Kathy and I are right in the middle of an experience which is both an exciting adventure and an exercise in tedium and frustration . . . and most of the time it’s very hard to know where the one stops and the other begins. We are having hard wood floors installed in our family room, dinette and kitchen – repainting most of the downstairs – and replacing four windows that have seen better days. The whole project is under the watchful eye of a local contractor who has managed for the most part to keep our anxiety at bay. (Were he not a calming agent in all this, I’m pretty sure both Kathy and I would have started chewing our fingernails from the stress and not stopped until we’d chewed our arms off.) We had a little bit of a meltdown yesterday (Friday) when – after four days of exciting activity – not a soul showed up to the house all day long. No floor guys, no painters, no window guys, nobody at all. . . and we suddenly had visions of this project stretching into Epiphany. But we got a reassuring phone call this morning that all is on track, and that we should be done with everything by the middle of next week.
To be clear, the actual waiting isn’t so bad. It’s the living upstairs that is starting to get really old. I hesitate to be too honest about how frustrated Kathy and I are getting because when it comes right down to it, this is more of a “the paint is peeling on our yacht” sort of problem, and we are acutely aware (or at least try to remain mindful of the fact) that there are a whole lot of people who would give anything to change places with us and have to put up with such a “problem.” It’s for that reason that I also scrapped the first draft of this blog entry, where I joked around about us being homeless, or at least feeling homeless. The fact is that except for one night, we have been able to sleep fairly soundly in our own bed – and joy of joys, we have no choice but to eat out every meal. And yes, we have access to television. In fact, it only occurred to me as I sat down to write this particular paragraph that we have two television sets upstairs hooked up to cable – and two other television sets on which we can watch videos. So deprived we are not. . .
except for being deprived of the ease of normalcy . . . the pleasure of stretching out with space to spare . . . and the peace of knowing where everything is. Right now, the entire contents of our family room, kitchen counters, pantry, and everything on the walls of the foyer is piled up in our living room. At a glance, it looks for all the world like something from an episode of Hoarders – except that on that show, we’re talking about poor souls whose entire house, every single room, looks like our living room. This is enough of a taste of that sort of life to last us the rest of our days!
We especially feel for our dogs, who once upon a time regarded being let into the upstairs as the greatest treat of them all. When we would take the gate away from the bottom of the stairs, the two of them would bound up the stairs like they’d been shot out of a cannon. Now, about a week into the experience, Bobbi and Ellie walk up those stairs like two convicts heading off to the gas chamber. Whatever excitement our upstairs held for them evaporated several days ago, and we have the distinct sense that they are gritting their teeth and bearing it just like Kathy and I are. In fact, if they could talk I’m sure they would tell you that the best part of the last week was when they were taken to an overnight kennel for three nights. It’s a place way out in the country where they had ten times more fun than they do around here. . . especially lately . . . and as happy as they were to see us this morning when we picked them up to bring them back home, I’m sure they were sad to leave their place in the country.
So here we are- with the hardwood floors having been laid and polished – but the painting still to be completed before we can begin the monumental task of putting everything back in its place. And for a couple more days, we can only walk on the new floors in stocking feet – and the dogs cannot be on the new floors at all. . . which makes something as simple as letting them out of the house a complex operation straight out of “Patton.” Right now, it’s looking like late Monday or sometime Tuesday before the work will be done and we can at least start to So we wait- grateful that we’re in a position to have this work done, and frankly grateful to have a house we love and that we can’t wait to once again fully inhabit.
One of these days.
pictured above: our family room, once carpeted, which now boasts the same hardwood floors as our foyer.