#roofers place

[cookinguptales]

I want to write... but alas... the cleaning...

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Nothing weirder than waking up to your dogs barking, going to investigate, and finding there are three men on your roof cutting the thing apart. Hi. Hello? Who are you?

[fandomkingdom18]

some silly little headcanons i have specifically for my au of the outsiders that i felt the need to write down all in one place.

after their parents died, darry made a deal with the state that he could keep his brothers as long as they're able to support themselves

so darry got three jobs, roofer, contractor, and uh...yk what.

two-bit who was almost 18 started working at a grocery store cause i said so

dally managed to get a job as a bartender at bucks

and ofc soda and steve work at the dx

johnny and pony don't have jobs yet cause the others don't want them to because they're "too young"

(when really they're 14 and 15 and are in fact old enough)

when everyone else is at work, johnny and pony stay home and watch movies. like binge watch.

they once thought they could handle horror movies.

they couldnt.

they were latching on to darry when he got home.

dinner at their house is chaotic.

they're yapping over each other and darry's trying to get them to settle down so that people don't report a noise complaint on them.

how to bribe the curtises?

not money.

not gold.

these big backs only listen when there's dessert involved.

even after a 12 course meal, if they're hungry in the middle of the night and sneak out to the kitchen, there will most likely already be someone there

steve and soda used to share a room.

keyword: used to

they would stay up all night giggling and shi

same thing with pony and johnny.

so steve and pony swapped rooms.

darry regrets it cause now soda and pony cant stop giggling, but he can't stop it so he just gave up

so therefore dally and two bit share a room.

dally isn't thrilled

two bit yaps

dally needs sleep or he'll be grumpy in the morning

but two-bit contradicts him saying that dally is gonna be grumpy either way.

and then dally comes at him about still living in the house as an adult and then teases him for his lack of ability to pull

dally would try to find a way to get darry to let him sleep in his room if darry weren't such a heavy snorer

(dally snores too)

(but he refuses to accept it)

darrys the type to need his morning coffee before speaking to anyone

dal just doesnt want to speak to anyone

ponys a night owl.

they'll tell him to go to sleep and pony will be like "just one more chapter"

but he keeps reading and suddenly the birds are chirping

johnny tried to protest this once back when they shared a room

to say he'll stay awake too unless pony goes to sleep

he fails and ends up falling asleep.

pony gives him a pat on the head and continues to stay awake until the sun shined through the window.

pony then proceeds to sleep the day away

(same)

[rs-hawk]

I don't think i can explain to you the near-boundless giddy excitement I got form seeing EJ on that creeptober list of yours. (If it's not obvious, he might just be my favourite, snort) Looking forward to all of em tho ~!!

He’s GREAT. I used to have so many head cannons about him since so little is actually known. This story is actually based off my hc about his origin. I hope you enjoy!

Creeptober: Day Three

Eyeless Jack’s Obsession

Yandere! Eyeless Jack x AFAB Reader

CW: horror themes, stalking, blood, pain, death (not of reader), hypnosis, breeding, etc

Eyeless Jack was once an ordinary spirit. He lived his afterlife the way most spirits do. Bored and alone. However, that all changed when you bought the mansion in which he resided.

You moved in without ever seeing the place in person, which you soon regretted. The entire place gave you a creepy vibe that made the pit of your stomach twist into knots. At all times it felt like something was watching you. Stalking you. Filling every room with its presence.

And he was. Jack was following you no matter where you went in the house. It was like you were a drug and he was an addict. Being around you made him feel almost alive again. And the more alive he felt, the more he could interact with the physical world.

Soon he was moving things. Taking things from you. You noticed but kept trying to brush it off. You hoped thought that you were going a little crazy. After all, you worked a remote job and lived in this big creepy house all by yourself. You were supposed to fix it up and sell it for your aunt, who hadn’t lived here in decades, but it was hard. Even with the money she gave you, you struggled to make up the remainder.

Eventually though, you did, and construction started. You still lived in the loft like area that was once an attic while the crews worked downstairs. Unfortunately for the construction workers you hired, Eyeless Jack wasn’t as enthused with the intrusion into your space as you were.

On the very first day, a ladder fell over, nearly killing one of the roofers. He was fine, but he refused to return as he said he was pushed. The next time a ladder fell, a few days later, someone did die.

You heard the screaming and the sound of a body hitting the concrete. It took you a few minutes to rush downstairs. Terror filling your body. Did someone really just die on your aunt’s property? Holy fuck. How would you be able to keep living here? That poor man and his family.

While you were panicked, Jack was ecstatic. He hoped now you would send all these other people away so it could just be the two of you again. All he wanted was to be able to have you all to himself again. As he watched you panic, and the other workers calling the cops or trying to scrape their dead friend’s body off the concrete, he realized that he had blood on his hands.

For a few moments, he just stared at it. Vague memories of being alive and kicking blood from a cut on his finger drifted through his mind, but nothing solid. It was too long ago. Too hard to remember. Yet, his tongue darted out to flick across his palm.

The blood in his mouth solidified some of the memories, and made him feel almost alive. In a frenzy, he licked the blood from both of his hands, the coppery and metallic taste filling his mouth. His eyes glazed over and all he could think of was getting more blood. How much could he touch then? Could he touch you?

The next few days were a blur for you as you worked with the company and your home owners insurance to work out the logistics of the worker’s accident. Everyone saw that he just fell. The ladder was properly secured. No one was messing with it. He was acting responsibly. He wasn’t impaired or intoxicated. It was a freak accident.

But you knew. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew. It was because of that disturbing presence in the house.

You decided that you wanted the renovations done as quickly as possible, so after getting some of your money back from the previous company, you hired another. And another. And another. Every time, someone died. It was horrifying. One man came to your house just to survey the land and came across a missing roofer. He looked like he had been ripped open with a man’s bear hands, and, to both your and the surveyer’s horror, all of his organs were missing.

That night you called your aunt and told her that you were done. In the morning, you were leaving. She didn’t even try to protest after you told her everything that had happened. Jack, having over heard your conversation, was furious. He couldn’t lose you.

