For Sale

My friend BA called last night to tell us that our old house in Richmond is up for sale.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!!!?!?!??!!?!?
I loved that house, if I could have moved it I would have.
However, it's in Richmond and I don't want to be in Richmond.

It hasn't been two years yet. We sold it in October 2003 and now that couple is selling my house! And it's listed almost 3 times more than what we paid for it in 1997. It seems though that they are having trouble selling as the descriptions states that the price has been reduced. Could the Richmond housing market be in a decline?

Here's the part that I find interesting - on the appliances listed as being sold with the house - my washer and dryer aren't listed. Everything else is, but not the washer and dryer. Why do I find this interesting? Well, first you have to understand that I have an unhealthy addiction to laundry. I love laundry. The washer and dryer that I bought in 2002 was a creme de la creme, front load, stainless steel drum, top of the line, paid an arm and a leg to get exactly what I wanted model. Did I mention how unhealthy my addiction is? I couldn't take them when we moved to Cali because we didn't have anywhere to put them or store them. So I offered the couple who bought the house a great deal - $500 for the set which was barely a fraction of what I paid for them. She salivated over my beautiful laundry machines, but the male-half of the couple gave me a hard time about what was so great about front load washers. So I went through my laundry queen spiel and basically said if you want them fine, if not, I'll figure out something else to do with them. (Which meant that I'd give the suckers to my parents.) He agreed and we still had issues about the washer and dryer at closing. We later discovered the full extent of his jack@ssdom from our realtor and their realtor, which is another story in itself. So yes, I find it really interesting that the washer and dryer are going to be going with them after his need to puff himself up to intimidate me.

I am the Queen of Laundry - don't mess with me, man.

Accents

Some telemarketer just called the house, I have a feeling it was about refinancing the mortgage but since he didn't ask to speak to me, I'll let RTL deal with him when he calls back later. Anyway, I'm polite and ask if he would like to leave a message. So he gave me his name and a phone number (but not enough info to just rip up the message). I tell him that I'll give RTL the message and before I can hang up he asks if he can ask me where I'm from "because [ I ] have an accent". Smart aleck me wanted to answer "United States", but being polite and all I said North Carolina instead. I figured it was a relatively harmless question. Then he went on to say that he knew from the accent that I wasn't from California and he was just making small talk. (Like I don't know what small talk is being from NC and all.) Then he asked me about weather - isn't that where all the tornadoes go through - umm, NC is on the east coast not in the middle of the US. So I found myself explaining thunderstorms and the weather system in NC. Annoying. He was definitely testing my patience.

So I guess my question for anybody is (especially anyone who has that NC accent) do you notice other people's accents or lack of accent and comment on it as small talk?

I don't think I do. I notice that people don't sound like me or rather I don't sound like the majority of people around me. I don't ask where people are from when they don't have an accent, nor do I ecstatically point it out when I recognize where the accent is from either. I have asked where people are from when I have trouble understanding words; that way I can decipher what they are saying by differences in speech cadence or vowel sounds. But I don't ask because it's something to make small talk about. I'm probably a little sensitve because I've had to give my NC accent speech more than a few times this week. And I've been really offended lately when those non-accented people fake the southern accent too.

I'm annoyed and homesick now.

Hummingbirds

I wanted to share my hummingbird encounter with everyone.

Hummingbirds are fairly easy to find around here. However, I was quite surprised to find one trapped on my backporch the other day. It was difficult to help show her the way out and I was worried that she was going to stress herself out too much. I did happen to take a picture before I realized that she didn't know how to find her way out. You hardly ever see a hummingbird still long enough to snap a picture.

Click here to see the picture

Sorry, I tried to have the image itself, but since I crashed a nameless ISP several times, got frustrated with .mac and a few other sites, I just posted it the easy way. I'll practice later.

I love babies!

My cousin Amanda had a baby about 3 weeks ago. [Sorry, I don't know the exact date because everyone at home neglected to give me that information.]

Tara Elizabeth Dickinson weighing in at 6 lbs 11oz and 19 inches long.
I'm calling her Ted because her momma didn't consider what her initials spelled. I'm evil like that.

You can see baby pictures here