Just the Roof, please, continued

When Jet came home from work last night, Dill the Crooked Roofer was sitting across the street from our house in his dilapidated van, staring at our house.

Jet asked him if he needed to speak with him. "Not unless you have any money," was the reply.

The police, apparently, can do nothing unless and until he encroaches on the property or makes an explicit threat.

You should know, of course, that we have not paid Dill the Crooked Roofer the balance of our bill, and are suing him to get our deposit back. Which he should know about by now. Which means he is angry, and stupid, and likely possesses firearms.

Sigh.

Code Dependent has just posted her first new blog in two years. So no more grousing about how infrequently I post.

Unemployable, continued

Okay, I'm starting not to get the joke.

Yesterday, having filled out an online application for a temp company, and having an interview appointment automatically scheduled for me, I received a call from girl-at-the-temp-agency-with-a-perky-name-that-probably-dots-her-I's-with-hearts.

Perky: "Hello, Bamm-Bamm? It's about your appointment tomorrow. I just screened your application and I'm sorry to say you don't meet our core requirements."

Me: "And those are?"

Perky: "Mid- to upper-level management, and data entry."

Me: "...um, that covers three of the five jobs that are listed on my application."

Perky: "I'm sorry, but I screened your application and you don't meet our core requirements."

I repeat, this is for temp work. Which a chimp could do.

Oh, plus, I'm petty and vindictive. The company was Apple One. Spread the word.

Is God angry?

Six weeks after buying this house, we have a live termite infestation, any sign of which somehow evaded the pre-sale termite inspection.

I'm still unemployed and unemployable.

And here's the path of Hurricane Ernesto, set to hit our definitely-not-able-to-withstand-a-hurricane-roof at 8am on Friday - the day I'm supposed to start my one-day-a-week job, which is thus far my only form of employment:



I'm just sayin'.

Dog Park

One thing I WILL give this town credit for is its dog park, "a 42-acre swim and play park for people and their doggies (over 25 acres are currently fenced)! The park is the country's largest completely fenced dog park--a true heaven on earth for dogs!"

Heaven for most dogs, I suppose....Frito Joe for instance, who will chase and pester any dog no matter how big, and bark at the top of his lungs when he can't catch them, which he can't, because despite being slim and wiry he is composed entirely of sinew and is just a hair slower than every other dog in the park.

Poor Dino (the sweetest dog that ever lived on the earth in all of history), on the other hand, could take it or leave it (mostly leave it I imagine). When approached by another dog for a friendly sniff-up, she will curl into a ball, preferably under the legs of Jet or me. If we are not available, she will approach any strangers who happen to be standing by (because this is a dog park, these strangers are usually old men or lesbians, or old lesbians). If no legs are available, she will growl and snarl and make herself out to be the sort of undesirable cur that is unwelcome at the dog park, even though she is, as I mentioned, the sweetest dog that ever lived on the earth in all of history.

If pressed into activity, she will chase only Frito Joe, seemingly for the express purpose of preventing him from having any fun. As she can run roughly at the speed of sound, her self-appointed task is easily accomplished. She will carefully choose a moment when she is able to gain access to Frito Joe without having to touch or be touched by any other dogs, then take off like a discharged bullet, tackle Frito Joe to the ground, and resume her position of safety under someone's legs.

This isn't leading to any pithy revelation about real life, I just wanted to upload a picture of the dogs.

Limbo

Having spent the past three days back in DC, I am faced with the startling fact that, just like they say, you can't go home again. But I'm jaded and cranky and not at all prepared to embrace my new life and town. What's a boy to do?

Plus I'm still forty, and have no idea what I'm supposed to do with THAT knowledge.

Plus I'm apparently unemployable (see previous post). Okay, I haven't sent out, like, thirty-thousand blind resumes a day, like I've heard some people say they do, but I HAVE diligently scanned the newspapers and websites for local jobs that I am eminently qualified for, and been perky and affable in every interview I've gone on, and STILL nothing.

Well, except for the teaching one day a week at one of my Alma Maters, which gave my self-confidence a boost but is nonetheless an hour and a half away and will only net me a cool five grand a year, which is not going to be enough to keep my DVD habit going, and I already have the DT's from not having been to Best Buy in over two months.

