Before Thanksgiving we met Tyler, a friend of Alex’s who was down from Boston visiting. He’d been living here for a few years but had chosen to move back home for several personal reasons. In late January he got in touch with Alex to see if Alex would be willing to have him as a roommate – Tyler wanted to move back to Florida to work and finish his schooling.
After talking it over, we decided to say yes. Tyler needed a place to live; the rent money would be great for the budget; we’d all adjust somehow.
We didn’t know until late in the game that Tyler came with a Min-Pin/Pekingese, year-old dog; so we got two roommates in the deal. (A min-pin is a miniature Pinscher.)
The room Tyler would have was Chelsea’s old room, but Alex had painted it in creative and wondrous ways (probably not what Tyler would choose for a décor), and we had loaded the room with all our boxes and some of our furniture we gotten from storage. The room, in short, was a disaster area.
Chelsea and I spent many long days sorting and cleaning. We integrated all the furniture into my room, which meant moving furniture around in my room before we could move hers down the hall into our room.
One cold February evening we had a painting party; Alex and his friend Dave Havoc joined us. With four of us wielding brushes, the painting went very quickly – we got two coats done on the whole room in about two hours. We adjourned for take-out pizza and a trip to a local big-box store called the Wine Store; getting out of the house at all was quite a treat back then. It felt great to have a little celebration of another milestone.
We still had a gazillion boxes to finish up; we had to move many of the boxes out of the closet, finding a “new home” for them; we had to set up basic furniture for Tyler to use. But by golly, the day before Tyler arrived we finished the cleaning (I even did the windows inside and out).
Tyler and Terry have been a great addition to the family. It’s been several months now, and everything is going smoothly. Tyler’s quiet and clean and low key. He’s interested in most anything –he’s learning the guitar; is saving to buy a motorcycle; was going to the gym faithfully; he rides a longboard; runs faithfully; loves all kinds of music (and I mean all kinds!); is interested in acting; and he’s a great “parent” to Terry.
Terry is a riot. She’s a little bitty thing – our cat Cassie is significantly bigger than Terry. Tyler’s got Terry really well trained. She’s very, very smart, is very good-looking, and is very affectionate. I’ve never liked small dogs because they tend to be hyper and to bark frequently, but Terry breaks the mold on that.
It took several months, but Terry is now very comfortable. The biggest adjustment was our two cats – Terry was prone to chasing cats, and still will if they are in the yard, but I kept our two cats locked inside for several days along with Terry, so they all had to get used to each other from the beginning.
My strategy worked. Cassie (our 13 pound cat) stood up to Terry right along – giving her a few well-timed swipes and a few impressive hisses; Terry soon learned just who the alpha animal in this house was. We laughed so hard a few times and held our breath a few more times. Our nine pound cat Sasha is very skittish, though; she is just now standing Terry down, but it’s working.
Terry has become quite attached to Chelsea. As soon as Tyler leaves for work she’s out on Chelsea’s lap. We feed her when Tyler’s away or has a long shift, and we make sure she gets plenty of yard time.
Tyler is good longboarder, but his board was in California, so shortly after he moved in he wrote to his buddy and had the longboard shipped to him here. Alex happened to be here the weekday it arrived. Always irrepressible, Alex immediately started longboarding in our hallway, stretching his full 6’3” length prone on the board. After we finally stopped laughing when he slid off the longboard in the kitchen after running into the kitchen chairs, we moved the game outside to the street.
We spent the next hour in the middle of street, taking turns running the board up and down the street, laughing at each other’s antics, trying to avoid the occasional car. The drivers are used to the kids on our street, but they had a particularly indulgent grin when they saw a bunch of adults acting like total kids.
Tyler of course was great. Alex wasn’t as proficient as Tyler – he doesn’t have a board, and rarely longboards – but he clearly had the idea, and was quite respectable. Chelsea was too afraid of falling, so she didn’t take too many tries, and wouldn’t let go of Alex. I was determined to at least get the general idea; Alex was incredibly patient running me up and down the street, and I finally soloed twice (okay, I was kneeling once and sitting once). It was unnerving being that close to so much asphalt!
On one of his runs Alex was sitting, so I ran alongside pushing him to get some speed. At the very end, when I couldn’t run any faster and had to let him go, I gave him a big push. At the split second I pushed, he yelled, “NO! DON’T PUSH HARD!” He wavered along the street for quite a ways trying to get his balance, and finally rolled off the board on a neighbor’s lawn. All I can say is, even though I felt awful for pushing, it sure was funny…
I suddenly, totally understood Alex yelling “don’t push!” when it was my turn on the board (sitting) and Alex was pushing me. The faster the board went with him pushing, the harder it was to keep my balance – I am amazed and impressed that he resisted the impulse to get back at me by pushing me hard – maybe my begging and pleading had an effect (“Alex, don’t push, don’t! I get it! I get it! I won’t do it again!”). It did turn out to be my longest solo ride, though, hair-raising as it was.
Tyler works at California Pizza Kitchen – it’s where he and Alex first met – but he’s not earning enough, and slow season is nearly upon us. We’ve been entertained listening to his various options as he job-hunts, talking over all the possibilities with him and following up on all the result of his recent job interviews.
Today marks a big change for him – he just got hired at Fred Astaire’s Delray Beach Dance Studio. He’s got three weeks of unpaid training – they are teaching him to dance – then he starts teaching dance classes full time. He’ll keep his job at California Pizza Kitchen on weekends and teach dance during the week.
They plan on having him dance in competitions as well as teach classes, so Chelsea and I graciously volunteered to let him practice his dance lessons by teaching us to dance here at the house. We’ll be moving the furniture out of the living room and turning it into a dance studio in the next week or so. We’ll keep you posted on how our lessons progress – you may see us on “Dancing with the Stars” in a few seasons. At the very least we may have you watching the show to vote Tyler in as a new dance instructor on DWTS…
Tyler and Terry have added a lot of entertainment to our lives – what we miss in privacy is made up for in the fun…we’re glad to have them here and we’ll miss them when we leave.