Bless Us. Now.

Negotiations on the purchase of the house I want in New Orleans continue, with the sellers unimpressed with my big words or the fact the house is sitting on a potential cholera pit.  I wanted them to come down $35,000 on the price, they came back with an offer of $8,000.  That is not, as the real estate industry would have it, "a lot of movement."

And I am concerned my realtor may not be the pit bull negotiator one would hope for.  I know this is shallow, but the last time I saw him, he was wearing coral colored jeans and loafers with no socks.  As Super Agent Fred pointed out, he was a short step from wearing a sweater jauntily knotted about his shoulders.  So being fierce at the bargaining table, maybe, probably not.

Just in case, I have decided to create a virtual shrine to various saints and other voodoo whatnots that might be of help.

First up, we have Saint Roch, since the house is on the street named in his honor.  He's specially invoked against the plague, which is appropriate since I have AIDS and because of the raw sewage hanging around under the house.  He is also sometimes one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.  I'm charmed by the fact that this is just a part-time gig for him.

He also would appear to be a medieval can-can dancer.  Get it on, girl.

We're also including an old favorite, Our Lady of Prompt Succor.  This is a title of the Virgin Mary and she is the patroness of New Orleans and Louisiana.  She's who you turn to when things go bad and you need help in a hurry, and god knows, that happens plenty in New Orleans.  Just as a side note, I'll admit that I've also occasionally been referred to as  Our Lady of Prompt Succor, usually at some bathhouse or the other, but that's neither here nor there.

Plus she's a snappy dresser.

St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes is on the list, as he on plenty of others, just in case.

Besides he's kind of humpy.

Lastly, Saint Justin of DeRoy cause look how clear his skin is.  Right?

Schmatta. Goddam It, Schmatta.

I sort of love that they refer to these scraps of schmatta as "swimwear" when, obviously, they are go-go boy lingerie.

“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.” ― Dorothy Parker.

"Musclepussy is the raison of go-go boys." - mrpeenee.

And how do you turn off this fucking auto-correct, which has been fighting me over "schmatta" like it's a matter of honor.

It's a Perfectly Good Word.

In an email to my finance guy and my realtor, I referred to the condition of the little love nest n New Orleans I'm trying to buy as "squalorous" and the fucking autocorrect function refused to recognize the word and kept trying to change it to "squalors" and is that even a word?  Are there multiples of squalor?  Is squalor ever used as a verb?  No, I think not.  And what kind of editing software has never heard of the word "squalorous" but is okay with "fucking?"  It's a pretty cool word, even if the chances of it coming up in Boggle are tiny.

I realize I have not been including any images of attractive, scantily clad young men, so here.

Inspect This

So it all looked so innocent, just a shabby little house needing a little mrpeenee love and decorating to turn it into a swell New Orleans pied a terre.  And then came the inspection from hell.

In my post about buying the house, I mentioned I was going back for the inspection and that "unless it turns up a nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms, I'm set."  How was I to know that would wind up being pretty much the whole truth?

My realtor, my friend Stephen, who's going to be in charge of the reno, and I met up at place with the guys who would handle the inspection, a jocular gang and who rapidly confirmed all the worst fears a prospective home owner could have.

To wit:

The electrical system consists of the knob and tube wiring from when the house was built in the early 1900s.  When I enthused over all the original fixtures being preserved in the house, I meant the pocket doors, the charming transoms, the mantles and such, but certainly not the antique wiring.  Everyone meticulously avoided the term "firetrap" but it hung unspoken in the air.   So the entire electric system needs to be replaced.

The plumbing includes a gigantic crack in the downspout from the bathrooms so that sewage flushed from them simply gushes out onto the ground under the house.  Maybe that's what's kept the whole place from burning down in a tragic electrical fire.  Who knows?  I do know the plumbing has to be replaced.

The sellers had proudly advertised the roof as new, which is true.  Unfortunately, it was installed without the proper plywood decking under the shingles and tarpaper so it turns out to be more decorative than functional.  Roof, has to be replaced, got it.

By the time the inspector even mentioned the sill, which is the beam the house rests on above the foundation piers, I assumed it would have to go.  Sure enough, but just the back one, and about a third of one of the side ones.  All right!  Only thirty per cent of the foundation!   Score!

Oddly, I'm still interested in the house.  The realtor is supposed to meet with the sellers on Monday to hash out a deal where they come down enough on the price to cover the extensive repairs.  If they do, then at least I'll know all the systems in the place are new and as good as I want them to be.  If they don't, I'll walk away from the deal and call the health department on their sorry asses.  We'll see.

