The Bleeding Basement (and Other Homeowner Woes)

Surely I am not being too arrogant in assuming that at least some of my faithful readers have wondered where I've been these past six weeks?  Surely someone missed me?

Well, we moved.  It all happened rather fast, for something so big and dramatic and life-changing.  We weren't really looking for a house, but my husband was getting regular e-mail updates on local homes from his former boss, and now real-estate agent, Jan.  He wasn't reviewing them to move, per se, but was looking to purchase a possible rental property.  I wasn't keen on the financial risk, especially since we have a baby now, but he kept looking.

Lo and behold, a small house became available - on the same street as my parents.  Now, before we had the baby, I would never have imagined living so close to my folks.  Even though they are wonderful and I truly consider them among my favorite people in the world, I thought it was important to establish myself away from them.  I still do.  But a baby is a lot to handle, even a happy and relatively easy baby like Ronen.  

Long story short, it ended up being the perfect place for us.  Most everything is on one story, which is great because all of our parents are nearing that "limited mobility" phase in life, plus I don't want to trip down the stairs with my son ever again.  We call our new place the Hobbit House.  It was clearly built for short people (I can easily reach all the kitchen cabinets).  We love it.

Except...

Well, unless we started from scratch on a brand new home, there are always exceptions, right?  

The perks of the new place are many: recently redone hardwood floors, a galley kitchen (divine compared to my old "two-room" kitchen), two large and one small bedroom (which we turned into the TV room and are decorating with sci-fi posters and art), a slightly sloped yard, pleasant neighbors (kinda), and a huuuuuuge attic for storage.  The cats have already laid claim to their new spots - Loki sleeps upstairs, on the window ledge or atop the railing.  Freyja prefers the windows in the baby's room (the only grip I've got is that she leaves fur all over his changing pad!), and Thor likes to sprawl in the middle of the hallway between the rooms.  Which means I've already tripped on him 8,239 times since moving.  The basement is divided into several smaller rooms, one of which Ross has already claimed as his Man Cave, and another will be my writing nook (once we clear it of unpacked boxes).  

Oh, yeah...

The basement.

While it was absolutely a selling point for us, it's also let us in on some unexpected surprises.

Like the blood on the floor.

Well, it wasn't really blood, my hypersensitive olfactory powers determined.

It was balsamic vinegar.

And it was seeping up through the paint on the cellar floor.

If you go downstairs during a heavy thunderstorm, you will see "blood" drops glistening on the floor.  

It's terrifying.  And, yes, I had a "Telltale Heart" moment when I first saw it, oozing out from beneath Ross's gaming television.

Apparently, the elderly Italian man who had lived here was a homemade wine aficionado.  And apparently, he got rather clumsy when he imbibed.  So he spilled some.    We aren't exactly sure how that all worked out, but we guess that it stained the floor, dried up but was never cleaned, was painted over (with the wrong kind of paint), and now gets "rehydrated" during rainy days.  

So, yeah, maybe it's more Poe-esque than that, and maybe there's a horrible story associated with it.  I don't want to think about that, though.  Right now, we're just trying to figure out a way to dry out the cellar while keeping the litter-box smell from wafting up through the rest of the house.  The cats have their own "bathroom" downstairs, too, with a small window for ventilation and a door I prefer to keep mostly closed.  

Oh, and there's a bidet.

Did I mention the bidet?

I find Thor curled up around it, asleep, sometimes.  People, there's not a lot funnier than a cat wrapped around a bidet.  

Unless it's a cat in a bidet. 

(We're getting rid of the bidet.)

Bird-Brained!

Our century-old house has its share of challenges: poor insulation, faulty wiring, a window in the bathtub (really).  It's also got a pretty unappealing backyard.  The view from the dining room is one of a steep, homely hill scattered with trees and limp bushes.  The back porch isn't much more than a slab of concrete big enough for the grill and a wooden bench. 

But my cats love it. 

For several hours a day, they perch on the old buffet table I inherited from my grandmother (please...no one tell her about all the scratches they've put on it!), and watch the birds outside.  Thor, in particular, is an avid bird-watcher - or maybe he's really an aspiring chef, imagining all the delicious things he can do with the plump, juicy-breasted robins who hop around in the grass.

Since my mom's passing, I've actually become a bid of a bird-watcher myself.  I've always been fond of the cardinals who live in the bush beside our house.  We named them Tony and Pepper (after the characters in Iron Man, yes; if you haven't already branded me a super-geek by now then by all means, here's your chance).  Their single "wheet" note is strangely encouraging to me.  I love hearing it because it means they're nearby.  They always seem like happy birds, and that makes me happy, too.

Right before Mom died, a trio of blue jays moved in.  Now, some people hate them because their squawking isn't exactly soothing.  But I think they're brilliantly beautiful and obviously, Thor does, too.  I researched and learned that jays might not be the friendliest birds, but they're very intelligent.  They can mimic the cry of a hawk in order to intimidate a real hawk that might be snooping around the area!  Since hawks are territorial, it's unlikely that a hawk would muscle in on another one's territory.  (Although, since I did see a real hawk in our bush the other day, I don't know if Dick, Bruce and Barbara are doing their jobs properly).

Last week, on a whim, I bought a cheap bird-feeder and a huge sack of songbird seed.  I hung the feeder on the back porch and was immediately rewarded with a flutter of black-capped chickadees, joyful little house sparrows, and a solitary tufted titmouse.  I couldn't believe it, but we've got a red-headed woodpecker, too!

When we were little, my sister was obsessed with birds.  She wanted to be an ornithologist for a while, if I recall.  Bo.  Ring.  Still, when I had read all the novels, magazines, pamphlets and cookbooks in the house, I finally cracked open her Guide to North American Birds.  It was a pocket-sized bright blue book with full-color illustrations.  It wasn't as dull as I'd thought, although Gina had beaten it up pretty badly.  The cover was worn nearly in half from her constantly referring to it. 

Strange, the things you remember from childhood.  I've been able to identify nearly every little winged friend that stops by the feeder, just from reading a book two decades ago.

I haven't named them all, yet.  But, if I decide to, it's okay.  There's plenty more heroes in the Marvel and DC Universes for me to pick from.