Bitter
The other night we had thunderstorms, and Sunny was up until … 2:30 a.m. What the FUCK, you guys? I love my dog — really, I do — but the percentage of dog-to-baby night wakings in the last six months has tilted in the direction of the DOG. THE DOG. THE DOG. We’ve had night puking! Kennel cough! Thunderstorms!
THUNDERSTORMS. She was up all night crying, refusing to go to bed, making a thousand trips in and out of the baby’s room, waking the baby and .. and so on, until 2:45, when she was finally too tired to fight anymore. It goes without saying that Sam woke up at 5:30, right? Right, of course it does. Right. If there was a way for me to score myself a trip to the emergency room by scooping out my own damn eyeballs, let me tell you, I would have gladly done it. Gladly.
I mean, Jesus, we lived in Florida, where it thundered on an hourly basis. What pansy-ass dog have we raised, who can’t handle a little lightning without coming uneffing GLUED, right? Especially when she was BORN in the lightning capital of the world, what the everloving EFF?
It’s a good thing she’s cute and sweet, and doesn’t ever complain when the baby plays with her ears, because no matter how many times we admonish, “GENTLE! GENTLE!”, sometimes those ears get pulled. And instead of biting or lashing out, Sunny’s solution is to roll over, belly-up, crying uncle and licking Sam’s face. She’s a keeper, that one, even if we’re all so goddamn exhausted from her infantile shenanigans.
But still, my God, I don’t think anyone guesses or anticipates that one of the most annoying things about parenthood isn’t the baby. It’s the DOGS. And yet, this is such a universal feeling — every single one of my be-petted friends, and I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE, has reported hating their dogs at some point, particularly in the early days. I think it’s that babies suck every last drop of inconveniently-timed nurturing out of us, that by the time the dog needs something (AT 2 A.M., JESUS), we’re fresh out of giving a shit.
(Not that Sunny wants for anything. Please. Bitch be snuggled up in my armpit as I type this.)
Look, I kind of got nothin’, as we’re heading back to Boston early next week. This trip involves the oh-my-fuck search for housing if we end up having to go there and … well, THAT should be fun, trekking all over the major metro area in my sister’s minivan with my kid strapped in the back seat. See also: Looking at houses with no idea if you’re actually going to live there or not, because you don’t know if you’re moving, or not, but you have to look because if you ARE going to move, you have to do it SUPER FAST and … blergh, is really all that is. BLERGH.
You know what else is blergh? Owning a house in Florida that is basically unsellable. That is MEGA BLERGH. I kick around what to do with this albatross on a hourly daily weekly basis, and it almost always involves palm sweating and high blood pressure. The issue, for those new to the story, is this: We bought a house in Florida when we lived there, for a (very) reasonable, affordable below-market price. To live in, not to flip. We lived in it. Market exploded, then imploded. Work brought us back up north. Large percentage of neighbors paid three times what we did for similar houses in our development (Would YOU pay not far from a million dollars for a 2,000 sq foot, 3bd, 2ba TOWNHOME? No. No, you would not. So why did some of them buy THREE at that price?) Said asshole jerkface investors with truckloads of capital and no intention to live in the house unfortunate “neighbors” are now foreclosing, leaving homes in our neighborhood selling for $100K or less.
Yes, really. Oh, foreclosure! You’re such a good deal!
Ergo, we are stuck with this sucker (which is rented out at a small loss, currently, such is the sad state of the Floridian market) and it makes me rather, um, enraged. Because we could end up in a short sale or something similar, which ends up pummeling your credit while simultaneously involving a significant amount of ASS PAIN, but because it’s not our primary residence, we qualify for approximately none of the housing “fixes,” like mortgage modification, principal reduction, etc. But what’s the alternative? Owning this thing for another 20 years, when the market returns? Meanwhile, its mere existence on our balance sheet saps our will to live?
And there is no one to blame! No one saw this coming! OK, fine: I blame banks. And people who bought six houses with no intentions of living in any of them. But still! STILL!
So now we may be off going somewhere else and likely renting again until we figure out what to do with this thing, and OH I AM SO SICK OF IT. I am sick of being a homeowner, a tenant AND a landlord. It is by far the most exhausting combination, on this you must trust me. And while yes, it’s possible that we could afford to buy another house WHILE still owning our Florida house, let me tell you, THAT is the only combination that is more lethal than the one I’ve got now. Yes, let me own TWO houses while being a landlord and … oh my God, just institutionalize me now, why don’t you, please. Just get out the straitjacket and throw me overboard.
I’m sorry, that’s obviously not why you came here, is it? Clearly I’m a little stressed by all this (along with other thrilling blogger events of last week), as just this morning, I dreamed that there was some sort of blogger playdate, and I remember that the Artist Formerly Known As Schnozz was there (she doesn’t have children), along with Amalah and Anna and Jennie and … my dad had an affair with a friend of Amy’s, and somehow her friend ended up pulling a gun and there was a SHOOTING. A SHOOTING! At a playdate! But it was fine, because our kids were wearing kevlar and … oh, it’s so blatantly obvious that I need to relax, right? RELAX. Like Frankie says. It will all work out.
After all, I have my retirement home bought already and everything! Florida, here we come!
(OMFG)
Happy weekend!
*Remy Zero
38 comments April 8th, 2010