Home Depot 101

Published on by Lisa Category: Household Hell

Now comes the moment in every homeowner’s life where one has to drive to the most dreaded place on the planet (other than Walmart or Best Buy) – HOME DEPOT.

Nick has told me that we may have plaster walls and why don’t I research how to hang frames on such walls. I nodded my agreement to his face but inside felt like telling him that, truthfully, I’d much rather eat an unwashed beet from a pesticide infested garden than research anything about plaster walls.

The internet is a constantly shifting mirage of information – it LOOKS like there is a lot of information, but sometimes you’re better off on your own and dealing with someone face to face. This led me to Home Depot. Loaded with the phrase TOGGLE BOLT, I jetted to the nearest Home Depot, with graceful directions from Moses, our trusted GPS.

So, with Moses in the car, I was able to find Home Depot and even avoid getting hit by rocks as I passed a group of children launching small pebbles at passing cars on the street. I am not used to Cleveland children yet.

Home Depot is, in a word, absurd. That building is the most ridiculous place on the planet. Walking through the front doors, I noticed people just hanging out, looking as if they were going to greet me – all wearing Home Depot bibs and dirt on their hands. No greeting.

My face was one blank canvas as I navigated this universe of doors, appliances, wires, and screws. There is every kind of imaginable bolt nestled in an aisle the size of a bowling alley. My stomach starting hurting from the impending anxiety. No one was around to help. Ugh, I began resenting homeownership.

One thing I noticed about Home Depot is that nearly EVERYONE is standing still. Everyone is, like, PAUSED in front of something and just staring at a screw, sliding glass door, or garage door opener as if they don’t know what to do. I looked the part as I stood, stunned and indecisive, in front of the toggle bolt section wondering how my life had come to pass so that I have to understand the safe hanging strategies for plaster walls.

Luckily, I can read and do math and ended up choosing two packages. This was after I perused the carpet aisle, laundry washers, window treatments, and door replacements.

No one helped me except Rebecca in the laundry washer area who kept persuading me to purchase GE’s newest and brightest machine at $700 because I would save so much money later in the water bill with its energy efficiency. Right.

And so, I went home and tried to put up curtain rods and started a long crack in one of the wooden panels of the window. Oh brother. Nick had to demonstrate how to put pressure into a screw so I don’t flatter the head with each of my pathetic twists and grab the stepper so I can reach the top of the panel.

I totally understand now why everyone says that owning a home is a lifelong project. At this rate, it may be Christmas before I can get the blinds and curtains up.

A Jerry Maguire Morning

Published on by Lisa Category: Life is Never General

I woke up and rolled over and Nick said, “Good morning.”

I replied from one of my favorite movies, “I LOVE the morning! I clap [clap once] my hands and say, ‘THIS [punch air with high fist] is going to be a great day!'”

I made him repeat it with me, actions and all.

It’s good to start the day sharing a loud laugh with your loved one.

Pretty in Pics

Published on by Lisa Category: Our House, Pictures and Links




Here are two pictures from the housewarming. In one of them you can see Nick loving whatever Tom Ward is telling him; not an unusual sight. The other is of two dear friends of mine who made the trip from Cincinnati and Louisville to help warm up the house.

The last picture I was saving for parents to show of all that I brought back from the Philippines: two bottles of wine, countless wooden crafts, three textile wall hangings, a barrage of snacks available only in SE Asia, handmade soups, jewelry, bags, books, and various trinkets and souvenirs from my travels. It is nothing short of a miracle that I was not detained in customs.

Last night Nick and I met some friends out for dinner in Little Italy. Of course, I bought two cannoli’s for late night enjoyment. After dinner, Nick went out with Matt Thomas, aka Books, and even though I promised to pick him up later, I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillowcase. Good thing Nick is a patient man. This weekend Nick is going Tim Norris’ bachelor party at Salt Fork while I continue to get used to life in Ohio. Two weeks to Kelly’s wedding, aka Big Fun, and we’re both pumped and ready for another great family wedding!

Making a Home, For Good

Published on by Lisa Category: Our House

I’ve been home for 9 days and – thank the good saints – I finally was able to sleep like a normal human being last night. I was
O-U-T last night at 10pm and fell asleep with all my jewelry on and my cell phone in my right hand. Don’t ask me who I was on the phone with because, as Nick has been describing, “You were so tired, I don’t even know if you knew your own name.”

Well, I do know my own name. Now.

We had a lovely housewarming party on Saturday and it was a glorious day with lots of sunshine in and out of the house. Tom and Katie Ward tromped into our new digs all the way from Cincinnati, as did my former roomies Claire Mugavin and Lea Minniti Shephard. A nice XU reunion for all as Pete Kosoglov stopped in, just back from Scotland. My brother and sister were able to make it with their significant others and family and lots of Nick’s wonderful co-workers stopped by for a few hours to enjoy our newly blessed home and table of Filipino, Hawaiian, Italian, and American foods.

