this collage has been blatantly stolen from selah's website without permission or thanks because i am too lazy to post my own pictures of the people i ramble on about here and  because selah is my bitch.  ha.

 

 

 

 

speaking of plans, expect a revamp of this site soon.... 

 

you know, my new house doesn't have any bathtubs.  how dumb is that?  it's out of hand.  i mean, really, who thinks they will never take a bath, and therefore builds 4 bathrooms in a house with NO bathtubs?  luckily, amongst the cans of paint and pounds of old tile that i am lugging back to texas, i will have my two beautiful clawfoot bathtubs, so at the very least, until i renovate the bathrooms, i can run a hose from the kitchen sink to the tubs on the back porch and soak out there.  la!

 

today i have more bills due than i can afford to pay, so what do i do?  go shopping, of course.  i spent 82 dollars on 3 dresses and 2 cardigans, which, aside from the fact that i now cannot pay all the bills, seemed like a fair price.  not to mention that the chicky ringing me up didn't scan one of the dresses...so i saved a whopping 30 bucks!  woohoo!!!  the dresses are fantastic, though!  they all look like early 1930s dresses, below knee length with hankerchief style hems, dropped waists, bias cut, and with sequins and beads sewn on.  the print of the fabric is incredible, as well, it all looks to be vintage, too.  mayhaps i will post some pics of them later, but currently, we have some people in here looking over a contract for the house and we've shown it 3 times today as well!  yikes!  i will be so glad when i don't have to let one more stranger in this house to snoop through all my closets and whatnot.

 

i went to a party last night and ate waaay too much fabulous food.  i can't wait 'til we're back and we can throw our own parties.  that is all for now, i'm so tired.

 

it is the beginning of the end as far as my stint here in savannah.  after tomorrow, every day will be "the last" day that i do anything here.  the last sunday evening i watch the sunset from the balcony, the last monday that i spend cleaning this kitchen, the last friday i will ever reside in savannah.  perhaps it sounds petty to think in terms this way, but to me, moving here, and even moreso restoring houses, was *everything* i wanted.  and though i can dismiss the town as slow and at times irritating, once i head out west on interstate 16, i will miss it violently.  there is no other city like savannah, just as there is no other city like austin, each intriguing and desirable in their own ways...but i have never lived in a city where i was surrounded on every side by so much incredible architechture, for which i have a fanatical affinity.  it gives me a lump in my throat every time i have to think about when i will walk out of this house for the last time, latch the gate for the last time, see the spanish moss sway from the hundred year old oaks as i have seen everyday for the last 2 years for the last time.  my house will become someone else's home, and i can accept that with the knowledge that we have restored in it the strength to stand another 80 years.

 

so at this point, i will spend my days vacuuming the entire house in the evenings, mopping in the mornings, and then sitting around doing nothing in nice clothes just in case another asshole shows up without calling.  DURR!

it is so hot.  i took that photo of myself at 10 AM this morning, as i desperately tried to fan myself with my hand and shoo away the thousands of swamp bugs that thrive so intensely in the mugginess that we unfortunately experience 9 out of 12 months of the year here in the low country.  gads...and in an effort to keep our bills low we have set the thermostat to 83 degrees and have been using fans in an attempt to keep the house somewhat cool and at least circulate the air.  by fans i do not mean ceiling fans because i should only be so lucky...no, i have some antiquated floor fans, circa 1930, one courtesy of celena, and cute and mint green as they may be, they are enormously noisy.  they clattle and clang around until they vibrate themselves into a corner facing the wrong direction, like some distraught shamed child until we pick them up and place them back in the right place, only to find them buzzing away in the corner again 20 minutes later.  it is hot here, and there is not more one can do than to sit in front of a fan with a glass of ice water, wiping the sweat away and fanning off the bugs whilst counting the days  (11!) 'til texas.

 

 

 

 

you must understand what it takes to get a 4000 square foot house with 6 cats, 2 dogs, and some tenants clean and in order.  it's not something you do the night before or 10 minutes beforehand.  it is an ordeal.  and if you say you're going to be here at 11 AM on monday, then you better fucking show up.  it is now 1 PM and she hasn't arrived, nor has she called.  and she's not answering her tele, either.  maybe she's dead.

 

 

 

a new link has been added to the places to go...page: angeliska  aka miss mimsy borogroves, whose live journal reminds me why i want to move to nola and, again, exactly why i shouldn't.

 

 

 

a huge storm is heading our way and the winds are blowing like crazy...!

 

 

this view is free with the purchase of a 2 million dollar house from sotheby's realty.  meh.

