Renovation is...still fun?

My free laborers worked hard to remove the old cabinets. That saved me about $400.00 from the contractor's bill:

After hours of trying to remove the two layers of linoleum floor in the kitchen to no avail, our contractor told us it's best if we remove the particle board under it as well. Except for the entry way and the master bedroom, the whole house will have two layers of plywood basefloor. Just when we thought NOW the Pergo can go on it...not so fast. The moisture has caused the foundation to shift, and it's more severe than the home inspector had told me. 


The real contractors had to come in and level the floor with shims:

and more shims:

Naturally, I had to ask for tiled bathroom floor. The baseboard underneath the linoleum is even worse than the kitchen:

A fan is working hard to dry the floor before the contractor can install the tiles. I don't think it's effective when I checked yesterday. We may have to pull the basefloor up and install a new one. You know what that means...$$$!

The cabinets arrived yesterday and was I surprised! The top cabinets are much larger than what the contractor told me. I hope the corners will agree with my forehead in the days to come:

Before the cabinets can be installed, the drain has to be moved to inside of the wall:

They told me that was the correct way. I wonder how the repair can be done should there be a leak in the future. After all, every drain in the house is leaking right now.

In the meanwhile, I'm travelling between the two cities almost everyday. The view is lovely on the hilly freeway:

and the delivery of my first-ever brand new refrigerator was exciting:

as much as when the first plank of floor was installed:

but the sadness is getting stronger each day with the project progressing along.

I will be relieved when I don't have to drive so much and have to make choices I've never done before on a daily basis, such as what color of cabinets go with what granite countertop, what's a flush mount and is it compatible with the current mount, should I get a single-hole faucet or a multi-hole, or simply forgo all the choices so far and go with a more affordable version, (It seems "compromise" is the word for me nowadays.) the endless tiresome hours spent wondering up and down the isles of HomeDepot and such, will hopefully soon be over, and my fingernails will be restored to their normal state when I stop biting them, or the knots in my stomach from all the anxiety of not knowing what I'm doing, will finally go away. 

I will have one thing to worry then: my mother not liking any of the improvements I've made so far. That will be tomorrow's chore. I have to go and meet the workers there now.

   

Renovation is fun

I'm a little exhausted, but just in case you're wondering: the house renovation is underway and so far I've had plenty of headaches.

I had my heart set on laminate floor, as I was told they last forever. Something dark like this would be nice:

Pretty, right? Naturally, it's on the very top of the price range and I just can't talk myself into it. To HomeDepot I will go tomorrow. They have a lot of choices in the $2.99 per square foot range, and I'm sure they will have something close to this one.

In the process of removing the old linoleum floor, we found this:

 

Under the not-so-great design of the lighter color, there is an ugly yellow old floor that they didn't bother to remove when putting in the new one. Must be a 70's original. Can you say BARF?

The base floor is a jungle of staples, and they have to be removed before the new floor can go in. I did it a while with bare hand and pliers. Not a good idea by the way:

The lighting is done, but now I'm wondering if I should move the sink to the other side of the room so the kitchen is open to the family room, thus the flow will look much nicer. In other words: flip the "L" shape horizontally. Good idea, but very bad for my wallet:

I may have to leave it as is and just have new cabinets, new counter top, and walk a few extra steps from the kitchen to the family room. We can all use some exercise, after all.

Lesson learned: Don't talk to the contractor on the kitchen layout. Had I talked to the designer at the cabinet store first I could have saved some money if I decided to move the sink. 

The biggest headache is the cabinets. I know I like dark color floor, but I have absolutely no idea what kind of cabinets to get. My first love was off white (I was aiming for an old farmhouse look), and for some reason that's the most expensive cabinets I could get. Back to square one.

I may have to settle for something Lowe's. Sigh... (no offense to Lowe's employees)

Special thanks to my little helpers who worked for free--all in the name of trying to save a few dollars. See? No low-hanging jeans here:

I foresee a sleepless night with the indecision of cabinets coming. Ideas welcome!

REO for the Faint of Heart

I was neither thrilled nor scared when the offer was accepted by the bank. The house needed a lot of work. The refrigerator was missing and the toilets didn’t work, among a long list of other things.