Over the past few months, he had undergone a transformation. Every bit of human flesh he consumed made him more solidified. More tangible. More alive. However, his face has become mutated and disturbing. Where his eyes once were, were just empty chasms, dripping black blood. His skin turned to a disturbing shade of ashy gray. So, to prevent your terror as much as he could, he carved a mask out of a piece what used to be a blue shelf. Now there was no reason for you to rebuff his affection.

When he made his way up to your room, you were on your laptop. In seconds, he tossed it from your lap, and your phone was pushed off the bed. He was on his knees on the foot of the bed, leaning over you, caging you in with his arms.

A scream welled up in your throat as the black holes bore into your eyes, but a muttering voice soothed the fear away. Your brain turned fuzzy. It was like you couldn’t think for yourself. He tilted his head, which you mimicked.

“A pretty puppet,” he purred, stroking the side of your face with one of his hands.

You couldn’t think of anything. It was like his eyes had drawn every thought or ounce of individualism from your skull. When he told you to take off your clothes, you did. When he told you to lay down, you did. You couldn’t see his mouth, and his voice seemed to come from everywhere, but you knew that it was him talking.

“Make sure your pussy is good and wet for me,” he instructed, and you obliged.

You began to finger yourself, using your other hand to play with your clit. The soft whimpers and moans that escaped your lips had him gritting his teeth behind his mask. He wanted to take you so badly, but he also wanted it to be perfect for you. His little morsel. He wanted to be apart of you. For you to be apart of him. Forever.

Once your juices began to drip onto your sheets, he finally cooed at you to stop. You did. Despite the frustration and throbbing of your pussy. He was still caging you in with his arms, his form nearly engulfing you. After a moment of watching you squirm, your neglected cunt clenching around nothing, he eased back. Unzipping his pants, and pulling down his boxers, his hard and throbbing cock was shown to you.

Once his hypnotic gaze was broken, your mind began to flood back to you, and the sight of something so massive made you try to scamper back on the bed. However, your loving Eyeless Jack realized that his hold had been broken and grabbed your face, forcing your gazes to lock. Once again, anything in your mind seemed to melt away.

“Spread your legs,” he instructed. And you did.

He slowly slid inside of you, watching your face intensely as it contorted in pain and pleasure. He stretched you out to the point that you felt like you’d burst. Your walls were still throbbing with need, forcing you to clench around him. Clearly to his immense pleasure.

“There we go. Mine. So good for me,” he moaned as he finally sank his cock deep inside of you, his eyes flickering away from your face for just a moment to see how your stomach extended from his cock.

When his gaze returned to you, he saw tears in the corner of your eyes. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to me, won’t you?” he promised, cupping your cheek almost tenderly again. You nodded obediently.

He was only slow for a few thrusts before losing what little of his kind remained. It was clear he wanted to care about your pleasure, but the decades of death and isolation left him desperate for the comfort and warmth your pussy brought him. The tip of his cock slammed against your cervix repeatedly, making you wince. He muttered out apologies, but never stopped. Never slowed down.

His cock ripped you slightly, blood beading along your tender lips. He muttered out another apology about how he’d make it up to you, and all you could do was whisper out an “okay”. It took hours for him to finish, and when he did, he slammed himself deeply inside of you, his cum pumping directly into your womb.

“There we are. Now I’ll always be apart of you,” he smiled, pulling up his mask to press a kiss to your forehead before disappearing.

As your mind came back to you, you winced at the pain, but wondered with a twisted hunger if he would come back for you.

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

You can’t shop your way out of a monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

If you're running a business, you can either invest at being good at your business, or good at Google SEO. Choose the former and your customers will love you – but they won't be able to find you, thanks to the people who choose the latter. And if you're going to invest in top-notch SEO, why bother investing in quality at all?

For more than a decade, Google has promised that it would do something about "lead gens" – services that spoof Google into thinking that they are local businesses, pushing down legit firms on both regular search and Google Maps (these downranked businesses invested in quality, not SEO, remember). Search for a roofer, a plumber, an electrician, or a locksmith (especially a locksmith), and most or all of the results will be lead-gens. They'll take your call, pretend to be a local business, and then call up some half-qualified bozo to come out and charge you four times the going rate for substandard work:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html

Some of them just take your money and they "go back to the shop for a tool" and never return:

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/when-a-fake-business-used-a-real-st-louis-address-things-got-weird-32087998

Google has been promising to fix this since the late aughts, and to be fair, it's a little better. There was once a time when a map of Manhattan showed more locksmiths than taxis:

https://blumenthals.com/blog/2009/02/18/google-maps-proves-more-locksmiths-in-nyc-than-cabs/

But GMaps is trapped in the enshittification squeeze. On the one hand, the company wants to provide a good and reliable map. On the other hand, the company makes money selling "ads" that are actually payola, where a business can pay to get to the top of the listings or get displayed on the map itself. Zoom out of Google's map of central London and the highlighted landmarks are a hilarious mix of "organic" and paid listings: the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Barbican, the London Eye…and a random oral and maxillofacial clinic in the financial district:

https://twitter.com/dylanbeattie/status/1764711667663831455

Hell of a job "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful," Big G. Doubtless the average Londoner finds the presence of this clinic super helpful in orienting themselves relative to the map on their phone screens, and it's a real service to tourists hoping to hit all the major landmarks.

It's not just Maps users who'd noticed the rampant enshittification. Even the original design team is so horrified they're moved to speak out about the moral injury they experience seeing the product they worked so hard on turned into a giant pile of shit:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Now, when it comes to locksmiths, I'm lucky. My neighborhood in Burbank includes the wonderful Golden State Lock and Safe, which has been in business since 1942:

https://www.goldenstatelock.com/

But you wouldn't know it from searching GMaps for a locksmith near me. That search turns up a long list of scams:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/locksmith/@34.1750451,-118.369948,14z/data=!3m1!4b1?entry=ttu

It also turns up plenty of Keyme machines – these are private-equity backed, self-serve key-cutting machines placed in grocery stores. Despite Keyme calling itself a "locksmith," it's just a badly secured, overcaptilized, enshittification-bound system for collecting and retaining shapefiles for the keys to millions of homes, cross-referenced with billing information that will make it easy for the eventual hackers to mass-produce keys for all those poor suckers' houses.