Truthfully, as wonderful as our new home is, it’s still extremely odd for me to wake up in this new place. “Home” before my trip was a highrise apartment in downtown Boston. But, here are my clothes, my robe, and all my books neatly arranged in little folds in Shaker Heights, Ohio as if I’ve been living here for quite some time. I have no memories here, but all my things are hung as if I’ve hung them myself. My shoes are arranged as if I left them in my closet. It’s a strange feeling. Like I have amnesia and everyone keeps saying, “Welcome Home!” and I have no idea what this house is all about just yet. I’m not used to its noises or the way the cabinets swing open or the creepiness of a dark basement.

Sunday evening, Nick and I went down to Columbus to spend time with his siblings. Kelly, his sister, is getting married in a little over two weeks and it was a nice opportunity to spend quality time before a big event like a wedding. As exciting as they are, as emotional as they can be, weddings are not exactly the time to talk for long periods of time. So we relaxed by a BBQ and caught up. I fell asleep on a couch and while I was asleep, everyone else has decided to move on to a bar to end the evening. I cannot convey how disoriented I was when I woke up after a 4 hour nap to find a completely dark room and a TV the size of a garage door in front of me that was “on” but the screen was black so all I heard were stranger’s voices. Talk about intense confusion, I didn’t know if I was in Boston, the Philippines, or in Shaker Heights, Ohio. I was right on the fourth try, “Oh, right…we’re in Columbus today.”

So life continues to become more and more familiar to me as we settle and make this house our home, a place we will be staying for awhile. I marvel at the small things – seeing the orange plastic wrapped Plain Dealer laying in our driveway, the blooming flowers, and the breeze through our windows. Eleven addresses in eleven years makes one grateful for the steadiness of home. Nine weeks in another country makes one ecstatic to be able to call this blessing a “home.”

Democrats Have Short Memory: Voting Based on Sex

Published on by Lisa Category: Uncategorized

Last night I hosted a small gathering at my house and after a few brews, McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden came up in discussion. An acquaintence asked me excitedly, “As an Independent, do you think you’ll switch and vote for McCain?”

First, I don’t know much about Palin, but the news so far isn’t too impressive. I don’t have a report on her yet, but what I can write about is the hilarious and entertaining reaction of so many women democrats who want to keep the swing-Clinton voters away from the GOP side.

If my memory serves me correctly, I remember a brief six months ago when I was receiving emails that it was un-feminist of me to not support Hillary simply because she is a woman. It was un-feminist to prevent the first [white] viable woman candidate in contemporary politics to reach the White House. This extended to the WAM! conference, email listserves to which I belong, and personal conversations regarding the election. And while Hillary has an incredible list of credentials that make her a qualified candidate for presidency, it was her sex that was often referenced in rallying dem-woman behind her, “She’ll be the first woman president!” In those conversations, it wasn’t that she’ll bring universal health care or that she’ll end the war in Iraq or that she has the experience, it’s that “she’s a woman!” and by voting for Obama over her, it was deemed putting race over gender.

And now Dem women are asking, “Do you think we’re that stupid to cast our vote one way because of gender?”

Uh, yes.

People ARE that short-sighted, on both sides of this political circus. Absurdities have been played on BOTH sides. Many dem women were blasting Obama supporters for not voting “pro-woman” and now their blasting the Republicans for thinking their stupid enough to just vote based soley on sex. That narrow line of reasoning has been alive and well for a long time.

I don’t think it’s about McCain thinking women are stupid as much as it is that he is relying on a fundamental and tested truth that many folks do not think critically. Many women do vote based on sex alone and are wooed by “first woman ever to Fill In the Blank” tactics, so why are dems acting as if those voters don’t exist and it’s insulting to pitch Palin to attract that sect?

I love being an Independent – the circus is much more entertaining when you can see the clowns and the mimes.

Radical Gratitude

Published on by Lisa Category: Life is Never General

As some of you may know, I am working on a collection of essays about my recent voyage to the Philippines. Each essay explores a different perspective of my learnings and meditations. This is one of those essays and is entitled, “Radical Gratitude.”

There is a sweetness to life that I wish for all to experience someday.

A sweetness of age when wisdom falls into your life after years and pain and triumph and effort.

The sweetness comes in waves and, like the tide, overpowers even the sturdiest stance.

There are few times in our lives when we have the ability to truly experience gratitude. A grace that articulates a clear perception of one’s blessings, gratitude comes only with time, when one’s ability to receive is matched by the comprehension of such rare gifts.

Few days can you wake up and fully grasp the miracle of life, its ability to carry on despite death, disease, corruption, and sin. Life, in all its glory, steals my breath when I open a window and smell the warm air slowly nuzzle into the quiet blades of late summer grass. I am grateful for that smell.

Few days can you laugh over the inevitable (and perhaps even necessary) complications of life – a late appointment, a flat tire, the needles of rain – and move forward in gratitude for simply being alive to witness one more embrace from a loving sister, one more soft kiss from a spouse, and one more conversation with an aging mother.

There is a truth to life that often hides in the folds of activity and bustle: gratitude is experiencing life twice.

Gratitude is what softens us and makes us vulnerable to the fragile reality of our mortality. It deepens our sense of time to where each second becomes an impassable opportunity to open ourselves, to unwind from secrecy, guilt, and unbind ourselves from the hinges of the past. Gratitude is forgiveness, humility, and delivers exhilarating purity.

