Lions, Green Lights and A Suburban Desert Oasis
I am going to date myself, although I do not recall, my mother tells me she was quite excited about Sesame Street when it first came out. I was about one year old when SS was first aired. I know I liked watching it, and there were a couple of things I particularly enjoyed. One of those was the part where they do “Which One of These Things Is Not Like the Other,” song. I recall I would get totally into the whole thing picking out the thing that did not belong.
I live in a nice little neighborhood and it is the epitome of suburban America. Our floor plan is one of about five different plans in the neighborhood, so without too much elaboration, all the houses look alike. If one of my neighbors were totally lit, I could not get pissed (well I could and probably would, but this is an analogy) if they walked in on Mimi and I getting it on in the living room one night because one house looks almost like the other. So you, who live in suburban America, know what I am talking about. You also know, that most builders only provide you a few designs because that makes it cheaper to build. And… most neighborhoods like mine have covenants that prevent people from building a house that does not look the same. This is a good thing because we do not want someone to build a $700k next to your modest $150k house. I have learned there are several neighborhoods in the area that just must not have such covenant clauses.
Thankfully, Mimi had simmered down from an issue we had this morning. Normally I wouldn’t mention this, but she has mad a blog entry bitching about this issue. In general, I will only say, there are two sides and I am not getting into a pissing contest with my wife, especially lobbing shit across blogs. So the point is, by having some time and by writing down her frustrations, she was my happy glowing wife again upon waking from my crappy daytime slumber. And being in a good mood we talked about a number of things while she finished preparing dinner.
The one thing she did touch on was how our son went to a friend’s house for an end of the school year party. She took our son over and the house was just awful she told me. It was plain ugly. The house stucco as well, but that is another issue. So how ugly could this house be? Well, she was going on about the gaudiness of the house in general, and she kept on about the lions when you drove into the driveway. Now me being a guy, I am thinking, so these people may be a bit ostentatious, but how ugly could this house be? Our son has another friend who lives in the same neighborhood and he lives in a house that is also just a bit ostentatious. The thing about that house is as you look around the neighborhood, one can see it does not belong. It too, is a stucco house that is built in an art deco manner, and truly should have been built in Miami. More so, what I found I did not like about the house is that it is built in a very cheap manner. Meaning where your columns should have been built with concrete or thick wood and filled with concrete, they are made of flimsy wood. Tapping the columns they sound cheap and hollow. But hey… who am I to talk, I have a much less expansive house than this particular house.
Since Mimi took our son to the party, I went to pick him up. She explained it was down the street from Sean’s house, and I went straight to the mark. Mimi did not bullshit me on this one! From down the street (bear in mind it is quite dark) I saw these green lights hovering in the darkness, as I got closer I saw these lights were mounted on pillars on either side of this wide driveway. As I got up on top of the driveway, in the glow of green lights what did I see? LIONS!. I am like holy shit, WTF is this all about, I peer down across the string lighted fountain in the middle of the circular driveway and perched at the steps of this place were two more lions and at the door guarding either side of the door were two more lions. I found myself in disbelief. Sesame Street came back to me, how could this shit happen? I mean I drove in and saw all these nice brick traditional houses and here I am driving up on this monster house made of PINK stucco with green lights in the driveway, string light circling this pond and LIONS! I am thinking I would have something done to these people by the association or I would have created some group to do annoying things to these people to make them leave or something, this house is just not right AND IT DOES NOT BELONG!
So from the outside, this pink monstrosity is huge. It is three stories, and has I swear looking from the outside a 90 foot ceiling in the foyer. Please understand if I were in some neighborhood in Florida surrounded by million dollar pastel homes, I don’t think I would have thought twice about this house, but a 90 ceiling foyer in a neighborhood that is mainly comprised of five or six bedroom brick houses is just freakishly wrong. Instead of going to the door, I heard the kids in back, and proceeded around the house and down a slope where I found the kids in a swimming pool and what I swear is a re-creation of a backyard owned by a wealthy Arab in Saudi Arabia.
It is hard to describe this unless you have seen something like this in person or in pictures, but they had desert palms planted around this pool with an attached spa, a waterfall, and a spillover for the pool water which is designed like a waterfall as well. There was an elaborate outdoor sitting area with fans and a huge outdoor kitchen and grill all covered and painted white. The tiling and design and decoration, yes more fucking lions, gave this feeling as if one could have been in the effing desert, even though there are pine trees all around.
