constance: (travel.)
constance ([personal profile] constance) wrote2007-11-03 06:41 pm

In the hizzouse

I've been house-sitting for my parents for the past couple of weeks (they're on a 40th-anniversary cruise). They're coming back on Thursday night, and I'll be glad, glad to see them again; it'll be so nice to be back in my own house again, with my own pets and my own routine.

I shouldn't really complain about spending two weeks in a modern house with wireless internet, cable television, free food, a couple of beautifully-behaved dogs to show mine how it's done, and a fenced yard for everyone to play in, should I? And those things have been great. But. My mother's style is very different from mine, much heavier and more formal, and incidentally more cluttered, and I am starting to feel claustrophobic in a house twice the size of my own.

And God, the dogs only make it worse: three big dogs in a house with very little open space feels like a veritable animal flood. Plus, it's twenty miles from my work, whereas my house is like two miles away from work, and running back and forth, their house to my house (one does like to make sure one's last surviving cat is fed and happy and, you know, not missing or dead) to work and back again, and I've put five hundred miles on my car while I've been here, on a car which took me ten months to get to four thousand miles. Two houses of pets, two houses of mail, two houses to make sure are not burning to the ground. It is way too much responsibility for responsibility-phobic me, and besides, I just miss my shabby hand-me down house and my shabby hand-me-down life. I wasn't cut out for the new hotness. I admit it.

Oh, I forgot about the bed, though. Their bed is almost enough to make everything else all right. It's a king-size soft-sided waterbed with a memory foam cover, and it's like nothing I've ever slept on before. It's like sleeping on a cloud supported by rainbows, my friends, and I like sleeping as much as the next person, even on an ordinary, non-rainbow-cloud mattress, but this thing makes sleeping more of an event than a life necessity.

Okay, maybe I'll be sorry to see them get back, after all. A little.

[identity profile] laurelwood.livejournal.com 2007-11-04 01:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I can totally understand the concept of feeling claustrophobic in a house that's decorated/populated with stuff in a way that's very different from your own. My parents' respective houses don't do that to me, but my OWN does when it's decorated for Christmas. Wrong colors, wrong amount of surfaces covered, etc. It always feels like a mental massage to put it all away come Dec. 26th.

That bed sounds amazing! And 500 miles on your car? I'm hoping your parents bring you home one heck of a souvenir.

[identity profile] tofty.livejournal.com 2007-11-04 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
That's one of the things I love about being single, actually: being able to decorate for Christmas in a way that doesn't make me uncomfortable or feel over-the-top. Or, for that matter, being able to not decorate at all, if my plans aren't suited to it.

My parents had better bring me some fabulous souvenirs! >:O My request for a lamp shaped like the leaning tower of Pisa has been denied, but I do have some little collections -- nice pens, bookmarks -- that would be easy to pack, and I'm hoping they'll just stock me right up.

[identity profile] tilney.livejournal.com 2007-11-04 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
king-size soft-sided waterbed with a memory foam cover

I'm surprised you get out of bed AT ALL, nevermind all the driving around. AND lose weight. I am in thrall and congratulate you wholeheartedly :D.

[identity profile] tofty.livejournal.com 2007-11-04 06:10 pm (UTC)(link)
It is all about the self-discipline, baby. It's only taken me thrity-plus years to develop any, and I still haven't stopped being surprised myself. :D

I do tend to go to bed earlier, here, though, just to luxuriate.

[identity profile] tilney.livejournal.com 2007-11-05 09:55 am (UTC)(link)
... heee heee. Having waited twenty five years I think I may give it a couple more to develop. That's lovely though, I'm happy you're making so much progress!

No wonder :). Are you being joined by any of the fauna?

[identity profile] tofty.livejournal.com 2007-11-05 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
The dogs tend to puddle around the bed rather than in it. (My parents' dogs aren't allowed in bed, and though mine is allowed at home, I thought it best just to enforce the no-dogs-in-bed rule.)