Comcast turned off my internet two days early, the bastards. But they do have me on the schedule for new service on Thursday at the new house still. I can’t understand why customer services fails so bad with them. It literally honestly does. I’m on dial-up tonight, and probably won’t be on tomorrow at all since we’ll be sleeping at the new house.

Dad and I settled on the new house today. It was actually very painless, and the previous owners are super cool. I was fairly intimidated going into it, and I could sense tension in the room when they first walked in. But then they started talking about the history of the place and their family and things lightened up quite a bit. They seemed to take to my dad, since he’s an old farmer like them. I think they may even stop by now and again.

We immediately went to pick up a load of belongings to bring over and changed the locks. I actually took a nap on the floor after I was laying there staring at the horrible paint job on the ceiling. I took tons of photos, which I can’t upload now because of the current internet debacle. And I’ve taped up most of the living room for painting tomorrow. I do need to spackle and sand a few minor areas.

We took Bastian with us, but he’s not feeling very well.

Dad already started loading tools into the garage, I think he’s tickled pink at having one. I may post more details later, but dial-up seriously sucks. I remember these days, but it must be one of those repressed horrific memories.

I’m insulted that Palin is the republican VP candidate, for many reasons.

She’s obviously a flippin moron when it comes to the issues that she should damn well be aware of. But she’s praised so highly by people desperate to have McCain win the election. It’s like throwing out all of your ideals and scruples just to get what you want. How can these people approve of this woman in a legit fashion?

And the people that are voting for her only because she’s a hawt woman, or even the women voting for her only because she’s a woman at all, I don’t get them either. If this woman sits in the VP seat, and eventually becomes president when McCain pops a cog, do you realize that she’ll make the U.S. look like a sheep for the taking? That we’ll never have another woman president for 10 bajillion years because of how foolish women will look after that? The jokes will be abound, “Can’t let a woman be president, you saw what happened last time.”

Not to mention if she can’t handle giving interviews, I’d hate to see her negotiating with intimidating foreign leaders. I imagine she’ll run home and cry or polish her 12-gauge.

I guess McCain’s stupid decisions lately just boggle me. Palin as VP, I just can’t see it. It’s even worse to imagine her as President. I don’t want this woman representing the initial step of women in the White House. We’re better than that.

Countdown: 1 day till settlement, 2 days till move-in.

My total closing fees will be $4830 which will leave a little over $2k for us to put into the house and start paying a few folks back. Payback will be faster when the car is paid off in February.

That is good news

They have also left some work-benches and grinders behind for my dad. So more free stuff.

Tomorrow’s schedule:
9:15am - Walk-through of the house to make sure everything is as it was described for settlement
10:15am - Meet with lawyer to go over paperwork for settlement
11am - Settlement appointment with attorneys and seller
Afterwards - Change locks to all 4 doors of the house (already purchased and keyed the same)

If it’s past 1pm by that time, I will not be going into work as it takes an hour to get to work and it’s not worth going in after 1pm.

In which case I will:
- Smudge entire house and garage with white sage
- Tape up the living room for painting.
- Examine for any holes, flaws, etc for painting.
- Roll around in the grass and on the floors and giggle like mad

Wednesday’s Schedule:
7am - Start painting living room (maybe bedroom first, depending on when my cousin-in-law wants to come over)
9am-10am - Grandfather drops off storage trailer
Afterwards - Alternate between painting and unloading trailer the rest of the day
12pm-3pm - Electric company is due to turn on electric
10pm - First night sleeping at new house (albeit without internetz)

Thursday’s Schedule:
8-12pm - Cable installation
Afterwards - More unloading and unpacking, which is pretty much my schedule until Sunday.

Several folks coming over Friday and Saturday to help unload and paint.

Saturday’s Schedule:
- Pick up furniture from bosse’s pad

I will be taking lots of before and after pictures. Expect picture spam.

Dad and I went and had breakfast at another old country restraurant called “The Country Kitchen” in Taneytown today. It was very small, much like the Book and Table we went to for his birthday. Service was faster and the food was good (though my cinnamon bun must have been heated up in the microwave because half of it was hard as a rock).

These country restaurants crack me up. I really do love them because you see all the old farmers sitting outside chatting and gossiping. One of them was talking to my dad for a bit about diabetes. I just want to sit with them all day and listen to stories.

