Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Reflections on the holiday.

It was pretty weird not doing the capitalistic Christmas this year. Mostly. We did buy stuff for family and such. Just not ourselves.

I do love the Christmas thing. Even though my belief system doesn't go with what the holiday is about. Sometimes you don't even realize how much you miss it until you abstain for a year.

We just figured we had enough crap for now, and it kind of felt nice to make the holiday better for other peoples families. Of course, I'm talking about our contractors. Often times - even when they finish jobs, they don't always get paid - and a few were really hurting this year.

One thing we did over Christmas - was have Tivo record a bunch of those shows about flipping houses. Other than Flipping Out, we didn't really watch any of that stuff. Buying the worst house on the block and renovating them has always been what we've done. Even before the term "flipping" became popular. The only difference is we aren't living in this house.

So, it was interesting to see why the term has gotten such a bad name. Some of those people are complete hacks. They take stupid shortcuts that would cost so little more to do the job right.

At any rate, even though we treat our contractors really well, I have a whole new respect for them. Our guys are really, really good. That isn't to say they don't make me crazy from time to time. But, they aren't hacks. Which is why they've been with us a long time. Which brings me to another interesting thing that happened this holiday.

Yesterday evening our roofer started trying to get a hold of us. I was kind of done with the whole day, and didn't answer the calls.

Over time - he and I had gotten in this weird place. I didn't think we were quite friends, but not quite clients either. A few minutes later we hear a knock at the door, and he'd left a gift basket with a card. Which was really nice. But, what was more surprising the card had an invitation to get together with him and his wife for dinner.

So, now I don't know exactly what we are. If you are just doing the holiday thing. You just wish people a happy holiday and move on, right? I didn't even know his wife's name to be honest.

I know it sounds really lame to wonder, but as you get older - relationships are much more complicated. The line between friends and not friends is much more vague, and it takes longer to form true bonds.

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