OuR HouSe is A FiNe FiNe FiNe HouSe

What is the difference between an apartment and a house? I would have to say the biggest shock is going from a kitchen like this


To a kitchen like this


Which should make me feel like


But instead has me feeling like this


Thank Gawd we bought a barbeque and I can force The Spawn and Sexyhusbandomine to eat all meals outside from April-October. On paper plates. While I lay on my polished wood floors and stroke them lovingly and call them "My Precious."

Another difference between a house and an apartment? In New York we dealt with


The New Jersey Suburbian equivalent is this creature


Which, for those of you chickens who only have to contend with things like scorpions or black widows, is a bug called a STINKBUG.

The locals have made sure to tell us where the best grocery store is, how to get a pizza delivered, who to take The Spawn to for teeth cleanings, and then they lean in close, eyes darting furtively from side to side and in an ominous tone warn "AND DON'T EVER CRUSH A STINKBUG."

Sometimes this warning is accompanied by banjo music.

The thing is, you don't see these skittering across your laundry room floor attempting to grab your ankle like you do the bugs in New York City. No. You find these as little dead carcasses on windowsills or under chairs, in the corners of stairwell, or conveniently placed next to a trash can as if they were making a last ill fated attempt to reach the mound of magazines on the back of the toilet including the Victoria Secret catalog that Sexyhusbandomine has stated he wants to keep just so he can buy me presents and for No Other Reason.

And you know what the first thing I want to do when I see one of those guys laying on its back with their tiny little legs stuck up in the air?


But I fight that impulse the same way I fight the urge to laugh in church or make small talk in elevators or buy clothing from Forever 21. I tenderly pick up those little stinkers in a wad of soft tissue and carry them to their watery grave. But all the time, I just wanna....


Some compadres thought the biggest challenge in the move from Sodom to the Land of Big Kitchens would involve moving from a place where the hooch was readily available--liquor stores on every block--to a Quaker town which is "dry." Racie Lover told me I better have extra bathtubs put into the house for the amount of gin I was going to need to make. Turns out that one of the things I miss The Most about my old life is the ability to spot a creepy crawly, look around, and throw anything really heavy in the vicinity at it. Like a brick. Or a dictionary. Or Sexyhusbandomine's laptop. And then just leave it, sitting in the middle of the floor, for Sexyhusbandomine to come home and deal with. All the while trying to ignore the pathetic twitching of the visible antenna and blocking out the sounds of a small insect heart beating beneath my floorboards.