Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Subfloor installed - Check

Walls prepped and painted (a fresh coat of the same color) - Check

Feline Inspection - Passed

Bamboo Installation - In progress

Pictures later!

So, this is a little bit behind, but not terribly so, given that we planned on not working on the room Monday or Tuesday, what with being out of town and all.

On Sunday, we got the room completely cleared, as you can see below.

M. got the carpet and foam, and tack strips up,

With Minx’s help, of course.

And as of this morning, we are mostly down to subfloor.

Magnus remains dubious,

but M. and I are thrilled with how well deconstruction is going, and the only real snag we’ve hit is that we can’t take all the carpet, foam, and subfloor to the dump until the first weekend in January, as it’s only open on Saturdays, except the ones closest to Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Today, M. has already finished tear-down, and we’ll get the rest of the materials (bamboo floor has been acclimating since Sunday, and will be ready for installation tomorrow) and with any luck, start on the walls.

Stay tuned for breaking news!

Due to some vehicular difficulties, and a concurrent task, we did not get much of anything done today on the remodelling. In fact, all I have today is some “before” pictures.

The good news is that I expect that the car will need only repairs, not replacement, so we can actually go ahead with the project.

Fiancé and I both have the entire week of the 24th off, and will be celebrating the extremely obscure and ancient holiday known as Festival di Ritocco, or Remodelling Day. The room that currently serves as my office/craft room/guest room will become the yoga room/craft room. The festivities will commence with the ceremonial Rimozione del Tappeto Rosa Malvagità this weekend, and finish with a very celebratory Installazione della Mobilia Nuova, preferably on December 31st.

Stay tuned for more exciting coverage of our holiday!

I make a pretty good living performing exorcisms on cars, even if most insurance policies won’t cover it. Evil spirits love technology; lots of opportunity for mischief.

You didn’t really think that it was a coincidence?

I met my match in mint-condition ’71 Demon with a tenacious Maxwell’s Imp in the carburetor. The owner was a bigwig on the classic car circuit, with a short temper and a foul mouth.

I got ol’ Max out of the engine, but couldn’t banish it. Instead, I found it a new host.

I got paid, and nobody noticed a change in Bigwig’s behaviour.

I wrote this for my coworkers several years ago, when I was the store inventory manager at a used book store. It was recently rediscovered in a closet purge. The rhyming is truly wretched, but I think the point still comes across.

And, oh yeah, it’s all true.

‘Twas the week before Christmas
and all through the store
The employees were cranky
again–what a bore!
Anne-Marie with her comics
sat in the corner
While Sean was alone
in the john with some porno

Claire called in sick
that’s twice in two days
And David’s in hospital
with pneumonic malaise
Don and Tad have gone out
for a smoke and a beer
And won’t bring any back
for the rest of us here

Li sat pricing shipment
for most of the day
While pondering traffic
in utter dismay
Boxes were emptied,
books piled in stacks
And we bitch about Management
behind all of their backs

Adam priced records
cassettes, and CDs
Complaining about the Captain, Tenille,
Yanni and the BeeGees
Steve’s on the schedule
but now can’t be found
While an irate shopper
shoves books to the ground

Becky’s art section
is totally trashed
And everyone’s tripping
over Jess’s old stash
We remember her fondly,
and Jane, also Lora
and don’t forget Tom
who now lives in Florida

Up at the register
Matt sits and sighs
surveying the chaos
while Brett’s back on buys
That crap keeps on coming
though they said it’d be slow
Who lies with statistics?
We certainly know!

Amy’s out shelving
in religion or health
Thinking of bonuses
or lottery wealth
A ticket to see Mom
and Dad is her dream
As she listens to us
making jokes quite obscene

The shelves are all empty
the tables a mess
Who gives a damn?
“Not me,” we confess
The numbers are good
The profits are high
But we’re all exhausted
and ready to cry

“No more Oprah,
no Geddes, no Polar Express
No Soup for the Soul
Grisham? Certainly, yes!”
The History of Farting
has sold really well
But we’ve twenty-two copies
of A History of Hell

We count and we cringe
when the register says
we’ve done fifteen thousand
in less than two days
“This just can’t keep up”
we say to ourselves
But hush when we see
the gaps in our shelves

And so here we stand
at the end of December
All tired and stressed
with an urge to dismember
to kill, mutilate,
fold, bend, and staple
or maybe just drink ourselves
under the table

Thanks to Ed for making me aware of the latest escalation by the Squirrel Mafia.

Desks tidied: 2 1 (one to go)

Closets purged and reorganized: 2

Closet space gained: approximately 1/2 closet

Empty containers: 2 large, 4 medium, 8 small

Rooms purged and reorganized: 1 (almost; when the second desk is done, so is the room)

Craft & sewing supplies reorganized: ALL!

Pieces of art found in purge: 1

Pieces of art framed using only materials found during purge: 1

Loads of laundry done: 4 (hooray for slow cookers!)

Batches of chili made: 1

Batches of from-scratch cornbread made: 1

Cats cuddled: 2

Stories read: 11 (The Winds of Marble Arch, Connie Willis)

Stories written: 1 (see below, “Kansas“)

Presents wrpapped: 9

Not to be outdone, Finacé has made a cheese, turkey & mushroom omelette and two batches of from-scratch cinnamon rolls (one with nuts & raisins, one without), snow-blown the driveway, snaked a drain, and done more loads of dishes than I am probably aware of. We have also gotten our next home improvement project mostly planned and researched (switching my office/craft room/guest room over to a craft room/yoga room) and played a brief but exhilarating game of tag in the snow. We even managed to sneak in a trip to the gym just before the snow started getting serious about its job on Saturday.

Overall days enjoyed: 2

The whirlwind didn’t move from side to side at all; it just kept getting bigger and louder. My brain refused to accept the reality of it and wouldn’t let me move, no matter how badly I wanted to.

Which, for the record, was very badly indeed.

After a great deal of buffeting, bone rattling, and barfing, the twister set me down as gently as you please on a sere, gray plain. An old farmhouse, untouched, was visible in the distance. I could see a speck that had to be the barn behind it.

It matched Granny Dot’s tall tales perfectly.

The freshman bio lecture was interesting, but scheduling the dissection lab right after lunch was pure sadism. The invertebrates weren’t so bad, but the fetal pigs…ugh! Fortunately, my lab partners and I had it down to a science, as it were, by semester’s end.

Kendra, who wanted to be a surgeon, had the thing staked out and opened up with disturbing speed and precision. Sara assisted, handing off tools and occasionally holding one innard out of the way so we could see what was underneath. Ivy took notes and did the drawings.

I went outside and barfed enough for four.