Afterwards we went to Lowes to buy paint, where I also promptly forgot to use my coupon. I’m sure we’ll be going there again. I bought Olympic paint because it’s one of the more eco-friendly paints, and I have a caramel/beige color for the living room, and a dark chocolate brown for my bedroom. I also bought a can of primer for the bedroom since the walls are fairly light right now and I don’t want to have to put on tons of color.

The local town here, Fairfield, is having their annual Pippinfest festival this weekend. We may be walking through there tomorrow, I don’t know yet. But apparently it’s like a huge flea market and is a big deal around here. I saw some furniture I wouldn’t mind looking at.

My uncle has also invited us over for breakfast tomorrow morning, but I’m still deciding whether or not to drive down to the Grove or start packing things up here for the move on Wednesday.

Since PA does inspections every year, dad and I are going to have trouble with our trucks. Mine I planned to take off the road anyway and start working on it (they want no rust at all, wtf?), and Dads we’re probably just going to tear the bed off of and put a wooden flatbed on it.

But a guy my dad knows just bought a new Chevy and wants to give us his old Ford. Apparently it’s in pretty good shape, not sure what year it is, but dad says it will pass inspection, so that’s good We also might have a buyer for the blue bronco, but only for $500. I don’t really want to get rid of it, but I’m not going to do anything with it anytime soon. My bronco is always first priority.

Also I’m trying to work it so I can vote in the state of PA during this next election since it is a swing state. You have to have proof that you’ve been living here for a month, so I’m trying to sort that out. I will be living here as of October 1st, even though I’ve been living here literally since the end of July. The only bill I get that comes here in my name is the cable bill, and I don’t know if that would count. Our driver’s licenses are all still in the state of MD.

It says a piece of identification is required to vote, and that’s the only one I have. I guess I’ll have to get that switched over sooner than later. Anyone have experience with dealing with identification while voting? Is it different in every state, I assume?

This years Mabon ritual was fairly unique for the Grove with several new elements, and I had a great time.

We did this ritual in Greek style, honoring Hephaestus, Athena, and Dionysus as the gatekeeper. We had three altars set up for each instead of one big altar, each decorated to honor their deity of purpose. Dionysus was set up by the well, Hephaestus was set up by the fire, and Athena was set up by the tree.

We also held a very short modern parody skit of a greek drama, where Hephaestus and Athena are working on Pandora and Dionysus comes in and attempts to get Hephaestus drunk and convince him to release Hera. We had Jack dress up as a goth with blue hair as Dionysus (I got lots of pictures), Jeff wore a modern tool-belt and jeans as Hephaestus (and looked very manly), and I was supposed to dress up in either military camo or a business suit as Athena but I had neither. I wore a fedora and a spear though

The fire wardens were also put into more of a ritually dramatic role this time as well. I think they had flares set up within the fire pit so that when they used their “fire staves” they were able to simply place their fire staves into the fire pit and the fire started immediately. Very dramatic and I was actually very glad to see the fire wardens put into more of a spiritual role for the ritual.

When we opened the gates, our gate openers did a flag dance with colored flags associated with their particular gate. It was a very beautiful and elegant dance and came together really well.

Honestly I think this was one of my favorite rituals of the year. I’m glad I got a lot of “before ritual” pictures because I never seem to have time during ritual to get any.

