Well, kind of in the literal sense, and kind of not. On Christmas Day, I was spacing out and I noticed something unusual on the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a crack...In fact, a pretty long one. I am not sure how long the crack has been there. It could be new, it might've been forming over the course of several years. But what I do know is that it's a bad sign.

Our house is not new, that is for sure. My mother says it was built in 1945. It was remodeled once, but that wasn't recent, and it wasn't us who remodeled it anyway. My dad says the insides of the house are getting ruined and sometime we're going to have to either move out or redo our house from scratch. I hope that won't happen, but you can't prevent the inevitable; fate works in strange ways. When I mentioned the crack to my parents, my dad said it would probably be okay (at least for now) while my mother said, "Okay, let's remodel the house now." I don't want to move away (unless it would be to some far, exotic place like Australia, or France, or Italy, or the Hawaiian islands) and I don't want to tear down my house...But now that I think of it, that would give me a good opportunity to try apartment living. I've been wanting to live in apartment because I figure it would be interesting, and it would be good to have neighbors close by and a swimming pool that can easily be accessed. I really don't understand why people always want to buy a house so badly. Is it wanting to call something your own? Or do you just want some privacy?

Recently, my dad told me about the difference between the way houses are built. There are slab houses and houses with crawl space. If your house is a slab house, then it is built directly on top of a concrete foundation. The pipes and other things are in the concrete. If your house has crawl space, then there is some space between a foundation and the house. The space is called "crawl space" because if your pipes break or something, you can crawl under the house to fix them. If you have a slab house, then there is no crawl space, so you're in big trouble if your pipes break - you'll have to blow up the concrete. But if you do have crawl space, then you run the risk of termites. My house, in fact, probably has termites.

My mom and dad both watched a Chinese drama. In the drama, a couple wanted to buy a house. They don't have much money, so the wife asked her husband to borrow money from his parents. But the husband didn't want to do that since his parents are poor and he would feel guilty. His wife grew angry, saying she was tired of him making excuses about his family. They already had to take out a loan for a large amount of money that had a high interest rate, and the down payments took the help of neighbors and friends. My mom complained, "Why do they want to buy a house when they really can't afford it?" Why indeed.

On Christmas Day, I visited my parents' friends' house. My parents' friends' son is visiting (he lives in Seattle) and he brought his dog along with him. His dog is a Shetland sheepdog, I believe (at least partially, maybe he is mixed with some other breeds). The dog looks quite different from the last time I saw him. He seems to be bigger and has a lot of hair, even though my parents' friends insist he was already like that. This time the dog was a lot friendlier to me than last time. (Or maybe I'm better at dealing with dogs now. When I was in Australia, I got to interact with my mom's friend's dog...) He watched me whenever I tried to eat something (of course, animals find human food to be MUCH tastier) and let me pet him and even tried to lick me. (I really don't understand why a dog would want to lick you, not that I really mind or anything, but it's not like I taste good....DO I?!)

My mom was reading the newspaper (in Chinese) and there were some pictures of some objects. I guess it was some recommendations of things to buy. There was lipstick that has seven colors you can use...Isn't that like one of those pens with many colors? Wow. The most interesting thing, though, was the key hider. It was supposed to look like a sprinkler on your lawn or one of those outdoor lights. Actually, you can put your keys in them, so if you forgot your keys, you could have a spare key outside. But I think that's dangerous. Any ill-minded person who reads that newspaper article will know where to look for someone's keys and would be able to break into your house...

Labels: apartment, chinese, crack, crawl space, disguise, dog, drama, food, house, key hider, lick, lipstick, money, moving, newspaper, old, risk, shetland sheepdog, slab house, termites

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