People tend to yank things they can haul away or break the ones they can’t when the bank tells them, shockingly, they have to go because they haven’t been paying the mortgage.


It was the thing we had to do, for the stairs will be impossible for mom to negotiate in the years to come, and all the half-way decent houses were out of our price range. I, on the other hand, had to suppress my tears whenever I thought about leaving the house and the city that have been my home for the past thirteen years.


I realized just now that I had lived like a gypsy until I moved to this city near the bay, and soon found out it was less expensive to buy this little house than to rent an apartment.


Things changed much downwardly after I read the inspection report. I called the agent and said I didn’t think I wanted the house anymore. It wasn’t painful to say it, because I didn’t fall in love.


Adding to the long list of repairs, the foundation was uneven from the moisture in the soil. The inspector said the problem was common--every house in that area had this problem and it was not anything serious.


Foundation lifting? Not serious?? I wasn’t going to buy into that. I wanted my deposit back.


He immediately came up with a great idea, which made me wonder why he didn’t say so earlier. I had my theory, or course. Anyway, his idea was to get repair quotes from two companies and submit an addendum to the bank. They might agree to credit the repair fee after the sale.


The bank was more than generous--they agreed to lower the selling price in the amount comparable to the foundation repair. That squashed my hope for skipping the deal and staying put for now.


With the same price I could buy two houses in Sacramento area. I can rent one out and, combined with the rent from the house I’m in right now, the income could be a big help for us. Mom said she could live in a townhouse with stairs, so we could afford one in this low-crime high-class area nearby and preserve my back from not having to maintain a house. Numerous scenarios ran through my mind during the ten-day “weasel” period I almost went mad. In the end though, I had to nip these ideas one by one.


Mom was thinking only the present. Her health will make climbing the stairs feel like conquerring Mt. Everest soon. The suburb of Sacramento is not suited for someone like her at all. The whole town probably has one Chinese restaurant. If you don’t like it, well, you just have to learn to love it. I’m not sure if I’m ready to listen to her constant complaint, giving that she likes to eat out so much.


So, with much dread and a trembling hand, I signed and released the contingency on the tenth day. Reluctantly, I will be moving to a strange city and living among strangers soon. The only relief is the tiring process of house hunting, that includes driving all over the places, the letdown after looking at the houses and their prices, the realtor who didn’t show up at the property because he simply forgot (and was promptly fired by me), or we couldn’t get in because the key didn’t work, or the renter changed the locks and refused to open the door so all the time and effort were wasted, or the strange remodeling work done to the house that made me think "WTH were they thinking," or the previous owner’s wife died in the house so I walked through the house with a repeated silent prayer, is behind me.


Now the new chapter begins--remodeling. I’ve heard that dealing with contractors is a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to it.

Heaven Awaits

 

My car is racing on the freeway the way my heart is. How can this be, I ask myself. They said he had six months, and that was no more than a month ago. They are doctors. They can’t be that off.

All these people driving on the freeway on a glorious 70-degree warm February day, probably off to do a variety of fun activities, taking full advantage of the unseasonal warm weather, makes me wonder if they know how ridiculous they look. It’s so bright out there I have to put the sunglasses on. It should be a happy day. You don’t die on a happy day. They shouldn't look so cheerful.

I pull up behind Lena’s car. She gets out and we hug each other. She comments on how fast I made it—I live three cities away. We both look like we missed something from our morning routine—either a shower or some makeup. I was working in the garage when I got the sad news. Shower will have to wait.

Jessie opens the door with glassy eyes and a surprised look. The hospice just left and the undertakers are on their way. Lena and I both decline the inquiry of seeing him. I don’t know about Lena, but I am a little scared. We don’t know what to do so we go outside and greet the dogs, who are going crazy from being blocked away in the backyard. We can’t go back in without the dogs squeezing through with us, so we have to go out the side door, circle back to the front door, and knock on the door to be let in. Jessie is talking to the undertakers and shakes her head at us. We are sufficiently embarrassed. We are supposed to comfort and support her, not adding to her burden, which is just what we end up doing.

