2013
Sweet Home California
This summer marks six years since we bought our house in Oakland, California. As I imagine most homeowners do, we immediately set about making it our own, which in our case meant painting the walls a rainbow of realtor-unapproved colors (red! navy! purple!), hanging guitars from the ceiling, stringing twinkle lights pretty much everywhere, and letting the front and back yards become totally, jungletastically overgrown because we have no idea what we’re doing. We’ve never had gardens like these before. We’ve never had a home together.
Click through to read more about why I love owning a home here. (It’s a sponsored post but not a review.)
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2013
Bathroom Barons
The other day while I was chitchatting with a flock of respected colleagues around ye old office watercooler (okay, it was on Twitter), a few people were engaging in that beloved national pasttime known as Snarking on House Hunters. (Do you do a lot of entertaining? I do a lot of entertaining! Oh, how I love to entertain. Which means nothing but granite countertops and a farmhouse sink and this rare stripe of travertine tile will do!)
There are many things about HH that feel like someone jabbing a finger in my eye socket (STOP GETTING IN THE GARDEN TUB, PEOPLE), but the one thing about HH that always gets my goat is the single homeowner insisting on nothing less than three (or more) bathrooms. Three! Bathrooms! Insisting! And you live alone! And maybe I’m being presumptuous, but…you only have one butt, right? Or does it sometimes feel like you have two because you’re a giant ass?
Okay, yes, I am fitfully jealous of anyone with more than one bathroom–even people who live alone–there’s no getting around that, but I also just…well, some people come off as grossly entitled (entitled to poop in various locales on one’s own property; is this the true American Dream?), and it makes me heave many exasperated sighs at the t.v. and at my countrymen and -women in general, and then–emotional payoff!–I get to feel quite smug about my own humble, one-bathroom-for-four-people-plus-guests (while entertaining!) abode, even though I’m positive that if I were on the show I’d surely insist on some feature that would make a large contingent of viewers roll their eyes at me. (A circular three-story library with a stained-glass roof and a waterfall in the middle that magically doesn’t damage the books with its refreshing mist? Make it so!)
Also, what’s with the nation’s collective boner over pedestal sinks? You lose all counter space and all undersink storage, and I just don’t get that on any level. Is it some sort of conspicuous consumption thing to show off how much storage you have elsewhere, in your apparently-giant-according-to-the-number-of-bathrooms house? Or–wait, I think I just figured something out–is one of your extraneous bathrooms dedicated entirely to storage, and that’s why you insisted on having so many in the first place? Does the toilet even work in bathroom #4 or did you drain the tank so you could use it to hold your collection of cologne and Axe body spray? I’ve figure it out, haven’t I?
Anyway, what I really wanted to discuss was whether having a double vanity in the [main] bathroom falls under the category of eye-rollingly entitled and assy, or if it’s actually a legit desire for regular homeowners. People on Twitter were all “Whyyyyy would you need a double vanity? Do you and your husband, like, brush your teeth together? Ugh! Gross!” To which my response was, “Yes? Should we…not? Does that fall under the category of things best left unseen?” Even if you’re not using them at the same time, isn’t it still nice to have separate sinks? Because honey, I love you and I love your hair, but I do not love seeing your hair places where you are not.
I get that some people are more private than others–I don’t think anyone’s ever seen my father brush his teeth or clip his nails–but I’m guessing it’s not unusual for couples to share space while taking care of at least some daily hygiene rituals. I have no problem applying makeup on my side of the bathroom while Simon does his hair, for instance. That’s not “gross,” right?
Now, I will not use the toilet in front of my husband*, and I do not want to be anywhere near him when he’s clipping his fingernails or toenails (and frankly it’s best if I stay out of the drop zone for a few hours after he does because sometimes he gets distracted and forgets what he’s doing and *trigger warning* leaves A PILE OF NAIL CLIPPINGS ON THE COUNTER and, oh god, I just gagged). Brushing teeth together is okay on one condition: that he when he spits he has the sink running so it masks that horrific splooshy slop sound when his mouth foam hits the sink. Ick ick ick. You might as well just stir a tub of mayonnaise next to my ears. *HORK*
Furthermore:
If you’re inclined to share your household’s bathroom rules, please do. Especially if your proclivities will make me feel less like a cretin.
*Actual thing I said to my kid this morning: “Honey, sometimes Mom just wants to poop alone, okay?”
2013
Two Years Here and Gone
Yesterday I jogged past some of the places we had our wedding portraits taken two years ago to the day, and in between huffs and puffs I marvelled at how much is different now. The pink blossoms are on the decline, the weather is crazy hot for April, and here I am out and about with a whole entire new member of our family. Simon has a different job–one that doesn’t beat down the happy whistler that makes himself heard when times are good–and Seersucker Wombat has grown a foot and a half and a million dreams inside his little-big head. As for me, there’s no way my current chest could fit into that wedding dress, for starters.
What’s the same is that we’re still a family built around a couple who swarms each other like two hybrid lightning bug-moths, each unstoppably attracted to the glow of the other. I love him shallowly, like a new girlfriend loves her new boyfriend for all the easy stuff like his talent and his good humor and his twinkly chocolate eyes, but I also love him deeply, like a wife loves a husband she has known for a decade, a man whom she has made a home with and made children with and made jokes and compromises and signature cocktails with. This life isn’t always a piece of cake–sometimes it’s a pie with burnt crust and an underdone middle and off-center decorations on top–but you know I’m gonna eat that up anyway, crumbs and all, and it will be delicious because we made it together. Also, PIE.
Marrying Simon is the best decision I ever made, followed closely by having our wedding catered by a taco truck. Some things are just Right.
According to the books, the second anniversary is cotton, so…underwear? I don’t know! I’ve never done this before, unlike some people. (Ooh, anniversary BURN.)
Happy weddingversary, you old so-and-so. You just danced past me doing the shuffle off to Buffalo move using an overturned champagne bucket as a top hat, and if you’ll allow me to turn my response into a metaphor: You don’t have to ask me twice. I will, I do, let me at it, tonight and tomorrow and forever.
You are the best thing [that] ever happened to me.