(Hilariously, Keyme claims to be an "AI" company):

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200114005194/en/KeyMe-Raises-35-Million-to-Further-Its-Mission-of-Building-the-Premier-Locksmith-Services-Company-in-the-Nation

But despite the fact that you can literally see the Golden State storefront from Google Streetview, Google Maps claims to have no knowledge of it. Instead, Streetview labels Golden State "Keyme" – and displays a preview showing a locksmith using a tool to break into a jeep (I'd dearly love to know how the gadget next to the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven will drive itself to your jeep and unlock the door for you when you lose your keys):

https://www.google.com/maps/place/KeyMe+Locksmiths/@34.1752624,-118.3487531,3a,75y,350.19h,90.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssHrtqjqvgFir3NBauMy13Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x80c2959cd65dbb1b:0x4b3744cf87492a71!2sBurbank+Blvd+%26+N+Hollywood+Way,+Burbank,+CA+91505!3b1!8m2!3d34.1750025!4d-118.3493484!16s%2Fg%2F11f37_3lq8!3m5!1s0x80c2951cedbf4d39:0xe8ff9fd5872e66e9!8m2!3d34.1755176!4d-118.349!16s%2Fg%2F11mw7nr4fx?entry=ttu

It's pretty clear to me what's going on here. Keyme has hired some SEO creeps and/or paid off Google, flooding the zone with listings for its machines. Meanwhile, Golden State, being merely good at locksmithing, has lost the SEO wars. Perhaps Golden State could shift some of its emphasis from being good at locksmithing in order to get better at SEO, but this is a race that will always be won by the firm that puts the most into SEO, which will always be the firm that puts the least into quality.

Whenever I write about this stuff, people inevitably ask me which search engine they should use, if not Google?

And there's the rub.

Google used predatory pricing and anticompetitive mergers to acquire a 90% search market-share. The company spends more than $26b/year buying default position in every place where you might possibly encounter a new search engine. This created the "kill zone" – the VC's term of art for businesses that no one will invest in, because Google makes sure that no one will ever find out it exists:

https://www.theverge.com/23802382/search-engine-google-neeva-android

That's why the only serious competitor to Google is Bing, another Big Tech company (Bing is also the primary source of results on Duckduckgo, which is why DDG sometimes makes exceptions for Microsoft's privacy-invading tracking):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Controversies

Google tells us that the quid-pro-quo of search monopolization is search excellence. The hundreds of billions it makes every year through monopoly control gives it the resources it needs to fight spammers and maintain search result quality. Anyone who's paid attention recently knows that this is bullshit: Google search quality is in free-fall, across all its products:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

But Google doesn't seem to think it has a problem. Rather than devoting all its available resources to fighting botshit, spam and scams, the company set $80 billion dollars alight last year with a stock buyback that was swiftly followed with 12,000 layoffs, followed by multiple subsequent rounds of layoffs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

The scams that slip through Google's cracks are sometimes nefarious, but just as often they're decidedly amateurish, the kind of thing that Google could fix by throwing money at the problem, say, to validate that new ads for confirmed Google merchants come from the merchant's registered email addresses and go to the merchant's registered website:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Search is a capital intensive business, and there are real returns to scale, as the UK Competition and Market Authority's excellent 2020 study describes:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fe4957c8fa8f56aeff87c12/Appendix_I_-_search_quality_v.3_WEB_.pdf

But Google doesn't seem to think that its search needs that $80 billion to fight the spamwars. That's the thing about monopolists, they get complacent. As Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine the AT&T operator" used to say, "We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company."

That's why I'm so excited about the DOJ Antitrust Division monopolization case against Google. Trusting one company to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," was a failure:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-google-monopolizing-digital-advertising-technologies

I understand why people want to know which search engine they should use instead of Google, and I get why, "There aren't any good search engines" is such an unsatisfactory answer. I understand why each fresh round of printer-company fuckery prompts people to ask "which printer should I get?" and I understand why "There are only six major printer companies and they're all suffering from end-stage enshittification" isn't what anyone wants to hear.

We want to be able to vote with our wallets, because it's so much faster and more convenient than voting with our ballots. But the vote-with-your-wallet election is rigged for the people with the thickest wallets. Try as hard as you'd like, you just can't shop your way out of a monopoly – that's like trying to recycle your way out of the climate emergency. Systemic problems need systemic solutions – not individual ones.

That's why the new antitrust matters so much. The answer to monopolies is to break up companies, block and unwind mergers, ban deceptive and unfair conduct. "Caveat emptor" is the scammer's motto. You shouldn't have to be an expert on lead gen scams to hire a locksmith without getting ripped off.

There are good products and services out there. Earlier this year, we decided to install a (non-networked) programmable pushbutton lock. I asked Deviant Ollam – whom I know from Defcon's Lockpicking Village – for a recommendation and he suggested the Schlage FE595:

https://www.schlage.com/en/home/products/FE595PLYFFFFLA.html

I liked it so much I bought another one for my office door. Eric from Golden State Lock and Safe installed it while I wrote this blog-post. It's great. I recommend both of 'em – 10/10, would do business again.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#vapor-locksmith

Image: alicia rae (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kehole_Red.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

--

Budhiargomiko (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wasteland.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[raikan624]

Warmth

Made(Started + completed): August 13, 2024

Requested? No

Summary: Darry’s had a long day at work, but he melts whenever he’s in your arms. All of his stress seems to go away each time.

Contains: Fluff, Darry x Reader, no use of Y/N, Reader’s gender is unspecified

Warnings: Use of sweetheart, next-to-nothing for dialogue, short and sweet

Darry had just come home from his stressful job roofing. His back ached with soreness from the harsh physical labor. He called out an, “I’m home!” when he walked in the door. He slipped off his boots and made his way into the living room, seeing you, his lover sitting on the couch. You were absent-mindedly watching TV with a somewhat bored expression on your face - that was, until you saw the movement of him walking in from the corner of your eyes. Your gaze softened and you smiled. Darry loved seeing that smile of yours.

“Hey, sweetheart.” He greeted you, padding over to sit next to you. A weary sigh escaped him when he sat down, his shoulders heavy with stress and a dull aching pain.

A few minutes later, he reluctantly got up, stepping into the kitchen. You followed behind him, watching as he filled up a glass with water. Darry felt a pair of arms snaking around his waist and a body press against his back. He knew it was you. He melted into the embrace, leaning back against you. He placed one of his large, rough and calloused hands - hands that were rough from the physical labor of his work as a roofer - onto your forearm, gently rubbing his thumb along the skin. His shoulders relaxed in contrast to them previously being tense as he basked in the comforting warmth of your body pressed against his.