We sit in the kitchen when they prepare the deceased for transport to the mortuary. She tells us how he was snoring all night last night and didn’t eat. He snored this morning as well. When she decided to wake him up and eat at nine o’clock or so, he was no longer breathing or having heartbeats. I take a look outside the bedroom door before they start the prep work, and his skin is in unnatural pale-yellow. His left arm freezes above his chest, reaching for something, it looks like. I wish with all my heart, and tell Jessie so, that he went peacefully; but I cannot fully convince myself. Nobody knows what happens in the last moment, and that scares me.

He is taken away in thick blanketed bag and a white car. A red rose is left on what once was his pillow. I say a silent sendoff to the gentle giant, whose three-hundred-and-eighty pound imposing physique has been ravaged to a mere one-eighty by cancer. Jessie wants breakfast—it has been a long morning and she hasn't eaten yet. We do our best to finish, but not quite successfully, all the pancakes, breads, eggs, butter and syrup. She packs up all the leftovers for the dogs, including the syrup, ignoring our advice of how bad it is for them, then back to her house.

The weather is too nice to sit inside, so the picnic table under the magnolia tree is where we sit and talk. Jessie has waves of emotions that come and go. They have been together for twenty-five years, with the last three and half fighting cancer. She wishes she had been home the day before, which would be their last day together while he was awake, when we assure her the goodbyes had been said, the love had been shared and understood, and there would have been nothing she could have done to make it better for him. We manage to add some humor to our conversation, at first tentatively, but soon freely, with Jessie being the leading lady.

When she talks about the problems of her dogs, and stops to ask her son who also has a dog: “You don’t have any anal gland problems, do you?” and we laugh until tears roll down our faces, that’s when I know. Heaven is great, but living is better. Jessie is sad and will be for a while, but she is strong, and she will be okay.

That’s what they mean by life goes on. The living has to find a way to continue.

(To Jessie, whose husband Wes passed away on 2/5/11 from throat cancer.)

Liang Zhu

The red sedan swayed in hurried rhythms that told her the carriers were rushing. Unlike the usual wedding procession that was always led by musicians playing loudly with their suonas, this one was silenced by an unfortunate taboo.

   

They were headed to a graveyard.

Yingtai had barricaded herself in her room since the procession arrived this morning. If she had to marry someone she didn't know, with the only reason being he was from a rich family, then she would pay her respect to the man she had befriended, liked, then loved, for two years.

The bridegroom finally caved in, as the sun was tilting unmercifully toward the west.

Two years earlier, she had begged her father, who normally gave in to her pleading, to allow her to leave home and attend school. She was dissatisfied with home schooling, but boarding schools were for boys only. It was unheard of for a girl to leave home, disguise as a boy, and live among boys for such a long time. Sure, her maid Yinxin went with her as well, dressed as a young servant of hers, but the family's reputation would be greatly damaged if anybody ever learned a word about her endeavor.

Too much education would only do a girl harm—people believed. Perhaps there were plausible reasons for that…

This time, though, her tears could not change her father's mind. In fact, he lost his temper entirely when his daughter told him she had fallen in love with her classmate, and thus made the pre-determined wedding take on a sense of urgency. An educated daughter wouldn't hurt her chance of marrying well too much, but a daughter enamored another man? That was scandalous. He had to put his feet down.

Unlike her future husband, Shanbuo was poor. His family barely scraped enough to send him to school. He would probably be a teacher for some prosperous family. She didn't care. Everyday was filled with happiness when she was with him. She couldn't fathom life without him. They were best friends for two years, until the day before she left, urged by a letter from her father. That was when she finally told him what she really was. He was shocked, then realized why she was so different from all the other boys. He fell in love when she put her hair down, and behaved, for the first time, like a girl. They talked until day break.

He promised to send the matchmaker to her house as soon as possible. She arrived home only to find the matchmaker had been there, but was promptly turned down, for her father already selected a husband for her. She was broken by the news, but she died when the news of Shanbuo passed away three months later from a broken heart. That was when the world lost meaning to her.

Now the sedan stopped. Yinxin open the covering drape with a sad expression. Yingtai removed the jade bracelet from her wrist and put it in Yinxin's hand:

“You and I grew up together. We are like sisters. Take this as a present from me. My future mother-in-law may not want to keep you, so I want to give this to you now.”

