Saturday, February 19, 2005

The London Bridge Is Falling Down



No, it isn't, but the Snakepit Inc. is. I bought the house ten years ago as a fixer-upper, the only way I could afford it. And then I worked on it most evenings and weekends for ten years. Which was hard the way only other fixer-uppers can appreciate: like joint compound in sandwiches for weeks on end and no hot meals when the kitchen is a big hole to the basement.

But working on your own house is fun, too, and every thing you fix is fixed by you, designed by you and now brand new. The problem is that the house doesn't stay fixed even after all that effort, no, it wants to go on dying. More specifically, I'm going to need a new roof and new front steps this year and a new side door, too, and I don't know how to pay for them. I'm not going to go on the roof on my own anymore, it's not exciting enough to justify the higher insurance premia so that means that I have to hire someone and these people usually want money for their work. Sniff.

The next step in the fretting over this is to see myself out on the street with all the snakes in cardboard boxes and the dogs all skinny and with matted fur. I'm not sure why this is the next step in my mind, but it is. The more realistic next step is to put some pails under the leaking spots for another year and spend the money later. But I'm a morbid goddess as you probably already know.

One of my plans was to exchange sex for work on the house. Sex would be a lot faster and less messy and most construction workers would probably be willing to work quite hard for an hour with a goddess. But then this whole Gannongate came out and I realized that I can't do that if I want to be the most famous divine blogger one day. Sniff.

That leaves my own paws as the affordable tool. The side door I can manage, I think. It needs to be reframed rather than replaced and most of the bits can be bought. The snakes are good for measuring things and the dogs can prop the door up when I work. See how much cooperation does? Maybe Bush should try that in international politics, for example.