siriosa 2000

this is me, roaring.
paging through previous posts, i see that i have not whined much about the depredations of the cat wars. bhe's cat objected to the introduction of other felines into the house. she expressed herself on the carpet, in the heating vents, on pieces of paper left on the floor. virginia looked up to her, and took this to be How Things Are Done. virginia expressed herself in some of those places, and also (alas) in bhe's laundry, and on top of bhe's dresser. (virginia's the aerobatic cat: spot's joints are not flexible enough for high altitude exploits.)

so last november, i took up the carpet in the dining room. it was weirdly exhilarating, at my age. the hard part, of course, was getting up the staples and strips of tacks around the edges. took me 4 hours for the carpet, 8 or so for the detritus.

then it was going to be thanksgiving, and then i was visiting my family, and then it was going to be the end of the year, so i didn't get around to pulling the carpet in the living room until a month ago. took 2 hours. the staples and tacks took about 4 hours. because i learn from experience.

years ago, in one of the earthquakes, the chimney separated from the house. when it became apparent it was only a matter of time before it brained one of the neighbors, i had it taken down. when i asked somebody about refinishing the floors, they said well, first you have to do something about the fireplace. are you going to leave it in? you see the hearth? it interrupts the floor. so, right, fine.

the reason the floors need to be refinished (aside from feline depredations) is that the previous owners did not believe in dropcloths. i think they were house flippers, and as carpet was going in anyway, they simply did not care. i like to think the universe has seen to them. i don't like to think about how.

we finally had somebody come and take the fireplace away. he started a week ago. it took him one day to dismantle the thing and pile it neatly in the yard. the next door neighbors, bless them, have a great honking truck, and kindly filled it up with (i am not exaggerating: i saw the receipt from the dump) a ton of deceased fireplace. subfloor has been installed, and drywall. the crown molding is all nice. the baseboard is a little difficult to approximate, but he's an artist, and whatever he's happy with will be fine with me.

all this is leading up to the floors being refinished, right? that means everything in two rooms has to go be someplace else.

turns out i'm good at three-dimensional tetris.

gertrude (formerly known as the room that dare not speak its name) has some furniture in it, but against the walls. a few days ago i started fitting items into gertrude. it now contains (not counting the original furniture) 3 tables, a computer desk, a 15-drawer flat file, 4 bookcases, 2 stools, a sewing machine, 3 little rollie carts, and two upholstered chairs. (i had to take the door off its hinges to get them in.)

all that's left in the living room and dining room: the sofa, the tivo altar, a work table that folds, a narrow table that sits behind the sofa, and a 4-drawer file cabinet. all of that can just go in the kitchen for the duration of the floor refinishing. provided the sofa will fit through the kitchen door. if not, we'll just have to sell it.

anyway, get this: you can still walk through gertrude. and access the networked printer.

cue the helen reddy song.