We Own A House... Now What?

Twenty days in and this is only my first post for the new year. Good thing I didn't go and make a resolution about blogging more consistently for 2015... heh... heh... (*scratches "blog more consistently" off New Year's resolution list*). In my defense, it's mostly because we don't have internet set up at the new place yet. That and we're now so far away from civilization even our data coverage is close to non-existent most of the day.

So, yes, as you may have picked up, we have moved and have now officially joined the ranks of "homeowners". Now we just have to clear off that mortgage over the next thirty years or so and it's all ours. Just in time for the kids to kick us out into a retirement home and start fighting over it.

Can't wait.

As cool as it is to finally become a homeowner, in the end you still have to go through the whole process of moving and that's always fun. Isn't it? (NOTE: By "fun" I actually mean a huge barrel of suck... You probably already knew that.) You have your packing, heavy lifting, unpacking, exhaustion, aches, pains and stuff that gets broken. Yeah... fuuuuunn! (See earlier note.) We did that over the Christmas weekend which means we were too busy doing all that stuff I mentioned earlier and too broke to really celebrate Christmas (alcohol was consumed, though).

When the dust settled and we finally got some sleep (about a week after we moved in), we then had time to sit and take it all in.

Homeowners...

Us!

The novelty wears off soon enough though. Right around the time when you realize the last ounce of dependency you had on others is gone. Before, if you lived with your parents or, as in our case, you were a renter, you knew there would be certain things beyond your control. Leaky roof? call the landlord! Faulty plumbing? Get that landlord on the phone! Pest infestation? Better get the landlord to call in an exterminator.

Now we're on our own, when it comes to taking care of our house and all of its needs. If you stop to think about it too long it can be a little daunting. Needless to say, I'm trying not to think about it too much (seems like a viable strategy...)

Speaking of which, that leaking (READ AS: "gushing") shower faucet issue I mentioned the last time, yeah, we're trying to sort that out. Surprisingly, the agency responsible for the houses is actually saying they'll arrange to have the contractors come in and sort it out. Now we just have to see how long that takes to happen.

In other news: Kawaii's adjusting well after the move. She did get really sick the first night and we were more than a little worried but she eventually pulled through and, a few days later, she was back to her old self (cue the obligatory cute puppy pic). 

"I know you trimmed around my eyes like half an hour ago but... it grew back."

Unlike at the old place, where she spent all her time indoors due to our former neighbors', not-so-friendly (or clean) dogs that already occupied the yard, here she gets to go out every day (on a leash until we put a fence up). I've even started taking her for walks around the block (I feel so suburban now you would not believe), which she loves.

She's also taken an interest in the of local wildlife (READ AS: "bugs") which our new area has in copious amounts. And, since they often find their way inside the house, she has plenty of opportunities to examine them... after she chases them down, swats them to death with her paws and - of they're big enough - tears to shreds with her teeth.

Wait! Is that a cricket?

She's a curious girl.

Speaking of wildlife, we also have birds in the area. Lots of birds. Birds that are mostly quiet in the day but then there are these others that let out loud, eerie "squawks" throughout the night. We don't go outside much at night. As luck would have it, among the various species we also have my arch nemeses, Grackles.

Look at 'em! Just strutting around my backyard like they own the place... Send help.

At some point I really started to wonder if someone was just f*cking with me.

Anyway, their mating season is still a few months away so they don't have a reason to start attacking people yet. So there's that.

On the plus side, at the outer end the street leading into the community there are horses.

Those are cool.

One of the biggest adjustments, though, is that this an entirely new community. We were among the first two hundred plus people to get keys and everyone's new here and only moved in weeks apart from each other. That means none of us got treated to one of those scenes you see in the movies where the local community group forms a welcoming committee to bring you baked goods to mask their real objective of scoping out your stuff.

I want a blueberry muffin, dammit!

Instead, we all just get to watch silently as we observe another moving truck roll up the street and hope the whoever-it-is isn't planning on starting a meth lab in his/her kitchen or blasting Jamaican Dancehall music every night until 3AM (it's popular here).

The adventure begins.

My Brain Can't Ever Be Left Unsupervised.

Sunday morning I was lying in bed, trying to force myself to go back to sleep, I hate getting up too early on a weekend and since I had no intention of getting up before at least Monday I decided I’d just lie there until sleep came back.

That has to work sometimes right?

Anyway, I was lying there and I decided to let my brain go on ahead and do whatever it wanted without me in the hope that it would be too distracted to notice when sleep crept back in. I tried not to focus on any kind of actual thought so it would get all excited and start thinking. Brains are like that. They always want to think at inappropriate times like when you’re trying to go to sleep. But it was during this time of letting my brain get distracted with all kinds of random thoughts, that this thought in particular suddenly happened.

“I bet I could totally kill a chicken!”

Yeah...

With that, my brain had something to latch on to and all hopes of sleep were gone.

