Hand Me Downs

If it weren’t for hand-me-downs, my cute little “Tree House” condo would have nothing more than paint, poorly laid tile and my laptop. Tonight, I’m scrubbing down the latest addition to my hand-me-down collection, a king size bed. Nothing else, just the bed. Anything is better than that deflating air mattress I have been camping out on since my return home months ago.

Just less than one year ago, I did have a mattress and an apartment full of useful things, like tables, chairs, lamps and kitchen utensils. That was before I thought the deal on the condo was a sure thing. That was before I sold, donated or junked all contents of my home and left the country. My plan was never to come back. Not to the States, not to Florida and certainly not to 105 Royal Park Dr, Apartment 2E. The night before leaving for Morocco, an ex-boyfriend called and was in a pinch, he needed a place to stay. I mailed the key for him to a mutual friend, “You can stay there until the papers are signed or the property forecloses. Sorry, there’s nothing in there but dust bunnies. Enjoy!” When my relocation turned into a vacation and I came back to 105 2E, I was fortunate enough that my “tenant,” left behind an air mattress, a coffee mug and a 2 quart sauce pan. Good thing I never minded camping.

Considering its history, this king size bed is in manageable shape. It came from my girlfriend’s bungalow. Her ex-husband just returned the king mattress she left in his house, so now I am the proud owner of the bed that was once hers. She had it for only a few weeks, because before that – it was at Mango Rob’s house, a Fort Lauderdale landmark nicknamed the “Urban Hostel for Wayward International Wanderers.” We call him Mango Rob and his home the Mango House because any given day in the summer, you can gather 200 mangos, easily, from his property and trees. Mango Rob has lost track identifying all who have lived with him over the years and he swears that I was one of them. I am one of the few wanderers who have not. Yet. Wouldn’t that be an ironic resting place for this bed? And there is a chance it could still return to the nearly famous, always hopping, Mango House “estate.” We have talked about it more than once.

“Sooooo, Tara Shea, what’s going on with your apartment?” (that has been an ongoing question for …..well, longer than I care to admit). “I dunno, maybe I’ll just leave the keys on the counter and walk away from it all,” I jest. Sorta. “I still need a house-mate and fast,” he enunciates his words, “I’m leaving again in a few weeks and don’t know when I’ll be back. Really cheap re-ent,” he sings as a last temptation. Mango Rob no longer calls Fort Lauderdale home, it is his hometown, but home is now in Manila,or someplace in the Philippines. He has some golf company he invented that is thriving there and wants to make sure he has reliable tenants before returning to his new home across the pond. “Mango,” I take a deep breath, “it could be next week, or next year. Or maybe some unknown benefactor of mine will drop dead leaving me a fortune and I can save the Tree House. I’ll let you know as soon as I know. In the meantime, you can’t beat the rent I’m paying.”

My condo/Tree House, sits in a quiet, gated community. Except for when the trains scream by, then it can get embarrassing, especially while on the phone with a client. Must sound like I’m living on the tracks in the ghetto from their end. This place has been a refuge from my “pioneering” days in a less desirable part of town. Investors were speculating that property in Progresso Park was going to be the new Wilton Manors, it only needed a couple more years for transition. My residency in that fruitless investment lasted only a year and a half. I’ll take the rumble of the train tracks blowing into my open apartment versus barred and barricaded windows any night. From my sliding glass door, the Tree House overlooks a canal that surrounds the apartment complex, on the other side is John Easterlin Park. It’s a lush county park, that was even more robust before hurricane Wilma. Despite the park’s loss of green, my back yard is home to fish, turtles, blue herons, white egrets, mischievous raccoons and tons of iguanas. I wasn’t living in 2E yet when Wilma ripped through here, but the neighbors say that John Easterlin’s foliage completely buffered the sounds of passing trains and traffic from the I-95 overpass. While looking for a (safer) place to live, I cockily informed my agent, who at the time was also my investment partner, “Don’t even bother showing me places west of I-95. I don’t live west of I-95 unless it’s also west of the Mississippi.” Three weeks after moving into my new Tree House, I’m heading east to run some errands and finally take notice of the overpass. Calculating the map in my head, I ask myself, “Wonder…. what that… is for….DAMN!” Of course, it could only be 95. That was not the first or last time Daniel Howards “yeah, yeah’d” me.

Even though I’m technically west of I-95, I love my Tree House, this is my little piece of solitude. Sometimes, too much solitude. It’s off the beaten path and nobody can just “swing by.” Three and half years ago, I moved in here with the intention of a house-warming/never-gonna-get-married party. That has yet to happen. Instead, 16 months after moving in, I had a Pizza, Painting, Potion Party. It was my birthday and I wanted these gawd awful beige walls with the 1980’s something, white stripes covered. So I bought a bunch of pizzas and paint, brewed this Ayurvedic concoction that is known to give a good buzz and invited all my friends to help. In two days, my living room was two-toned, perky green and my kitchen a very sunny, almost obnoxious yellow. It’s so freakin happy and took some getting used to. Now, over two years later, I still have yet to finish the base boards. At this point, though, I never know how much longer I will be here, so I hesitate to put effort or money into the condo.

The first project ever done was removal of the popcorn. What an icky job. But now my cement ceilings are smooth as a baby’s butt. And I love waking up to the turquoise blue ceiling in my bedroom. Below the dreamy ceiling are chocolate brown walls; the darkest brown I could get and still have low VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) in the paint. All the paint I have used is low VOC. There is so much I want to do here and just as much that needs to be done. The garbage disposal took a dump and has started to separate from the sink. I have a bucket in place to catch the constant leak. A copper (yessss, copper) pipe leading to the dishwasher snapped and I had to close the line. Why? Because getting started on that project I realized someone who knows just enough plumbing to be dangerous made a big confusing mess of ALL the plumbing under my sinks. The air conditioning is gurgling and showing signs of leakage, all the windows and doors need to be replaced, there’s no window treatments on the sliding glass doors that takes all your body weight to open, the tile in the bathroom is falling off, the tub faucet runs hot on the cold and cold on the hot and is nearly impossible to manage with slippery, soapy hands…. I could continue and even throw in a bit of a whine, but that’s not gonna get things done. Instead, I’ll just camp out here on my newly freshened and protection sealed, hand-me-down, king size mattress and sleep in the bed I made until circumstances change. And it has to change. It can’t go on like this for much longer.