“Young Miss, I can't take this.” Yinxin was alarmed. There were no tears on her young mistress' eyes as she had expected.

“Please accept it as a wedding present from me.” She insisted, then looked out. The procession stopped by a field that was filled with messy graves. She removed her red wedding dress to reveal the white mourning dress under it. Her red headdress was removed soon after the procession started its journey.

She found Shanbuo's grave with Yinxin's help. The faithful little maid had been the conduit between the young couple until the day he died.

She turned her face to the sky. No gods or fairris could save them. She had cried all the tears in the world and the world did not care, nor did it stop. She put down the flowers, fruits and incense, then she left the letter for her father behind the flowers. She begged him, for the last time, to forgive her. He didn't know what he did was killing her. How could he know?

She turned to look at Yinxin and smiled, then, with all the strength she had, crushed her head on the tombstone.

Yinxin's scream was dampened by the thunders from above. A butterfly seemed to come out from the grave. It fluttered closer and closer, then from Yingtai's lifeless body came another butterfly. Together they flew away. Together, they were forever to be. 

(Liang Shanbuo and Zhu Yingtai were buried together, and a temple of Shanbuo was built in year 347. The legend is often referred to as The Butterfly Lovers.)

Laws of Harmony

According to a not-so-pleasant but all-so-true research of late, many of us will face a non-existent retirement when it’s time for the corporate world to kick us in the derrière just when time is near for us to qualify for that pension, and get a “package,” as they so strategically called, that will last you a year or half.


We can forget the Social Security or Medicare. The experts keep telling us they both are going to evaporate by the time we need them. It’s best not to get our hopes up.

We have a few options to consider, excluding the following: 1. Buy a mega lottery winning ticket. Caution--this doesn’t work that well from my personal experiences. 2. Execute a bank robbery. This will provide free room and board in local penitentiary (if we make sure the camera catch our faces clearly) but not much else, and if we don’t plan it well it could backfire in the “getting ourselves killed by the security guard” scenario.

We can move to where the jobs are, work as if the universe is ending tomorrow, save every penny and live in the Scrooge style that Dickens described so well in his book. Most of us don’t find that remotely appealing though. Another problem is we don’t speak the language where the jobs are--being proud Americans and all.

What else can I do, you ask. Let’s see…

Move into a trailer and live off the proceed of your house--if you are blessed with owning a house instead of an upside down mortgage in the first place. Keep your fingers crossed that the market will be more lucrative by that time.

I understand your need to be with family when your health and income are both declining. It’s a viable solution that each day looks more like the only solution for many of us. For the benefit of everyone involved, I think a list of things we should practice now is in order.

1. Showing appreciation is unbecoming, so make sure you don’t do it. Or better yet, let them know it’s not appreciated with every chance you have.

Maybe your kin moved out of his/her big bedroom so that you can enjoy it, and prepared new furniture for your comfort. That was what they were supposed to do anyway.

Say nothing or murmur an inaudible “thanks” when getting breakfast-in-bedroom service as if a knife is placed next to your décolletage and you are saying it against your will.

If he/she thoughtlessly ordered cable TV for you, make sure you throw a temper tantrum because the remote is different and you have to learn the channels anew. How inconvenient it is for you.

2. Show him/her how much you like the home cooked meals by insisting on eating out every other day. Lecture them on how restaurant food is healthy because the customer’s health is indeed the utmost concern of every restaurant owner.

Disregard the excess twenty pounds you are carrying because losing weight is so not in vogue among older people.

Take twenty different supplements daily to counter any claims that you are not eating healthy.

3. While dining out, display your best table etiquette. This includes slurping all things remotely liquid, diving into your food as soon as you are served without regards to others, sticking your fork into other’s plate if the other person is unfortunately served before you, spreading your elbows wide so others won’t get to your food (or get to eat their own food), chewing with half of the food hanging on the side of your mouth, etc.

A little primal insecurity will only do others, especially those you are supposed to nurture, immensely good.

4. You never make a mistake, so insist on it until the sun goes down, or until the cows come home--whichever occurs the latest. Blame others for what you did or didn’t do. Remind them you are not a lunatic if you run out of excuses.

