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scarlettohairdye · 5 months

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Home Ownership Was a Mistake

This is for @trickybonmot, who may or may not use some of these stories in a fic.

Okay. So.

In the year of our lord 2010, my wife and I were lucky enough to be gifted $20k by my parents, which in those days (given it was a historically low point for real estate prices in Seattle) was enough for a down payment on a house. It was an astounding confluence of luck and privilege that led to us being homeowners, because if they gave us the same money now it would go precisely nowhere.

Anyway, it was not enough money for a large house, or a fancy house. We looked at a lot of places, only some of which were move-in ready (and one of which was absolutely just a tear-down) and eventually settled on our current place, which is a 1910 bungalow with a detached garage that was finished and turned into a studio.

Was it the most aesthetically pleasing house when we bought it? No. The walls were white, the carpet was light beige, and the paint had seen better days. That said, it was move-in ready and the owner was pretty desperate to sell, so we took it!

The inspector let us know that some of the wiring was still the old knob-and-tube, so we'd want that updated sooner rather than later, but it looked pretty good. About half the outlets were grounded, so it didn't stop us from plugging in three-prong appliances. We just had to use more extension cords than maybe we'd prefer.

The Electrical

The first big house thing we paid for was to have the entire place rewired. Our circuit breaker was a mystery, we didn't have enough outlets, and we were tired of being stuck with specific layouts of our stuff due to the lack of grounded outlets. We were expecting about half the wiring to be up to code, and the rest would need an update.

Spoiler alert: HAHAHAHAHAHA.

The rewiring took about a week, and every morning the electrician sat down with us and told us what new fire trap he'd uncovered.

"Yeah, so the knob and tube wiring going to the lights in the ceiling? Knob and tube gets hot when it's running, and yours is under three layers of insulation."

"You know how you thought your outlets were grounded? They weren't, actually, the ground wire just went elsewhere into the house and wasn't connected to anything."

"So there's wiring in your crawlspace? Whoever put that in nailed some sheets of wood paneling over it, so we had to rip the wood paneling out to access it."

I think the job was about $15k when it was done, we had many many more outlets, and our house was no longer one bad day from lighting itself on fire. Victory, I guess?

The Studio Window

This was leaking a bit, and we knew it was leaking when we moved in. (South facing walls get all the weather in our region.) We were not handy enough to replace it ourselves at the time and we also didn't have money because I got laid off shortly after we bought the house and was making my living doing costume commissions. Solution: Trade costuming work to an acquaintance who did carpentry.

The window, we discovered, was not so much a finished window as it was a single sheet of glass sandwiched between some boards.

Badly.

The carpenter was not entirely she that she was qualified for the job, but she did manage to remove the single sheet of glass and replace it with a window that was insulated and actually capable of opening. She used caulk around it. It was way better than we had before. Maybe someday we'll have both studio windows replaced by a contractor who actually does windows, but this is not that day!

The Siding

The cedar shingles were no longer cutting it at a certain point, so we had the house resided. (Houses are money pits, in case you didn't know.) This was a $30k job (MONEY PIT!) and had several layers of badness.

Bad: Our house had no insulation. It was cedar shingles over the original siding, with nothing in between that original siding and our INTERIOR WALLS. There was occasionally a newspaper. Our PM asked if we wanted insulation? And we said yes, please!!! We did not have a lot of time to think about insulation or research the best type, so it's just sheets of the pink fiberglass stuff in there, but it exists and we have it now!

Worse: Underneath our laundry room was a horrorshow. The laundry room is an addition that was added to our house probably sometime in the 50s? And, uh...

Well, the siding guys pulled off the siding, took a look at what was under it, and immediately called the project manager. The project manager came out, took a look, and then called us. He said that the siding guys thought it really needed to be reinforced and stabilized before they re-sided it, which is very fair, because I think the people who built it originally were drunk when they did it. It was a fucking Wild West cowboy construction situation under there.

Yes, you heard that right: A LOAD-BEARING SHINGLE.

Our project manager also informed us that the siding guys couldn't do the reinforcement, because they're just siding guys. They don't do structural. This is very fair.

