Trials and Trivializations

"It appears your house was built over a haunted crematorium..."

Theoretically, there is a little video above showing the current state of the Jarlsberg living room. We're not entirely sure the video works, though, which is pretty much the same thing we can say about everything else in the house about now.

The remodeling slog goes on, and we apologize for writing about it yet again - but we no longer have the wits to talk about much else. So here are some random observations:

• Despite the many distractions around the house, we successfully crossed an important item off our lifetime bucket list today: "buy $200 worth of aged bronze doorknobs in one transaction." Looks like "Swim with dolphins" will just have to wait for another year.

• Because we're redoing the entire house, everything - and we mean everything - has to keep moving nomadically from room to room to stay ahead of the tile guys, the painters, and anyone else who wants to wander through our house without making eye contact. Most of our waking hours are being spent moving things, time and again, from where they don't belong to where they will never be found again.  Sure, it seems unproductive, but the wrenching back pain at the end of the day makes it all worthwhile.

• Riddle: How many electricians does it take to change a lightbulb? Surprisingly, the answer is no longer "zero" if you replace your old canister lights with the new self-contained, totally-sealed LED ones which cost $25 each and can't be changed by the consumer. Somehow, we suspect Obama is to blame.

• It's exceedingly hard to be witty while someone is vigorously sanding your office door, mere feet away, at this very freaking moment. We feel like a morsel of food desperately hiding from a relentless toothbrush.

• When you only have one real spoon available for all your meals for days at a time, it's funny to discover that your wife has been using the same spoon to mix the wet dog food with the dry stuff. Bone appetit! (And yes, the "bone" joke was intentional).

• You can learn interesting things about your home helpers based on the litter they leave behind! For instance, someone in the crew is taking a thick green liquid medicine to help clear up his attacks of diarrhea (perhaps we didn't need a new bathroom vent fan after all). Quite possibly the same fellow who ate a banana and then tossed the peel on a windowsill just before a metric buttload of furniture was moved to block it from reach. The withered, blackened peel is now spontaneously generating its own cloud of banana gnats.

Which we forgive only because "banana gnats" is sort of fun to say.

• When we stumble (literally and frequently) through our home in the dark, we're sorry we ever laughed at any joke which involved Helen Keller and moving the furniture.

And he was never seen again...