How he loved your hugs. . .

[lulublack90]

Prompt 8 - Tattoo

@jegulus-microfic November 8, Word count 345

Previous part First part

James waited as patiently as he was capable of, which wasn’t much, for Regulus to return with his painting. He was expecting it to be good, as everything else of Regulus’s he’d seen was, but it was spectacular. He looked over the canvas at Regulus and apologised. 

“I am so sorry that I made you ruin the original. I can tell it would have been one of your best, obviously not as good as ‘Berk with a ‘nana, as Sirius so lovingly dubbed it. But this is beautiful. Can we hang it in here?” He asked, looking around the roofer for a suitable hanging place. 

“Er— yeah— sure, if you want,” Regulus was blushing again, and James wanted to kiss every inch of his heated skin, but he refrained, knowing Regulus was not ready for that. James went and got his tool kit out of the cupboard and set to work hammering a hook into the wall. 

“Perfect,” He said, standing back to look at the freshly hung painting. “You know what I really want that as my next tattoo, would you mind?” When Regulus didn’t answer, he turned to look at him and found a blushing, bewildered Regulus staring unbelievably at him.

“Y-y-you’d want m-m-my art on you?!” He gasped. 

“Of course. Look at it, Regulus, why wouldn’t I?” James spoke gently, stroking his fingers over Regulus’s cheek. They stared at each other, completely enraptured by the other for only a few seconds before there was a loud knock on the door and Sirius came striding in. 

“Told you it’d look good in here, Reggie!” Sirius said proudly as he ignored the fact that they’d be staring into each other's eyes, with James cradling Regulus's cheek with his hand, and took in the painting. “Now I need you to do a matching one with a big black dog on it,” James rolled his eyes at Sirius’s obsession with Grims and kissed Regulus’s forehead before asking them if they wanted tea, leaving the two brothers in the living room to go put the kettle on. 

Next part

[seat-safety-switch]

Here’s a fun fact for you: a used domestic minivan is effectively worthless. People predominantly buy them to transport their children, and after one or more sets of children, that van is so covered with kid cruft, leavings, and various juices, that it will weigh at least 300 pounds more than when it left the factory. That’s not just my opinion: check the resale value of used domestic minivans.

Sure, used Japanese minivans are always valuable. That’s because the Japanese have cleverly constructed a motor vehicle that doesn’t break, so you don’t have to spend a precious weekend of your life constantly swearing at whatever asshole at Mopar shoved the rear air conditioning lines in the same place the sliding door wants to be. Once the first family is done with their $60k Odyssey, they’ll sell it for $35k to the next family, and so on. Eventually, it will be purchased as a roofer to use as his or her work van, and it is here that the humble minivan reaches its final destination.

Despite the large amount of glass that allows meth-heads of all stripes to look inside at your tools, minivans are very useful as work vehicles. Most of them can carry a whole sheet of plywood, which is something that a crew-cab Ford truck has trouble claiming. They have peppy engines meant to carry that several hundred pounds of kid garbage, or a single, near-homicidal, hockey dad in traffic. And, as stated, they depreciate like a stone, so you won’t worry about the paint too much if you have to use the van to push around a few shopping carts or a probation officer.

Plus, they blend in with every economic strata, at least until things get a little too shitty. The fuzz won’t hassle a minivan, no matter which neighbourhood you are currently violating parking and traffic-control laws in. This means that you can get away with some really egregious crimes, especially if you have the foresight to put a high-visibility vest and a hard hat in the back before you commit those crimes.

When all is said and done, you can flip your minivan for basically whatever you paid for it. Major service still required? Barely runs? Gee, I guess I’ll take scrap value for it. Weird how it seems so heavy on the scale, right, Copper-Stripping Carl?

[ltleflrt]

So when I bought this house in 2009 I was told the roof had been replaced in 2003. Now it's 2024 and I'm getting it replaced again because I've noticed some tiny leaks in a few places. Very tiny. Like, the damage probably took a few years to get to the point where I'd notice it.

As they start pulling up shingles, it is discovered that the roof wasn't replaced, it was just a second layer of shingles added. That's fine and normal. I'm like, rip it all off and repair anything underneath that needs it.

As my roofer sends me pictures of the damage he's finding, because he wants me to have a record of all of it, I'm feeling very grateful that the roof hasn't collapsed. Jeebus, there is so much rot.

And on top of that, when the solar guys took down my panels, they found one of the arrays wasn't grounded. So, fire hazard.

If I had a nickel for every time we found a fire hazard in this house, I'd have THREE NICKELS.

Anyway, my useless psychic power has been giving me nightmares about my roof for about 5 or 6 years. And now I'm thinking it's not as useless as I thought.

[sonneillonv]

I just want to remind y'all why you should have insurance.

Because I am not a perfect person, I put off getting insurance on my crappy little prefab home. Now I have a leak in the roof. The roofer got up there and let me know that even though my shingles are new (I was told when I moved in that the roof had recently been redone), the underlayment is NOT new and is compromised. He said it looks like a DIY job, and the shingles that were used are so cheap they were discontinued because their unreliability meant they were seldom up to code. In other words, previous homeowner did it himself and did a shitty job.

It's $10-13k to re-roof. I was basically expecting that. HOWEVER, because the roof is shitty, there's internal and wall damage as well that needs to be fixed eventually. Probably some mold. Obviously that will be a whole other cost as well.

He showed me photos of hail damage to the shingles.

If I'd had insurance, even if they typically didn't cover water damage, those hail marks would have earned me a fully covered claim for both the roof and all the internals. All of it. Instead I'm out of pocket.

Y'all, I'm an insurance agent. I know better. I got lazy. Now it will cost me probably $20k when all is said and done. PLEASE take my advice: get your place insured, EVEN IF YOU RENT, so you can be lazy LATER when something happens, and let the insurance take care of it.