It also needed to be done by Monday so we could stay on schedule for the siding work.

We learned this on Friday.

I immediately called my general contractor dad and got his voicemail, because (I remembered belatedly) he was in Mexico getting dental surgery. There was absolutely no way we could get another contractor out to do the work over a single weekend.

It was up to us.

My wife and I (mostly my wife) went HAM on it. We rented big jacks from the tool library to prop the laundry room up while we replaced one of the entirely rotten support poles. One of the big telephone poles was so wrecked with dry rot we could kick it out of place. (It didn't even touch the BIG ROCK that was supposed to be its foundation!!! It was floating!!!) Several of the joists were also fucked, so we ran new joists alongside them and married them together. My wife dug holes while crouched in a 4' high space, filled the holes with gravel, compacted it by putting a piece of wood on top of it and hitting it with a mallet, and then installed an entire additional support system from 4x4s and deck blocks. She actually attached the support system TO THE FUCKING HOUSE, which was a big improvement from the way it was originally held on by vibes and paint.

Here's a tasty little before and after:

(Yeah, see how that visible joist at the front just... stops at the far left? There's a new joist right behind it now.)

This was completed with resounding cries of, "Good enough!" and "It's better than it was before!" The siding guys thought it was fine and sided over it. Someday hopefully we will be able to afford to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it with a properly poured foundation, but in the meantime the spin cycle on the washing machine no longer shakes the whole house. Victory?!

Ridiculous: The purple paint saga. My wife and I are lesbians who tend toward maximalism in our decoration style. Construction companies find this baffling. We paid extra to our siding company to get the extended color choices (if you order the siding with the color baked in it lasts longer, but you're limited to a particular range of colors) and spoiler alert: 90% of them are boring as fuck. We basically paid extra to have access to 400 shades of white and 400 more shades of beige. There were like three saturated colors in the whole book. Pathetic.

Anyway, we chose the one nice teal that was available and decided we'd paint the door purple, since all the purple colors were gray at best. The project manager then forgot to put in our order, and when he remembered he'd forgotten, ordering our siding through his company would have pushed back the start time by six weeks. We could still make the original start time if we ordered through a different company doing the same thing, though!

Me, immediately: And we wouldn't be restricted to your color palette, right? Him: Yeah, they can do custom colors. Me, slapping down a color card called "Fully Purple": MAKE IT PURPLE.

Bless this man, he went to the siding company and asked for Fully Purple. They told him they couldn't do that color, and also is he sure anyone wants this color? He called them on the phone and informed them yes, we did want that color, and also that he'd worked for them and he knew damn well they could do that color, they'd just have to custom mix it, so they needed to do their fucking jobs. Suitably chastened, they finally sent us a sample of the siding, and it was... okay. It was purple for sure, but a little de-saturated. Not the purple of our hearts.

I asked if they'd actually started manufacturing our siding yet or just sent the color sample. The project manager confirmed they hadn't, and if we ordered this imperfectly-purple siding now, it would be several weeks before we could get started.

"We're gonna paint," I decided, and our project manager put in the orders.

The paint store called him and said, "Hey, are you sure you want this color?" Yes, he assured them, that's the right color.

The guys doing the painting opened up the can and then called him and said, "Are you sure this color?" and he told them yes! They want that color!

At this point I told him he should just start responding with, "They're lesbians!!! Yes! They want the purple! They're lesbians!!!"

Eventually we cleared every hurdle god and the construction industry put in front of us, and now our house is Fully Purple.

It also has insulation, wiring that won't kill us, and a laundry room that hopefully won't collapse anytime soon. We got a heat pump installed that took shockingly little time and worked immediately, and our next project will be having the roof redone. Check back in to find out what fresh horror awaits us then! I think it'll be a second roof under our existing roof made of lead and asbestos tiles, probably!

#home improvement #it's a nightmare #choices were made #they were bad

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stardewremixed · 1 year

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Justice for Stardewies

Because people need jobs and purpose...

