Sitting next to Dad on Livsey. Kathy is downstairs working on the computer building outlines for her English final. Mom is working in her studio. Danny and Nicole are asleep upstairs.

Penny Rose is getting ready to go to sleep, I imagine, in her new home at 1234 Hancock Circle. It has all been freshly painted by Bob Orie.

This weekend has been much more relaxing than last when Bob E., Ted, and Grant helped me and Kathy move all of our stuff over to Ted’s living room and dining room. Living with Mom and Dad is working out quite well. Kathy’s dinners have been enjoyed thoroughly by Dad, and Mom enjoys coming home to prepared meals. I don’t think we will get thrown out.

I enjoyed not writing a mortgage check at the end of May.

I went over to Bob’s house today to help him build an elaborate, hanging closet space saver for the master-bedroom-to-be downstairs. I reviewed all of the tools and things he has in his garage, trying to figure which ones Kathy and I will have to get for the 1234 Rae Place. Bob has a lot of extras and specialty tools. Some I could not identify. A shovel and a hose should get us through the summer. Though I will need something to cut back the enumerable holly bushes in the front. I hope they are of the weak thorn variety.

April and May were very busy months.

Kathy called me at work Friday. Seems the two girls who had gone through our house over a month ago were interested. Their real estate agent called to say they wanted to stop by about noon on Saturday with the girls and their parents.

And their we were with a stained ceiling. (See “Leak“.) So Kathy and the kids worked hard Friday night cleaning the house while I primed and painted the ceiling. Kathy had checked to see how much paint we had left from painting our walls and left the top loose. I carefully covered everything in the kitchen with newspaper, so when I shook the can and spilled paint on my shoe, it ran onto newspaper and not the floor.

I didn’t have enough paint, so I had to spread it thin, but it looked a lot better.

Then Kathy made us stay up until 2 a.m. watching the Braves beat the Dodgers 1 to 0.

We finished cleaning the house in the morning. I took Nicole to Lauren Butker’s birthday party. Danny and I drove down to the stadium to buy tickets for the Human Astros [sic] game on October 4. I let Danny drive around in the big empty parking lot.

Meanwhile, Kathy greeted the real estate agent, girls, and their parents. She took the real estate agent aside to tell her we had dropped the price to $60,000 and that we were paying a 5% commission. The agent seemed surprised at the low price.

It is now Sunday, and we haven’t heard a thing.

Last night we went over to celebrate Grandpa’s 49th birthday. We gave him a neat tavern puzzle called the Iron Maiden. I had figured it out in 5 minutes the night before. He figured it out in under a minute! Kathy whispered to me that we would get him the hardest one for Christmas.

Then I brought in the famous 12 nails on the bottle trick. That one was much more challenging. Tommy figured it out after 30 minutes. He is the first person I’ve seen figure it out with no hints.

A note to my once and future self.

When the dryer squeaks again, do not try to get to the squeak from the back of the dryer. The dryer is easy to take apart. You suspected this after taking out 200 screws and plates off the back and getting nowhere. You knew that Maytag would not make it so hard for their service men.

Instead, remember these two things:

1) The top flips up like a car hood.

2) The front is held on with two screws.

Tonight we carved Danny and Nicole’s pumpkins. They each got their own pumpkin this year because the price was so low at Cub Foods. I told the kids to pick out ugly pumpkins. Danny go the most ugly pumpkin because it had bumps and warts all over it. Nicole’s was pretty ugly too because hers was smushed in. Danny’s had a lot of seeds that we scraped out and put into a paper bag for Kathy to cook. Then we carved open Nicole’s and found a surprise. It was full of white cotton (mold.) The kids thought that was great. Kathy didn’t think so and threw the whole bag of seeds away. The kids were disappointed that they could not have pumpkin seeds, but they certainly enjoyed having their own horribly ugly pumpkins that scared the cats away.

Danny wanted a mean pumpkin,

so we carved a frown in his. Nicole

wanted hers to have lots of teeth.