[butternuggets-blog]

FOR WANT OF A NAIL

@baldwin-montclair @adowobsessed @sylverdeclermont @nicki-mac-me @thereadersmuse @kynthiamoon @wheresthesunshinesblog @adowbaldwin @beautifulsoulsublime @lady-lazarus-declermont @adarafaelbarba-blog @dogblessyoutascha

Part Fourty-Eight

Summary:  Baldwin Montclair had a string of ex girlfriends, a single child, and a  lifetime longer than most people could dream of to make all kinds of  mistakes. His family knew one which kept coming out of the woodwork to  irritate him every other century

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'Come along!' Jaquob gestured for Yvette and the others to follow him as he walked down the dirt path towards the woods.

They had arranged the secret playdate weeks ago, carefully coordinating one another's schedules until everyone was available. The only other people who knew were Yvette and Jaquob's bodyguard Vincent, who had been tailing them, the other children's parents, Jaquob's mother Loyse, and Martin, who believed in fostering independence in his daughter.

'I hope that the apple tree you saw has fruit!' Honnorée was the youngest of seven, the daughter of weavers who had moved to Dôle in search of better prospects for their business. She had met Jaquob when he had come into her family's shop to buy a new basket as a birthday present for his mother, and the two nine-year-olds had become fast friends.

'I like apple with cheese' Porret's father was a watchmaker; he had made several clocks for Martin over the years, and his son had played with Yvette through many long business meetings.

'I hope there is blackberries!' Symonne was the daughter of a roofer and his wife, and had been introduced to Yvette when her father had taken a contract to make repairs to Martin's townhouse. 'I like blackberry jam.'

'They only grow in France' Yvette pat Symonne on the arm sympathetically as they stomped through the undergrowth.

'But we have blackberry jam at home!' Symonne looked at her friend, confused.

'Yes but it had to come from a long, long, long way away,' Yvette explained.

'I am not sure that is how food works' Symonne shook her head. Suddenly, they realised that the two of them and Porret had been slowly slipping behind, so the trio of four-year-olds linked hands and hurried after the older children.

****

The apple tree did have fruit on it, which they picked, and Honnorée had packed a sack of cheese and bread, so they settled down for a picnic in the middle of the clearing.

'I was introduced to Walraven yesterday' Honnorée said quietly.

'Walraven?!' Symonne, Yvette and Porret shrieked. Honnorée giggled at the look on their faces.

'Why did you not fetch me?!' Jaquob demanded.

They had been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Honnorée's fiancé for months. Walraven's father and Honnorée's had originally been members of the same guild, and had kept in touch when Walraven's father moved to the County of Flanders.

The children had been introduced to each other as long-distance friends as a joke, but as their friendship blossomed their parents began to actually consider a lovematch. Honnorée's parents had been careful to stress, however, that she was in no way obligated to see the engagement through, and the wedding would not take place until the children were at least sixteen.

'What is he like?' Yvette asked.

'He is kind,' Honnorée beamed.

'Good.' Jaquob nodded.

'I hope I marry someone kind' Yvette poked the ground next to her.

'Will you marry a prince?' Symonne asked excitedly. 'I wish I could marry a prince.'

'You would have a lot of things to do if you marry a prince,' Porret chimed in.

'I would not mind as long as he was kind,' said Yvette.

________________________________________________________________

'ɸatīr?'

'Mm?'

'Am I engaged to be wed?'

Martin nearly choked on his dinner.

Coughing into his napkin, Martin shuffled his chair closer to Yvette.

'Where has this question come from, dereling?'

'Honnorée is engaged.'

Martin smiled.

Of course.

Yvette was gazing up at him, curiosity lighting her eyes. His daughter and her friends had talked of nothing but the boy's arrival for weeks; he really should have seen this sort of question coming.

Martin slid out of his chair and knelt beside his daughter so he could look her in the eye.

'No, you are not engaged. Nor do I have any plans to sell you off to the highest bidder.' Martin took Yvette's hands in his own.

'Your health and happiness comes before anything else. And when you marry, I want it to be out of love, not obligation or duty.'

'Really?' Yvette asked, surprised.

'Yes. I want a daughter, not a legacy.'

Author's Notes

Dôle was the capital of the Free County of Burgundy (Franche-Comté). It was bordered by the Duchy of Burgundy to the west, and the Kingdom of Arles to the east. It was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and during the reign of Philip the Bold Dôle served as the centre of the county's new council and parliament.

Arranged marriages were not typical for peasants, as there was really no great material benefit for either party. Land owners, lesser and upper nobility, and royalty, didn't have the luxury of marrying for love and so arranged marriages were considered quite normal.

Most European nobles married quite young (as early as 12 or 13), and there have been famous examples of pregnant mothers as young as 14 years old (Lady Margaret Beaufort, for example). However peasants often got married in their 20s, and many women remained unmarried, or worked before entering into a marriage and continued to work after they were wed.

The County of Flanders was part of the Low Countries, located along the Nort Sea. It is now known as Belgium.

ɸatīr = father

"Even so after many centuries of people eating with their hands and wiping them on anything that came to hand, a version of a fabric napkin did make its appearance in the Middle Ages. Only to disappear from many tables with the introduction of the fork from Italy in the 17th century which took the mess out of eating." Talking Tables UK

dereling = darling (I used a Middle English spelling, because I couldn't find a Proto-Celtic spelling)

Martin is still writing Baldwin letters he won't send.

[plantparenthood]

Hello I'm planning on being Baba Yaga's hut for Halloween, and I found your costume from 2022 while looking for inspiration. I was wondering if you had any tips on how to make it or anything that you did that you might do differently next time? Thank you!!!! 🎃

very fun!! I researched illustrations on baba yagas huts but I also looked at cabins and dachas I liked to find the style/structure I liked. I was even thinking about doing an A-frame style I guess if I were to make it again I think I would use a base of foam to make it sturdier, I’d find I’d make lots of supports on the corners of the structure to be able to have it hold in place/shape. I used ribbons over my shoulders when I would wear it and I think I would have made those lower and have the cardboard structure be taller (it’s kinda hard to find enough LARGE cardboard and you have to Frankenstein stuff together a lot haha) the shingles on the roof were the most fun to do, it made me feel like a roofer. I stuffed floral arrangement foam in the chimney and I hot-glued poly filling around white pipe cleaners and stuffed the bottoms of the pipe cleaners into the chimney to make it look like rising smoke. I honestly just used my love of dollhouses and I poured that into this costume. If I had more time I would also try to make my bloomers more “chicken like” and maybe make fabric overlapping feathers on the bloomers. I also would try something else with the feet but the cardboard covers I made really worked out. I used A LOT of thrift store items, the bloomers on the clothes line, the door knob, the floral foam, the lace for the curtains, the poly fill and the cardboard was all from my job! I’d love to see what you come up with! Happy making!