Jodi

has been a single mom for so long, even though Kent returns in Year 2. She was a Registered Nurse, and replaces Maru at the clinic when Maru decides to go back to school. Jodi starts to feel her confidence grow as she works outside her home. And Harvey is a good boss, letting her work around Vincent's school schedule.

Maru

Inspired by Harvey, Maru wants to pursue and advanced degree in medical technology. With her poor eyesight, her dreams of becoming an astronaut faded. But she still gets to tinker and play with technology, which is something she loves.

Marnie / Marlon

deserves better than a "secret" relationship with Lewis. His family has wealth and historically held positions of power. The Governor is his cousin after all. Still Marnie deserves real "out in the open" love. Marlon asks her out one day after she visits the Adventurer's Guild with the weekly dairy delivery. Their first official date is the Flower Dance. And they dance together for the whole town to see. Lewis is jealous but... he had his chance. #sorrynotsorry

Shane

is sober and working at the movie theater during the evenings. He attends vet school during the day. Shane wants to open an animal clinic, with an emphasis on chickens... 🐔 er... farm animals. And he makes his famous pepper poppers for all town events.

Pam

Pam went to rehab. She is now reemployed at Pierre's. She really enjoys helping customers find what they are looking for, and she joined Caroline's class to get fit. She has already dropped almost 20lbs.

Robin

Robin does so much for the town. She is convinced by the people to run against Lewis. And then she actually wins. Since she finally has help from Alex, Robin's business is booming. She is able to hire on another employee so she can focus on her new important duties as Mayor of Pelican Town.

Linus

Is anyone surprised he actually has money? And lots of it? Linus gets involved with other veterans like himself with much encouragement from Gus. Now with properly flowing taxpayers' dollars, Linus is able to build a tiny Veterans Village for former military men and women to "get off grid," find healing, and a fresh start. Kent gets involved too after he starts counseling for his PTSD.

Alex

Robin hired Alex as a handyman. Alex is surprisingly good with his hands and figuring things out, especially electrical. With no formal training, he can rewire televisions and stereos. At first, he just tinkers in Robin's workshop. But then he starts doing bigger projects. After getting an electricians license, Alex helps wire houses and rewire faulty electrical in other homes and businesses around the Valley. It's blue collar work but it pays really well, and his skills are sorely needed. And he can work as he wants. So he still has plenty of time to toss the gridball around with friends, and take Dusty to the dog park, and even help Granny in the kitchen.

Evelyn / George

Ev still helps out at the community garden. She starts growing spices and herbs to bake in her breads and cookies. Once the Community Center is repaired, Evelyn hosts a bake sale to help with the upkeep. And Haley joins her in organizing a cake walk. George gets motivated, with encouragement from Jodi (since she is a vet's wife), to do the Valley's own version of Special Olympics. Alex helps his grandpa train.

Abigail

finally graduates after six years. She knows what she wants. She is going to pursue a master's in folklore and mythology. While it isn't business like her dad wanted, Pierre is still proud of his little girl. Abi leaves for Zuzu City (on the repaired bus line). She also has an internship lined up, translating manuscripts (since she learned ancient Dwarven).

Sebastian

takes coding to the next level. He finds a partner in Zuzu. They start a tech company together. Seb still comes home on weekends to spend time with his family (he and Demetrius patched things up ever since his stepdad got his official diagnosis as autistic). Seb always brings rice pudding for Demetrius, from the Asian Market he lives above. Seb is also working on releasing his first video game, inspired by his experiences in the mines.

Sam

After the band breaks up, Sam decides to go solo. He leaves for Zuzu City for some gigs. The first weekend he is there, he makes a connection with a talent scout who thinks Sam is really good. Sam starts landing bigger and bigger shows. Next thing he knows, he's traveling the world, opening for big name bands. It is a dream come true. He never stays in one place too long, but that's just what he loves about his "work."

Elliott

publishes his romance novel. And then his editor suggests a series. It is super successful. With his new steady income, Elliott upgrades his cabin to a proper beach cottage. He teams up with Penny to write a children's book.

