I needed to travel on the interstate yesterday, and I found myself intentionally riding in the slow lane, trailing a semi with a shipping container on it. Traffic zipped by on the left of me, including a different shaped container truck, so I could compare, but I stayed there, barely topping sixty miles an hour, for about ten miles. I couldn't take my eyes off the container. I tried to decide how big it was, and I settled on around eight feet wide, ten feet tall, and twenty feet long. I'd like to say it was wider than that, but I just don't know. When I finally had to pass it, it didn't seem to be more than two carlengths (and I drive a petite car). I tried to imagine myself standing in it, with kitchen cabinets along one wall, or a dining room set. It was tough. The man and I both really want to build a shipping container house, but it's going to be a challenge to me to fit inside one, even if it's made from multiple containers. The idea is to arrange three of them in a U shape, and open them up to a central courtyard in the middle of the U. But those containers have to house a master suite, one or two guest rooms, a kitchen and a living area. Eight feet wide rooms are really snug, even if they have very large openings to the courtyard. Containers come in wider sizes, but how hard are they to get compared to the smaller ones? Maybe the more relevant question is, how do I convince the guy spending the money that the smaller versions are just not going to hack it? His nephew and his wife are currently building a tiny house, and while I think the tiny house movement is really cool, and I'd love to visit one, I do not think I would survive in one myself. For one, I don't think the nephew has any animals to get cabin fever cooped up in there with him and his wife, and two, they're very young and apparently are immune to the pack rat gene that some other members of that family had (including my man). I'm expecting to be compared to the young couple and their tiny house many, many times when work finally begins on our forever house. I suppose my answer will just be to turn and start counting noses of the little furry faces staring back at me.
I didn't mean to get the bug to move. I really didn't. I still want to spend more time here at the Park. Years more time, if I am to be honest. But that's part of the problem with having a gypsy heart. You just can't stay in one place very long. I think the longest I ever lived in one house in my entire life was seven years. The average has got to be less than three. Much like a philandering spouse lives for the conquest of new hearts, I live to decorate and arrange new houses. I don't care how sore I get painting walls, nor does it bother me that almost every piece of casual clothing I own has a paint smear on it somewhere, I love to do it. I practically shake with longing every single time I push my cart past the home goods section of Target. I get explosively happy when I actually cave in and buy a new set of sheets or a new pillow. And in the last fifteen years or so, my construction skills have improved exponentially. I want to learn how to do the wiring and the plumbing myself, to add to my framing, flooring, and drywall experience. There's just one fear I can't shake: what if we build the Forever House, and get tired of it four or five years later and want to move again?
I'm about ready to declare, after one and a half growing seasons, that I am a failure at Park maintenance. Wherever this container house ends up, I hope it's someplace where I don't have to mow very much. This large green space is too much for me. It is worse than last year, the big patch of grass that I let get so long it was impossible to mow all at once. I've had to call for help. My neighbor's son told me today he would come by with the riding mower this weekend. I'll wave a big white flag of surrender and start thinking of ways to express gratitude. (I'd offer to bake cookies or something appropriately neighborly, but he didn't seem all that enthused about my gluten free kitchen.) Since I didn't end up mowing today, I did try to go out with a big set of pruners and hack at the suckers on the crape myrtles and trim back the boxwoods. Just that little amount of work stressed out my arm muscles enough that for the rest of the evening, my forearms and hands shook wildly whenever I tried to raise anything, like a glass of icewater. I really am more suited to inside work. Bring on the shipping containers, and find me a couple wooded acres in the foothills. Let's do this thing.
A word on pictures. I tried to see whether I could take an interesting shot of my disco cat. Paying attention to the cat statue was not to be allowed. A certain white cat got very jealous, very quickly. I should have taken video of it, knowing how popular that Vine was last week, of a kitten attacking a cat statue. Live and learn.
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