Not good enough ...

While we are still waiting for The Money Pit to be finished (oh, the floors! The beautiful wooden floors! They're about the only thing right now that I know will be finished, *sob*), we are "slumming" it in housesitting the 2-story downtown villa of one of TBIK's sorta colleagues. Which means, basically, that, two months ago, we moved some of our boxes in, unpacked one or three, and let the rest that we're not going to need (cough cough) smoulder away, either in the house itself or in storage. Because, heck, come October, we will be in our new home and everything will be fine. Right?

Ahem. Not so much.

Our first contractors *way* overpromised and so far, have grandiously underdelivered, to the point where, yes, it's important to put the tiles on the bathroom wall so they stick, but two weeks for a tub surround, and not yet grouted? That's what the entire bathroom remodel should have taken, tub surround, floor, installation of "the facilities" and everything. After all, "approximately 2 weeks" was what it was bid for. Since tiling is a one-man job, the other contractor promised to bring in one or two more people to do the painting. Fine, we said. Only that the additional one or two people never showed up, not even after a schedule-based warning to him to get organized. Of course, the contractor himself was so colorblind he couldn't distinguish between white wall and mauve paint--and those kinds of stripes weren't planned. But enough of that. As of today, I have a third-finished bathroom, three painted ceilings, one room that needs to be redone, and four that still need to be painted. That move-in date of October 31? Fail.

Naturally, my sleep schedule and general stress level has peaked, to the point where the fingers on my right hand keep tingling whenever I do something. Hello, nervous system! Thanks (NOT!) for reminding me you're still there.

One of the things I have noticed about our corner of Indiana is that "good enough," or mediocrity, seems to be the standard here. Cheap insulation? "Good enough, will last you a few years." Processed hormone- and chemistry-laden food in Little Miss Kickboxer's pre-preschool? "Good enough based on the dollar-per-student budget." Even the much-touted education out here has to be "good enough." Businesses here compete on price, not on quality.

That said, overstatements and broken promises seem to be de rigeur here, as well, from Little Miss Kickboxer's pre-preschool director who promised fresh fruit at least once a day and is instead serving fruit cups no more than once a day, to the painting contractor referenced above, to the lousy cupcake bakery here in town, to the DSL company who took three weeks to insulate a telephone cable on our rental home to ... well, just about everything. Add to that cashiers and other businesspeople who bring their frustrations to work, and, whoa, WHY again did we move to the Midwest?

Oh, I forgot. The jobs. Yeah, that.

Do I miss California, then? Yes and no. I miss Little Miss Kickboxer's awesome daycare environment, in which she learned more in 2 months than she will learn here in 2 years. I miss friendly people who don't talk about you behind your back. I miss cheap, fresh organic vegetables and fruit, and a health-conscious culture and a beautiful animal-filled State Park surrounding us. What don't I miss? Looking that I don't get into a gang fight when driving through our little town in the dark. The outspoken Tea Partiers at the main intersection. The absence of cool coffeehouses, of a mid-size university, and of intellectual conversation. The fact that a third of TBIK's day was spent commuting to work. All that.

What I do miss, still, after almost 9 years, is Toadtunnel Toontown, with the perfect constellation of a large university, proximity to the state capital and lots of high-tech industry (aka paycheck), the best schools in California, and the sense of home. I will always, I fear, miss that little city that holds so much of my history and all of my heart.

Oh, and I miss TV. But that is a whole 'nother pair of shoes.