My Exciting Summer, Part 2

Last week Scott came down from Idaho to visit me. It was really awesome to see him since it had been about 2 months since school had ended. Like I said earlier, Scott is from Idaho, Pocatello to be exact, and that means that he doesn’t live in a real city. So I had to show him what a real city, like Denver, is like. 

WARNING: The events I am about to disclose all happened, though the chronology may very likely be skewed. Sorry, my memory is awful.

    Our first adventure of his visit was forcing him to work at the Pecos House, which is a perfect representation of Northglenn. As always, it was a super time. Especially since the temperatures were in mid to high nineties and the house had no air conditioning. On Tuesday night we were supposed to go to a Matt and Kim concert with Abby, Annie, and some of their other friends. Unfortunately, I had babysat for my cousin Emily and her kids (particularly Ella) were sick with some sort of stomach flu. I got it Monday night/Tuesday morning and was sick all day. That day I discovered what is was like to be anorexic/bulimic. I didn’t eat anything all day since it was just going to be coming right back up. I also slept for like 8 hours and Scott was forced to hang out with my dad and Teagan. But point of the story, we didn’t go to the concert and I was bummed. 

    We went to the lake one day, and my aunt Heidi and uncle Kent practically forced Scott to wakeboard. Which he had never done before, though he water skis. Fortunately for his dignity, Scott got up on his 4th try and managed to stay up too! I also went tubing for the first time this summer, and it was awesome! Even though I flipped off the back and almost lost my bottoms. One day we also went white water rafting on Clear Creek, we had a big ol’ group. Abby, Annie, Nia, Tate, Kent, my dad, Scott, and myself. We were practically pro rafters - especially Abby and Annie, nobody fell out of the raft or anything! We then went to Biker Jim’s for lunch, and feasted on succulent fried mac and cheese and hot dogs. 

Abby, Annie, Scott, and I all on one raft with 2 other incompetent people in the front.

We're so pro!

    That night, Scott and I also went on an adventure to downtown Denver. I first took Scott to the enormous REI that Denver has to offer, his favorite store. I showed Scott the Denver Art Museum, but just the new wing. The old building is super boring, reserved only for field trips and extreme boredom. When we got back to my car in the lot, it wouldn’t start. Which was a ton of fun for Scott and me. Luckily, I we managed to flag down some other motorists who had parked in the same lot and they me a jump. We then continued our tour of Denver to the Cherry Creek Mall, because we all know there are no malls in Idaho and Scott had never seen one before. Luckily, my car started this time. Our last stop downtown was to the Mellow Mushroom, a fantastic little pizza joint that Abby and Annie introduced me to. It’s on the 16th Street Mall between Lawrence and Larimer, for those who wish to give it a visit. Not only is the pizza delicious, but it’s open late! More things need to be open until midnight or later. While at the Mushroom I managed to spill my drink not once, but twice. The waitress said something along the lines of “It’s okay, I’ve had way worse messes from the drunk people who come in here,” except I was completely sober. Thank you waitress for pointing out my clumsiness! As we were about to head home, my car gave me another scare and refused to start for a minute before yelling “psyche!” and starting. 

    At one point we also went to Boulder, which Scott was excited to see because he had been accepted and had been considering going to CU. We went down to the Pearl Street Mall because that’s always entertaining, with the street performers and whatnot. There was also a small art festival going on in Boulder that was partly on Pearl and partly in the 29th Street Mall. While we were walking around, I discovered that I was in the mood to shop - though Emily accurately pointed out that I am always in the mood to shop. But this mood resulted in me dragging Scott around to a number of stores including Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, BC Surf and Sport, Anthropologie, Sephora, Gap, and last but not least J. Crew. We called it an early night on our Boulder adventure and tie-dyed. 

    I also managed to drag Scott along to a number of family gatherings during the week he was here. Lunch with Grandma Shirley one day when we were working. Lunch with Bopa one day. Family dinner with Grandma Shirley, Grandpa Lee, Grandma Carol, and Grandpa Kirk. The lake with the family. My cousin Skip’s homecoming talk at church, and the “Picnic on the Patio” at Clarke and Jo’s afterwards where he really got immersed in Carlsons. 

In other news, I have started working on our second house for the summer, the Bellaire House. Thankfully, this house is a lot easier than the infamous Pecos House. It’s old and worn, but not gross and full of trash. Mostly what we have to do is revamping the kitchen - including tile, cabinets, and expanding the pantry - taking out some tile, replacing the carpet, some of the bathroom tile and vanities, and we’re converting the  office into a bedroom. Possibly some light yard work. Since I have been abandoned for the week, I coerced my mom into  working with me. I had her taking out the kitchen tile and she said that I was beating her up with the work. Now she knows what I do every day and why I never want to get up in the morning! 

Mom is ready to go with her giant sledge hammer!

 The office that we are converting into a bedroom.

And so am I with my demo saw and safety glasses!

 Front door and front porch.

Kitchen, with the tile that I made my mom take out.

Living room, with a fireplace ...And Teagan.

 Bathroom, so much better than the Pecos House, RIGHT??

 The storage room/laundry room. The only sketchy part of this house.

 The basement, complete with red shag carpet!

    I also made a pink lemonade cake. I got the recipe off Stumblr, where I get all my recipes. It was pretty good, even though it was just a modified mix. Basically all you do is make a white cake and throw in some pink lemonade drink mix and red food coloring.

This is a Picture Blog

Tonight Abby, Annie, Claire, Alex (AKA a bunch of Abby's friends who I am latching myself on to) and I went to the Denver Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival. And it was rad. All the art was really awesome, and there were a whole bunch of animal drawings that were worthy of being on Wildlife Wednesday shirts. Yeah, that good.

 Majestic Buffalo!

Abby, Claire, Annie and I looking super presh!

Also, I happened upon the camera that my dad used to take a plethora of pictures of the Pecos House before we started working on it. And after all of my ranting (which Abby and Annie say I do a lot on this blog) about how disgusting that house was, I feel it is necessary that these pictures be posted so that the true nature of this house can be revealed. Once you see these pictures, you will understand my pain. And my disgust. And my horror. And my emotional scarring. You will know why. You will understand.

 The front of the house.

 Before all the trees got cut down.

 The garage windows are boarded up.

 The pool that we are expecting to find a body in.

 The back of the house.

 The similarly eerie hot tub.

 The living room. Explosion in the fireplace?

 Hallway leading to the garage. Notice the hole in the wall. One of many.

 What I assume was the laundry room, though there is no evidence of machines.

 The bedroom we call "Roman's Room" due to writing on the walls.

 The 1998 Chevy Geo Tracker. AKA Annie's future car. It's pimpin'.

 The downstairs bathroom. Notice the hole in the door.

 The godforsaken basement.

 THE BAG. Under which we found the MAGGOTS.

 The kitchen.

The front room. That large piece of plywood used to be a window.

 The upstairs bathroom.

 The master bathroom and 1 of 2 closets full of clothes.

 A mattress and the second master closet full of clothes.

 The "Spray Paint Room" (I came up with some real original names guys).

 The "Baby's Room", which disturbingly had the most cigarette butts in it.

I know that was an ungodly amount of pictures. But I just thought the world needed to know why I went on that huge rant about the Pecos House, and how putrid it really is.

My Exciting Summer, Part 1

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.