I’ve heard that there is a lot of news going around the internet about someone who died, but I’m going to take the high road here (THANK YOU TO OUR AWESOME U.S. MILITARY, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO SACRIFICED ALL TO MAKE YESTERDAY POSSIBLE!) and tell you what’s going on in my house.

Remember that little water leak and the ET capture last September? Well, after fighting with our bank on a few things and interviewing numerous contractors, we finally settled on a company we trust to complete the repairs.

The house got immeasurably worse once the work started. We needed a full repipe of the house because three pipe breaks in 5-7 years just screams “old plumbing!” Of course as the repipe work went on and they opened up the walls, they found more and more things wrong and opened up more and more wall. This house was a normal tract house until the original owner decided to make a few changes. On his own. He might have had his heart in the right place, but he wasn’t a very good builder and he took some short cuts. The second owners (who we bought the house from) also did as little as possible it appears, when something went wrong. They had a pipe break at some point and only replaced the section that broke and not the entire line. Yes, it was cheaper but ultimately led to some minor complications for us. Sigh… The funniest part of the work though was having the walls open to the studs so that we could see straight through from the living room to the laundry, and the dog and the cat using that as egress to escape Melody’s enthusiastic yet not pet friendly play.

Regardless of the bathroom fan that was not venting to anywhere and just blew the air into the rafters, the kitchen attic space that was not insulated, and the difficulties in selecting a tile floor that both John and I like, we are progressing nicely. We replaced the tacky 1980s vintage single florescent kitchen light (you know the ones, they look like a trellis hanging off your ceiling) with gorgeous recessed lighting, got rid of the also tacky 1975 vintage vanity and sink in the powder room, to be replaced with a sleek and beautiful pedestal sink, had additional lights installed in the hallway (long hall which had only 2 lights) and it’s now bright and beautiful, and best of all, upgraded from the faux wood floors to a beautiful tile. The tile’s not installed yet, but we placed the order and are excited to have the job done.

Our house is filthy right now from all the drywall and construction dust, but it’s coming along. Once all the work is done, the rest of the house will look like crap, but the floors and walls will be pretty, right?

Oh, and I sprained my ankle last week at work, was attended to by good looking firemen, rode in an ambulance for the first (and hopefully last) time, spent several hours in the ER waiting on X-ray results, and am now in one of those soft cast thingies. Again. For the record, this is my third soft cast in 15 years. That has to be some kind of record.

I said goodbye to my sweet Nano today. Sometimes, being a responsible pet owner is really hard. 

Like everyone else, I enjoy a good superhero movie from time to time. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. were all present and accounted for during my childhood, and I enjoyed their shows. I admired Wonder Woman for her patriotism and quest for right. I looked up to Superman and wondered what it would be like to just move things out of my way with a simple shove. (Of course, I was one of the few teenaged girls who thought Christopher Reeve was a horrible choice for Superman and I never liked the movies, but I digress.)

Superheroes right the wrongs; they stand up for the downtrodden; they make the bad guys pay, not in “the next life” but in this one, where they have committed their crimes! Superheroes correct society to be better for everyone. Right? People want to know there is someone looking out for them. We want to believe that someone will come along and catch the thieves who stole our family inheritance, or unravel the clues to where the threat to national security is hidden. We want to know, at the core of our uncertainty and fear, that someone is going to take care of us.

Have you ever watched one of these old time superhero shows with a critical eye? Sure, they are campy and fun, and for children they can be a role model for doing the right thing. The trouble with superheroes is that if they really existed, society would fall to pieces. For example, Isis recites some corny poetry and gets nature to do her bidding, thereby pulling the car off the cliff and saving the life of the reckless driver. Does the reckless driver truly face the consequences of his actions? No, not really. Isis saves him and he goes on his merry way. Superman flies over just in the nick of time to rescue the kid dangling from a telephone pole which he climbed against his parents mandate. Does the kid think to himself “whew, better listen to my folks from now on!” or does he continue to test his boundaries? The people the superheroes rescue are given a second chance, but of course the TV shows never really tell us what happened three months later when Wonder Woman wasn’t around to rescue them again.

Let’s face it. If superheroes really existed, people would look to the superhero to solve their dilemma, rescue them from their own foolish actions, and otherwise stand in the role of local, state and federal government/court systems/law enforcement. Superheroes would make us less capable of solving our own problems with ingenuity and critical thinking. They would make us dumber than we already are. People do dumb things, we cannot deny it, but the beauty of doing something dumb is (hopefully) learning from the consequences and then not repeating that dumb thing again. So while it would be nice to have Batman and Robin destroy the drug cartels, or Superman go find Osama Bin Laden, personally I think it’s better that we have to do these things on our own.

A few of the things that made this country great for hundreds of years are innovation, critical thinking and problem solving. Superman, if you are reading this, no offense, but maybe you could crash land in some other country? Thanks.