5. Good conversation skills are imperative in old age. Nothing says harmony more when you scorn, jeer, challenge or argue every time you want to say something. Complain about something they love each day, such as a pet. It works like a charm to draw people in. Close yourself off to others so they will stay in different quarter of the house.

6. Honesty is the best policy, especially when interacting with others. Deny, make up stories from mid air, change facts to serve your purpose. Scold others for getting the "facts" wrong. Do all of these to keep them on their toes. This will show them you still have a sharp mind.

7. Doorknobs and handles are for imbeciles. Slam, shut, and bang all you want, but never use them to close things properly. Loud noise makes jumpy people, and thus makes their hearts so much healthier.

8. Frugality serves everyone good, so save a square or two of the toilet paper after your “session” to show them your good sense. This serves especially well when combined with #2 above, because eating out is a great way to save money.

On second thought, maybe a trailer is a much better way to go for you and your family’s mental health concern. Keep in mind that these are in no way any implication of how my mother behaves, because she is perfect--see #4.

The Magpie Bridge

She is the daughter of the great emperor of the heaven, and is blessed with divine skills of weaving. They live in the palatial dwellings among the clouds. She is loved by both of her parents just like a princess is and should. They call her Zhenoo--Weaving Maid.

The skies are hung with brightly colored silky hues of her weaving. The earth is covered with every color one can imagine. She weaves day and night, never stops to have fun, for the demand of change of season and skies are too many.

She does her duties happily and faithfully until a mysterious condition starts to worry her parents. She is sluggish in her weaving, and her eyebrows are locked in an unhappy knot. Her laughter is dimmed and her appetite has largely disappeared. The heaven’s guards have to report this to her father, who rules everything in heaven and on earth.

The emperor, with his endless wisdom of a ruler, thinks about this for a while and knows what is wrong with his daughter. He calls for her presence and asks her gently:

“Who is the young man you are occupying your heart with, my daughter?”

Her face turns pale with fright, but then turns to pink after realizing her secret is no longer a secret.

“Father, his name is Niulang--Cowherd Boy, who lives on the other side of the Milky Way,” she says, “but it is not easy for us to meet, for the Milky Way is vast.”

The great emperor is happy that his talented daughter finds a hardworking young man and orders a wedding to be prepared. He sends his daughter to cross the Milky Way with his strong imperial clouds to live with her new husband.

Being newlyweds, they both are literately on cloud nine, and the rest of the world disappears from their eyes. She stops weaving, and the skies and the earth look the same every day, day after day. He, at the same time, forgets about his herd and they are scattered all over the heaven. There is cow dung everywhere.

The emperor gets the report and is angry. This is not how they should behave, he thinks. He for a moment forgets that he, too, was a newlywed and forfeited his duties briefly.

He issues a harsh order for his daughter to return home immediately. They are to live on the opposite side of the Milky Way and to only see each other once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. 1

The heartbroken lovers beg the emperor but could not make him change his mind. The order is given and is to be obeyed.

The effort to cross the Milky Way is too great, for their clouds are not as strong as the emperor’s. Thus the day of their rendezvous is even shorter from the long commute. Zhenoo’s tears touch deeply in the hearts of the magpies--the bird of happiness--so they conspire to help the lovers out.

On the seventh day of the seventh month, the magpies come together and form a bridge in the sky with their bodies. The young couple meets in the middle of the bridge to pour their hearts out to each other. For seven days the top of the magpies are bald from the steps of the lovers.

If you look carefully at the Hunter‘s constellation, you can see the carrying pole with a basket on each side in the sky. Niulang puts their two children in the baskets and carries them on his shoulder to meet their mother. 2

Young maidens have since been setting up altars in their backyard in midnight on the day of Niulang and Zhenoo’s yearly reunion, and pray for loving and faithful husbands for themselves. Surely their wishes will be granted from a pair of lovers who do not wish others to suffer the kind of heartaches they have.

(1. The Lunar seventh day of the seventh month is the Chinese Valentine’s Day. 2. In a male dominate country I guess it’s only normal that the man gets to keep the kids.)

