Last night I dropped a whole gallon of white paint on the step on our front porch. I was carrying two cans and, needing one hand free to open the screen door, I slyly lodged one can on my knee against the outside wall. Don’t do this. Opening the screen the can tumbled off my knee and burst open on the step. Luckily the can landed on its lid and much of the paint oozed out slowly (which is still quite alarming!) rather than splattering all over my shoes, leg and everything else. Kathleen handles emergencies so gracefully it amazes me. Without getting a drop of paint on her clothes she manages to quickly hand scoop 95% of the paint back into the can while I scurry in a circle cursing myself. We were also lucky the paint was acrylic because it pretty much wiped and hosed clean off everything. As Kathleen says, any dirt that got in the paint will be “texture”.

We’re starting with the two bedrooms next to ours, giving them a few coats of the cheap paint, ripping the carpet out (nice terrazzo underneath) and then moving on to the rest of the house. We’re still deciding on colors. I have trouble envisioning colors on such large areas so I’m gonna take some room pics into Fireworks and color the walls their to try out some of our ideas.

A few hours after I called in sick on Friday, Kathleen came home, too, with a problem with her tonsils. We were pretty useless all day; she slept, I mostly sneezed uncontrollably, but I managed to install the new CPU in my recording computer and find it defective. I took what I thought was 12-hr medicine, but it turned out to be 4-hr, so the last half of the day I felt particularly terrible thinking that I had to wait to take more. Before bed I did the generic version of Thera-flu, which had no perceivable impact. I woke up dehydrated probably a half-dozen times. Before breakfast Kathleen gave me an Advil Cold & Sinus and fnially something seems to be working. She’s been super patient with me, I dunno how she does it.

Our House

Friday Kathleen and I noticed that our AC had stopped blowing cool air. Further investigation revealed that the compressor motor was just making a racket without actually turning the fan blades. We tried reseting the breakers with no luck, now the motor won’t even come on. Chief suspects include burned out motor, low freon level (I think either could trip some kind of safety-shutdown-enrage-occupants mechanism) and Mister Green with the revolver. We’ve opened up all the windows and have already taken our first drive-around-in-the-cool-van, ostensibly to find Paul’s new place…accomplished! Now we wait till Monday to call some guy who’ll probably charge $80 to come out and confirm our fears of needing a new compressor motor.

Kathleen lives here now and things couldn’t be better. All the great stuff she brought fits wonderfully…including eveydog! though she still sometimes gives me this “ok, this is fun, but when are we going home?” look, or the “I like you, but when does she get home?”. Maybe it’s just me; I haven’t had a pet since I was in the single digits, so it’s kind of a new experience but she’s been great.

Anyway, our new “shacking up” todo list keeps growing and the house keeps looking better.

Dad writes, “We are spending our Children’s Inheritance!!” Continue reading