 

i showed the house twice yesterday and felt that the 'lookers' were impressed.  i repainted the floor in the back bedroom and rearranged all the furniture and made ribbon tie-backs for all the curtains.  la!  aren't i domestic?  my mom said she would send me a st. joseph statue to bury upside down in the front yard....it's supposed to make the house sell, so keep your leetle fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

but we did and everything came together.  and now i'm going back home to everything familiar, which surprisingly is, in part, why i left in the first place.  but i can't wait to get back and see what changed without me, and, also, to see what remained a constant.  i cannot wait to smell bbq again.  and to party at eeyore's.  and to throw shindigs and hang out with my friends, texas style.  i cannot wait to be home in texas again.

 

and then around 2, lee comes running down the hallway grasping a four foot long ax handle telling me bike man (see april 17th entry) was in our yard and he had called the cops.  apparently bike man thought he'd take a piss break in the yard of the abandoned house next to us and then steal our circular saw from the side of our house on his way out.  but lee scared him off (with the ax handle) and he only managed to throw the poor saw over the fence before he had to leave it and run down the street with lee tailing him for a couple blocks.  the cops finally showed up (finally) and took a report.  meh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yeah, and it was just as simple as saying that.  meh.  people are pretty surprised, though, when we explain that we did it all ourselves.  for real.  the only thing we contracted out was the electricity and the floors.  we did the foundation (from UNDER the house thank you), the walls, ceilings, tiling, paint (ok, so i hired painters to do the sides and back of the house, but the house is almost 3 stories tall!).  anyway, my mom is coming to visit saturday thru thursday, so i have a bizillion things to do and i still haven't fixed the washing machine and dirtyness is piling up!  gads!

photos courtesy of foxnews.com

 

 

 

i am going to bed now and i'm going to sleep and dream of the solitude that surely exists somewhere beyond the boundaries of this ghetto. 

 

 

 

o-bli-ter-ates.

 

 

in other news, i'm covered with paint and no amount of bathing and showering can rid my skin of it, i have a very slight crush on fox news' shepard (shep) smith and embedded reporter rick leventhal, with whom i was so happy for today as he was shown via video phone opening his MRE and lo!  there was a package of M&Ms and he was just delighted!  go rick!  you eat those M&Ms right after you finish your little silver package of chicken strips with salsa.  brave, brave rick leventhal.     *sigh*

 

 

can i say it again?  just one more time.  the neighbor was hacking up a goat.

today is SUCKING.  i have cramps like i'm giving birth to a brontosaurus, i'm bleeding heavily and only have one tampon left, i'm beyond bloated, i have those self-heating pads that you stick to your body taped to my front and rear midsection, someone is ringing the doorbell and they won't go away even though no one is answering, lee is being an ass about painting the house, did i say i have bad cramps?  it sounds like someone is weedwacking in my backyard and it's not lee because i can hear him talking on the phone in the front room, the house is a mess, i have 2 parties to attend this weekend and my arms and legs are stained with paint and dirt even though i have bathed almost everyday this week, i need to bleach my hair, paint my toe/finger nails, find 2 differnt outfits, finish all the woodwork on the house so we can clear off the porches and complete the painting on the front of the house.  after my trip to the store last night i came home and discovered that we are out of juice, cotton swabs, tampons, and bottled water.  and i have just about finished off the bottle of ibuprofen.  gawt-damn!  bad evil no good really really fucking frustrating morning!!!!  arrrrrrrghhhh!!!!!  gawt-damn periods and cramps!!!!  you boys just have no clue!  everything might just be slightly less agrivating and grief-inducing if i weren't bleedin' like a freakin' stuck hog!  dammit!

 

 

 

in other news, nothing productive at ALL happened today, which was violently frustrating as i really wanted something productive to occur.  i tried to paint the outside of the house which resulted in me teetering on the top of the scaffolding with a migraine and paint being blown onto my face and clothes because of a storm starting to move in, so in some desperately unsuccessful attempt to get down and go back to bed i realized that lee had moved the scaffolding yesterday about 6 inches too far away for me to comfortably crawl off it and over the edge of the 2nd floor balcony.  i then proceeded to climb partway down and swing over to the balcony and toss myself over the railing with a paintbrush in one hand and a very sharp paint scraper in the other, all the while imagining myself falling (as usual) and stabbing myself.  with a paint scraper.  and then bleeding to death on the balcony because after i got over the edge i realized that the door to the stairwell was locked.  so i swung back over the railing and lept onto the scaffolding, climbed back down, went inside, up the stairs, out onto the balcony to retrieve the brush and scraper of death, went back downstairs, washed the brush, and layed on the couch and ate a humiliating amount of generic vanilla ice cream, thereby negating all diet-related efforts from the last 2 weeks.  i remained on the couch until it was dark outside and my desperate state of self loathing and the fact that i have about 3 inches of roots prompted me to get off my ass and drive to the store where i procured feria extra bleach blonde colorant, clear nail laquer, a contact lense case, a mary engelbreit home magazine, a very much needed and desired dr. pepper, and finally a can of jock itch spray for the husband.  i don't know what's more embarrassing, him having jock itch, or me having to carry the can around the store.

