houses

Encounters with Houses

Wednesday night Sinay and I helped finish the food and alcohol belonging to three Norwegian boys on their last night in Orlando. They were staying in a sprawling vacation home rental, with so many bedrooms that countless beds were left undisturbed. The decor was decidedly 'model home,' with a fully set dining table with accompanying wine glasses for a formal dinner that would never happen. The living room was very interiorly decorated and the wall-mounted TV was playing TV Land playing Gilligan's Island when we walked in. It was comical that what looked like the perfectly crafted nest of the species 'suburban housewife' was actually inhabited by a trio of rowdy drunken vikings. They blended pitcher after pitcher of raspberry and strawberry daquiris and poured ersatz Moscow Mules made with Canada Dry instead of ginger beer and we sat on the kitchen bar stools and talked about American tourists, theme parks, the way Disney calls everything 'magic,' Florida, Norway, and the funny way Danes talk. We swam in the pool outside as the sun gloriously set and we attempted to climb on the pool floaties, one of which was a big yellow duck which would inevitably flip over as soon as you claimed your throne. We put on diving masks and swam to the bottom of the deep end - a cavernous 5-foot descent. I asked about one boy's tattoo of an anchor and he said it's because anchors are stable and they keep the boat safe. There was something magical about the way that strangers from the internet could so easily be friends for a day.

Vana is currently catsitting a 21-year-old cat named Sneetches in a house on Lake Jessamine. Last night we went out on the town, running around a bunch of bars and eating late-night barbecue, and then we came back and I stayed in the guest room of this most beautiful little house which belongs to an interior designer from our work. Everything, from each piece of furniture to every piece of art or shelf object was a quirky, precious thing, like the mid-century-meets-The Jetsons armchairs and the dining table's big bowl of blown-glass ornaments and the paintings with the same cardinal printed out in different sizes and pasted all over them. The back of the house opens to the lake, with a small dock leading out to a tethered kayak. On Saturday we spent all day watching cooking shows, eating popsicles, and watching Sneetches tip over a glass of water.