Last night I made a guest talk along with Will Cate at the AMUG monthly meeting. Stood on the stage at Emory’s White Hall to talk about my trip to the MacWorld Expo in Boston: “The Greatest Mall on Earth.”

I capped my talk my demonstrating a Video Postcard that showed me holding a lobster in front of a rolling street scene shot at Faniel Hall saying “Hi Mom I’m on Mac TV!” So I got to introduce QuickTime to the group. Pretty good for my first meeting.

Got a free mouse pad and some bright yellow sunglasses from Lotus. Nicole got the glasses.

***

Kathy went job hunting last Saturday. She had a follow up interview at Ruby Tuesday’s yesterday. She has decided that working one or two nights during the week would give her back her weekends, let her work hours that are more agreeable, and probably lead to more money.

***

I did something very stupid this morning. I thought I would clean my glasses by letting hot water circulate around them in the bathroom sink. Shut the plug and let the hot water run over them. I figured the water would be drained by the overflow drain at the top of the sink. Then I went off to iron my shirt.

Amazing how much water can come out of that faucet in such a short time. The overflow drain didn’t work, and I opened the bathroom door to see a bunch of water on the floor. Kathy hopped up, and we got most of the water up with towels. Then we discovered that everything under the sink was soaked, so we cleaned all of that out and dried it. Set up the fan to blow the bathroom dry.

Downstairs, Kathy felt a drop on her shoulder. The fluorescent light fixture had about an inch of water in it. The water had gone through the floor and was coming out of the light fixture hole.

I shut of the power and took the light fixture cover off, carefully tilting it toward one corner where Kathy held a bucket up to catch the water.

I had to take off the entire fixture. Light brown water started coming through stippled plaster. I set up a hair dryer connected to a vacuum cleaner hose to blow air up into the ceiling. Don’t know if that helped. Looks like we’ll have to repaint the kitchen ceiling.

Kathy worked today, and I paid bills. Here is our current financial situation:

1991

Accounts    Balances

1000 ASSETS

1100 Current Assets

1110 Checking - Wachovia                 254.07

1111 Cookie Jar                           27.34

1120 Cash                                  0.00

1130 Savings - Wachovia                2,583.11

1131 CD                                5,000.00

1140 JHH Stock Fund                      825.41

1141 JH Stock 95 shares                1,706.92

1150 Escrow                              948.67

Total Current Assets                             11,345.52

1200 Fixed Assets

1210 House                            63,368.34

1211 Macintosh Classic                     0.00

1212 Mac LC                              660.44

1220 Automobiles

1221 Corolla '85                  5,700.00

1222 VW Rabbit '79                  500.00

1223 VW Fox '87                   3,600.00

Total Automobiles                                 9,800.00

Total Fixed Assets                               73,828.78

Total ASSETS                                     85,174.30

2000 LIABILITIES

2100 Student Loan                           5,756.52

2101 Grant Loan                             1,052.03

2200 Mortgage                              54,610.88

2300 Credit Cards

2310 AT&T MasterCard                     116.22

2320 Discover 1817 (stopped)               0.00

2305 Discover 3042                        63.16

Total Credit Cards                                  179.38

Total LIABILITIES                                61,598.81

NET WORTH                                        23,575.49

Our net worth is overstated. The cars are no longer worth what we bought them for. Especially the Rabbit that we don’t even have. And we won’t be able to get that much for the house. Plus we owe a bunch on the LC. And that Escrow may show up under Assets, but it sure isn’t mine. It doesn’t bother me, though. I’m not an accountant.

I can add another $45 up there under assets. Kathy made some good tips. And I can add another $45 for the Cashin Ad Design work we did for Libba Wilson. Hmmm… at this rate we’ll be loaded!

Later we went to the pool and played a while before going to church at IHM. Ran into Ted and Grant whom we sat with. Grant set a bad example whispering to Ted. Thank goodness Danny sat on the opposite end of the pew.

