shalanna

Well, I'm kind of disappointed. But also a little relieved. We won't have to start keeping the house spotless after all. . . . (Not that I was ever going to be able to!)

I'll bet you've been wondering exactly why I suddenly felt the need a couple of weeks ago to mount a major cleanup/organizational project here at Slacker Cottage. I'm not the kind of person who needs to see perfection in every room (like my mother) or who worries too much about anything more than basic cleanliness and comfort. Because, of course, I'm typically occupied with one or another of my creative projects. And I could never keep up with picking up after this messy family. I really need Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons. (We have been waiting quite a while for them to develop her model for sale. Money is no object.)

But I've been doing a lot of this fixing-up in anticipation of having my cousin's daughter Steffanie come to live with us, not permanently o'course, but just to spend at least a couple of semesters of her freshman year (starting this fall) living in our third bedroom. She's the eldest of my cousin's children--and her mom is the only one of my cousins on my dad's side whom we've really kept in touch with that well. I have been kind of looking forward to getting to know her better now that she's entering college and coming to the big city (to double-major in music/piano pedagogy and computer science at my old alma mater, in fact.) I was kind of anticipating getting to meet and greet a lot of young(er) people--her friends and classmates--and playing a role that my mom used to play for us, the Earth Mother type who listens and commisserates and gives advice and watches benignly over things. I thought it would be fun to play housemother, in a way, for a while. She's never lived away from home (a small town north of here) and has really not spent many nights away, either, other than at piano camps and vacation weeks. We thought this would be a good way for her to ease into big city life. And fun, too.

But alas (for me), it isn't meant to be. Steffanie has found a sweet deal with three roommates way down there in near East Dallas (Lakewood area), in an older house not far from the university she'll start attending this fall. It's like your grandmother's house probably was--built in the 1930s or so, it has wood floors that creak when you walk on them, smells a little musty, and has an overgrown landscape and older kitchen appliances. But every bedroom is large and has a door exiting to the outdoors (remember when houses were built like that, because of cross-ventilation and/or fire considerations?) and a fairly large closet and a couple of windows. She'll have access to the kitchen (not that she knows how to cook) and the main living areas, and has a carport-like area where she'll park her car under the trees.

Two of the kids (ha--now I'm talking like my grandmother) have been there a year already, and the third is the daughter of a friend of her parents' from church who will also be new to the household. Each one has her own bedroom. They will share the rent and utility payments. (Her parents won't have any trouble helping her out, although she's already trying to arrange for an on-campus job and perhaps some other work.)

Here at Casa el Dumpo, she'd have had about a twelve-mile commute in her little acid-green New Volkswagen. There, it's more like three to five miles. Here, she'd have used my mom's old Midcentury Modern bedroom suite and part of my office bookcases. There, she'll have her own stuff. The room she's renting is empty, but we had no trouble getting stuff to fill it last weekend at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

In fact, it rather amazed me what one can pick up for under $500. I took her out shopping last weekend when she had finalized her leasing arrangements and realized she had no furniture. At BB&B, they have these really neat folding bookcases in two heights/widths, made of metal and wood. She got a couple of those and a folding computer desk/hutch to match . . . all of which will line her walls now, but then will fold up and move easily to the next place she needs to go, or into the garage when she goes home for the summer next summer (if that's what happens--her parents think it will, but we'll see). We also got a computer-desk rolling chair and a "recliner"-type chair that looks kind of modern and cool. She got an AeroBed at Target, full-sized, so she'll just inflate that and leave it inflated as her bed. (We'll see how comfy that turns out to be.) Pottery Barn Teens has some great stuff in the catalog that she has ordered--sheets, shelving, a 1950s-style lamp-on-a-stick. She got a multi-armed lamp and a bedside lamp (as well as bedside tables) at Target for nearly nothing. Her parents got her a mini-fridge, mini-microwave, blender, and toaster oven that they seem to think she can keep in her room . . . I think the toaster oven/blender will end up in the communal kitchen, though. She's going to bring a couple of posters and some odds and ends to make things homey, now that she has her own blank walls to cover.

