ever-fixed mark

People have been calling, texting, e-mailing, and driving by shouting out of their car windows to congratulate us on our newly-discovered woodwork. They’re so happy for us, as if we’ve had a baby or won the lottery. In a sense I guess we did win the lottery — the grand prize is avoiding the cost of replacing a bunch of rotten clapboards. Yay, us!

Of course when you spruce up one aspect of your house, it just highlights how much work needs to be done in other areas, so you always end up spending more than you planned anyway. For example, we have some shrubs, those bulbous ugly sort of bushes that are to landscaping what Kraft Dinner is to fine dining: plentiful, serviceable, but not particularly elegant.

I’ve been trying to get the guy who mows our little patch of grass to cut those bushes back for years, but he always has some reason for not doing it. One year, it was too early in the season. Last year, it was too late. Next year, I believe he’ll be washing his hair.

Consequently, in the past couple of years these shrubs have crept up over the top railing of the porch and spread all around the foundation — helpful if you’re trying to hide some ugly siding, but not attractive in and of itself. I asked the painters if they needed me to call someone to cut them back in order to paint, and they said they could do it themselves. They opined that the shrubs shouldn’t be any higher than the bottom railing of the porch, and we agreed that we would cut them back to four feet.

I didn’t realize that when you cut eight-foot bushes back to four feet, there’s little left but bloody stumps:

Even with the bare branches, it looks much better, no? The house finally looks like it can breathe.

Yesterday when I sat down at my computer to work, I found this search term in my Google toolbar:

It took me a minute, but I was finally able to parse out that Minor, whose latest obsession is paper airplanes, was looking for directions for making Star Wars fighters on-line.

I’m not sure what made me laugh harder: “Jrachrins” as a pretty good approximation of what that word really sounds like to a six-year old? The proto-teenage texting locution “4″ in place of the preposition? The two-syllable “wo-ars,” which is exactly the way he pronounces it? Or the fact that he knows how to Google stuff?

Our house was built in 1890 by Walter B. Hopkinson, who would go on to be mayor of Newburyport from 1917 - 1918. It was the least grand in a row of Victorians all facing the pond; the other houses are turreted and gingerbreaded, whereas ours has only a bunch of funky gables to set it off.

I’m not sure who lived in the house in the early part of the 20th century, but I do know that sometime in the late sixties it was turned into a nursing home, and then around 1979 it was purchased by the owners previous to us, a family who had also adopted two children from Korea. These owners had the unenviable task of restoring the property from its commercial incarnation back to a single-family residence. They obviously cared about historical integrity, but their funds were limited, so they were forced to cut some corners. At some point during their tenure they covered the house in vinyl siding, either because the exterior had deteriorated to the point where they couldn’t repair it, or maybe just because it was cheaper to cover the house than to paint it regularly. The siding was particularly ugly, too, great thick slabs that could never, even at a distance, be mistaken for the thin wooden boards that cover most Victorians.

Now, there’s not a lot of “keeping up with the Joneses” in Newburyport. I never feel anyone is looking down his nose at me because of my crappy car or exceedingly ugly coat. But even Yankee thrift has its limits, and they stop directly in front of any wall clad in siding made from petroleum products. Honestly, “vinyl” is a dirty word around here.

When we bought the house we knew the siding would have to go, but whenever the mood to drain our bank account struck, we always found something more fun to spend it on. An office renovation; a new kitchen floor (this is the old one); precious, precious air conditioning. But a few weeks ago, one of Minor’s friends came over for a play date. “I forgot to give you directions to the house!” I realized when they knocked at the door; the dad had never been here.

“That’s okay. Joey told me which house it was,” he said.

“Yeah,” piped up Joey. “I told him it was the gray one.”

Our house is white.

At that point I realized we had been living almost a decade with that ugly siding, and I knew it was either time to power-wash that vinyl or tear it down.

But the big unknown: what lies beneath? Gingerbread gem or tarpaper disaster?

And the answer is…

A little of both. Gingerbread Disaster? That’s totally the name of my new punk band.

The good news is that there IS wooden siding underneath the vinyl, and most of it is salvageable. The unexpected news is that the entire middle portion of the house is covered in these honeycomb shingles. This throws a spanner into our paint choices. I think we should continue with our original plan of making the house one color and the trim another; Husband thinks we should go for a two- or three-tone effect, something like this.

Word of warning: Do not, by all that’s holy, Google “Victorian shingles.” That’s not what I meant at ALL.

Aitch: Mom, I finished my mystery book!

Me: That’s great! Who did it?

Aitch: I did.

