Adios Amigo

Back from Mexico and the second that we landed in Houston, reality hit us like a bucket of ice cold water. Both of our iPhones lit up like Christmas trees with text messages, voicemail and email that would have us buried for a week. One message, from our tenant made me want to turn around and run screaming back into the jet.

Long story short:
Big bad storm at Easter.
Hail.
Tenant calls with leak in foyer.
We think roof damage. Insurance adjuster claims "fluke".
More foul weather.
Tenant calls to say leak has progressed from intermittent drip to steady flow.
Purchase bottle of rum.
Roofing companies called.
New roof needed.
Adjuster is an asshole. Please send another.
New adjuster agrees we have serious problem. Issues first cheque. Skies part, sun shines and angels sing. But contractor doesn't show up.
Contractor doesn't start for ten weeks as he experiences numerous personal "emergencies".
Call doctor for valium prescription.
Tenant asks to move rental due date to the 10th of month. Agree because they've been so patient.
Contractor finally starts the job on a clear Sunday morning, nearly three months after leak was first detected.
Monday, with roof tiles off and only paper for cover, torrential rain pours down.
More damage.
Buy bigger bottle of rum. Contemplate mainlining it through intravenous drip.
Roof gets on house. Whew. Relief. Pay contractor balance for roof.
Tenant calls.
Water on the floor of the bedroom beside the bathroom.
What?
Fuck.
Contractor, who is nice man but one rung shy on the ladder of life, cuts holes in the walls to find source of leak. To no avail.
"Call a plumber", I say through mouthful of opiates.
Plumber called. Comes right over.
No worries, simple fix. Ice maker hose from fridge. Bada bing, bada boom, problem solved.
Wet carpet, wet pad, spotty mould.
Big, big fans and bleach.
Contractor agrees to be back Monday to begin interior repairs.
We fly to Mexico.
Seven glorious days lapping up the sun.
We arrive back in Houston to find our tenant has blown up our phones.
CONTRACTOR DIDN'T SHOW.
Apparently, some sort of personal emergency. Feel certain that if I see him, there most definitely could be an emergency situation.
We decide to fire him.
And order a cocktail with dinner between flights.
Holiday isn't officially over yet damnit.
Get home to find children happy, healthy and safe but the house a freaking wreck.
Look at each other and contemplate church on Sunday even though we are agnostic.
Collapse into bed instead.
Wake up Saturday morning and clean. Oh joy.
Call another contractor out on a Saturday afternoon, get a bid, agree on a start date and voilà, we are back in the hunt for landlord of the year award.

So, besides the pleasure of tucking my kids in the past couple of nights, being home has been like a kick in the teeth. Sort of.

Our bed, with crisp, fresh sheets, was just a hair shy of nirvana. And, when we closed our eyes, we could still feel the sun on our faces, taste the salt in the air and hear the ocean waves as they lapped at the pier.

In spite of the absence of ruby red shoes, there is still no place like home.

Awash

Do you remember a few months back when our renter called to tell us that there was a leak in the front foyer? Remember the adjuster telling us that it was a fluke occurrence?

Yeah, well he was wrong. Horribly, horribly WRONG.

After getting a second SOS from our tenant after some bad weather, we called a couple of roofing companies and had them get up there to check things out. Independently and within minutes, they each had out their tape measures, which clearly indicated that they were calculating the cost of a replacement roof. Both contractors came down and explained that the hail damage was so bad in spots that the composite was completely gone and we were down to the tar paper.

I understand the whole need to be conservative when one is an insurance adjuster but I would have thought that at least the guy would have gotten on the bloody roof. He "eyeballed" it (is words, not mine) and said that his twenty years in the business have given him a pretty good understanding of what merits a claim and what doesn't.

So, we took the quotes from the roofers to the insurance company and I can tell you, we most definitely have not been IN GOOD HANDS. (insert expletive here)
We originally called about the problem back in April. With all of the shenanigans and generally shitty service, the contractor got to start on the roof just this past Sunday. A leaking roof. THREE MONTHS after the problem was noted.

Last week the forecasters were calling for some pretty foul weather so we postponed starting the repair until the weather looked more favourable. Like this week. Yesterday out of nowhere, with not a single telltale spot on the radar, the sky opened up and biblical proportions of rain came beating down ON THE COMPLETELY EXPOSED ROOF of our rental property.

I have no words.

The contractor called from inside his car to inform us that the sudden downpour was problematic.

Imagine that.

And then, like a poisoned cherry on a spoiled sundae, our renter rang to say that the carpet in the bedroom beside the second bathroom is sopping wet after someone takes a shower.

Oh dear god, please kill me now.

This morning, we woke up to the deep rumble of thunder and the steady drum of rain on the roof. I know that there is a silver lining in here somewhere and the promise of that is the only thing that is stopping me from going seriously freaking postal.

Unpacking An Attitude

Guess what I did part of this weekend?