Wired

"I need to get into the crawl space. Where's the entrance?”

The goofy “cable guy” said. I thought he was joking. The serious one was already high on the ladder installing the dish while this one loitered around.

“Um, there isn't one.” I replied.

“What's that?” he pointed at the little "windows" at the base of the house and asked.

“Yeah, it looks like there is a crawl space, but you can't get into it.” I assured him.

He looked at me funny, but I put his suspicion to rest firmly: “I've lived here for thirteen years, and I have never seen an entrance to it.”

He went into the house and opened the storage space under the stairs.

"There's the entrance.” He pointed at the floor.

I looked down and, as if appeared solely by magic, a square-shaped dark seam on the floor mocked me with silent cracks.

It's true. You learn something new everyday.

Thank goodness I was small enough to crawl into the storage and pulled most of the stuff out so he could get down there. Then I cleared out the closet so he could climb into the attic and do his job.

I knew that entrance.

All the stuff had to go back to where they belonged and the dust had to be cleaned. These were not in the “cable guys” job descriptions. It would've saved me a lot of grieve had I known what was in store for me.

I was a little tired but excited after cleaning up all the mess. Time to reveal the surprise to mom.

“Look, ma. Now you have nine channels to watch instead of one. Merry Christmas!” I was so proud of myself. Her only activity--watching TV--would be a lot more interesting from now on.

Or so I thought.

I then tried to teach her how to use the new remote, and that was when things went downhill.

There were four buttons with which she needed to get herself familiarize.

On—you turn the TV on with it.

Off—as the name suggested, you turn the TV off with it.

Up—go up a channel.

Down—go down a channel.

Those, and remembering her channels start at 2050.

Simple enough, right?

She tried it a few times and couldn't get it right. She lost her patience promptly and told me she never watched those channels, she wanted her old channel back and to cancel the cable right away.

When will I ever learn? Why did I try to get her a comparable life here when I knew she was not the appreciative type, and would say anything when angry?

Two days later she wanted me to teach her again on the channels. By that time I lost my patience and good wills. I'm paying for the satellite channels, and somebody was going to watch them. She can stick with her one and only channel upstairs.

Unfortunately, She figured out how to switch back to air channels by watching me, and now watches her one channel on the big screen downstairs.

I think she did it just to aggravate me, which probably gave her certain degree of enjoyment, and she was succeeding.

It's amazing how, with the right amount of incentive, whether positive or negative, a person who couldn't do or learn anything can achieve the impossible.

The Long Way Home

“I see lights. That must be San Francisco!” Mom pointed at the window excitedly.


“Ma, it was seven o’clock when we took off, and that was forty minutes ago.” I replied with a finger pointing at my watch. She knew it would be a two-and-half-hour flight.

She looked at me, then the window, then was quiet for a while.

Twenty minutes later, she saw lights again: “That must be San Francisco.”

This is going to be a very long flight, I thought to myself, and it will be the first and last time I am ever going to fly with her.

It was worse than traveling with a kid. At least you could tell the kid to be quiet.

I was a little tired. The day started early, since I woke up at five and couldn’t sleep anymore. There were still a lot to do before we had to leave.

I made five or six garbage runs. Mom’s friends were going to take everything away after we were gone, but I felt bad leaving too much junk, so I wanted to do the best I could to reduce their work.

It didn’t help with mom telling me, as usual, to take a break. I think she said that to make herself feel better, not knowing or caring who was going to finish all the work.

Then I had to cook for her friends who were kind enough to stop by. I cooked the traditional dumplings which, according to mom, was the thing to eat when leaving for a long journey. Thank goodness for frozen food.

It started to snow amid all the actions. I ran to the patio yelling snow, snow!

I was the only one who was so excited. They were probably all sick of the wintry scene.

We had the first unpleasant surprise when we arrived at the airport. The flight was delayed for two hours.

I didn’t buy their reason--weather. I’m from California, okay? We don’t have bad weather there. Find another excuse for your inefficiency.

We did the duty-free shopping. We had coffee. We did the restroom runs. Twice. We had some food. I pushed her wheelchair all over the place. The airline clerk was nowhere to be found, so I decided I didn’t need her. I am my mother’s keeper now.