She won't have to worry about turning on the phone the way I did when I got my first place because she (of course) already has her cell phone. And her iPod with portable speakers. And her laptop. The roommates have a networked computer setup so that she can get on the 'net using her wireless card, and she can go to Starbucks or other coffee shops or to the school library and do the same. There's even an old-but-good upright piano in the front room of the house, and she's going to get it tuned and will have access to it. (She'll have to arrange for times to practice, but that won't be tough, I hope. Before, she'd have been playing on my old baby grand, which I'd have enjoyed hearing. She does have a Yamaha full-sized keyboard--one big enough to need a stand and have its own pedal--which she has all connected into a MIDI setup with her desktop computer at home, and I figure that she'll bring all that along as well now that she'll have more room. That means she won't have to wait around for the practice rooms at school, although she still may choose to do that. Their pianos are a quantum leap nicer than the old upright. It's one of those no-name honky-tonks like I used to have as a kid.)

All in all, an unbelievable piece of luck and a great setup. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it all continues to work out well! Even though I'm disappointed, I'm excited on her behalf. I didn't really think about how easy it is nowadays to set up housekeeping and be on the go, but it is. I suppose I'm way out of touch. And will stay that way, unless she keeps her promise to come by and visit us . . . and lets us come over to visit sometimes.

They're thinking about getting a cat. There are already neighborhood cats that one of the roommates feeds. And an aquarium. Saltwater, yet.

We'll see. I mean, this all sounds too good to be true. But maybe sometimes that kind of thing happens.

It'll be way more fun for her as a new freshman to be down there near the social life of the school and the Dallas nightlife. Here in Richardson, at least in our neck of the woods, the sidewalks pretty much roll up around 9:30 PM. There's a petition going around to allow beer/wine and liquor-by-the-drink in restaurants so that our restaurants will have a fighting chance of staying open more than a few months, but I wouldn't call this area a jumpin' nightlife district.

Still . . . it would have been fun for *me*.

I *think*. I'm so eccentric and such a critter of randomness that it might have been a real stretch. But sometimes we like to stretch. And sometimes we even need to.

This does mean that I can continue de-junking at a somewhat lesser pace. Good thing, too, because I just don't have a lot of energy on this diet. There's a piano party tonight (where a number of adult piano students get together at somebody's house to perform and listen to each other play), and my aunt's 82nd birthday party is *next* weekend . . . I already made her a mix CD (of old Western and country hits that she likes) and am coordinating the effort to get us up there with a cake. (Where they live, about 60 miles north of here, they've suffered with temperatures of 108, even hotter than our highs of 105 and 107, and none of my elderly relatives have been able to go out of the house.) Trust me, it's going to be a feat to get Mama ready to go and to persuade hubby to shut up and come along. (He'd rather stay home and play WoW on his computer, but he needs to shut up and come along to some family events. It'll be good for him to deny himself for a change.) We'll have a lot of stuff going on. Still. . . .

. . . that Earth Mother stuff might have been fun. And talk about material for a new book!

I need to get back to business, anyway. I've got to record those two songs for Dennis. I'll be sending the first five chapters of _Nice Work_ to that agent. I'm going to send the full manuscript of _Camille_ and perhaps the full manuscript of _Little Rituals_ out again. And I must get back to work on that Ranch Romance. Surely I can come up with something to write for the "rescue from the pit" scene.

Too hot to go geocaching. Don't wanna clean house. Maybe I'll just sit at the breakfast table and watch the birds fight over the birdbath and the feeders outside the window for a while. It's only 91 now . . . the day hasn't even warmed up yet.

A cold front is also on its way! (Keep your fingers crossed. There could even be rain. That dance seems to be working.)

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