The crew started the decking and is framing up the walls on our addition today. That means no pictures on the walls until they're done tearing through the entire back wall of our house. I ran around before work pulling down mirrors and paintings that are now laying all over every flat surface, and leaned up against anything that didn't slide.
Now the fun part. We've cleared out half the basement (what a bunch of crap we'd held on to!) We managed to part with some old furniture and dozens of contractor grade/size trash bags worth of stuff. The toxic paint cans from the early 90s are gone. So are the moldering boxes of every small appliance or electronic device we've ever owned.
The dining room and Molly's room are pretty much emptied into boxes that need to go somewhere else. That just leaves the kitchen. Did we mention the plan is to have a microwave and fridge in our living room and do dishes in the bathtub for the next six months or so? It seemed like a good plan at the time. I just keep telling myself we managed to live just fine in a firetrap of a one-room apartment in Vermont for a year and a half. The brightspot: the coffeemaker will now reside in the bedroom upstairs. What a nice alarmclock that will be...
The place is a pit.
Somehow the experience is giving me a deep deep connection with the people affected by Katrina. I watch the news and my eyes well up with tears. If I feel this much at sea with such a minor, priviledged and planned disruption to my household, I can't imagine what they're experiencing. The footage of people who had spray painted "DIABETIC. HEART MEDS. NEED TRANSPORT" on the top of their building really got me. The mention of people stranded on highway overpasses for days without food or clean water hurt my heart. But it was the report from a hospital that needed 100 babies transported because looters had stolen a generator enroute to the hospital that put me over the edge.
I'm not at all sure 10,000 National Guard troops can put this right again. They won't get it done quickly, that's for sure.
As for Jon and me, we just have to put our tiny 1,200 sq ft. corner of the world right again. And we have the long weekend to do it. It's seeming much more managable suddenly.
Better get at it.
Ciao,
C