Me: No, I mean who kidnapped the panda in the book?

Aitch: I don’t remember

Twelve hours later….

Aitch: Hey, Dad, guess what? I finished my mystery book last night!

Husband: Good job! Who did it?

Aitch: I did.

Husband: No, I mean who committed the crime?

Aitch: [blank stare]

Dog and I were walking in the high-rent cemetery yesterday — it’s one of our favorite (pardon the expression) haunts — when we came across a human body sprawled prone on the ground in front of one of the headstones. This is it, I thought. After ten years of fruitless dog walks during which I’ve never found a body (at least, not a whole one), here was my moment in the sun. At last, when the newspaper stated, “The body was found by a woman walking her dog,” I would be that woman.

Fortunately, my involuntary “Oh, my god! Are you okay?” had the effect of rousing the supine person. No dead body to see here, folks. False alarm. After ascertaining that she was not in need of assistance, I apologized for disturbing her and we continued on our way.

She could have been sleeping off a high, but I don’t think so. As familiar as I am with that cemetery, I “know” that grave. It was erected fairly recently, and since it’s the only headstone in that section of the cemetery that was put up in the past hundred years, it stands out. Judging from the age of the deceased and the age of the young woman, I’m assuming that she was “visiting” her mom. How lovely and how sad. I’m glad she at least had good weather for her visit.

The academic year is four weeks young, and already we have received two notes home, a call from the principal, and an invitation from the school psychologist to participate in a “social skills” group which is, I gather, a sort of finishing school for kindergartners.

But! He is awfully cute, no?

Already this one has more disciplinary actions entered into his permanent record than the rest of the family put together, and yes that includes Dog’s six-week stint in obedience school.

Luckily, the academics are going pretty well. That’s important; with years of confinement ahead of him, he should be capable of producing a literate manifesto.

Minor: My school has a secret code!

Me: Really?

Minor: It’s nine dash nineteen dash eleven.

Me: What’s the secret code for?

Minor: They changed it. It used to be nine dash sixteen dash eleven.

Me: I don’t understand. Why is there a secret code?

Husband: I think he’s talking about the date.

Aitch’s latest obsession is the size of his shoes, a topic he pursues relentlessly: How big they were last year vs. this year. How big they’ll be next year. How they compare to Eamonn’s shoe size, and Timmy’s shoe size, and the kid who is only in third grade but is already a size six, can you believe it, Mom? And, also, tragically, how we’re all conspiring to force him to wear shoes that are too small, and why he really, really needs new and bigger shoes.

Moved by his complaints about blisters, we actually did buy him a second pair of sneakers this summer before we caught on. Since then we’ve had him measured by every shoe salesman in town, and believe me, that kid is a 1, but he insists he’s a 3. We’ve told him very firmly that we won’t entertain the topic of new shoes until Christmas, at which time we’ll have him measured again to see if he’s grown.

He’s pretty sure he’ll be a 4 by then.

Anyway, this weekend, Aitch awoke early; Husband and I were still asleep, Husband in our room, I in the guest room. (We’re not on the outs, but Dog had kicked me out of bed. See here for a description of our nighttime habits.) Aitch was downstairs, amusing himself quietly, but after a half-hour or so he came back upstairs to hand Husband a piece of paper with a word written on it, and he asked what it meant. The word was “Company,” and Husband gave a short if sleepy disquisition on the various meanings of the word. Aitch thanked him and went downstairs.

A few minutes later, Aitch came upstairs with another word: “Province.”

At this point, Husband’s suspicions were aroused, and he went downstairs to find that Aitch had logged on to Reebok.com, selected a pair of shoes (size 3, natch), and started to fill out the order form when he was stumped by the unfamiliar words. I’m thankful that Husband stopped him before he got to the credit card page. We had a long conversation about ordering things on-line (short version: DON’T), and I’m watching the mail carefully for any unexpected items.

Last night, I was reading the boys a story when Aitch pulled up his shirt and, contemplating his abs, said, “I almost have a six-pack like those guys on TV.”

Shoes? Abs? This kid is one character flaw away from landing a role on “The Jersey Shore.”

Tropical storm? Meh. We activated the Catastrophic Emergency Disaster Preparedness Plan for this?

It’s hard to prepare for a hurricane when the beach is this inviting. I think we’ll wait to start battening down the hatches until the first raindrops hit.

You’ll be relieved to know that this fine driftwood edifice withstood our recent earthquake. Actually, I was parked right in front of it when the earthquake hit, and we didn’t feel a thing, didn’t even know about it until friends started texting us. Whether it will stand up to Irene remains to be seen.