Midwinter: “Goodbye Yellow-walled Room”

(tap, tap, tap) Is this thing on? Check, one, two…

Sequestered in my home office, on a cold winter Tuesday. It’s Tuesday, right? Halfway through my second day hunkered down in here, i’ve run out of easy projects and mindless busywork, and am not quite ready to tackle the hard stuff (tax prep, file purge, etc.).

So here i am.

Hi.

i hope another year of navigating a global plague finds you and yours healthy and warm.

Banished to my office to stay out of the way as we start interior work on the new house. We learned last year that daisyfae gets a bit batty when the yardwork doesn’t wear her out. Since travel will be curtailed this year, we launched a series of household projects that need to be executed by pros. We will be doing some of the easier bits.

Painting is fun, and therapeutic. i honestly enjoy the prep work, and am a seasoned hand at patching walls and doing skim coating. But when you have 20′ ceilings, and a rather debilitating fear of heights, professionals are necessary. And it’s a big room…

This is the living room about midway through day 2. Mercifully, it will only be yellow for a few days longer. Normally this would have been done by a crew, but being short staffed, Mike has to do this himself. He will likely be doing all the painting, too. Suspect we’ll just adopt him before the project is over.

Sure, i could sit out in the living room, and play with my phone while Mike is working. He could throw a drop cloth over me as needed. Is there anything worse than sitting lazily in an armchair while the hired worker is toiling over a project you choose not to do?

yes. risking death on a ladder while a lazy home owner plays with her phone

Original plan was for 3 days, but expecting a week or more. He’s nice, laughs at our jokes, and has no fear of the ladder. i’ll be feeding him before the week is over.

Studley and i are both doing well. The homestead kept us happily puttering about until we put it to bed sometime in November. Ate and drank our way through the holidays. Stayed home. A lot. Just back from a visit to Alaska, spending the new year with Studley’s kids and trying not to freeze our gonads off. It was a good visit. .

Awash in first world problems, we have no complaints.

With at least the remainder of the week being sequestered in the home office, i plan to use the time to get back out and visit my blogmates. And just maybe hoark up some of the random nuggets rattling around in my winter brain.

Not exactly “Alien Vs Predator”

For Christmas, The Girl gave me a lovely gift.  One that would be considered to be a very odd gift by most normal people…. “Smithsonian Sea Monsters“.  A grow-yer-own critter lab in a clear plastic bucket.  She apparently has memories of our years as Sea Monkey ranchers when she was a shrimp, and thought it would make me happy. 

She was right.     

At some point over the holidays, i discovered an Executive Sea Monkey set that had been given to me as a house warming present.  At some other point over the holidays, we decided that the only civilized thing to do was to grow both sets of critters in parallel.  And fight them.    

It’s on, muthafuckahs…       

The Sea Monsters got a couple weeks headstart on growth, due to the need to buy a fresh pack of Sea Monkey eggs*.  The Boy will handle all wagering, of course.  The Girl will assure that all “events” are conducted under humane society guidelines** for shrimps — NOT to be confused with midget wrestling.     

My money’s on the Sea Monkeys.  While they may have a slight disadvantage in size, they make up for it in “cute”.  Sea Monsters ain’t got crowns…  

Sea Monkeys

Sea Monsters

 * Who knew?  Sea Monkey eggs don’t last more than a year.        

** Still looking for the guidelines for “Crustacean Cage Match”.