was a great exercise (until my computer crashed and I lost all of my work) because it got me experimenting with Photoshop and learning new tricks and effects. She also has content management software (for things like blogs) at movable type. It all looks really interesting and if I were a tech goddess like Christiane, I would check it out.

Some of the really impressive sites that I am seeing lately are abandoning Netscape 4x and designing completely with stylesheets. I hope the day is coming soon when that is acceptable with business sites. I'd love to start working like that.

Bugs I used to have

Bugs
I used to have dreams about bugs - bad dreams. I found an explanation in a dream book that really helped. It said that bugs symbolize little things, maybe LOTS of them, that "bug" you, but are actually truly insignificant in the scheme of things.

My bugs here are the ticks. If you read this you must have noticed that I talk about them a lot. Like maybe I should have a picture of a tick on the side of the page instead of a chicken. I NEVER talk about chickens now do I? By the way, we picked 4 off of Wes last night, all around his left ear.

But I've been starting to think, everyone who lives up here deals with them. Probably very few people lose sleep over them - although they are probably smarter than me and don't sleep WITH their dog. I'm starting to think that I need to achieve some kind of inner peace about the ticks or they'll give me cancer before they give me lyme disease.

Friends of ours just moved into an old yellow farmhouse. It is infested with ladybugs. We have ladybugs here too, but they don't bother me at all. When we first moved in we were enchanted by them and felt like it was lucky they were here. Since then I have seen them in many people's houses, but the yellow farmhouse has the most I've seen. Our friends who live there hate them and vacuum them up. I have trouble understanding this since I used to BUY ladybugs at the garden store for my tiny garden in front of our apartment.

Mr. Fennyman, let me explain

Mr. Fennyman, let me explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Aidan loves watching Shakespeare in Love. He sits through it from beginning to end over and over again. It's not like he doesn't have any kids videos. I like to think that he is just really sophisticated.

I stopped at a small

I stopped at a small bookstore last night while I was running some other errands. There are no big bookstores in this area - so you have no choice but to patronize small, local businesses - I love it! This particular store was not terribly hip looking, but had a fairly interesting selection of books including a section on local history and lore. There was a small children's section in the back and I picked up a copy of Everyone Poops. I think it is everyone's new favorite book. A quote:

"A one hump camel make a one hump poop. A two hump camel makes a two hump poop. Just kidding!"

I was toying with the idea of seeing if they would order a copy of Stupid White Men for me. There weren't any NRA stickers on the shop window or anything but I didn't quite have the courage. Maybe next time.

There are also no big toy stores so I ended up at a small toy store in Chatham today to get a birthday gift for Althea, who turned four this week. I got to talking to Fred, the owner. It takes a special kind of person to own a toy store. Fred doesn't think that we should buy the property in Gallatin either.

While I am listing all of the big chain stores that aren't here, I have to mention Home Depot. None of them. No Lowes either. Halleluiah.

There is a Wal-Mart but it's the small kind, thank goodness. I am boycotting it - although I did send Steve there for a mattress pad last month when Aidan was puking. So I am mostly boycotting it. Call me a fair-weather boycotter. Or a fair-health boycotter. It's something.

Steve got an estimate to

Steve got an estimate to pour the bottom of the foundation at the property that we're not sure that we want. Apparently they can get a truck up there and it would cost $2640. I don't know if that is good news or not. I think that we were kind of hoping that they wouldn't be able to get the truck up there so that we'd have a good solid reason to not do it.

I met with a mortgage broker this morning who gave me a copy of my credit report and told me exactly who we need to get letters from saying that our debts are cleared up and the addresses of the credit agencies that I need to send copies of those letters to. I don't know why we weren't given that information the first time we tried to get a mortgage. I attibute it to the power of Larry (our landlord). He called this morgage broker and spoke to him before calling me and giving me his name and number. I thought that Larry knew him. Larry's just all over it. I wish I had a quarter of his agressiveness and energy.

Elsbeth, who went to the puppetmaking workshop for the SOA protest with us, came over to dinner tonight. She lives in Millerton, which is really close to the land that we bid on. We were trying to get her to tell us about things that would make us want to live there. There wasn't much, except hiking trails. It was nice to see her. She is a really easy person to be around, completely unpretentious.

I found this on Wes

I found this on Wes this morning. I'm sorry, I just had to share.

Will it EVER END? Steve

Will it EVER END?
Steve and I took a ride back to the property today from Hillsdale to see how long a drive it would be from there. Hillsdale is where Steve is currently working and it is where the road to Great Barrington is. We ended up taking a slightly longer route than was necessary and it was 20 miles. The road that we took in this time was the kind of place where Steve starts singing the song from "Deliverance". We tried to get up the driveway to the homesite without using 4-wheel drive and we couldn't. When we got up to the top we realized that the dogs in the kennel at the bottom of the hill would ALWAYS be barking. I looked around at the ground and noticed that there is no soil at all, it is all shale.

What a difference a day makes.

Our landlord is in town

Our landlord is in town and he's been really active in trying to help us buy something. He called at 8:00 this morning to tell us that he found out about a property on 14 acres with a foundation, well and septic. It is not the location that I wanted, but its not bad at all. It's on the border between Ancram and Gallatin, which is the south-eastern corner of Columbia County. It is pretty close to Wassaic, which is now the end of the line for the Metro-North train to NYC. We picked up Larry (our landlord) and drove out to look at it. Other than there being trash everywhere, it was gorgeous. It is exactly what I have wanted, just not really in the right location, but it's hardly a bad location, and we are making an official offer on it this afternoon. The foundation that is in is for a modest house, which suits us just fine. It is up high on a hill. The views are gorgeous. So, even if we don't spend the rest of our lives there, we can get a house up there fairly easily (the electric has been run too) and when we sell it we'll make some good money I think. The realtor says she can get us a mortgage, the deal will be contingent on that.