July 18, 2006 by Amy

Starter Castles

Well, the game last night was a blow-out. We got shelled. It was horrible. The base-clearing grand slam early on was telling. So we sat there and sweated, and watched our pitching staff flounder, and watched their battery batter us. Ugh. Jimmy tried to re-start morale with his homer, and Albert’s double to knock in So was exciting, but that was about it. We left in the 7th, right after everyone sang “Take me out to the ballgame.” Figured at 13 to 3, we’d cut our losses and go see The Bug for a few minutes before she went to sleep for the night. I’m glad we left, as it only got worse. How bad is it when their relief pitcher can crank one out of the park?!

Then, stupidly, we stayed up even later to watch Jay Leno (we’re total suckers for Headlines) and read, and we didn’t get to bed until late. Which means we’re both dragging today.

Overall, though, we had a pretty fun time last night. Lots of laughs, which is always good on Date Night. Thanks to Mom and Dad Z for watching Doodle for us. She had a blast!

So the house up the street, which we affectionately call The Strip Mall, is on the market. This place has been half-finished for quite a while now. It’s bad enough that it’s so monstrous that it’s an eyesore, but to leave it half done is just over the top. It’s listed for a paltry $3 million, which I suppose is good in that it raises our property value. You gotta wonder about someone who builds a behemoth, overwrought, massive mansion right across the street from a church. Anyway, in case you’re in the market for a big ol’ house, you can click here to visit the page on realtor.com, which is one of my most favorite web sites.

Here’s the thing…as much as I’ve griped about this house that’s a mere four or five lots up from us, I still stick to my belief that when a person buys property, it’s his or hers to do with as he or she pleases. We’ve got a tear-down (or in-fill house, whichever term you choose) being thrown up in our subdivision right now. People are all up in arms because the house is sided on all four sides, not that there is anything wrong with siding, but it doesn’t quite fit in with our subdivision. We’re a bunch of ranch houses, 90% of which are 4-sided brick, and the remaining 10% are 3-sided brick. We’re not cookie-cutter track houses, but we all do flow rather nicely and the similarity creates a lovely community. The new house is a two-story, white, sided plantation-style house complete with a covered porch that runs two of the sides. It looks rather like aliens picked it up somewhere down south and dropped it into the middle of our neighborhood.

We have a subdivision meeting tomorrow night at City Hall (M is totally stoked that it’s in the room where The Judge presides), and it’s the first one since we moved here over four years ago. One of our neighbors is trying to drum up support against in-fill housing, and we’re pretty sure there’s not a darn thing any of us could do about it, even if we wanted to. Besides, we also think that new housing only drives our property value up, which is not a bad thing. It’ll make us feel that much better when we have to knock down our broken house and build a new one.

The spa hired a gaggle of new estheticians recently, and they’ve gone through their extensive training and are now doing their rounds of facials on staff before being turned loose to cleanse the general spa population. I had a European Spa Facial by Pacia yesterday afternoon (ah, the sacrifices we have to make for work here at the spa) and my skin feels smoooooth. It’s like buttah.