Sunday, January 27, 2008

Hello? Is This Thing On?

Robbie is going home today and that's sad. And when he gets there, he says he's going to quit his job...and that's scary. At least for me. It's a mother's job to assume the worst. I told him that right before he ends up sleeping in Randolph Park and eating sandwiches from the Christian Sandwich People, he should call and I'll send him a ticket home.

I think he'd prefer the park and the sandwich.

He's not a rural guy. I might as well face it. He actually likes doing things. City things. Things where other people are doing the same thing at the same time.

I was thinking yesterday, while I was pretending to work on a quiet Saturday afternoon at the lab, that if I could find a way to support myself, I could easily live a life in which the only actual people I ever saw was Lori and the kids. I wonder if there's some way I could take in laboratory piecework? You send me your slides and I'll read 'em for you. Yeah, it would slow down the turn around time, but c'mon...don't be selfish. I need the money and whatever you're sick with is probably self-limiting anyway. I could also start a mail-order wound culture/Chlamydia culture business. You send me an e-mail stating your swabbing needs and I'll send you a swab, with instructions about where to insert it. Then you can send it back in the prepaid mailer and I'll incubate it and read it for you. If you'd like an antibiotic sensitivity, it'll cost extra, of course. But just knowing you have Chlamydia in your various orifices and/or Clostridium tetanii in your wounds ought to bring you peace of mind.

While I'm working out the details of my new life strategy, I'll give you the update on the Cairo stuff. We made an offer on a three story, 2500 sq. ft. house across from Magnolia Manor...of $12,000. The owner countered with $18,000 and we countered again with $13,000. It needs a furnace and has plumbing woe, but it's a once-beautiful old turn-of-the-century house with gorgeous woodwork, and we can make it beautiful again, with an infusion of time and money.

So we're in the market now for courageous, independently wealthy (or self-employed or telecommuting types) folks to move with us to Cairo. Although I don't really know why; I don't actually interact with them anyway.

Ah, screw it. Stay where you are and e-mail me.

Oh...and Lori and Katie are still sick. I'm not sick anymore, so that gives me the right to act all genetically superior. It makes up for the fact that I'm more mentally ill than either of them. At least I look healthier.

5 comments:

SUEB0B said...

Whaaaat? A HOUSE for $13k? (Faints). What do you do, put the down payment on your credit card??? You couldn't buy a doghouse in CA for that much.

Ev said...

I bought a house for $11,000 10 or 12 years ago, and I DID pay half of it with my credit card. That house was also a "fixer-upper", but this one isn't nearly as bad.

The other house had to be rewired, re-plumbed and re-roofed. This one has hideous paint, no furnace, and some sort of as-yet-undiagnosed plumbing woe. But we just pay them off in a year or two and then pay for the materials as we go.

I'll post pictures as we go. :-)

Linda said...

The house sounds cool! Post pics! You guys are brave pioneers, I love your story. With the whole Downtown Revitalization thing my hubs does, he always says "it just takes a couple of brave pioneers to start things out!" The thing you've got going for you is the whole low priced housing carrot - lure some of those overmortgaged Californians to Cairo - oh, but then you'd have to talk to them...

Jazz said...

Looking healthier is what counts even if you're at death's door.

Yep.

Suzanne said...

You are so funny, but more and more, I think that I also wouldn't mind living a life where I didn't have to see other people. In my weaker moments, I wonder if I missed my true calling as a hermit in the Everglades, a la a Carl Hiaason book.