Penny / the children

returns to school and obtains a proper teaching license. With help from Robin, she opens an after school enrichment program for Vincent, Jas, Leo, and a few other children. And she partners with Professor Snail to offer summer camps on Ginger Island. Penny also organizes a beach clean-up day.

Vincent starts an entomology club with the Prof, much to his delight.

Jas works with Emily to create costumes for a play. The story of the Winter Star is the first show they put on for the town. And this seriously helps Jas' confidence.

Leo repairs the treehouse with the help of Alex. And Pam, who attended cosmetology school, gives him a proper "big kid" haircut.

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ltleflrt · 10 months

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So last month I spent $25k in electrical upgrades and getting a new water heater and a new drain installed in the basement. The meter had to be upgraded from 100 amps to 125 amps in order to provide enough juice to the tankless water heater, and they had to add another sub panel for more breakers so that they could split some things up to avoid burning out.

Turns out, that wasn't enough, and a couple breakers tripped a few times. I have the electricians come back out, and now they test the outlets and wiring in the house, and good fucking lord, I was living in a match box. Soooo many overloaded circuits and wires with visible burn damage.

So we pulled out another $25k and had the entire house rewired. Just the outlets, the lights were all chugging along just fine, but they replaced every outlet and switch and sawed open my walls and ran new up to code wiring. I'm going to have weeks worth of drywall repair ahead of me.

Anyway, the head electrician of the team doing all the work...his name. is Thor.

An electrician. Named. Thor.

This is not his nickname. His real, actual name.

A bit on the nose lol

#ltleramblings #and he was great #i appreciated him so much

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birdofdawning · 6 months

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Pumpkins

Myka Bering and the bank own a house. This is important to the story. It is a small house, but it has a front porch that looks out over a quiet street, and French windows that open onto a small back lawn with an apricot tree in the middle. The house is one-hundred and thirty years old, and in a much better condition now than when Myka Bering had first bought it. Then it was sad and unsightly, with paint peeling off its weatherboards and a tin roof that banged in the wind. When you flicked on the light switch it made noises and when you turned the tap on worrisome things happened. But Myka read renovation books and went to night-classes. She stripped and sanded and repainted the house, replacing its rotting weatherboards. She pulled up the old carpet and polished the floorboards underneath. She hung wallpaper, unjammed windows, replaced panes of glass, and even repaired the plumbing herself. But she got an electrician in to rewire the house; and, though she nailed down the loose pieces of her rusty iron roof herself, she began saving up for a new roof. Now the house is trim and tidy and even smart, in a modest way.

The house is in an old neighbourhood that is currently unfashionable. It still has short, narrow streets lined with telephone poles, which cars are slow to navigate, and a small church or a corner store every few blocks. There are orange trees in some people’s yards and old rusted vehicles in others, each yard separated by a completely different style of fence, or a scraggly hedge, or nothing at all, just a strip of grass. Myka Bering says that that one day, when house prices rise and the area becomes desirable, she will be able to sell her house for considerably more than she paid for it. But after she had built and filled an enormous bookshelf that took up the entire internal wall, spanning from the front windows of the lounge to the end of the small dining room, people had decided that she was probably going to stay.

In the evenings, after she has cleaned her small kitchen, Myka Bering might sit down in an armchair beneath the great bookshelf and read. On Friday and Saturday nights she has a glass of wine and puts cello concertos on the stereo; and if it is warm she will open the French windows in the kitchen and enjoy the scent of orange blossom drifting through the house. Sometimes her friend Abigail will come over and drink wine with her and try and talk her into going out.

“It’s been four years,” Abigail will say, “time to get back on that horse, kid. They’re not all secretly married.”

And Myka will roll her eyes and say “I am perfectly content staying at home.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Abigail will say, “Christ, Mykes. I bet I’m the first person you’ve talked to in days.”

“Not true!” Myka will say, triumphant, “I had an exciting conversation with Mrs Kim about the tinned tomatoes she had on sale yesterday! And anyway,” she will add as Abigail rolled her eyes, “I like living quietly by myself. I count myself lucky to be able to.”