this morning, after cleaning my left ear with a q-tip that i guess i should have inspected previous to plunging it into the depths of my little hearing canal, i was horrified to notice after a quick glance at the used swab that one of the cotton fluffs on the end was either missing or non-existent.  i can't feel anything in my left ear, but those little fluffs are so small that maybe i wouldn't feel anything if it were lodged in my ear.  surely cotton won't hurt me.  surely my body will absorb it slowly or reject such a foreign object and expel it while i'm sleeping.  right?  RIGHT???

 

 

in other news, painting of the exterior of the house has begun.  the 5 weeks 'til moving day (texas or bust!) has begun.

 

la!

 

 

the dining room is *finished*.  pictured is the butler's pantry/china cabinet.  it was a disgusting mess for a very loooong time and i thought it would never look good...the picture here does not do it justice at all. 

 

 

as i am writing this an entire fleet of fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances has barraged my street  with sirens and horns, fleeing rawther speedily in an eastward direction.  i can only imagine that there has been some terrible parade mishap, with bleeding leprechauns and wounded vacationers, floats amassed in bloody wreckage, and froths of green beer overflowing the city's antiquated and inadequate runoff sewers.  most likely, a veritable train-wreck of holiday cheer gone-wrong.

lee takes jezebel for a walk.

 

i got my ultra fabulous boots today...they pretty much complete my life.  for real.  they are tight enough from the ankle to the knee and they just need a little breaking in to be perfect.  they're cool enough that i'll just overlook the fact that the guy who sold them to me charged me $10.00 for shipping and the USPS tag on the box only said $6.85.  and it wasn't like he packed them and made the box all pretty...he just taped the actually shoe box closed and labled and sent it on it's merry way.  now i could understand overcharging by a few dollars for nice packaging...i overcharge a little sometimes but i wrap everything, including fabric or dresses, in pink and white tissue and wrap the box in brown packing paper and write people's address all pretty and whatnot.  but nevermind, because the boots kick ass.  i will post a pic later, i promise.

 please note her description: "your mother would be ashamed for you to wear this!"

oh gawd, i'm self-loathing right now.  it's time for the once every 3 years i eat a few too many pop tarts diet.  also known as the 'i tried on a bikini the other day and wanted to slit my wrists' diet.  from here on out it's walkies, walkies, walkies, tons of water, ab-roller 'til i cry and then some more, and a mere 950 calories per day.  that's 2 or 3 cups of tea with sugar and 3 lean cuisine meals with no extra added cheese and whatnot.  at least i've been able to cut out the pop tarts for the last 3 weeks...

 

is that martha wearing a cancan petticoat? 

 

in other news, on my shopping excursion to walmart, i purchased a 31 count pack of old skool hair rollers in various sizes and fun colors including pink and red, false eyelashes, and the most perfectly red red red lipstick.  gawd only knows how many fucking tubs of *red* lipstick i've purchased thinking, this is it!  this is the one! and 27 seconds after careful application, i sadly add it to the box o' dismaying-ly not the right red for kaite skin box.  but this red worked.  and not even like, oh i have to put on a trampy dress and peep toe shoes to make it look appropriate, although that would do just fine, too, but no, this red worked for me in my old jeans, chuck taylors, and fitted black shirt.  of course my new vintage red with *real* rhinestone sunnies didn't hurt the look...

HELL YEAH!!!  look at these boots i just won on ebay!!!

fun with a chandelier.

 

among other things from other people, selah and celena sent me this pretty purple box filled with mounds upon mounds of pink sparkly fluff and candy.  *everything* was pink.  they even made me my very own personalized *kaite's birthday mix* cd...a double cd at that, with FANTASTIC music on it.  it's all about ME and pink stuff.  and selah's cd had a song about "my girl is the queen of the savages, she doesn't know the world and it's ravages, she doesn't have money, just hens and cabbages..." please excuse me if i didn't get the words exactly right, and i don't know who sings the song or even the name of it because i am a music retard and selah and celena like to make their mixtapes mysteries.  anyway, that song is 100% me.  did i mis-spell cabbages?

behold the loveliness that is my new kitchen.  and yes, that is exactly the same view in both pictures.  okokok, it's still not completely done, i still have to install the sink and since i took the picture i have sinced moved my antique fridge in and across from it is my big metal cabinet with all my vintage jadeite, milk glass, turquoise and white diner china, and my cherries drinking glasses.  yay!  more pictures later.  last night we went shopping at target and i got new lipstick and 3 very nice pretty shirts that i can wear when i have to go back to the real world (working).  tonight we are going out to elizabeth on 37th.  la!