My son got his stuff together and we left after thanking his host and hostess. Driving home, my son says to me, “Dad, do you think that house was ugly? Mom said it was…?” I had a hard time with this because yeah this house is fugly, but do I tell my son, hey your buddy’s house is fugly? I told him, “yeah… your mom thinks so, and I would agree because I just don’t think it belongs.”
I live in a nice little neighborhood and it is the epitome of suburban America. Our floor plan is one of about five different plans in the neighborhood, so without too much elaboration, all the houses look alike. If one of my neighbors were totally lit, I could not get pissed (well I could and probably would, but this is an analogy) if they walked in on Mimi and I getting it on in the living room one night because one house looks almost like the other. So you, who live in suburban America, know what I am talking about. You also know, that most builders only provide you a few designs because that makes it cheaper to build. And… most neighborhoods like mine have covenants that prevent people from building a house that does not look the same. This is a good thing because we do not want someone to build a $700k next to your modest $150k house. I have learned there are several neighborhoods in the area that just must not have such covenant clauses.
Thankfully, Mimi had simmered down from an issue we had this morning. Normally I wouldn’t mention this, but she has mad a blog entry bitching about this issue. In general, I will only say, there are two sides and I am not getting into a pissing contest with my wife, especially lobbing shit across blogs. So the point is, by having some time and by writing down her frustrations, she was my happy glowing wife again upon waking from my crappy daytime slumber. And being in a good mood we talked about a number of things while she finished preparing dinner.
The one thing she did touch on was how our son went to a friend’s house for an end of the school year party. She took our son over and the house was just awful she told me. It was plain ugly. The house stucco as well, but that is another issue. So how ugly could this house be? Well, she was going on about the gaudiness of the house in general, and she kept on about the lions when you drove into the driveway. Now me being a guy, I am thinking, so these people may be a bit ostentatious, but how ugly could this house be? Our son has another friend who lives in the same neighborhood and he lives in a house that is also just a bit ostentatious. The thing about that house is as you look around the neighborhood, one can see it does not belong. It too, is a stucco house that is built in an art deco manner, and truly should have been built in Miami. More so, what I found I did not like about the house is that it is built in a very cheap manner. Meaning where your columns should have been built with concrete or thick wood and filled with concrete, they are made of flimsy wood. Tapping the columns they sound cheap and hollow. But hey… who am I to talk, I have a much less expansive house than this particular house.
Since Mimi took our son to the party, I went to pick him up. She explained it was down the street from Sean’s house, and I went straight to the mark. Mimi did not bullshit me on this one! From down the street (bear in mind it is quite dark) I saw these green lights hovering in the darkness, as I got closer I saw these lights were mounted on pillars on either side of this wide driveway. As I got up on top of the driveway, in the glow of green lights what did I see? LIONS!. I am like holy shit, WTF is this all about, I peer down across the string lighted fountain in the middle of the circular driveway and perched at the steps of this place were two more lions and at the door guarding either side of the door were two more lions. I found myself in disbelief. Sesame Street came back to me, how could this shit happen? I mean I drove in and saw all these nice brick traditional houses and here I am driving up on this monster house made of PINK stucco with green lights in the driveway, string light circling this pond and LIONS! I am thinking I would have something done to these people by the association or I would have created some group to do annoying things to these people to make them leave or something, this house is just not right AND IT DOES NOT BELONG!
So from the outside, this pink monstrosity is huge. It is three stories, and has I swear looking from the outside a 90 foot ceiling in the foyer. Please understand if I were in some neighborhood in Florida surrounded by million dollar pastel homes, I don’t think I would have thought twice about this house, but a 90 ceiling foyer in a neighborhood that is mainly comprised of five or six bedroom brick houses is just freakishly wrong. Instead of going to the door, I heard the kids in back, and proceeded around the house and down a slope where I found the kids in a swimming pool and what I swear is a re-creation of a backyard owned by a wealthy Arab in Saudi Arabia.
It is hard to describe this unless you have seen something like this in person or in pictures, but they had desert palms planted around this pool with an attached spa, a waterfall, and a spillover for the pool water which is designed like a waterfall as well. There was an elaborate outdoor sitting area with fans and a huge outdoor kitchen and grill all covered and painted white. The tiling and design and decoration, yes more fucking lions, gave this feeling as if one could have been in the effing desert, even though there are pine trees all around.
My son got his stuff together and we left after thanking his host and hostess. Driving home, my son says to me, “Dad, do you think that house was ugly? Mom said it was…?” I had a hard time with this because yeah this house is fugly, but do I tell my son, hey your buddy’s house is fugly? I told him, “yeah… your mom thinks so, and I would agree because I just don’t think it belongs.”
posted by Just Call Me Jay at 9:00 AM
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