“I’m just jealous,” admits Abigail one evening, “Every week I have to explain to my mother why Josh and I aren’t breeding, and hear statistics on the dwindling fertility rate in women our age.”

“Well, she has to tell you these things because you didn’t become a real doctor.”

“Real doctor my ass,” Abigail mutters, and takes a big sip of wine.

“Kids are nice,” says Myka, who is an aunt. “And other people’s kids, who I can leave with their parents at the end of the day, are the nicest of all.”

And Abigail looks about at the tasteful ornaments and unmarked lounge suite and kilim carpet and finds it hard to imagine children trampling into this oasis of calm.

Myka Bering has done well for herself. When she first started living in the house she would get up at five and rush about, taking breakfast with her to eat as she drove to work in the same old Nissan Bluebird that she had had since college. But now she gets up at seven, turns the radio onto NPR, and leaves it playing as she makes herself a cup of coffee and sits down at her computer in the small office she has set up in the back bedroom. She has replaced her old car with one that she doesn’t have to keep having repaired, and she wears nicer suits on the days when she goes into the city. And after a few years she did indeed hire men to come in and replace the old roof, so that she didn’t have to keep climbing up with her hammer every autumn.

But still she continues to live quietly, sticking to her routine. Perhaps she’s more likely to work late into the evenings instead of sitting in her chair and reading. The walls of the back bedroom-office have slowly accumulated pinned maps and diagrams and lists, and the spare bed has become a place to keep folders and file boxes. Myka buys an oak bookshelf for the room and fills it with heavy textbooks on city design and transport planning, and from time to time as she works she will push her office chair across to the shelf and consult one. But other than these few things the room is sparse. While the rest of the house is filled with lovely rich colours, the back bedroom-office, where she spends so much of her waking time, remains white and utilitarian.

“You’ve become a hermit. It’s very you, but it’s not healthy,” her sister tells her on one of her occasional visits. She lives somewhere far away, and when she arrives she has a suitcase and Myka changes the sheets and opens the windows of the second-best bedroom.

“I have a very nice life,” Myka replies.

“You have a very nice house,” rejoins her sister, “It’s not the same thing.”

And then they will quarrel until one of them cries, or stomps out of the room in a temper, or they both become distracted by a pop song from their adolescence.

“Well, if you’re happy I suppose that’s that,” says Abigail with a sigh as she puts her coat on one evening. “Are you happy?”

“Of course I am,” says Myka.

One winter’s day Myka Bering is woken up by a phone call. She has fallen asleep curled around the folders and file boxes on her spare bed, after spending days and nights working on a difficult project. It takes her several tries to get the phone to work.

“H’llo?” she finally mutters into the device.

“Myka! Where are you!? I’m waiting in Arrivals!” says her sister.

“Arrivals?” yawns Myka.

“Arrivals! At the Denver airport! Holy fuck, Myka, have you missed the fucking plane?”

“Wha’?” says Myka sitting up. “No, that’s tomorrow…”

“It IS tomorrow you idiot!” yells her sister. “How could you lose track of the day!? You!? Have you just spent the whole week in that house not speaking to anyone!? Oh my god, you have haven’t you!?”

Myka runs into her bedroom and begins hastily packing a suitcase while her sister continues shouting in a tinny voice that she certainly isn’t going to tell their parents that Myka won’t be making it to Thanksgiving, and that Myka needs to sort her life out.

“My life is fine,” mutters Myka as she grabs her keys and drags her suitcase out to the car.

But perhaps it is time Myka Bering’s life had a little bit of a shake-up. We’ll start small, though. We’ll open a gate.

Myka Bering does not consider herself much of a gardener. This is important too. I suspect the deficit is due more to a lack of interest than a lack of ability, because I believe that Myka can do anything she puts her mind to.

But instead she pays Mr Jackson to keep the strip of front lawn tidy and to mow the grass around the apricot tree every other week. And because she mostly works from home now, when he arrives she will leave the back bedroom-office and help him shift the wooden lawn furniture she keeps under the tree into the driveway, and then back again when he is finished.