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

Eleionomae: The Floating Isle

Back to on my worldbuilding kick again.

The island itself isn't unanchored, despite what the name implies, but most of its flat land is made of coastal bog. This bog is fed solely by rainwater, and makes up most of the island.

Eleionomae is called the floating isle because those that live there do so on 'floating' homes that rise and fall with the floodwater. The material used to make these homes is treated specially to survive the acidic water, but even then it may only last up to ten years. These homes lay on top of the stone pillars and columns driven into the earth to make a foundation for the settlers.

There is a single mile to the west and three to the South where the bog does not extend. This arable land is used for farming, with several large farms. For the harvest everyone from the inland wetland comes out to help. They get fed in return for this and also sheltering the farmers during any raids - which are still common.

The houses are connected via small bridges and walkways. The cabin there are small and mostly suited to smaller families, which are encouraged due to how hard and labor-intensive it is to expand the settlement. The largest of these walkways is in the center of the town and is where any family expecting a child may live until the child is five years old. Not every family takes up on this offer, some preferring to stay in their own structures closer to the edge.

There is also a temple, on 'the dry', where the settlement was first founded. The people were driven into the bog by raiding parties, and there found a nature kind of safety and protection. It is easy to be sucked into the mud if you do not have the specialized stilts or the boats (the use of each depending on the level of ground water).

The loss of food during the raids is minimal and, despite all appearances to the contrary, the people here are not poor. The peat that they harvest from the bog itself is sold in many ports, places that do not wish to burn precious wood in the winter to keep warm.

Hardy, tough clothing with feather ornaments is the fashion here and the diet of wheat is subsidized by eggs from the 'ducks' of the wetlands, of which varieties of semi-domesticated and wild are penned in large enclosures with netting over top to stop them flying away. Some high perches and other things are placed in these pens so they can fly to escape any predators smart enough to find a way in.

Children do not go to a school, as such, but are housed together during the day in the innermost section of the town, with the mothers of the youngest and the elderly of the town keeping an eye on them. Tradesmen take turns to show up and teach them how to do simple tasks and, when they are older, those same tradesmen bid for appendices to the family of the children. You may a baker in one building showing a group how to weigh ingredients on one side and a roofer explaining why the type of mud you use for thatching is important on another.

Although most people here are illiterate, there is a need to communicate (for trade mostly) with other islands via letter writing, so a Master chooses three children at age five to learn to read. The families of these children are given a generous stipend but it is set and no bidding war can occur for a talented child, so sometimes parents try to avoid their child meeting with the Master. These children will go on to the governance of the town, as well as appointing Faireoir, the watchmen.

These children spend most of their time either in the tower (the single stone building in the town and the only one above two stories high) learning from their Master, in court or sitting in on political meetings. Sometimes dignitaries or tradesmen get a bit put out by having to conduct their business in front of a gaggle of children and young people but it is a large part of the culture. Once a child turns 16, they may start to join in on committee discussions about matters but do not get a vote until they are awarded one by the elders - only fifty of which exists. A person must retire their vote at fifty. The Master is often a person who has done so.

[theretirementstory]

18/08/24. Bonjour et bienvenue, if you are new to this blog, what took you so long finding it 😉. For those that have followed me for the past years, thank you 😊.

The photos this week are from my “archive”. The above is of the front garden after I spent days removing very long grass and (stupidly) laying weed suppressant before I covered it with bark. I was so pleased with the result. Unfortunately now the potager is a cat toilet and the bark has lost it’s colour and the area looks shoddy. I have some more bark and would like to get the germinated seeds taken out and add more bark. Perhaps I will be able to do this very soon.

We are one week closer to the arrival of 2nd son and his girlfriend and I have had a few baking days preparing food for the freezer so that, if, I don’t feel up to cooking a meal we won’t starve 😊.

It’s been a different week with two visits to the hospital in Troyes, for my transfusions. Back to normal next week with a visit to Paris and also Troyes for the transfusions.

Talking of Paris, I messaged Jony, my Syrian friend, on Friday evening and brought him up to speed with my treatment. When I met him his paperwork in France had his name spelt as above, however, he signed off with Johnny. I am pleased he is now using (perhaps) the correct spelling of his name. I know that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime, Johnny left Bar-sur-Aube in July 2018, although I haven’t seen him since, when we message one another it’s as if I had just seen him last week. I pray to be well enough to go to Paris one day and meet him for coffee as I used to do here in Bar-sur-Aube. Keeping my 🤞 for that one!

Anie and Monique are sharing the shopping duties, with Anie getting the visits to the pharmacy too. It’s so kind of them to do this for me, although I know I couldn’t do it myself.

On Friday, Anie was telling me about the liberation which took place on the coast of Provence on the 15 August 1944. After American, British and Canadian forces landed they were followed by some 250,000 soldiers recruited largely from French colonies in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. As 15 August is Assumption Day this landing goes largely unremembered. She then mentioned the Résistance and I asked if she had been to the Résistance Museum in a village not too far away. She said she hadn’t and maybe we could go together. Hopefully we will get there before it is only opened to groups from November.

The cleaner came and she is a good worker, however I will have to itemise each task I want doing. I did clean the kitchen myself (apart from the floor) which she did. I want to get her to wash the window and door frames inside and out 😳 plus the glass panes.

I have a “to-do” list as long as your arm! The car is in need of a service but as I am not allowed to drive, I haven’t phoned the garage. I messaged the gardener to come and cut the grass. He didn’t respond but I feel sure he will turn up and transform the garden. Maybe I won’t contact him again just yet. I messaged the plumber to come out but again no response. He maybe on holiday and could contact me this week, if not I will call him. I have to ring the man to come and wash the outside walls of the house. Currently, the sand blown from the Sahara has caused red streaks to appear and I would like them cleaned. Finally I need to contact the roofer, I signed the estimate in October last year and he said he would come on a dry day to do the work. We have had a lot of those days but he is more elusive than “The Scarlet Pimpernel”.

