Up on Defenestration: a Literary Magazine Dedicated to Humor, is my instructional essay, not at all based upon a true story, How to Wash a Motorcycle: a Husband’s Guide.
In case you’re curious, here’s the definition of Defenestration:
1) a throwing of a person or thing out of a window
2) a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)
3) selling all of your motorcycles in order to buy one Harley.
A year ago, we took off on a day trip to see our 25th piece of land in two months. We’d seen property perched on bluffs. Property at the base of cliffs with a history of mudslides. Property halfway down precipices held up only by morning glory and blackberries. Property on flood plains. Property on bogs. Property on mud flats. Property on river sloughs.
Property that had been on the market for a while. Property no one else wanted.
Property that was cheap. For good reason. Sure, you take a chance that you’ll be rolled up in a mud Stromboli after the mountainside decides to go surfing, but isn’t life full of risks? Why, houses have slid into Puget Sound in the expensive burbs of nearby Magnolia and Bainbridge. The mansions of Queen Anne are being held up by walls of fimo. The well-traveled Highway 99 viaduct (which MIM takes to work every day) is held together by toothpaste and hi-tech bungee cords. Trendy downtown Seattle condos are built on a mudflat that will liquefy in the next earthquake. When I worked in a downtown office building and told my brother The Agitator about my earthquake-preparedness kit, his response was that I would not need a kit, but he would need a shovel in order to dig me out.
So why not get the same risk for a fraction of the price?Read More »
Straight-no-Chaser Mom 