A Blog in the Attic

So, some of you may know that our landlord also happens to be my dad. It's totally awesome, 'cause he's a fabulous guy. We're currently in the process of buying the house from him and he's gone into a frenzy of fixing and such. He fixed the retractable awning on the front porch, modified it to withstand the sorts of wind we get around here, he added an awning on the ENORMOUS shed he built, fixed a loose step we had, restocked the water softener salt, replaced the batteries in the electronic lock on the side door, lowered the back walk so you don't trip over it anymore and it's easier to shovel in winter, moved the downspout so we don't get an ice rink in our driveway anymore and most recently, he added some flooring to our attic.

It's friggin' awesome! He had some old skids that were taking up space so he knocked 'em apart, ran him through a planer he's storing for someone else and Voila! an extra 200 sq ft of storage. Un-freaking-believable. I love that man so much!

I have always had a thing for attics. Attics figure strongly in my personal mythos. They figure strongly in my stories, too. There's something magical about them. They're hidden, secret. Full of memories and forgotten things. They're history you can climb into. Like an abandoned old factory, they're full of stories.

As I was putting things away up here, I came across a single Pirate boot. Man, does that scream 'story hook' or is it just me? Why is there only one boot? Who did it belong to? How did it get up here? Imagine if, in the toe of the boot, there was a gold coin or a broken compass! Stories galore!

So, in case you haven't guessed from the title, I'm sitting in my new attic blogging like a fiend and having the time of my life. Wireless Networking was totally the right way to go.

As I look around me I see some awesome Attic Stuff. On one end there's the picture I got when my Grandparent's died, a wonderful picture of two boys playing with a sailboat in a mill pond, with the waterwheel and an old mill in the background. I've always loved that picture. Anna's picture of Mousey is hanging up, as is my Groucho. We've got a couple of old suitcases, a stereo, a desktop Globe that's wonderfully out of date, a freaking LAVA LAMP (!!!) Boxes of books and stuff and - THE BEST - the light that I'm seeing these by is provided by an old pole lamp. A nasty 1970's horror that we dragged out of the basement when we renovated it, 3 dangling lamps with a sickly nicotine yellow glass cover, each about a foot long. My dad had it in the shed and finally found a use for it. He just stuck it through the trusses and was done. It's the only place I can think of this lamp ever suiting the decor in a positive way.

This is simply too much fun. Anna was up here for a while reading and keeping me company, but it got too chilly for her. Keep that in mind if you're ever visiting our attic. You'll need warm clothes, or at least a blanket. We've got to work on an easier way to get up here. Thinking maybe a permanent ladder in the linen closet.

This would be an awesome place to hide if you had to. We'll have to get an actual electrical outlet up here, too. Right now, we're running an extension cord into the office. Kind of cumbersome. Anywho, I'm almost out of battery and I'm starting to get chilly too, I don't want Herbert to catch a chill either. He's been kind enough to keep me company since Anna went back down. He's a good boy.

Buster Fixxitt,
in his New Attic.