“The Trainee Solicitor” now just shares his office with one other person. I hope that means that he can get on with his work without too many distractions. I know from being in a car with a driver for three hours or more, picking the skin on their fingers or picking their nose, plus a little cough which has become a habit all of these get on your nerves.

“The Recovery Coordinator” has had another “garbage” week! They have lost 5 members of staff in 6 weeks so the workload for the remaining staff has increased and it’s stressful. She is glad she has her holidays to look forward to.

“The Photographer” has had an okay week which ended with a high on Friday evening, winning a game of bingo. Yesterday he was at Scarborough AFC’s home game taking photographs. It’s something he enjoys doing and is such a change from his full-time work.

“The Jetsetter” still has clipped wings and is spending her summer going swimming, playing bingo 😂 and working. Some of that working involved a professional exam this week. I would imagine, while waiting for results of the exam, that she will be deciding on places to visit during her next round of holidays 😁.

Talking about holidays, Pauline has been making the most of the Iberian peninsula. She has been to Lisbon and Porto. Then went back into Spain visiting Malaga, Seville, Granada and Madrid. Not quite sure where she is at the moment but she is not due back in Paris until 21 August.

Goodness me, I nearly forgot the music section 😳. The first track is “Loves Me Like A Rock” by Paul Simon this was released in 1973 that makes it over 50 years old but I love it as much today as I did then. The second track is from a lady who, sadly is no longer with us, it’s “This Time I Know It’s For Real” by Donna Summer which was released in 1989. I hope you enjoy listening to these two songs.

The photo below was taken at Chateau de Cirey-sur-Blaise. A place where the writer, Voltaire, lived with Mme Du Châtelet from 1734 to 1749.

Jusqu’à la semaine prochaine.

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: The Auction

The Girls need a new roof, and a chance encounter with a dying artist might give them the means to obtain one.

Picture It...

Sophia and Dorothy discuss the roof, which has sprung several leaks in the past few days. Rose is testy as her roof kept her awake all night. Blanche is only now willing to do something because a caved-in ceiling interrupted her date. The doorbell rings, and roofer Sid arrives with a nasty cold. He says he doesn't need to get on the roof -- he can already tell it's a goner, and a patch job won't hold. Best bet is a new roof, but it'll cost $10,000 while a patch job is only $200.

ROSE: What are you trying to say, Sid? SID: You couldn't follow that? DOROTHY: She has trouble following Murder, She Wrote.

The Girls discuss, and decide to pay for a new roof in installments, but back off when they see Sid is a hardass on payments. As Sid leaves, Sophia is off to her volunteer work at the hospital. Blanche offers to bring Rose and Dorothy to an art show the next night featuring artist Jasper DeKimmel. She shows them one of his paintings and interprets it for them, though neither of them is particularly impressed.

The next night, the Girls are at the art show, where they discuss the paintings and see a mime performing. Sophia wanders around causing problems, as she is wont to do. They are admiring DeKimmel's art when the man himself arrives and greets them. Rose admits she doesn't much understand his work, and he offers to discuss one with them. He proceeds to mock and insult them when they try to follow what he says. Rose spots two workers carrying in a sheet of glass.

ROSE: Oh look, two more mimes pretending to carry in something. I'm gonna have some fun with them! BLANCHE: Um... *Rose runs offscreen as Dorothy and Blanche try to stop her; there's a loud crash* ROSE: . . . they weren't mimes, were they?

Later, the Girls are trying to catch another roof leak with a bucket and towels (including Blanche's prized Cabana Club beach towel). They acknowledge that Sid's patch job isn't helping, as he predicted, so they decide to pool their resources to try and afford a new roof. With some scrimping and saving, they can manage it. Sophia arrives home, having had an equally miserable day at work -- she got stuck with a cranky patient who has two weeks to live. Who is the patient? None other than Jasper DeKimmel, the artist.

Blanche immediately catches on that, if DeKimmel dies soon, his paintings will go up in value significantly. She says there's an auction of DeKimmel's art happening soon, and if they can get one of his art pieces, they can sell it after his death for a profit to both pay for the roof and to keep for themselves. There's initially a token objection on morality, but all four of them quickly forget about it as the auction is coming up fast.

DOROTHY: Ma, what are you doing in here? SOPHIA: The search lights were out, so I tunneled out of my room with a spoon. I couldn't sleep so I'm having some tea . . . if that's okay with you, Prime Minister Botha?

At 4 a.m. several days later, all four Girls meet up in the kitchen, unable to sleep. They initially feign ignorance of why they're unable to sleep (or perhaps Rose is not feigning), until Blanche broaches the subject of DeKimmel and their potential profit off of his imminent death. Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy are ready to call the whole thing off, but Sophia talks them back into it, adding that DeKimmel is dying because he needs a rare blood transfusion.

The next day, Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy take front-row seats at the auction. The first piece is a Greco-Roman-style statue, and Blanche works herself up looking at it. Rose accidentally places a $25k bid when she fans herself with her paddle. This starts a chain reaction as the Girls proceed to accidentally place higher and higher bids before they're luckily outbid by someone else. Lesson learned, they're prepared as a DeKimmel painting is next up.

AUCTIONEER: This is a small piece, but certainly one which will be worth many times its current value someday. ROSE: Like tomorrow! DOROTHY: *pinning Rose with a stare* Keeping a secret just isn't your strong suit, is it Rose?

They begin to battle with another bidder for the painting. Dorothy and Blanche bring it up to $7,500, but then Rose gets too eager and bids $8000 against them. Their argument spills over into the bidding as they keep waving their paddles carelessly and drive the number up to $9000. The auctioneer puts them out of their misery and sells them the painting. They go to call Sophia in triumph, who informs them the hospital found a donor with the rare blood type. She hangs up and the nurse hands her a cookie -- she was the donor.

Cut back to the phone booth, where Dorothy is out cold on the ground with Rose and Blanche trying to revive her. Later, the Girls stare at their painting, dejected but glad they didn't compromise their morals. Sid arrives to start on the new roof, but they tell him the plan is off. He spots the DeKimmel and reveals he's a fan. In fact, he'd happily trade the painting for a new roof. Sophia immediately catches on and begins haggling with Sid to get them a warranty and a profit.

