Yes, I am back from my brief blogging hiatus. Though it was against my original blogging instincts, I have decided to blog about my exciting life at home for the summer. Partly because some of my friends - assuming they read, or even know about, my blog - are in other states, and partly because I can’t think of anything else slightly interesting to write about.
I have been back home in Colorado for about a month now. During that time I got my second ACL surgery, and it was a real blasty. No one brought me recovery goodies except Abby’s beau, Blascoe, and my cousin Emily. What is up with that?? I remember being almost showered with food items last time! Maybe I used up my one recovery gift allowance with that. Oh well. Either way, I am back on my feet and walking well now. And without my knee brace most of the time! That thing is awful, and enormous. It goes from the top of my thigh to my ankle! And then when it gets warm it gets itchy. Needless to say, I try to avoid wearing it as much as possible. Surgery this time around has been a lot easier to recuperate from, which is because my surgeon used a tendon from a cadaver instead of taking part of my hamstring, which is what he did last time. But the downside to having it be my second ACL surgery is that I can’t play sports or ski for 9-12 months. Which is WAY longer than last time, which was 6 months. And this is seriously going to cut into my 2011-2012 ski season, which I have been extremely excited for. My ski buddies and I were planning on all getting passes to Snowbird so that we could actually all ski together without paying for extra lift tickets. But, if I get cleared to ski at 9 months, then I will be jumping in to the season in February. Which is about half way through. And the Snowbird pass is expensive (all Utah ski passes are WAY more expensive that Colorado passes. And the only real difference between the skiing is that I am like 2 hours closer. So not that much difference to warrant the cost being an extra $200), so I’m wondering if it will be worth it to even get one. Unless I configure my spring 2012 class schedule so that I can ski almost every day. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
My knee a few days after surgery, complete with the doctor's signature.
One of the few benefits to having knee surgery - I get to ride the motorized shopping carts!
Another benefit - crutches, a huge brace, and really attractive compression tights.
Also, my dad graciously found me a job this summer: flipping a house to re-sell with my sister and my cousins. Abby and I did this same thing two summers ago, and it was a pretty fun time. Even though it was still work. But this time, our house is in Northglenn. For those not familiar with the suburbs of northern Denver, including Thornton (where I live) and Broomfield (where I went to high school), Northglenn is the sketchiest of them all. It should not be a place. Northglenn High School? You bet, full of pregnant teenaged prostitutes and gang-banger wannabes. The neighborhood where our house is, however, recently had the good sense of instituting an HOA, despite being an old neighborhood. However, our house is the one bad house tainting the reputation and, no doubt, property value of the whole neighborhood. I think it was a crack/meth house. It is disgusting. I thought that the house I worked on before was bad, but no. This new house (we’ll refer to it as the Pecos House, because it is on Pecos Street and I will be working on two houses this summer) is way worse. It is filled to the brim with trash, and clothes, and godknowswhat from the owners, who were foreclosed on and then evicted by the police. While Tavia and I have been attempting to clean out the filth from this house we have found a number of interesting items, including (but not limited to): a steak bone in the living room, holes kicked or punched into almost all the walls and doors, a plethora of hair products all over the house, condom wrappers, used condoms, used tampons in the front room, spare tires in the basement, approximately 10-15 computer monitors, more swimsuits than any one person would ever need in their lifetime, credit and debit cards, cigarette butts, the deed of trust to the house, a car deed for the car that was left in the garage, a marriage license, and much much more. But the real icing on the cake that is this lovely house was found in the basement on Thursday: MAGGOTS IN THE CARPET. Yes, you read that correctly. In the basement, which we were already afraid of and smelled of cat piss (has anyone ever wondered what dog piss smells like? I only ever recognize the stench of cat piss), we found a bag of rotting something under which there was a colony of maggots. I almost vomited and added to the disgusting mess that is the Pecos House. So obviously I am in for a good time with this house. Oh, and I forgot to mention the backyard. There is a pool and a hot tub in the backyard, and it looks like it used to be really nice when the previous owners lived there and most likely kept the house in nice condition. Nonetheless, the people living in the house after that, who, as we can see, clearly had no idea how to clean, let the house and backyard become rundown. And now I am fully expecting to find a corpse of some sort in one of those bodies of water. I would not be surprised at all.
A small portion of the dozens of trash bags we removed from the house.
The one and only Pecos House! Notice the lack of a front window.
During our time working (which has not been very long so far, just a week), Tavia and I have done some investigative work on the people who lived in this crack house. So far, we have discovered that it was owned/leased/rented to Debra Vigil, whose maiden name was Woodbeck. She had 3 or 4 children (this is a bit fuzzy because we have found family pictures of Debra with 3 children, but have also found an abundance of baby items and clothing. Which leads us to believe that she recently had a child or one of her daughters did). The oldest of which was a boy named Roman, whose car was left in the garage. Debra worked for the US Postal Service. She was married at one time to Ernest Vigil. They divorced at some point (cause of the holes in the walls?), and then she married someone named John Boyletruck (or something like that). She smoked, a lot. She was getting busy a lot - if you know what I mean. She had a cat. She didn’t like to clean.
So far, working this summer has been.. scarring. It just makes me want to go home and throw things away, clean, vacuum, and scrub myself. When I am done with work each day I feel like a walking biohazard. Tavia and I have started giving ourselves quick Clorox wipe baths every time we leave the Pecos House for an extended period of time, so as not to contaminate the rest of the world. I seriously feel like I need to be wearing a hazmat suit while I am in the general vicinity of that house. But I guess it is a good lesson of how NOT to live. Just thinking of living in conditions like that sends shivers down my spine and makes me gag a little bit.
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