At least there wasn't any nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms.

Again, Yo.

Oh darlings, I'm so very sorry to have sort of drifted off like that.  Oops.  First there was my whirlwind tour of the south, then my computer died and then inertia won out once again.  But trust me, my thoughts were never far from you.  Except when I was thinking about snacks.

Austin was terribly amusing since I got to hang out with Diane von Austinburg and eat excellent Mexican food and I found a cock ring in a thrift store.

I visited with my white trash crazy family in Houston all of whom are still white trash, crazy and very amusing.  The less said, the better.

The night I got to New Orleans there was a parade.  Not for me, specifically, but for Halloween, but close enough.  It was the Krewe of Boo.  Is that adorable or what?

I had a lovely hotel.

And I got to visit with Jason from Night is Half Gone who took me out for the biggest banana split I have ever seen, cause the pound and a half of shrimp I had eaten for dinner shortly beforehand was apparently not enough.  He was charming as always.

Oh, and I bought a house.

My plan is to live there during the fall and winter and then flee back here to San Francisco to avoid the miserable heat, cause I have done my time with that bullshit.  It's a block over from my best friend in a terribly cool neighborhood, has a huge yard and seems structurally sound, but shabby, just the thing an elderly poof needs as a hobby.

It's been a rental for the last thirty or forty years, I'm sure we've all seen the equivalent dingy white paint and cheap bathrooms.

I intend to drag its sorry ass into the land of fagulous beauty.  My friend Stephen, who has lots of experience with renovations, is in charge of the remodeling and I've anointed myself as Queen Decorator.  Lots of turquoise.

I'm going back on Saturday for the inspection on Tuesday and unless that turns up a nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms, I'm set.

News from Austin.

I'm hiding out at Diane VonAustinberg's for a few days as part of my 2013 World Peace and Enchilada Tour, which will also include a flying visit to my family in Houston and a longer one to New Orleans as a reward for putting up with the flying monkeys that comprise my beloved relatives.

Diane is,of course, the consumate hostess, aside from trying to kill me on her treadmill by luring me up on it backwards, like some crazed OK Go video.*  We had delicious Mexican food tonight and look forward to tearing it up in various thrift shops tomorrow.  The thrill of other people's discarded crap!

*DVonA says:  I did nothing to lure Mr. P onto the treadmill ("I'm really getting quite good at this" he says, just before slipping off the end. "Except now I'm sort of dizzy.").  I have done nothing but give him excellent directions to my house, which he ignored and which resulted in him taking an hour-long tour of the Texas hill country. Now, back to Mr. P.

Lies, all lies.  Although I am sort of dizzy.  Maybe I should go lay down.  Also, when I demanded candy to assist in the creative process, Diane denied having any and offered dried apples instead.  How am I supposed to sling wit and wisdom with dried up apples?

Possibly more travel bulletins as they occur.

Wakie, Wakie.

About 3:00 AM the other night, I was drifting in that very pleasant twilight that combining a clean conscience with vicodin leads to and was heading towards snoozumsland when a dark figure appeared in my bedroom door and announced "PSST. Psst. Psst. Psssssst."

After I had finished screaming like a small, scared girl gifted with oversized lungs, I realized it was a drunken Secret Agent Fred.  Fred and our friend Stuart had last been seen hours earlier at some grimy Castro area bar and I had thought he was going to go back to his own house since a) that's where he and Stuart were staying and b) that's what he had said they were going to do.

Back in my boudoir, we traded bon mots consisting of tipsy giggles on Fred's part and threats of immediate, painful mayhem on mine.  I sent him off to his bedroom and lay seething in bed wondering how my cat Saki can leave everyone who comes to Thanksgiving dinner bleeding but can't guard me from one drunk poofter.

Fred was apologetic, sort of, the next day, although he did lean still towards the giggly, and asked why he had woken me.  I reminded him that after I had explained I was going to find a baseball bat and cave his skull in, the conversation had just petered out, so now we'll never know.  Pity really.  I mean, when the cops arrest me for manslaughter, isn't that going to be one of the first question they ask, too?

Fred wound up sleeping for 36 hours during which Stuart, who is visiting from Baltimore, moved out of Fred's place and into a schmancy hotel here because he had no idea what had happened to Fred and had started entertaining visions of visits to the morgue, poor thing.  Also, Fred lost his phone, AGAIN, during his drunken spree which almost makes up for scaring me, but I still plan on dropping Saki on his head the next time I find him unconscious.  Sleep with one eye open, bitch.

Why can't something like this appear late at night in my bedroom?  With a can of cashews?