"Woman Reading on Couch," T. F. Simon 1877-1942
Dear readers, how I wish I could tell you that all our house repairs have been completed, and that I am basking with a book with nothing but my kitty and a vase of roses and the night and my dreams surrounding me. But, alas, I am very far away from such fantasies.
I meant to post an update on the first of September, but I came down with a sore throat. We were under the house, you see, my husband and I, breathing in pure dust. Or rather, he was under the house, taking measurements and calling out numbers, and I was at the opening to the undersides of the house, writing down the measurements. A dust storm began to brew in those netherlands, and we were breathing it all in.
My husband was also pushing some cinder blocks in my direction, and I was dragging them out. These cinder blocks were at one point, several years ago, going to be used to prop up our slowly sagging house. We are old hippies who often use duct tape and cinder blocks to fix things. The blocks are now in a pile by the back fence, enough for the makings of a medieval city, and the underneath of the house is ready for the levelers. Proper levelers. I wonder if they will arrive in trucks full of duct tape and cinder blocks?
You'd think we might have made a little more progress.
But before the levelers can level, we have to prune our enormous pecan tree, and we are waiting to hear from the man who is going to do that. At least we have a kind of plan in place: the tree first, then the shed to put all our boxes in, then the levelers, then the outside painters, then the inside painters. I'm not sure where the flooring and the leak behind the kitchen sink go in our ordering system. And the extra insulation we are going to add to the attic and also underneath the house, too. And, and, and . . .
And then, of course, there are all the things we keep crossing off the list, as the costs mount up. Things like the underground bunker in case of tornadoes, the observatory on top of the house for watching the stars, the solarium, the conservatory, the aviary, the rumpus room, the stairs to the second floor, and, in fact, the whole second floor.
My sore throat is gone, although I am still hacking away with a terrible cough. But thank heavens for gargling with salt water: it still works like magic. And being hoarse reminds me of how I always lost my voice the first week of teaching every year, so here is a special "bless you" to all the teachers who showed up for work for another precious year of teaching.
I will try to update you on our progress from time to
time, but once actual noise gets added to the commotion of boxes, I will
probably be hiding in my closet with our kitty Boo. He has already been
so traumatized by the removal of the cinder blocks from his little
kingdom under the house that he has been hiding in the closet ever
since. What will he do when actual strangers begin to show up and stomp
around? What will I do?? I wonder if Boo and I could be boarded together at our vet's? We'll bring our own bedding.
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