We didn't travel anywhere far last weekend but we did manage to spend a night at an exotic, off-the-beaten path type of place that hadn't been used in any significant capacity in years. My house.
Yes, some two years and two months after signing a lease on my apartment when I first arrived here in Germany, I (with Gwen) have finally spent a night in the place. Odd, huh?
Many know the story - when we got here we found Gwen's place first, Gwen signed her lease first, and her stuff arrived first, and after all that we had a full home set up and by the time my furniture showed up from overseas there was a distinct why-even-bother feeling settling in regarding my place. When my worldly possessions finally did arrive, we arranged the basic elements, unpacked a little, moved a few necessities over to Gwen's and bam - we had a place for the both of us to live. My house was left in second place and after that went neglected. Then work started and Iraq loomed resulting in even less motivation to jump-start my house. Even when I got back, my aspirations to get the entire place up and running went astray as I focused exclusively on building up Man Room. For months afterward, and despite several Man Room operations trips, I had never spent a night at the house proper. Until last Saturday.
I had been meaning to do it for a while now - intending late spring/early summer - but laziness and a lack of reliable internet have kept me (and us) away from spending a night there. But with a few things hovering on the horizon, and especially with Christmas coming up and us planning for several guests to be in town at that time, I figured it was finally time to bite the bullet and make the place somewhat livable rather than just keep it as an over-sized storage place for all my stuff.
And again, its not that we hadn't been to the place, because we had. Since my return from Iraq Man Room (Tm) has seen much improvement, with a full-fledged home theater system installed, a PS3 and new laptop purchased, a giant couch purchased, and even more. Gwen and I have been watching movies over there for several months now. When we did go there, though it was like actually going to the theater. We'd drive there, get some food, sit and watch the movie, occasionally use the bathroom, and then leave, returning to Gwen's to actually sleep.
So while I dove into Man Room full-fledged, the rest of my estate (i.e the main building - Man Room is located in the guest house) was left to rot, unloved, not unlike Ron Dayne on a fantasy football waiver wire. Cob webs accumulated, old furniture sat with piles of old paper on them, and in a way it all resembled some sort of bizarre museum to my former life in Seattle. It always even depressed me a little when I walked through the place, thinking of all that stuff - such a part of my Seattle life - which wasn't even being used, touched, or even looked at. (Again the Ron Dayne analogy seems appropriate here. I will say this, however - at least my house didn't run into the back of it's own offensive line and fall down.)
But all that changed on Saturday when Gwen and I drove to the base and bought a few necessities (soaps, toiletries, air fresheners, groceries, etc) and went and made the place livable. We got there at about 3 pm or so on Saturday afternoon, spent a few hours sprucing it up and cleaning, running the dishwasher and the washing machine, and then we walked off to dinner in K-town and finally came back and spent the night in Man Room trying out the PS3 and futilely trying to master the vexing German internet (a story worthy of another post). After that we toyed with the idea of running around the house reenacting the scene from Teen Witch where Brad takes Lousie to that old house for a little romantic hide and go seek - but it didn't materialize. (The whole clip is gold, but the 2:00 to 5:00 mark is what's pertinent...)
Instead, we simply retired upstairs and actually spent a night in the place.
Will wonders never cease?
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