Before you start wondering, there was an actal train of thought that led me to this statement. It’s not like I lie awake, thinking of who or what I’d be able to kill.

Beat up, maybe, but not kill.

Of course, even I had to retrace my brain’s steps to figure out where this thought in particular came from, since I wasn’t really paying attention to what it was doing. When I was able to get to the original thought that set this train in motion, it all made perfect sense.

“It’s all the internet’s fault I don’t get enough sleep.”

See? That makes things a whole lot clearer now, doesn’t it? If you’re not following (and I don’t see how you couldn’t be) I’ll break it down for you. It’s like this:

To date, the internet as we all know, is one of the greatest advances in technology known to man. I dare say it ranks right up there with double-sided tape and the Japanese Butter Stick.

The internet is also the greatest distraction known to man. One of my lecturers even said that the internet is also guilty of diminishing the attention span of today’s society. At least, I think that’s what he said. The dude was going on and on and I was starting to get bored. He really needs to learn how to take his rants down to 140 characters or less.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. Chickens!

See, with the internet being the distraction it is, I more often than not, find myself choosing stay awake just a little bit longer so I can keep up with all the fun distractions the worldwide web has to offer. When I end up exhausted as a result, I sometimes wonder what the world would be like, not just without it, but without all the other newfangled doodads we have and the entire way of life to which we’ve grown accustomed.

I'd imagine there was some kind of apocalyptic event which would basically send us all back to the stone-age, technology wise. There’d be no more smartphones, or television, or any other of the modern conveniences and we didn’t have a choice but to actually “go outside” and “do things”. Of course, there’d be no fast food restaurants or convenience stores either, so finding food would require actually finding your own food... and possibly killing it and cooking it all on your own too.

This is where the chickens would come in. I figured at least a few of them would probably survive the apocalypse and unless there was some kind of radioactive mutation issue and chickens became vicious, man-eating beasts, I think  those would be easy enough to take on.

Or not...

Of course, I went on to formulating the proper technique for getting the job done with minimal blood spatter and creepy headless panicked bird running around. Then I thought about what the best way would be to get all the feathers off. I wasn’t sure, but figure I’d better look that up before the apocalypse took Google away.

That's how I came to the conclusion that I totally could do if I had to. I just need the circumstances to be just right for me to rise to the occassion.

A Bird In The Hand...

Yesterday, while I was getting ready for work I heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. That's when I found this:

You may have me now, but the joke's on you when you see what I left in your hand.

A Ground Dove. I don't know that much about birds but I could tell it's young. It came in through an open window and was freaking out a little because it felt trapped. It fluttered around until it ended up stuck in a waste basket.

Coincidentally, My post on Sprocket Ink today is about a trapped bird. Only, this is about one that got away. Click on the SI badge to the right to see what I'm talking about.

Me Vs Nature.

Pastelles are a Christmas tradition here in T&T. For those of you who don't know, they're these steamed, meat-filled, cornmeal pies. The traditional way is to cook them wrapped in banana leaves. They're awesome!

Mrs. C makes kick-ass pastelles. She actually used to make extra money at Christmastime selling them. She doesn't make them for sale any more. Too much work. We would often lose an entire night's sleep to make them. She still makes more than enough for us and to give out to a few friends and relatives, though.

But as I was saying, banana leaves are required. They're not a must. You can wrap them in foil, but my wife's adamant about doing it the old fashioned way. She says it enhances the flavor. All I know is they taste great. Who am I to argue?

When I wrote about where I'm from I said it wasn't uncommon to have banana trees in the average Trini's yard. But there are exceptions and most of the places we've lived in the past didn't. This meant me having to go around to neighbors to get leaves.

But this year I got lucky. There isn't just one banana tree in the yard of our new apartment, there are two. So this time I don't have to go around to the neighbors to get leaves. Plus, free bananas! Win-win, right?

Well, it looks like someone has other plans. The other day I went to the back yard to check on the condition of the trees I'd soon be pillaging for leaves. I also wanted to check on the three bunches of bananas that were growing too. That's when I noticed a slight hitch in the plans.

It seems a small Ground Dove has set up a nest in one of the banana bunches. Needless to say, I wanted to share this so I decided to get a picture. I went back yesterday morning to get one and the mom flew off in fear and abandoned her babies.

I question her parenting skills.

This did, however, give me a change to scope out the nest. And I took pics.

For some reason I feel like saying, "Crikey! Those are beauts!"

Um... Occupied.

I checked this morning and the did mom come back. Apparently she was in a calmer mood because she didn't fly off this time.

What the..! You again?!

Awwww... So cute, right?

Well cuteness aside, this poses two problems:

1. I need leaves later this week. I don't want to disrupt their home but there's no way I'm missing out on my wife's pastelles or going around the neighborhood for leaves for this.
2. I kinda had my eye on those bananas. They're the ones most likely to be ripe first.

I need to figure this out.

Birds! Why id it always birds?!