GuateJenniMalaFer: From rags to riches...or...HOLY CRAP! Check out the new house!

Courtyard with fountain... Stairs lead up to the giant guest room.

Yep, we've moved. And like the Jefferson's on TV, we've moved on up. WAAAAY UP. Not to a deee-lux apartment on the West Side, but to a bad-ass house in a place called Panorama.

Here's the situation. The lady who owns the house wanted to move back to San Francisco. The house is for sale and she needed someone to stay here and look after her dog and cat. So, here we are -- living in a quirky house with a nice dog named Ailsa Craig (named after an island in Scotland) and a very vocal cat named Squitten. Did I mention the gal who owns the place is a tad bit...ooooh, what would you call it... ECCENTRIC? (Other words come to mind, but this was the most fitting.) And damn, wouldn't you know it -- two days after we moved in we got an email from her saying she got an offer on the house. DAMN DAMN DAMN! Well, we will enjoy it while we can.

This house is AWWWWWWESOME. For those of you who have been amusing yourselves by reading about the death trap known as the CRAPartment (complete with a light switch INSIDE the shower), you will be happy to know we are safe and sound in a little nugget of Guatemalan heaven.

We have a garden.
We have a courtyard with a fountain.
We have a garage.
We have a washer AND a dryer. (Which we will never use because it will kill our electric bill and that is why everyone here hangs their clothes out to dry. At first, it really sucked, but I'm getting really good at hanging laundry out to dry. You can't imaging how creative you get when you are running out of clothespins and still have half a basket of jeans, socks and t-shirts left to hang.)
We have hot water.
We have a balcony with a hammock.

Former president says, "Hello neighbor"
(but in Spanish).
And is it just me, or is this man
making love to you with his eyes...?

We have not one, but TWO guest rooms.

We have two and a half bathrooms.

We have an office.

We are living across the street from the former president of Guatemala (Alvaro Arzu) so there are armed gunmen walking around the neighborhood. Ahhh, home security. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. (Or totally creeped out by all of the guys walking around with rifles.)

My clothes are now in a DRESSER! Yes! I am so organized! No more throwing everything together into an orgy of undies, socks and bras. I can actually reach in the drawer and know exactly what I will find. It is so nice.

The kitchen has an over with NUMBERS. Nummmmmberrrrs. I can bake things and have a fighting chance of not burning them to a crisp. (Wish me luck anyway.)

The way cool kick-ass bathroom with the way cool kick-ass bathtub

The bathroom is amaaazing. I mean, realllllly niiiice. It's like something you'd see at a fancy spa hotel. And it has a BATHTUB! I can take baths! BAAAATHS. It's sooo much easier to shave my legs in the tub than trying to do the flamingo one-legged stand in the shower.

View from guest room balcony... There's Agua Volcano looming
in the distance. Arzu's house is across the street
(where the big-ass man-eating view-killing monster ficus trees live).

The only bummer about the view from the upstairs balcony is that we can no longer see my friend, Fuego Volcano. Why? Because the former president of Guatemala has these big-ass ficus trees planted along the edge of his fence creating a screen so people can't see into his yard. (Yep, ficus trees grow that big here -- they are MONSTER-SIZED.) Nevermind the fact that every house here has a 10-foot high wall around it (homes are like mini-fortresses, minus the moats) he still felt the need to grow these gigantic trees. Who knows -- maybe he likes to sunbathe in the nude and wants the extra privacy? I need to go have a little talk with him and ask him to pretty please cut those trees shorter so I can continue with my obsession of watching the volcano erupt at night. I will promise -- Scout's Honor -- to never watch him sunbathe in the nude. He's about 65 years old -- believe me, if he's out there in the nude, I really DON'T want to see anything he's got swinging in the breeze. *sigh* We have an excellent view of Agua Volcano, but it's dormant and booooring. *sigh*sigh*siiigh*

And here are some more pics of our lovely new place. Enjoy!