Speaking of Best Buy, I would NOT be above working there, IF they were hiring, which they're not. Nor is Borders, or Barnes and Noble. The only box store offering the possibility of gainful employ is Michael's Crafts, but when I went in to ask for an application, after having been brusquely put off by the managerette, I inexplicable burst into tears and had to race back to my car. I suppose it was the possibility of having to scrawl my own name on my smock with a fabric marker that set me off, I don't know. Perhaps I'll go back this week. Now that I have one day of the week accounted for, I only need to find something for the other four.

Just to keep my options open, I DID ensure that I would have a place at the Cathedral should Jet and I suddenly return to DC, and was assured that I would indeed have a place - and all because I'm good and pure. I didn't even have to give out money or sexual favors. I also insisted that in the meantime, I be called back should anyone of importance die and have a service at the Cathedral, another assurance that was graciously granted me.

Oh, and lest I forget, Jet Screamer has started his own blog. Nothing much there yet, but keep hounding him, he's sure to have some juicy posts for us real soon.

Unemployable

How in the crap am I not qualified to be a bank teller?!? A CHIMP can be a bank teller.

Sigh.

Just the roof, please

When one’s business is named “Just So-and-So”…..”Just Cakes” perhaps, or “Just Rivets”, it would seem to imply that said business has made such an art of, say , cakes or rivets, that they’ve abandoned all other pursuits to ensure that their cakes or rivets are the cream of their respective crops.

Unless you’re in the South. Jacksonville, as we’re discovering, IS the South, unlike the rest of Florida, which is a giant beach town. Even the parts that aren’t on the Beach. Jacksonville is more accurately thought of as belonging to southern Georgia, and I mean that in the worst possible sense.

In the South, naming your business “Just So-and So”…for the sake of argument, I’ll say “Just Roofing”…means that you’ve so screwed up every other endeavor that you’ve only one endeavor to screw up. Like roofs. Specifically, our roof. Our historic pressed-tin roof that the city would only allow us to replace with another pressed-tin roof, which was supposed to be complete before we even moved in yet wasn’t even BEGUN until two weeks AFTER we’d moved in, and was supposed to be completed in four days but wasn’t NEAR completion for four weeks, and now may or may not be complete – we’re not sure because the city has halted all work permits issued to our roofer, Dill, and if we want the roof to be put on correctly we’ll have to hire another company to rip the whole thing off and start from scratch.

I suppose we should have taken a bit more notice when the crackerjack carpentry team next door kept ridiculing the progress Dill was making on our roof, or when they reported that Dill’s helpers were sitting up on the roof smoking pot every time Dill left the site. But it wasn’t until water poured from the attic into our upstairs hallway that we really started to suspect that something might not be kosher. Then when the city inspector walked up into the attic, whistled under his breath, and said “Oh, shit”. Oh, and of course, when we found out Dill’s State license had been suspended since March, with no one ever bothering to tell the city. Things like that really start to pique one’s interest.

Other than that, the neighborhood remains…interesting. We attended Jacksonville’s recent Gay Pride Festival with some neighbors we met at the neighborhood dog walk. Granted, Jet and I may be a bit biased, as the last Pride Festival we attended jointly was in San Francisco….but fifty middle-aged people milling around a street corner while a lonely DJ blasts music in their ears doesn’t say to me “gay”, “pride”, OR “festival”.

Jet and I have been traveling across the river to the tony part of town to do our shopping, except in the direst of emergencies, like when we wake up on Sunday morning and have no coffee. It was just such a Sunday morning recently, and I dashed down to the local Stab-n-Save to grab a can of Folger’s, arriving just in time to witness the after effects of a homeless person taking a shit right in the middle of aisle ten. Not the coffee aisle, thankfully.

Contrast this with events on the other extreme, like the well-dressed white couple that drives by our house in a golf cart, both of them holding full goblets of Merlot, announcing that they’re “snooping things out”. I don’t even know what that means. But I like to think I’m a little smarter than to drive the streets with an open container of liquor in a slow-moving vehicle. That’s just asking for trouble.

Oh, and did I mention I’m forty? What am I supposed to do now?

2 things you never want to hear from your waking or sleeping spouse

Waking: "Baaaaaaam! Frito Joe has an erection and he's doing something to the carpet!"

Sleeping: "Bamm, PLEASE! Don't kill those kittens!"