• While driving home from Baltimore Pagan Pride Day on Saturday, I had to take a route down Mculloch Street and North Avenue. Apparently these are rather unsavory parts of Baltimore. I was met with an influx of young adults and teenagers on dirt-bikes and 4-wheelers riding up and down the road. They proceeded to turn around and I see them all surrounding behind me in my rear-view mirror, and then pass me into the intersection in front of me, stopping the -entire- intersection. They were only there for a few seconds before continuing on, but I find this the weirdest thing. I don’t think I could live sanely in the city.
• I had a random bloody nose yesterday. I haven’t had one of those since I was a kid, so it was a little weird to just have one pop up out of nowhere. It was minor though, so I’m ignoring it.
• My uncle has a new baby calf that I think is named “Jalf”. I got to pet him a bit yesterday and took some cellphone pictures of him and their horses.
• While driving through Gettysburg yesterday after dinner, I realized how much money a Bed and Breakfast probably makes around here. I mean all of the tourists that go through here in the spring/summer/fall, and then all of the ski bunnies from Ski Liberty in the winter. It’s something to think about.
• I’ve realized I’m going to miss my baby cousin, who is only 3 months old, when we move out. Everytime I make him smile I can’t help but smile back. It’s definitely one of the most beautiful things to experience.
• Water re-test came back fine on the house, our well is healthy again. Going to do a post about easements later. Good news though is that the land behind us is under new ownership as of the last couple years, and the driveway that goes through our property is abandoned and the new owners probably don’t know about the rightaway. This also means I’m going to take free reign to play in their woods and that path.
• I dislike being in a foreign food restaurant, with staff that have conversations in a foreign language within earshot.
• I’ve discovered Craiglist is an invaluable resource to finding cheap and free furniture (in addition to freecycle). A shame I can’t respond to some of these ads yet until I have a place to put stuff.
• I’m going to paint my bedroom dark dark brown (chocolate) with white trim. Dad and I will probably be going to pick up paint supplies on Sunday
• When my sister was over this past weekend, she asked about what happened between my mother and I to make us not talk anymore for the last decade or so. I decided to go ahead and tell her and she seemed pretty receptive. She asked if she could come live with me when she gets out of highschool. I said she could under the stipulation that she do her fair share around the house and get a job. She says mom intends to move to Tennessee after she turns 18 and wants her to go as well, and is in fact, guilt tripping her to go. My mother even told her that all of her friends will be off to college so she’ll have no one around. I told her that’s bogus because some friends -will- still be around and probably going to the community college for the first couple years, and that she’ll make new friends. My sister also apparently told my mother that she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave family behind, to which my mother responded with “Well your sister left you behind when she moved to Norfolk”. Nice mom.

  Alas, I told my sister it’s up to her what she wants to do. If she wants to take some time out of highschool to think about where to go to college, etc, she could come stay with me. But not to feel pressured into doing anything and to take her time deciding. I can definitely tell she’s in the rebelling age though, because she wants nothing to do with either parent right now.

• Dad and I are going to build a small greenhouse off the side of the house eventually>
• There is some weird shit going no in the pagan community lately. I think the Baltimore Pagan Community is going to fold into itself in some big black hole. All except CedarLight anyway. We keep a distance while being active. It’s safest that way.
• One thing I love about living up here are the mountains and the sunrises. The sunrises are amazing, and I haven’t been able to appreciate them in a long time because the old house was surrounded by so many trees. I am going to miss being able to wake up and look out my window to watch the sun come up over the valley. At least I’ll still have the drive through the mountains on the way to work.

I took off today for dad’s birthday so we could spend some time together. I took him to this very tiny restaurant in Fairfield I’ve been wanting to try out called “The Book and Table” for breakfast. By tiny I mean probably no more than 10 tables.

It was crowded and they are only open from 6am to 2pm. It appears their main focus is to cater to the older crowd, and nearly every single person in there was in their golden years. And nearly every single person in there new each other as regulars. Old women church groups, local farmers, grandfathers taking their grandchildren to breakfast. It was quaint and small town, and I loved it.

The food was good from what I could tell, and their devote customers led me to believe it’s well liked all around. I had the sausage gravy on toast with homefries on the side and an orange juice. The gravy was very richly flavored and the home fries were perfectly seasoned and cooked in onions.

Their service was lacking, but from what I can tell they were in need of more help and had a help wanted ad in the window, so I can only assume they were just short-staffed.

The decor was a mixture of children’s fairytales, local Gettysburg pride, and 1950’s toys. I had thought by the name of the restaurant it would be more of a coffee shop style, but it is definitely country kitchen.

In other news, I think my fathers leg is getting worse. I’ve convinced him to start going to the Wound Care center on Friday, which will be a regular thing for several months and put even more of a strain on our budget. I am going to try and get a picture of it later today so we can compare the before and after.

I’ll be very relieved when this moving mess is over with so he doesn’t put so much strain on it. The lack of circulation in his leg is what causes it because there’s no oxygen being carried to the skin and bacteria builds up in the wounds. In some ways I wish I could do that maggot treatment I read about where they clean out the bacteria from skin wounds like this.

But as I said, whatever he needs. I hope that the weekend after settlement we can get almost everything if not everything moved out of that trailer with extra help so it’s not this huge month long process of him unpacking during the day and me unpacking when I get home from work. He took the brunt of the move in July, I really don’t want that to happen again for October.

Tonight my Aunt and Uncle are taking us to a chinese buffet for dinner for dads birthday.