Tags
14, Amelie, asbestos abatement, asthma, Belle, Catholic Life, CL, family, Hofbrauhaus, home renovation, Johnsy, Kathy, Knitting, lazy day, MDoS, Sae, Smorgasbord of Swing, Spain, swing dancing, Thanksgiving, The Beautiful T, The Duchess, The Kiddo, The Secretary General, yarn
This morning I was up absurdly early stuffing yarn in Ziploc bags and tucking sheets over the shelves of things in the basement. The asbestos abatement guys are coming this week, and are going to make the most unholy mess down there. All of the ducts have to come down, and the whole area under the stairs (formerly known as the craft corner and Yarn Storage Space) is going to be excavated. This means that everything in the basement is going to be covered with a thick layer of dust, and everything in the rest of the house will be covered with a, um, somewhat less thick layer of dust. I remember the days of house renovation when I lived with my Old Roommate and The Kiddo, particularly when we were having the roof redone on the outside of the house at the same time as we were having plaster work done inside. Well, I should say that my lungs remember. Hopefully this time around won’t be as bad. However, if I’m kinda wheezy over the next few weeks, or sniffly, or only dancing to the slow songs, you know why.
If I’d been smart I would have done my prep over the weekend, which would have kept me from having to get up early this morning. But I didn’t. Instead I had a gloriously lazy Thanksgiving holiday. On Thursday I got up a little early to go to a meeting, but once I got home again I installed myself in the Comfy Chair with coffee, the remote, and my knitting. I finally watched Amelie (which I totally loved), and then packed up my things and headed over to the ‘rents for Thanksgiving dinner. On Friday I did have to do a little actual work. A few years back my mother decreed that the day after Thanksgiving was going to be the Official Day of Carpet Cleaning at her house, and all of her children were expected to show up if at all possible (residing in another state/country is an acceptable excuse) to help. The thing is that it’s not just cleaning the carpets, it’s moving the furniture, emptying furniture so that it can be moved, and then removing all the horrific dust bunny displays that are revealed by moving the furniture. Only then can you actually clean the carpets. So it was a pretty long day. The nice thing was that soon after I got back home, so did Johnsy. She’d been gone for over a week spending Thanksgiving with her family. I miss my roommate when she’s gone, so it was very nice to have her home again.
Saturday was splendidly lazy as well. I stayed in my pajamas and read books until almost 4pm. It was awesome. Then I jumped in the shower to clean up, and lazily got ready to head down to Cincinnati for the Smorgasbord evening dance. The Duchess went this year, which was a first, and I persuaded WG that she should come too. It was a nice dance – lots of familiar faces. I had a few lovely dances, and thankfully avoided getting hurt like I did last year. The Duchess wore out early (she’s not used to this dancing thing), so we cut out before things were totally over. The funny thing is that the next night we were right back in Cincinnati again. The Secretary General is leaving us for a very nice job in San Jose (plus, you know, sunshine), so we went down to the Hofbrauhaus to give him a proper send off. I’ll miss that guy. He’s very quiet, but I can always count on him to catch my jokes. Sigh. CL just won’t be the same. I do have to say that it was a little surreal being back at the Hofbrauhaus. The last time I was there I was with MDoS (it was his birthday) and the Beautiful T, 14, Spain, Belle, and Sae. Most of those people are gone now, some just from Dayton, some from my life. I don’t really miss those days, but, well, it was interesting being there again.