The back lawn is perfect. It is flat and even, largely because she had hired a roller in her first year in the house, and had spent several Saturdays onerously rolling the ground flat. In the spring and summer, before Mr Jackson is due to cut it, the grass in the back yard grows almost long, with dandelions and clover flowers everywhere and bees happily wandering about. On sunny evenings Myka Bering sits outside in a lawn chair under the apricot tree, and has her dinner and reads.

Other than the tree — and a small shed tucked up against the back fence — the lawn spreads out to the fence line, unmarred by any hedge or flowerbed. Myka has not grown anything else in the yard in the four years she has lived there, other than some night stock that she planted beside the French windows one year so that the perfume would drift inside the house when she hooked them open in the evenings; but night stock is, of course, an annual, and she didn’t bother replacing it the next year. Myka Bering prefers things neat and tidy and low-maintenance.

Now, decades ago the Alvarado family had lived in the house and had been good friends with the Rojas family in the house next door (that is, until Adriana Rojas ran off to New York with Izzy Alvarado to become Rockettes, thus causing a rupture that was never fully repaired). In the evenings, after supper, the parents would sit together on the front porch of one of the houses and drink beer and talk and listen to the baseball or swing music on the radio, while their children ran up and down the street. And when night fell, and they would call everyone inside and bid each other a good night.

And so, when it came time to replace the old fence between the two properties, Mano Alvarado suggested putting in a gate halfway down, so that the families didn’t always need to walk out onto the street and around every time they wanted to go between the two back yards.

Mano and John Rojas were both builders, and they knew their trade. When they built something, they built it to last for two generations and more. And so the gate still stood there, halfway down the back yard fence, when Myka Bering (and the bank) bought the little house.

Myka had tried the gate once, when she first moved in, and found its old hinges immovable and its latch stuck fast, all fused solid by rust. And deciding that this was as good as a fence she had left it alone. She had painted it, of course, or at least she had painted her side of it; and now it was a fetching bottle green, to match the lawn and the apricot tree. But, not intending to ever use the gate, she didn’t bother replacing the hinges and broken latch, and rarely thought of it again.

And so one afternoon in April Myka Bering is standing in her kitchen putting together a cheese sandwich. It is past three o’clock so she doesn’t allow herself any more coffee, but a snack is permissible. It is spring, and she has the French windows open, and a movement outside makes her look up.

There is a girl in her back yard.

The girl is standing beyond the apricot tree, intently examining a corner of the lawn.

Myka Bering steps out of the house and walks over the perfectly level grass towards her.

“Hello?” she says cautiously, “Can I help you?”

The girl turns to look at her. She is maybe nine? ten? years old and has long, black hair and dark eyes. She is wearing jeans and an adult’s t-shirt that says ‘A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE REVOLUTION’.

“Do you rent?” she asks Myka.

“What?” says Myka.

“Do you rent this house?” says the girl, and then, perhaps supposing that Myka may not be familiar with the concept of renting, she adds: “Does somebody else own your house and you pay them money each week in order to live in it?” She has a vaguely mid-Atlantic accent.

“Oh. No,” says Myka. “I own it. Me and the bank.”

This answer seems to please the girl, though she doesn’t smile. She turns fully around now, so that she faces Myka and holds up an envelope. “Then can I—” she stops, frowns, takes a breath, and starts again “—may I plant pumpkins in your garden?”

Myka blinks. “Well, no. I don’t have a garden… Sorry, who are you? And, uh, where did you come from?”

The girl points with the hand not holding the envelope. The green gate is now ajar.

“How on earth did you manage to open that?” Myka asks. “I was sure it was rusted shut. You live next door? I thought the Menzies were there?”

The girl shrugs. “I don’t know who they are,” she says, “I live there now, with mamma.” She gives an Old World pronunciation to the last word. “Which means we’re neighbours. So can I — may I — plant pumpkins in your garden?”

Myka Bering finds herself looking about for another adult to take over, but her back yard stubbornly persists in containing only the two of them. “Hey, I really don’t know if you should be talking to strangers without your, uh, mamma,” she tries, “You don’t know anything about me. I could be a bad guy.”

