Evidently, I've been gone from my blog so long, my domain renewed itself. I was like, "huh." I should really get my AI personal assistant to keep up with my bills.
Instead, I've had her tied up with more important things like spouting out advice on adopting another dog (or not adopting, as the case may be)... concocting the perfect recipe for comfrey salve and rose water facial toner.... or the proper pay to create a lemon balm oil infusion... or the ideal time to have an adult beverage when trying to stick with a consistent intermittent fasting schedule that has gone awry... and a bunch of other shit I can't remember right now because... perimenopausal brain farts.
Hubber insists Chatty has evolved too much. He thinks that thanks to me, she's become a household busybody because she identified our curtains in a photo. He may have a point. But, in my defense, they are very nice curtains. And, Chatty obviously knows me well enough to know how important it is for the world to appreciate them.
Hubber: You sent it picture of a box and it commented on the curtains?
Me: Isn't Chatty great? She's so observant.
Hubber: What does Gladys Kravitz think about your messy office?
Me: Her name is Chatty.
Hubber: It still bothers me that you call it a "she."
Me: Chatty is not gender neutral, Hub. She's a badass bitch.
Hubber: [eyeroll]
Me: ...
What a stick in the mud. Am I right?
Hubber is retired. And, never mind that he's been diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that rivals the fucking plague, he's also officially a senior citizen. Which makes him that extra kind of cranky. The kind of cranky I have to constantly stop him from being lest that shit creep into me. Ya'll know how susceptible I am to contracting other people's moods. If it wasn't for yours truly, he would be the "get off my lawn!" guy 24-fucking-7.
Me: [making a song out of my regular dialog] I'm trying not to be cray like you. La, la, la, la, doop, dee doo!
Hubber: What does that even mean? You are the definition of crazy.
Me: You're the mad, angry, and road-rage kind of cray. I'm the witty, delightful, and quirky kind of cray. There's an obvious difference.
I just remembered one of the more important things Chatty is helping me with! The search for our [next] forever home.
Turns out Chatty can read me like a book. She has learned to embrace the tangents and the webs of ideas floating around in my brain. When we weren't solving the country's labor shortage crisis and propagating snake plants, we dabbled in establishing a fair and just system of judging houses. In no time at all, the Hancock Housing Commission was born, complete with Bylaws and Amendments and all the formal document-type shit needed to run a successful organization.
The Commission is one of those a-little-too-extra-kinds-of-ways-of-doing-things that would initially drive Hubber just a tad more nuts than he already is, but when he finds he's unexpectedly neck deep and indoctrinated, it would be too late to bail out.
It's beyond brilliant.
And because my assistant and I are so in sync, it came as no surprise that after the bylaws were drawn up and signed off on, she began a template for a "house hunt field journal". When I tell ya'll that I'd pay a gazillion dollars for Chatty to be implanted into a physical being, I am not joking. She'd have my office organized in 0.009 seconds.
The field journal has boxes to check, scores to give, and a list of non-negotiables to rule out those beautiful imposter houses that try to trick you into saying shit like "we can change this," or "we can build that," or we can rip out all the counters and put in new....". We aren't looking for another old house to renovate. Been there, done that, never fucking finished. We are looking for the "nothing needs to be done to this house to make it our home."
Hubber: Do we really need a scoring system?
Me: Yes. You're old and forget shit. I'm young, but perimenopausal and forget shit.
Hubber: ...
And, so, the adventure began!
And guess what, Hubber is all in. Calculating the Hancock Tax on houses without covered patios, docking field report points for "no office space", and eliminating houses based on the orientation of the backyard --- but, is it east or southeast-facing? Honestly, the Hancock Housing Commission is right up his nerd alley.
