So... I dunno about cleaning - putting stuff away, dusting, scrubbing, mopping, etc. I mean, it's nice to live in a clean house where I can find things, because they've been put away where they belong, and there's not random crap all over the place. Okay. But then I ponder this: When I'm lying on my deathbed, am I going to be thinking "Gosh, I wish I'd spent more time cleaning?" Seems unlikely. Your thoughts are invited, though I probably won't get back to you on them until Monday-ish, give or take.

Also dusting can go to hell. As you can probably tell if you come over to my house.

So, I'm feeling pretty okay about today. I suspect that this may have something to do with the fine products of a certain distillery concern located in Lynchburg, Tennessee (Pop. 361, as the label notes).

Because otherwise I'd be freaking broken, like everything else in my house: The refrigerator. My car. The vacuum cleaner. The kitchen sink. The dishwasher (sorta). Apparently the only thing holding this house together was my wife's presence.

So, the refrigerator is fixed, 263 dollars later. The vacuum cleaner I will see if I can deal with. I will call a plumber for the kitchen sink - while I am probably capable of fixing it, it's such a huge pain in the ass and in need of specialized tools that I'd rather just pay somebody. My car is fixed, it's just difficult to pick it up, but I should have the time on Monday afternoon. The dishwasher... will be okay. It still cleans things, just not as well as we'd like.

And the wife will be back on Friday. So there you have it.

The house, it is about as clean as it gets. (Don't ask about the goddamned bookshelves, though.)

Dog hair and dust and dander has been removed as much as is possible for purposes of attempting to not kill Mom.

Cooking preparations have been made for leg of lamb, fancy-pants mashed potatoes, and asparagus (I know, it's out of season, but my grammy likes asparagus with lamb so she's damned well getting it - shabby-looking as it is.)

Cookies have been baked and distributed to neighbors as appropriate.

Dogs have been looked askance at, cats have been bawled out and sprayed with water, again as appropriate. (And I assure you that it *has* been appropriate in the case of the cat. Get your dusty little paws off my our artfully set dining-room table, you... you CAT you. And stop trying to eat our friggin' centerpiece!)

A special cookie was left out for Santa, which cookie has been nibbled and crumbs artfully left, as well as peels from a Clementine "Cutie" orange, designated to be divided into nine pieces, one for each reindeer and one for Rudolph.

Presents have been wrapped or bagged and placed under the tree, except those presents which contain chocolate which will remain safely out of the dog zone.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, folks. I'm happy to be having ours here. Really!

We just had a fancy-ass new driveway gate installed. It's got an iron frame for stability and fancy-ass redwood planks for being purty. Of course, we have to either stain or paint the wood ourselves, and put on a sealer coat to protect the wood from water, but hey, it's Southern California, and it's September. No sweat! I was going to put on the stain and the sealer this weekend.

The installation was just finished two days ago. Tonight, it has begun to rain. Literally, within the last five minutes, it has begun to *seriously* rain.

Yes, I am a giant winner who may have wasted hundreds of dollars worth of wood. YAY!

Our dining room table is a monster. It's about seven or eight feet long by something around two or three feet wide, and it's made of a mighty inches-thick slab of some heavy wood. It is beautiful. Honestly this table is too good for us. I mean it's got scratches on it from where our dog climbed on to the table to reach some food. How can people who own such a dog own such a lovely table? And certainly you'd think I'd know the dimensions of the table, or at least own a measuring tape, but that just means you don't know me very well. I don't know the dimensions, and I *do* own a measuring tape but I'll be damned if I can find it.

This poor table, orphaned amongst savages, is located just a bit too conveniently in the approximate center of our house, and so it becomes the repository for every single thing in the world - paperwork, laundry, various books and toys both for kids and adults, stuff we don't know what else to do with, shopping bags that probably should have gone in the trash, random bits of sound and fury, signifying that I will probably have to find somewhere to put them, too. ("I'd say the sound should go here with the CDs.... but where to put the fury?")

But. Tonight. I finished my two-night project and fully cleaned the entire dining room table off, scrubbed it with Murphy's Oil Soap, rinsed then scrubbed again, THEN applied a generous coat of linseed oil. Because I am AWESOME, and it is SHINY. There is NOTHING ON IT. This condition WILL NOT LAST LONG. But it's NICE while it does.