“Mamma says it’s perfectly reasonable to speak to people one doesn’t know because otherwise one will never find friends or make one’s way in the world.” announces the girl, “And also that statistically I am in far more danger from family members than strangers,”

“Oh,” says Myka.

The girl nods. “I reminded her that she was my only family member. She said that I would do well to keep that fact in mind.”

Myka looks back at the green gate in the wall.

“So. Mrs Pérez gave everyone in the class pumpkin seeds today, and I want to plant my ones here, please.” The girl, it seems, will not be side-tracked by trivialities like stranger-danger. “She told us that they would be ready by Halloween, and we could make jack o’lanterns.”

“But why can’t you plant them in your back yard?” asks Myka.

With tremendous patience the girl explains. “Because we rent. And Mamma says I can’t dig up the lawn because the landlord mows the lawn himself and he will see. But you don’t rent, and you don’t have anything else growing here, only grass. So can I plant my seeds here?”

Myka Bering tries to think of a reason why the girl couldn’t plant pumpkin seeds in her back yard and fails.

“I… suppose you could,” she says. “Where would you plant them?”

The girl points at the corner she was inspecting. “I thought the pumpkins would be out of the way there.”

Myka examines the spot. It seems as adequate to the purpose as any other.

“Alright,” she says, tentatively, reluctantly. “But right at the edge, okay? I don’t want too much of my lawn dug up.”

The girl nods her agreement. “Thank-you,” she adds, very properly.

“Uh, I think pumpkins need a lot of water. Maybe? You’ll have to look it up. So you’ll have to water them regularly. I’m not going to,” says Myka, trying to regain ground she suspects she has never really had since this conversation began.

“Of course,” says the girl. “I have a watering can.”

“Well then,” says Myka, taking a step towards the garden shed, “Um, do you want a spade or…?”

“I have a trowel,” says the girl. “I only want to make small holes and drop each seed in. You don’t want your lawn dug up,” she reminds Myka.

“No,” says Myka. “I don’t. Well, uh. Okay. G’bye, then.”

“Good-bye,” says the girl, who is already turning towards the green gate in the fence, presumably to fetch her trowel.

Myka watches her disappear and then looks about the back yard. Everything appears quite normal, but she feels a faint apprehension of an approaching change... still beyond the horizon, but inexorably on its way, like the pressure drop before a thunderstorm. After a moment she shakes her head and goes back inside and finishes making her sandwich.

As she carries on with her work that afternoon, Myka Bering occasionally looks out through the window of the back bedroom-office and watches the girl at the end of the yard. The apricot tree obscures much of her activity, but she spends a lot of time carefully digging. And later she has a metal watering can which she judiciously applies to certain spots about her.

That evening Myka goes out to look over the girl’s labours. There, cut into the grass that ran along the fence line, are twelve black holes, each about the diameter of a coffee-cup. Myka looks back at the green gate. It is now shut. Still feeling a little uneasy Myka Bering walks back inside and begins to prepare her dinner.

#myka bering #helena g wells #christina wells #abigail cho #Pumpkins Story #bering and wells #bering & wells

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americanlightingusa · 4 months

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steddieas-shegoes · 1 year

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"Well, what did you expect?" For the headcanon thing

Well I hope you’re good with me making this funny because my heart needs that

Eddie was on a mission.

Steve said that if he remodeled his basement, he could use it for Hellfire.

So he used some of that government money, bought some basic tools and paint, a new rug even, and got started.

The kids had helped Steve clean out what was stored down there weeks ago, so Eddie just had to turn on the light and…

The light wouldn’t turn on.

Fine. Probably just a blown bulb. He can change that.

Except it wasn’t just a blown bulb. It was something with the wiring, which was above his nonexistent pay grade.

So he removed the light feature entirely, shut off the electricity to the basement, opened the window, and started messing with them.

“Eddie, why won’t the lights turn on?” Steve yelled, possibly hours later.

“Working on the basement light!”

Steve was suddenly on the stairs to the basement with his arms crossed.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“No.”

“Why are you doing it then?”

“It already wasn’t working so I figured I couldn’t make it worse.”

