It is Sunday, August 23 and there are only 69 days until Halloween.  I can’t decide if I should be a mutant ninja turtle or just wrap myself in plastic wrap and go as a sausage.  Today we remember the birthdays of Oliver Hazard Perry, Gene Kelly and Queen Noor.  On this day in 1617 the first one-way streets were established, in London, in 1869 the first carload of freight, boots and shoes, arrived in San Francisco, from Boston and in 1963 the Beatles released “She Loves You” in the UK.  It is Liberation Day in Romania and Umhlanga Day in Swaziland.

We continue to work toward making the final move to our new house.  This past week, we had carpet installed in the master bedroom.  I am constantly amazed at how quickly people can get work done when they have the right tools and know what they are doing.  Two guys showed up at our house to do the work.  They first had to remove the laminate floor that was there.  We did not like it, it was a not-to-well done DIY project and we prefer a rug in our bedroom, so the floor had to go.  

These two guys were able to pull up the old floor, put down padding and install the new rug in the bedroom and sitting room, remove all the old flooring and clean up after themselves in less than three hours.  It would have taken me that long just to figure out how to pull the floor up and where to stack it once I had it up.  I won’t even go into how long putting the padding and rug down would have taken.  Understand, I am fairly competent at much of the work that needs to be done around a house, but I know my limitations.  Carpeting is one of them.  I can lay the carpeting, but then will have to spend the next couple months trying to get all the small ripples out of it.

We continue to pack things up and are always taking boxes of stuff to the house when we go there.  The biggest problem is that we are trying to live in the old house and move as much as we can to the new house, at the same time.  This becomes a real adventure.  The other evening, I came into the room where we keep our computer.  I went to switch on the lamp that I usually use so I can see where I am going and found that the lovely Elaine had already removed it and wrapped it in bubble wrap for the journey to the new place.  Most of our dishes and glasses have been boxed and moved so we are using paper plates and plastic cups.  I think it is only a matter of time before she packs those up, too.

Last week, we had a real adventure.  There were a number of items that we wanted to move.  Some of them were going to my son’s house and some were going to ours.  A friend of ours had a large trailer and offered to let us load it up and take the items down.  One of the things we wanted to give to my son was a computer desk we had.  It was one of those build-it-yourself things.  It was rather large and heavy so I endeavored to dismantle it to make it easier to handle.  Taking it apart was somewhat difficult, but not impossible.  We were able to get it down to five or six pieces and they were easy to carry and fit well in the trailer.  The problem came when I tried to rebuild the desk at my son’s house.

I had all the pieces in the room and a good idea of how it was supposed to go back together.  I did some of the preliminary work and then got ready to place the desk top on the lower section.  My son came in to assist me.  We lifted it up, got it positioned properly and then jumped back out of the way as the whole thing collapsed.  Apparently, this type of furniture is not meant to be taken apart and rebuilt.  So, the other day, I stopped by his house on my way home, loaded all the pieces into my car, brought the stuff back home and it was all taken by the garbage man on bulk pick-up day.

Just more proof that some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue.

I am going to cut this a little short this week.  As I mentioned, our computer desk was taken by the garbage men and I am currently working with the keyboard on a snack table.  This is rough on my back and awkward because it is hard to see the computer screen when it is three feet away and sitting on top of a two drawer file cabinet.

This week our fact tells us that on average, the Pentagon uses 666 rolls of toilet paper in one day.  I guess they are not really as full as we thought they were.

Have a happy Umhlanga Day!