Unpacked. And it fucked me off for the first little while as I wailed from my soapbox about how awful it was blah, blah, blah.

Then I gave my head a shake, determined to view it in a positive light. Beer helped. It made the whole task feel a bit like moving into a new apartment in university minus the pompasan chair and bong.

I tried to get excited by the fact that I actually can live without the collection of kitchen gadgets that have roosted in my drawers for years. Before, I was loathe to throw anything away convinced that SOMEWHERE down the road, I would once again need that gizmo from the Pampered Chef® that made sealed, crustless peanut butter and jelly pockets, which I had used EVERY meal with abandon while Olivia went through her finicky stage. But when you are defeated, slightly hacked off and sliding towards apathy, it is easy to toss away the superfluous.

I was forced to ask myself questions like:

**Do I really need the steamer that my granola-eating, tree-hugging, self-help-reading, Birkenstock-wearing mum bought for me years ago? It takes an hour to soften carrots, whistles "hee-hee-hee" like a woman in labour and is impossible to clean. I decided that it would be more at home in the rubbish bin, nestled beside the juicer, than back in my cupboard.

**What about my collection of cheap Wal-Mart bud vases? Back when I was a single parent, I went through this Helen Reddy, "I Am Woman" phase where I had the unmedicated notion to be good to myself by buying fresh flowers for my home each week.

Lots and lots and lots of them. I decided that they didn't need unpacking and thus began the theme of the weekend:

Purge, cleanse and repair.

I unpacked some boxes and packed others with items that would go to the local shelter. Books, toys, dishes and linens filled my car and when I dropped everything off, I felt lighter. I took the opportunity to organize closets and tackle one of my junk drawers. We cleaned the garage out. Dallas pruned, weeded and mulched the front flower bed. We went to Lowes and purchased everything that we needed to scrape, prime and paint our front door. We bought a power washer. It was remarkably satisfying work.

Last week, once the dust settled from our Florida trip and after we'd made the decision not to move, there was a slow but perceptible shift in our attitude. Dallas and I share a wanderlust gene and the prospect of moving to Florida tapped into that primal need for change and adventure that we seem to require along with food, water and Harley Davidson. But the truth was that neither of us really wanted to make the move and we had suppressed those feelings since April because we really felt that relocating was the responsible thing to do for our family. Once things changed, we began to look at our life with new eyes.

Instead of focusing on the peeling paint in the bathrooms or the broken blinds in Dylan's room, we walk into our house grateful for the layout, the space and the reasonable mortgage payment. All of those repair and maintenance tasks that were good enough to complete for new tenants but on the back burner for us have been placed on the immediate "to do" list. We were behaving like renters in our own home. Not anymore.

We drive the roads of Northwest Arkansas marveling at how gorgeous the scenery is and how light the traffic. Manchild spent the day with us yesterday and the luxury of remaining near him eased all of the paralyzing fears that we had been choking on for the last couple of months. And our friends. My god, we would have missed them. I can't express how happy I am that our communication will be more than emails and Christmas cards.

The events of the last couple of weeks while jarring, have served to clarify exactly what is important to us and therein lies the silver lining to the whole debacle. Our life, as it exists right this second, is pretty damn great.

Recalculating

I've figured out how to do this private blog thing.

If you are interested in reading, shoot me a note with your email address.

It's like being a kid again with my diary, except now, the diary talks back.

Also, just a short note to tell you that one of my new favourite things is a Garmin GPS thingy. When we were in Florida, we included one in our car rental and it is the most fabulous thing ever invented.

My sister cousin had one with her when we holidayed in March but it seemed just the slightest bit complicated (like trying to learn a Mac after being conditioned on a PC) and I shied away from it. Now, I think everyone ought to have one. I especially loved the option to change language and even accent. I browsed the list and didn't find a New Zealand dialect so we had to settle for an Aussie. We chose a female because we figured a male would get lost. (kidding)

Anyway, once she started to talk (and the strange thing is that the machine quickly feels like a real person), Dallas cringed and said that she was a British person putting on an Australian accent and that she was doing a poor job. I nearly wet my pants.

A few times, we took different routes rather than the one she had laid out and we actually sensed Garmin lady's stress as she intoned, "Recalculating. Recalculating RECALCULATING!" over and over again. We cried laughing a few times. Because we are weird like that.

Since we are no longer moving to Florida, there is probably no need for us to get a Garmin because here in sleepy Bentonville, Arkansas, we don't have much of an opportunity to get lost. Although, I must admit that one chicken farm looks just the same as the next.

Best Not Air The Dirty Laundry

I know that I left you guys hanging and I apologize. It's taken me a few days to pull my head from my arse end. I promise an update but here's the problem. My job is involved and I'm pretty sure that being a big, public bloggy mouth is ill advised. But, I am in desperate need of some post therapy so I think I'm going to create another blog and make it private place to purge my soul.

Of course, you are invited. I'm not sure how it all works but as soon as I figure it out, I'll get back to you.

Thanks for the support. You guys rock.