The Bar B Ranch and the next adventure

I don’t know if it was the string of 90-degree days with no AC, or the unending wild raspberry bushes that multiply with rabbit-like intensity, or the $2700 well pump or maybe the racoons having a fuck-fest on the roof in February. It’s time to move on.

Honestly, it was time to leave the mountain area in 2009. After my first year as a reporter and living in an over/under duplex, I lived in the unit under the nymphomaic and her walking cowboy gland, I was ready to move back down the hill.

My plan was to get a PO box in Conifer and pretend to live up here all the while living in an apartment in Lakewood. I hadn’t told anyone my plan but somehow the bosses found out my plan and I had to stay. Either stay or go.

My job required me to live in the foothills area. It’s a wise requirement because ‘townies’ don’t get it. There’s a way of living up here, rules to follow. A way of life that until you live it, you don’t know about it. I know now.

Well, I’d done a year and learned about wood, snow, fire, animals and that ‘how the crow flies’ means you’ll have a long drive home. I was already over it.

The first night in the duplex in Pine, my friend, Drew stayed with me. I was scared of the pitch darkness, discombobulated by the new job, squeezing my life 3,000 square-foot life into 855 square feet and didn’t notice the huge bug on the carpet. I stepped on it and it flattened and squished up between my toes. I cried like a little girl.

I had this idealist dream when I sold my big, beautiful house in Highlands Ranch, letting go of so many beautiful things in my life, but I would become a photojournalist and somehow a simple almost nomadic lifestyle would soothe my wandering soul. I would be fulfilled. I would express myself through lens and light. Turns out I was insulted, criticized, ostracized and poor. As a photojournalist I’m used to criticism of what settings I used and my framing and use of light. This was different until one day the photo editor was riding me hard about why I hadn’t shot an image at f4, not f8 and proceeded to pontificate with all the whole newsroom in attendance. I told the photo editor to fuck off. I expected to be told to not let the door hit me in the ass on my way out but that didn’t happen, in fact no one seemed to really notice or care. But the criticism pretty much stopped.

The editorial criticism was even more harsh and cruel. I’m not a reporter – I wasn’t trained to be one but that was the job they hired me for. Oh, I could shoot my own images or give the budget to the photo editor, either way, they didn’t care.

I had a mentor who was teaching me a lot but a whopper told by a former teacher made my mentor distance himself, thinking that every woman is out for a sugar daddy.

Barring that help, a second ‘mentor’ was given to me. Every sentence: wrong. I was repeatedly told I was The Master of the split infinitive and the dangling participle. No helping, just harping.

I was trained, (LOL) to be a photojournalist. Stories of legend and lore don’t give you the skills you need to shoot basketball game under low light using strobes on a flash trigger.

I stayed at the job; I left the duplex. The neighbor that I nicknamed, “The Mattress” came down one day and told me she couldn’t live her best life with me living below her. I told her that Cowboy kicks her dog when she isn’t watching and that I could every word of their ‘sex-capades’ each night. Oooh, aaaahhh. Thump, thump, THUMP. She never spoke to me again.

I found this house during a detour over Shadow Mountain because Highway 73 had construction. I liked the area and I saw the for sale sign.

The place was a wreck. It was almost a perfect reflection of how I felt – delapitaded, ignored, and rode hard and put away wet.

I underbid the competition, big time. I was past caring. The Universe would take care of me! The asking price was $185,000. I came in at $135,000 and the bank accepted my offer.

I had no idea what was in store. Every other house I’ve had needed just a lick of paint and a new toilet. I can handle that.

From the moment I moved in, experiences presented themselves. Trying to keep warm was huge. The furnace ducts had apparently never been cleaned so I sneezed and coughed my way through that first winter which lasted September to May. Ducts have to be cleaned?

Wood was scarce and I didn’t know how to buy it or what kind to buy. Too wet? Too dry? What’s kindling? And I need newspaper? Oy.

It has been one learning experience after another. Flooring for instance. The hardwood floors were put in 13 years ago. One day I left mid-installation in the living room that was three-quarters of the way done. It was so noisy! I came back two hours later and found the living room boards had been pulled up and rendered useless because of an ‘error.’ My heart sank. And I still didn’t have baseboards.

I chose the wrong color paint outside. A dark brown with red trim on the windows. Red is notoriously difficult to work with. You don’t paint, you dab. Dab, dab, dab. Ever realize there’s no RED houses anywhere? There’s a reason for that.

But the front of the house looks nice. The back of the house has been fried by the sun and the dark color absorbs the summer sun and 100 degrees on the deck at 9 a.m. is not uncommon. The deck gets sun 365 days of the year. Of course the paint would fade.

Truth is back in 2010, I couldn’t afford to buy a house down the hill. A house in the mountains or an apartment in Lakewood? Phht, the choice was easy. I had energy to do most of the work. A headful of ideas, unwavering faith in my abilities and a group of good friends.

I soon ran out of energy and money. I had to leave the job at the paper because the pay was so bad and go back to a hospital job. Being a photojournalist making $12.50 and hour? That’s a bachelor’s degree. Being a secretary at a hospital making three times that? A high school diploma. The only downside is you can’t tell someone to fuck off without a little bit of paperwork and a sit down with an incompetent human resource person.

So now, the walls are painted, the floors are fixed, there’s a new well pump and the property is mitigated. There’s a new driveway, woodshed, kitchen and bathroom.

I know whoever gets this place next will find plenty of things to change. It’s that way with every house. It’s not anything to take personally. There are things here that I judge the original builders with no mercy for their choices. Why, in the blue fuck, did they build the house up against the south boundary of the property? Always build a house in the middle of the property. There’s more control when you can’t relying on your neighbor to be a good people and do their part in mitigation.

And that clothing rod in the closet. It has hooks to hold it up but the bar doesn’t extend down that far. WTF.

So, soon the listing will go up, lookee-loos will parade through the house, more concerned about what’s in drawers than the solid bones of a well-built house. They’ll bicker about this and that, want concessions, blah, blah, blah. But selling a house sometimes misses the mark. Being a lookee-loo, well it’s the real estate equivalent of how a tequila margarita is just gussying up an ugly woman in an appealing dress.

There’ll be an offer made, I’ll accept it and I’ll have to decide where to go.

Most of my furniture is going to Habitat for Humanity. My yarn is coming with me, not a single skein will be left behind.

I’m conflicted and sad. I vacillate between being OK with going and stubbornly deciding to stay. Truth is, the money only goes so far with home improvement. At some point you have to put it towards something else.

There is one thing – I still don’t have baseboards.