 

 

 

 

 

now what?

there is something intensely disconcerting to me about the smell of bacon being cooked.  i might say it is very much akin to the pungent, noxious fumes and acrid odor of deisel fuel that puffs forth from big yellow school buses.  and somehow, the evil fumes of dead pig bits being fried on a generic george foreman indoor grill make their way down through the cracks in our ceiling and quite possibly through some other mysterious orifice that our house has to offer but has yet to be discovered.  every weekend morning the sickening smell of grease and pork fat being rendered stops me in the hallway, grabs me by the shoulders and bitch slaps me across the face until i nearly beg for mercy.  i can only imagine the stench that saturates the upstairs apartment where they are cooking it.  i imagine the air up there must be so thick and heavy with vaporized fat particles that it would probably stain your clothes if you walked through the kitchen.  there is something inherently evil and clearly malevolent about bacon.  it is wicked in ways i cannot describe.

 

 

 

in other news, our loan for the san marcos house was finally officially approved, no co-signers needed, thank you.  i spent 825 dollars at home depot and lowes last night, left a light fixture that i paid for AT THE STORE and didn't realize it until 4 hours later, and after all that, i still don't have any kitchen cabinets or a sink. 

i forgot about my birthday up until today.  i wish i was going to be back in texas for it, but alas...we'll just have a party when we finally do get back.  the kitchen here is finally almost complete; lee came home last week from business the day before valentine's and he made some executive decisions on the way home to buy some fairly pricey antiques for me as a valentine/anniversay/birthday gifts.  he surprised me with: a 1930s 'apartment' stove-a very small little black and white gas stove/oven on legs with incredibly deco knobs (empire state building style) and a very deco magic chef logo on it...we cleaned it up a little and have been baking pizzas in it for the last few nights...our first 'hot' meals other than microwave stuff for the last 2 months; he also gave me an antique floor lamp, that i would date to the teens judging by the wiring and the designs on the base...we rewired it and bought a fabulous fringed tulip-shaped lampshade for it; an antique gilt mirror, about 16"x 20" with ornate plaster carvings, a giant vintage picture frame with detailed carvings, and a very rare 6 foot long clawfoot bathtub with incredibly detailed 'fish' feet...we dated it, judging by the manufacturer stamp and numbers on the bottom to 1891, which i believe to be accurate as i just found an advertisement from an 1896 magazine for a clawfoot bathtub by the same manufacturer with the same fish feet as ours.  so...la!

so with nothing better to do than finish up some valentines, i sat in front of the tv all moring and flipped between cnn, msnbc, and the fox news channel.  and now they're telling me i should buy plastic sheeting, duct tape, a gas mask, batteries, and 3 days worth of food and water.  so with the terror threat risk at *orange*, threats of biological warfare, and possibly imminent threats of war with weapons of mass destruction...oh and me without a truck to go buy any of that nonsense because lee's out of town *again*, i've decided that connie chung may have convinced me that the next few days may be my last.  with that said, i'm going to eat the rest of the pop tarts that i swore up and down i would make last for the next week. 

 

 

 

welcome to savannah, my friends.  the city is not far from being exactly like the movie.

gad, i am such a nerd.

but anyway, so yeah, it's just a garbage can, but this is savannah and people guard things like that as if it were a child.  and i have a duplex and the one garbage can just isn't doing it for this entire household.  and it just made me so *mad* that someone thought they could just snag my can so they could have some place to put a bunch of crap instead of driving it to the city dump like you're supposed to...so i'm completely and utterly thrilled that *my* garbage can is back in it's rightful yard and i merrily stood out in the freezing rain and spray painted our address all over both cans.  ha!

 

 

 

so this morning i got up early and took the trash out and hauled ALOT of crap that we tore out of kitchen out back of the fence and felt like i accomplished something.  then i came in the office and listened to cyndi lauper's girls just wanna have fun and the white stripes and madonna's get into the groove and i danced and got sweaty and didn't really care if people outside could see me through the curtains and my ass was sore from walking 3 miles yesterday, but that made me happy because my ass has been getting kind of ghetto booty-licisous lately so i'm sure the exercise did it good, and then i was overcome with the urge to take a stereo to the park and play cyndi and madonna really loud and dance by myself. 

 

 

 

i think i'm going to ask lee if he wouldn't mind growing a full beard when he gets back in town.

100. i don't care what anyone thinks about me, as long as i'm having fun.