Our neighbor’s house is in pretty bad shape. It looks like it’s falling down. It is not the most lovely view, as you can imagine. Right after we moved in, however, he came over and apologized for the state of it and assured us he was working on it. We learned he is a novelist who fixes up houses and sells them. This is his third house and they plan to actually keep the next one. Oh good! We thought. It will be fun to watch the progress, and soon it will look nice.
We have since learned that they are indeed working on the house, but with an extreme case of ADD. We have seen them start a deck, get the frame up, attach a few boards, then leave it. They started replacing some rotten boards on the front of the house, then stopped. They do most of their indoor work from about 12-4 in the morning, as evidenced by the frequent MEEEEEER of the belt sander in the wee hours.
They are very nice. We have even had them over. Needless to say, however, when he excitedly announced the other day that they had bought the paint for the outside of the house and were going to get started soon, I didn’t get my hopes up.
None of this bothers, us, really. Not even the construction at night. Except for this FUCKING BLUE TARP. Way back in MARCH they tore the roof off of a section of their house. That same day, they finished most of that section and covered the remaining portion with the fucking blue tarp. I thought to myself, ‘Excellent! They should be finished before my birthday party next month.’
I must have forgotten who I was dealing with. My birthday party was on May 13th and the roof had not made any progress since that day in March.
Here is a picture of my sister’s friend R from my fabulous party:
You don’t so much notice the pretty girl, but the FUCKING BLUE TARP.
Here is a picture from a lovely baby shower I threw on JULY 15th:
Still no progress since that day in March.
I try not to let it bother me, but I gotta say, it blows the ambience of my otherwise lovely patio. It is pretty hard to ignore, especially when the wind kicks up. The flapping can be fairly loud. And HELLO?! I am trying to REDUCE the ghetto rep of my neighborhood.
I try to comfort myself with the fact that October will roll around and it will rain every day and they’ll HAVE to do something about it by then, right? It can’t go on much further than October, RIGHT?
Well, last night, after one of the hottest days of the summer, I might add, SB glanced up from his cocktail, his eyes as big as saucers, and said, “Oh my god. The fucking blue tarp is gone!” I had begun always sitting with my back to it, so I hadn’t noticed.
HALLA-FRICKING-LUYA.
Of course, now, he has started on the front…
