Season of Big Wind

Around here, I know April is going to be a windy month, something to do with the warmer temperatures and the melting snow, but I don’t really expect the wind to roar all October as it has this year. Last night it blew and blew and blew a bit harder, precipitating a wisp of snow […]

By Extension

My bio-rhythms must have been down yesterday (and perhaps still today). Life just wore me out, for no good reason at all. It started with a completely deflating phone call from the fireplace installer. His boss had finally called Monday (and had trouble reaching me because our phones at work were out once again — […]

He Shed, She Shed

I’m new to this Homeowners’ Association (HOA) thing. They feel fairly ubiquitous — even Tia, with a lot way out in Parlin, has an HOA — but it’s nothing I’ve had to deal with directly in all my years. It does turn out that the Palisades subdivision came with covenants, but no one knew that […]

The Grass is Greener

Above: the front yard is looking pretty green, except for the completely barren berm (and Lynn’s unplanted garden in the foreground). The east side of the house , except for the swath near the house where the sprinkler doesn’t go, also looks promising, but the large expanse in back and along the west looks like […]

The Beast Within

We have a giant beast in our garage. Actually, we have several, one of them an extremely noisy commercial freezer, but most of them have lived in our garage for a long time and are thus familiar. This is a new beast, stealthy and possibly seductive but so far not unfriendly. At the design end, […]

First-World Problem

I don’t usually run into Hugo Ferchau nearly as much as it sounds like when reading this blog. I can go months without seeing him, but for whatever reason I have been running into him a lot these days. Like the other day, and he wanted to know how it was going. “I ate too […]

Electro-cat

Which do you suppose is worse, being awakened at 3 a.m. by a false fire alarm, or being awakened at 4 a.m. by a yowling cat demanding food? It seems like there is a clear answer here, but if I were still teaching and a student offered cogent arguments for either, I’d go with it. […]

Three Weeks In

We have now been in our house for three weeks, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I don’t actually feel much more unpacked than I was two weeks ago; I haven’t done anything enough for it to yet feel like a routine; and I’m beginning to wonder if the final construction pieces are ever […]

Shelf-a-Palooza

Oh, animals. . . One day after touting big, bad Oz, chasing off on quixotic midnight quests after creatures unknown, I found myself awakened at 3 a.m. by same big bad dog trying desperately to climb into bed with me — something he has only done previously on Fourths of July as fireworks explode everywhere. […]

Some Day is Today

We are in, and so far we have all survived, although Marrakesh spent much of the night yowling mournfully. (He is currently quietly curled up right next to me.) We are still just shy of technically legal — Dusty has to convert the completed building permit into a certificate of occupancy, which he will do […]