Steve sighed.

“I have to turn the electricity back on. You can try again tomorrow.”

Eddie agreed, pretty certain he would have to enlist Wayne’s help.

“The electricity isn’t working!”

“What are you talking about? Just flip the breaker!”

“I am!”

Steve was back on the stairs.

“How did you shut off the electricity?”

“I just flipped all the breakers!”

“And then?”

“That’s it! I was just rewiring a couple things for this light and had to cut one.”

“Which one?”

“I dunno. It was a white one?”

“That’s one of the main lines of the house, Eddie.”

“Well, what did you expect? I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m not an electrician!”

Steve rubbed his eyes and forehead.

“Can Wayne fix it?”

“Maybe.”

“We’re going to get him and you’re never stepping foot in this basement again.”

“But-“

“No.” Steve shook his head. “Just no.”

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #headcanon #idk I’m just picturing Eddie finding the one wire that can’t be cut #and cutting it #i know that’s not how electricity works #but it would just be so hilarious to me #he spends two minutes on a project and ruins the entire wiring of the house

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thessalian · 11 months

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Thess vs Impositions

I need to take a break to vent about a thing. For once, not about work.

So my email pings while I'm working away. It's from my stepfather, saying, "Guy's coming in to Do Things to the fuse box on 27th November, probably all day (8am-5pm). The electricity will probably have to be off all that day. Even then, he might have to come in on the 28th if things aren't finished, but he'll try really hard to be done before you have to start work."

So ... a few things.

I did not find out that anything was being done to the electrics at all until yesterday afternoon, when he interrupted my work day to bring this guy into the house to look at the fuse box. He said that work would be done on it "at some point". I did not expect it to be this month.

I did not get asked if this was convenient for me. I did not get asked to choose dates. If I'd just been asked, I probably would have been fine with the 27th. The fact that I'm getting this dumped on my plate without even the remotest bit of input is just starting to get annoying now, because he keeps doing it. Every time he wants to do something in the flat, I get told, not asked. I get that this is going to make things better in the long run, but I should at least get some input.

The entire point of me moving into this mess of a flat was that they were supposed to finish the entirety of the other flat, then let me move into it while they worked on this one. So why are we doing major electric works when I'm trying to live in this place?

There was zero offer to help with logistics like, for instance, where the fuck I'm supposed to put all the stuff that's in my freezer. A couple of hours while he's rewiring shit is one thing, but all day? Do you have any idea how much food that's going to waste? I'm not going to finish it all in a little over two weeks!

So my entire restful Monday, which I need to actually recuperate enough for a week of work, is now shot. I can't sleep in, because there's going to be this person doing fucking electrical work - which is apparently going to involve removing and replacing two fuse boxes, so a lot of power tool noise. Nothing in the flat is going to work, so no food, no coffee, no internet, no TV, no video games, and given how dark it is by 4pm, at least an hour of no book. I don't know if my stepfather is going to be there, so either I can't vacate because I can't have a stranger wandering around the flat on his own, or I have to leave and let my stepfather deal with everything and also wander around the flat more or less on his own.

I feel like my space is being invaded with no opportunity to even have any input. The worst part is, I feel like I have to accept it because I don't really own this flat. It's my mother's flat on paper; she's just letting me live here. Not to mention that I should be happy he's getting any shit done at all, given he's spent two and a half years doing absolutely nothing on either flat. I'm assuming he had the electrician do work here this month because this guy's done work on the other flat and it makes sense to him to get both done at once. But I'm still fucking annoyed.

So currently gritting my teeth and wondering what the consequences would be of saying, "I'm grateful for everything you're doing with the flats, I really am. I would just really appreciate it if you could be more respectful of my time and at least ask for my input on things that are going to be that much of a barrier to anything I might have needed or wanted to do on any given day." Because this is bullshit.

And also upstairs is back to using the power tools. Thank the gods it's Friday and I'm not working next week.

...But I am working now, so I'd best get back to it. I don't feel better. I'm still fucking angry, and I just want to punch walls, thanks.

#Thess has parental units

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