After we finally sat down in our seats on the plane, but not before we had this near miss roller coaster slide down the tunnel, I heard the flight attendant telling a passenger it was bad weather that caused the long delay.

So much for the great California weather.

Three or four times of proclaiming we were over San Francisco later, mom finally got her wish. We were over the city, only we couldn’t land. There was a thing called air traffic jam and we were in it.

We circled twenty more minutes in the air. Mom complained that the pilot drove too slowly.

To top things off, the traffic on the ground was worse than that in the air. We probably waited half an hour for our ride to drive the two-minute distance from the cell phone area.

It was almost midnight when we reached home. A simple two-hour flight turned into an eleven-hour ordeal.

My little house had never looked nicer, and the licks from my little Yorkie had never felt sweeter before.



(Happy Thanksgiving everyone!)

House of Five Hundred Doors

I know it’s late, but I have some questions that have been bothering me for quite some time, so I figure now is as good as any to ask you a few simple questions.

What‘s that? It’s one o’clock in the morning? Oh, I’m sure you don’t mind. After all, you and your family don’t go to bed that early. Don’t bother to argue. I hear you every night.

First question: why did you spend so much money to install five hundred doors in your unit? Regardless where you originally came from, you have to admit it’s rather peculiar. Every other step one takes in your unit requires a slam of a door. Every night, all night long. It’s obvious nobody in your unit understands how to “close” a door, but only how to shut the door with a bang.

If you don’t know how to properly close a door, I will have to ask you to remove four hundred ninety-nine of them from your unit immediately. You see, there’s only so much door banging one can endure in certain amount of time, and I’m tired of stabbing the ceilings with the mop handle. I will have to fix the ceilings if I damage them, and I won’t like that.

Second question: is everyone in your unit a sumo wrestler? Not only this causes an unpleasant mental image to one’s mind, the echo of your every step ripples through your floors / our ceilings sounds like a kong sounding from afar. And you guys walk a lot. All night, every night. Add this to the banging of the five hundred doors you installed before you moved in, and you have a symphony of beneath-the-penthouse nightmare.

For your own good I suggest you lose weight immediately. If you fall through the ceilings one day from a heart attack, which won’t be far judging from the sound of your steps and the vibration of the walls, I will have to bill you for the repair. I won’t like that either, especially if you’re in a hospital and I‘m risking not having the expenses recovered--if you get my drift.

One more question: is your child half monkey half horse? He/she is obviously very young, judging from the screaming and the little steps he/she takes when running. It may be a lovely sight for you, the parents, to have an undisciplined wild beast racing in the house, screaming while slamming those five hundred doors, but not for your neighbors downstairs. Trust me on this one.

Oh, anoter thing about the kid--going to bed at ten or eleven o’clock is way too late for a child that young. In fact, going to bed at twelve, one, or two o’clock in the morning is way too late for you, too. How you manage to get up in the morning and go to work is beyond me.

I haven’t had a good night sleep in I don’t know how long. My eyes are scratchy dry and my skin is breaking out. The noise coming from above is stressing me to the point that the mop handle feels too weak of a gesture. I’m also getting more wrinkles from lack of sleep and anger. I really don’t like that.

The fact that you live on the top floor may have given you some superiority complex. Here’s a surprise--you still have to be considerate to your neighbors. Paying a little more doesn’t give you the right to forfeit common courtesy. Even a real penthouse dweller like Donald Trump would agree with me. Besides, it’s only a four-story building. You’re not that higher up.

These nuisances may be commonly accepted where you came from. People may not have the right to complain--about anything. It may be the very reason you left that country and sought a better life here. Why else would you uproot your family, travel thousands of miles to a place where nothing is easy and no one is familiar? I get that.

I just have one thing to say to you and all the horn-honking, traffic-cutting mad drivers in this town: don’t make this country a duplicate of that country. There’s a saying (and I’m sure you’re familiar with it) goes something like this: taking off one’s pants to break wind.

It makes your thousand-mile move totally unnecessary if you insist on behaving the old way. You might as well stay where you were in the first place.


(Other than raining one hundred eighty days a year and the few little things mentioned above, it really is a nice little town to live here. No really.)