A natural drug, it propels the mind to see the heart of each act, the true intention of another’s actions, and eradicates insecure bravado and inflation. Pure thanksgiving moves our feet to the side, bows our heads, uplifts and affirms our very self-worth.

I would be nowhere without family. I’d be stunted without friends and for reasons I cannot fathom; I was blessed with the abundance of both. The miracle of each person and their ability to love me quiets every thought in that contemplation. That simple equation of love begets love is the most undervalued lesson in our social development. How had I forgotten that? Love begets love, gratitude begets tranquility.

I intend to live the rest of my life with radical gratitude, a notion that often gets misdiagnosed with expressing thanks. Radical gratitude, a state of perfect spiritual vision, befuddles the temptation to take stock and inventory of one’s personal bank accounts and plans for acquiring more. It leaves the eyes trailing upward and gently taps me when I have enough. In that small prayer it becomes clear that I often have too much; too much for one person to enjoy in one lifetime. It is the only light that uncovers the finest lines of human detail. The clarity of those blessing tastes as sweet as a caramel apple in autumn or strawberry lemonade at noon. It smells like a sleeping baby’s cheek and sounds like rustling green leaves perched high in the clouds. It is as fleeting and weightless as a dandelion’s remains, as delicate as a ballerina’s en pointe, and as vast as the cascade of dark violet mountains. In every crevice of the earth and every inch of our mouths, it waits to captures all of us with its power. It waits to put to rest all of our needless bitterness and folly, banter and noise, bends and fragmentations. It waits to heal all of our questions and brokenness and builds the bridge to voice the words left unsaid, the love still left to do.

Radical gratitude is one’s rebirth, a divine reverence of life.

Ramblings of a Still Jetlagged Feminist: Radical Gratitude

Published on by Lisa Category: Gratitude

As some of you may know, I am working on a collection of essays about my recent voyage to the Philippines. Each essay explores a different perspective of my learnings and meditations. This is one of those essays and is entitled, “Radical Gratitude.”

There is a sweetness to life that I wish for all to experience someday.

A sweetness of age when wisdom falls into your life after years and pain and triumph and effort.

The sweetness comes in waves and, like the tide, overpowers even the sturdiest stance.

There are few times in our lives when we have the ability to truly experience gratitude. A grace that articulates a clear perception of one’s blessings, gratitude comes only with time, when one’s ability to receive is matched by the comprehension of such rare gifts.

Few days can you wake up and fully grasp the miracle of life, its ability to carry on despite death, disease, corruption, and sin. Life, in all its glory, steals my breath when I open a window and smell the warm air slowly nuzzle into the quiet blades of late summer grass. I am grateful for that smell.

Few days can you laugh over the inevitable (and perhaps even necessary) complications of life – a late appointment, a flat tire, the needles of rain – and move forward in gratitude for simply being alive to witness one more embrace from a loving sister, one more soft kiss from a spouse, and one more conversation with an aging mother.

There is a truth to life that often hides in the folds of activity and bustle: gratitude is experiencing life twice.

Gratitude is what softens us and makes us vulnerable to the fragile reality of our mortality. It deepens our sense of time to where each second becomes an impassable opportunity to open ourselves, to unwind from secrecy, guilt, and unbind ourselves from the hinges of the past. Gratitude is forgiveness, humility, and delivers exhilarating purity.

A natural drug, it propels the mind to see the heart of each act, the true intention of another’s actions, and eradicates insecure bravado and inflation. Pure thanksgiving moves our feet to the side, bows our heads, uplifts and affirms our very self-worth.

I would be nowhere without family. I’d be stunted without friends and for reasons I cannot fathom; I was blessed with the abundance of both. The miracle of each person and their ability to love me quiets every thought in that contemplation. That simple equation of love begets love is the most undervalued lesson in our social development. How had I forgotten that? Love begets love, gratitude begets tranquility.

I intend to live the rest of my life with radical gratitude, a notion that often gets misdiagnosed with expressing thanks. Radical gratitude, a state of perfect spiritual vision, befuddles the temptation to take stock and inventory of one’s personal bank accounts and plans for acquiring more. It leaves the eyes trailing upward and gently taps me when I have enough. In that small prayer it becomes clear that I often have too much; too much for one person to enjoy in one lifetime. It is the only light that uncovers the finest lines of human detail. The clarity of those blessing tastes as sweet as a caramel apple in autumn or strawberry lemonade at noon. It smells like a sleeping baby’s cheek and sounds like rustling green leaves perched high in the clouds. It is as fleeting and weightless as a dandelion’s remains, as delicate as a ballerina’s en pointe, and as vast as the cascade of dark violet mountains. In every crevice of the earth and every inch of our mouths, it waits to captures all of us with its power. It waits to put to rest all of our needless bitterness and folly, banter and noise, bends and fragmentations. It waits to heal all of our questions and brokenness and builds the bridge to voice the words left unsaid, the love still left to do.

Radical gratitude is one’s rebirth, a divine reverence of life.