The four of us went to see the greatest show on earth today, Ringling Brothers and Barnimum Bailys Three Ring Circus. The Omni held more elephants than I thought possible. I don’t know why the Democrats complained about space during the 1988 convention.

Of course Nicole and Danny were amazed by the lions, tigers, zebras, elephants, pigs, goats (Kathy thought they were dogs), cows and buffalo.

Then there were the human clowns, jugglers, trapeze artists, acrobats, and motorcyclists.

I was most impressed by the Ball of Death. This lattice work of steel bands formed a globe about 30 feet in diameter. Three motorcyclists got in and zipped around in perfect synchronization in and out, up and down. One would do a vertical loop while the others did diagonal loops. Then they would all traverse the equator of the globe, tires inches apart as they followed one another, their bodies parallel to the ground. One could have reached over his head to smack the one of the other guys on the head!

Then some girl with a little outfit and a bunch of feathers on her head stood in the center during this death defying act.

I would have preferred a suit of armor if I were going to defy death so. Heck, the crazy motorcyclists were smart enough to have on helmets!

Maybe the feathers make good padding.

Mrs. Tener funded our tickets through her Christmas gift.

***

On the opposite side of life, we went over to Mike and Lois’ house to see Grandma Petrides. She is up because Theo died last week. We went over to offer our sympathies if only by our presence.

As we approached the back door, Kathy suspected something was wrong by the look on Dorothy’s face. She was sitting next to Grandma in the kitchen along with Larry.

Lois met us at the door. “Talk about bad timing.”

Dorothy had just told Grandma for the first time that Dorothy has lung cancer. We sat outside talking to Lois and let the kids play for a while. When we did go in, we left the girl scout candy outside that we had brought for Grandma, not knowing what to expect once inside.

Actually, it was a nice visit. Grandma was already giving instructions and professing her wisdom, and Dorothy seems very positive about everything.

Everyone was almost more worried about how Grandma was going to take Dorothy having cancer than Dorothy. Seems the family fails to give her credit sometimes.

She is still bothered by the nice, ermine coat she lost 45 years ago when a “friend” of hers swapped it for a Chinchilla. She used to keep the ermine in a cedar chest. She didn’t really have a sense of quality back then. Turned out the Chinchilla was a rag, she said. But having adult friends at that time was more important to her then than things of quality.

“She’s still my friend,” Grandma added. “But it still bothers me about that coat.”

Late nights at work and 3 nights straight of a PBS series, “Making Sense of the 60’s” has made for an exhausting week.

Today it snowed, however, and the city went into a panic as everyone called everyone else to find out how bad it was.

Heavy, wet snow fell all morning, but never stuck at Harland. At home, the kids got a chance to throw snowballs and build one-third of a snowman.

Kathy and I formally celebrated our anniversary Friday night by going to see “Frankie and Angie Got Married.” It was just like attending any wedding, however the bride, groom, and wedding party were an outrageous group of Bronx Italians. The audience made up the rest of the wedding.

We had a good lasagna dinner, got to do The Hustle, decorated the car with shaving cream, shoe polish, and balloons(?), and got repeatedly hugged by our Italian friends for the night. It was a blast.

Q: Why are men like panty hose?

A: Because they either run on you, cling to you, or don’t fit right in the…

That’s Amoré

When the moon hits your eye

Like a big pizza pie

That’s amoré

When the world seems to shine

Like you’ve had too much wine

That’s amoré

Bells will ring

Ting-a-ling-a-ling

Ting-a-ling-a-ling

And you’ll sing

Vita bella

Hearts will play

Tippy-tippy-tay

Tippy-tippy-tay

Like a gay tarandella

When the stars make you drool

Just lika pasta fazool

That’s amoré

When ya’ dance down the street

With a cloud at your feet

You’re in love

When you walk

In a dream

But you know you’re not dreamin’

Sigñoree

Scooza me but you see

Back in old Napoli

That’s amoré