A Slice of Orange

by
Marianne H. Donley

We bought a beautiful new house. . .in Pennsylvania. The move have been in the works for awhile, well over a year. But giving the housing market we were a little stunned when things actually worked out. Yet, finally on July 3, at 11:30 PM the movers left and we were officially in our new house.

That’s when we found out we bought a Blonde House . . . she’s lovely to look at but frankly not very intelligent.

First we noticed the windows in the bathrooms were not that practical. Long, beautiful pane windows with cute window toppers, they all have sills about two feet off the floor. Something we failed to notice until one of the neighbors waved when I walked into the downstairs bathroom. I quickly hung towels ups and vowed to get blinds first thing in the morning.

Then it was the washing machine –brand new, just hooked up days before. I watched the worker guys take the wrapping off and hand me the instruction booklets. Okay, it was plugged in. Dennis hooked up the water hoses and I stared my first load of laundry (the movers used our all our linens to pack dusty books from the garage). The machine took off walking, then running out of the laundry room and down the hall. We shut the thing off mid-cycle, rung out the sheets and went to look for a laundry mat. The next day, Dennis poured over the washer and figured out the packing screws and styrofoam hadn’t been removed.

The fridge had an ice maker in it, but no ice. Dennis pulled it out to see if they had “forgot” to hook up the water line. It was worse than that, there was no water line. So we have a refrigerator with an ice maker, but no way to use it. We decided a lot of stuff in this house were here just because they looked good, not because we could actually use them.

Our dishwasher confirmed that. Not only was it not attached to the counter, there was no outlet to plug the thing into. It looked really nice, though. So did the stainless steel sink until I did my first load of dishes by hand. Now it has a variety of little scratches all over the bottom. I suspect I wasn’t supposed to actually use the sink, but with no dishwasher . . .

I didn’t quite know what to make of the kitchen cupboards. I can’t tell you how beautiful they are, all different shapes and sizes, some with glass fronts. But very few of my dishes actually fit in the “different sizes” a glass here, pan there, but heck I have enough dishes to feed my extended family (and the OCC board). One plate per shelf didn’t get many dishes, put away. I had to finally throw out a bunch of plastic bowls that just didn’t fit anywhere.

We’re really in the county here. We have a well and a septic system. Unfortunately, according to the builder, Mr. Septic is very temperamental. How did builder guy put it? Mr. Septic doesn’t wish to deal with anything that hasn’t been digested first. No liquid from that left over chicken soup, that last drop of coffee or melted ice cream, unless of course, it had been processed by humans first. When I asked builder guy what I was supposed to do with left over chicken soup he suggested starting a compose heap. I quote: “If you cover your wet waste with lawn clippings you won’t have very many flies.” The dishwasher is to be used only once a day and the washing machine (when it’s not running down the hall) twice. I was mildly surprised we didn’t have a flushing schedule.

Then there is the other trash. This is an issue as we also don’t have trash pick up. Our township does have a free to residents dump, open every Tuesday and half day Saturday, but no green trash trucks rumbling around. They don’t accept lawn clippings or building material or old furniture.

Our office was the last surprise. The room is just stunning. It is spacious enough to hold all my bookcases, both my desk and Dennis’s. It has hardwood floors, wainscoting, crown molding and French doors. But no cable outlet. There are cable outlets in every bedroom, including two in the master and one in the garage, but not in the office where I want to work and access the Internet via a cable modem. I put all the books in the book cases and took them out again to check each wall twice. Because I just couldn’t believe there wasn’t an outlet in the office. We now have a modem and wireless router sitting on top of the TV set in the family room. It’s not exactly an elegant solution, but it’s way better than dial up.

I have to admit that we have a solarium (and just saying that is very cool!). I can sit in the solarium at dusk and watch the fireflies dance across the lawn. Those twenty or so minutes are just a bit magical. They make up for quite a few of our Blonde’s missing smarts.

Marianne H. Donley writes quirky murder mysteries fueled by her life as a mom and a teacher. She makes her home in Pennsylvania with her supportive husband Dennis and two lovable but bad dogs. Her grown children have respectfully asked her to use a pen name which she declined on the grounds that even if some of their more colorful misdeeds make it into her plots, who would know the books are fiction. Besides they weren’t exactly worried about publicly humiliating her while growing up.