The Kindness of Friends and Neighbors
Now Playing: Gnarls Barkley's Necromancer
Topic: Personal Commentary
Wow.
My last post was way the hell back in June. And not late June. Nossir. June 16th!
Dang.
What a slacker I am. Right?
There've been extenuating circumstances. Allow me to explain...
On the morning of June 16th, the Wife and I sold our home, the house I grew up in, the house we bought several years ago from my mother. For the first time in more than 40 years a Head doesn't reside there.
For two hours we were homeless. That afternoon we bought a beautiful home on the other side of town far away from the monstrousity that is being constructed in the backyard of the house we sold. Some drama followed closing on which I will not elaborate here other than to say we had to lock out the former owners of our new property.
At the end of an EXHAUSTING and stressful day, our friends Mark and Libby came over to the new place bearing bags of BBQ, cookies, and beer. It was a welcome respite, an oasis of calm kindness in the desert of harshness the day had otherwise offered up. In front of the fireplace, we sat on the floor supping on the bounty provided.
On moving day, Rodger and Irene came by with Chinese food, beer, wine, roses (imaged to above), and frozen treats. They brought a wide sampling of entrees from the Asian restaurant around the corner. I am only exaggerating a little when I say they brought enough to feed the city of Beijing during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Seriously, we had left overs for three days. Great stuff!
Just as we were marveling at how wonderful our friends are, our new neighbor, Betsy, brought over a dinner of sub sandwiches the following day.
It seems a small thing, the provision of a meal, yet these simple acts enabled us to focus our energies on the many gargantuan tasks that were before us. The week of the move I can say that I worked harder than I have in ten years. Suzanne will tell you the same of herself. The thoughtfulness of these people astounds.
Awash in a sea of generousity we are.
My buddy Aaron offered to help us move. And he made that offer before he knew I was hiring movers! Amazing!
Mark offered to help out with anything up to and including hanging out at the house for repair people.
And Rodger allowed me to abuse our friendship not just once but twice hauling furntiture and what-all in his truck. In fact, he has earned himself an eternal place in this EvilBastard's heart. He did, after all, help me haul home my new grill.
That's me and the new grill hanging out by the pool. She's got a side burner pots, a chamber for propane grilling, a chamber for charcoal grilling, and a side fire box for smoking. She only took six hours to build. And this baby was worth every minute of it.
But I have digressed...
Last night to thank those who have been so good to us through the move, we had Mark and Libby and Rodger and Irene and Michael over for dinner. I put the new grill through her paces making beer-can-chicken, Elgin hot guts, and grilled scallops. We grilled vegetables and Suzanne made a wonderful summer berry cobbler served ala mode with a little Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla.
We ate and drank and told stories. We laughed. A lot. It was our first time to entertain in the new house. It was casual; it was fun; it was friends.
Really and truly, we have some terrific friends and have moved into a house with some fabulous neighbors whom I hope soon to call friends as well.
We are blessed by these people in our lives. We will be forever thankful for the kindness of friends and neighbors.
I am not; however, thankful for Time Warner Cable. An installation appointment was scheduled with the cable company the day after we moved to get all the TVs and webernets hooked up. They came out and everything was hunky-dorey. That night two of the cable boxes weren't working and the interweb had crashed. I called, and was told that a technician would be out between 10 and 2 (or something like that). I confirmed that appointment twice.
At 1:30 that afternoon when no technician had appeared, I called to learn that they had me on an all day appointment - meaning that my service guy may not arrive until late in the evening. The matter was corrected and I even received a credit on my account. I then received a phone call from TWC to inform that a tech was on his way.
And I received a call a few minutes later telling me the previous call was an error. There was no technician on the way. But soon. Soon.
Sometimes having the cable guy out is rather like trying to date a pretty girl. She says she'll meet you at the restaurant.
"When?" You ask, "What time?"
"Soon," She says. "Soon."
She never shows. You wind up seeing her driving around in some other dude's convertible.
The tech arrived some time after five and got most everything fixed with the exception of the cable and the internet. Yeah. That's right. Nothing was fixed. He blamed it on stuff out on the pole that someone else would have to repair.
The internet connection and our digital channels were up and down all the way until last Thursday. We've had a solid connection since. At church today, I asked blessings for my friends and neighbors and called down a plague of frogs on TWC.
We've got lots to do around the house. And I've got a lot to do here online. Blogs to write including a bit on the changes at Fear The Boot, more notes for This Empire Earth, gotta talk to Jake about some artwork, podcasts to record... Lots and lots to do...
And because I know you'll ask, the dogs groove to their new digs.
Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net
Posted by Aron Head
at 7:45 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, 6 July 2008 7:44 PM CDT
Act II of Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog posted today and, man, it is teh awesome!
If you enjoyed Buffy The Vampire Slayer's 
ARON:
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