SID: What about a new roof with a five-year warranty? SOPHIA: And $2,500. SID: In cash?! SOPHIA: No, in pistachio nuts! Of course cash. Today. Tomorrow the price goes up. DeKimmel isn't getting any younger. SID: *following Sophia into the kitchen* $2,500 seems a little steep. SOPHIA: $3,000. You tick me off. DOROTHY: Now you're watching a real artist at work.

"Gee, you save a guys life and all you get is apple juice and a cookie?!"

This is one of those episodes where I think, once you remove all of the visual gags and the jokes and funny skits unrelated to the plot, you'd be left with a pretty short episode. If you pay attention, this little extras make up at least 50% of the whole story. That's not a mark against the episode, per se, but it does fluff up the story a bit to get it to an episodic length. This is also the episode where Rose gets to get in an epic zinger at Dorothy -- a rare enough occurrence to be notable all by itself.

DOROTHY: Hi Rose. The ceiling in your room leaking, too? ROSE: *holding two buckets* No Dorothy, I just finished milking the cow I keep in my closet. Gee, with only three hours' sleep, I can be as bitchy as you.

Just to recap for fun, there's are the extra bits in the gallery including Sophia disrupting a mime's show and Rose's aside about her Uncle Gustav the Coal Mimer, Blanche and Dorothy fussing over Blanche's towel, the whole kitchen meetup and Rose's junk food diet, Sophia's failed attempt at a Picture It Story, and the whole incident where they almost buy a $40,000 Roman statue. My personal favorite is the kitchen -- especially Sophia being unable to dredge up a pertinent Picture It episode.

As I've said before, I love any episode where Blanche displays personality separate from her love for men. In this episode, it's her love of art and expertise on the subject that shines through. I know the episode wants us to see Jasper DeKimmel's work as pretentious and Blanche as possibly reading more into it than is there. But I don't think that's exactly fair to Blanche. Still, it helps set up just how much of a dick DeKimmel is when we properly meet him later.

That brings us to the core conflict of the episode: Whether it's ethical for the Girls to take advantage of their knowledge of DeKimmel's illness to make a profit on his artwork. I have two concerns myself: Whether that's even legal -- it wouldn't be hard to discover the connection between Sophia, DeKimmel, and the Girls -- and whether Sophia may have violated patient confidentiality by letting the Girls in on the secrets about his health. Does a volunteer have to abide by HIPAA? I don't actually know.

DeKimmel being an asshole is supposed to complicate the question, as the Girls are less inclined to feel sympathy when hearing that he's on the brink of death. Personally, I'd be inclined to be a little more forgiving upon hearing someone has weeks to live -- even if he had loudly and brutally humiliated me in public. If nothing else, I'd be comforted in the thought that he would very shortly not be able to do it to anyone else.

ROSE: What are you guys doing up? DOROTHY: We're conducting a seance to contact Liberace. We couldn't sleep. Why else would we be up at 4 a.m.? ROSE: I couldn't sleep either, but I think it was something I ate before bed. SOPHIA: What did you eat? ROSE: Nothing out of the ordinary. A handful of SnoCaps, a couple of Devil Dogs, some Oreos . . . oh, and a Ho-Ho chopped up in a bowl of fruit cocktail with heavy syrup. DOROTHY: Couldn't sleep? I'm surprised you didn't try to kill the Mayor of San Francisco.

So it works when they make DeKimmel look terrible -- I'm not so sure the same could be said for Sid. I'm not sure why the Girls are so mad at Sid -- especially when Sophia calls him the runner-up to DeKimmel as a "miserable, contemptible slug." I mean, all the guy does is insist on being paid on time and tell them that a patch job isn't going to hold when it rains (and he's correct, as we see later in the episode). The fact that he's completely professional and also a lover of fine art makes me wonder why the Girls are really so upset with him.

The auction scene is the one that holds the whole episode together, and is a rare chance for Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Bea Arthur to show off their physical comedy chops as their flailing nets them absolutely no mercy from the auctioneer. Also, I will say, no shade to the artist, but the DeKimmel painting shown at the auction does look pretty awful, like one of those weird mishmash paintings you'd see on the wall at a dentist's office (as you can see, art history is not my field of expertise).

There's one thing about this episode that I find baffling as an adult: The notion that Dorothy, Rose, and Sophia, as renters, would have to help Blanche, their landlady, pay for a new roof. They already pay rent, which should go towards maintaining the house. I understand that a new roof is a big expense that they all might have to contribute towards, but they even have to pitch in for the patch job, and that should be entirely Blanche's responsibility. I know, I know, suspension of disbelief, but I darn it, I pay rent now and I can't get over it!

Still, it's fun to see Sophia come in clutch at the end, taking advantage of Sid's unexpected love of fine art to convince him to give them a new roof. Considering her act of altruism is the reason their (admittedly somewhat half-baked) plan to capitalize on his death doesn't work out, it's great to see that she still has a role to play in the final scene. And her ruthless bargaining with Sid is great fun to watch -- he really wants that painting, and she's going to make sure he pays for it and then some.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰 (three cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite part of the episode

The auctioneer's shade is the cherry on top of the whole scene.

[inorganicpixie]

So yeah, so far I hate it here. I love being with my partner. I love that we are creating a home together. But I am used to living in the city, I love living in a city. This is like suburbs. I hate having to rely on a car or rides from others to get to places. I hate that there are no locally owned and operated small business grocery stores. The only store that claims to be for grocery that I can walk to is like a shitty ghetto store. Everything that is similar to things I like to do is in the next town over.

But now I’m stuck here. He bought this house and I promised my kids we wouldn’t move again for a long time after this. I don’t have a job and I don’t really see many places I would even WANT to work at that are similar to my old job. I took the role of being at the house to take care of things like roofers and plumbers and stuff but his dad clearly wants me working and is concerned about me and money.

The only daycare I’ve found is almost $100 dollars more than what I was paying before and yet minimum wage here is lower.

The only coffee shop nearby that I’ve seen so far is gross ass dunkin.

Idk. Idk. Idk. I miss my old job. I miss being able to walk to whatever store I wanted. I miss everything being super close by. I miss my old co workers. I miss the farmers market and local health food stores that support the local economy. NOT fucking Trader Joe’s.