Yesterday excellent progress was made on The Headache House. A friend went up with me. We ripped up the dusty, stinky carpet from the kitchen, laid new vinyl and put up new baseboards. We applied drywall mud to a couple of problem spots. My prediction of time left to job completion is two more Saturdays of painting and two to three more on laying vinyl in the utility room and removing the smell of cat pea from the basement steps.

The sad news is that my miter saw was fatally wounded. The good news is that I should be able to have it fixed for far less than six million dollars. And then it will be stronger, faster and better. Or, rather, at least it will work.

The maddening news is that I discovered that at some point one or more former tenants was using the cold air return as an ashtray. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is up with that? Mixed in with the cigarette buts was enough cat hair to clog up my shop vac.

My friend and I returned to my house to find a crockpot full of lamb ribs waiting. The meat had fallen completely off of the bone. The womenfolk (his wife, my wife, Homeless Lass, and my two daughters) had already eaten as it was late. We also sat around drinking beer and chatting about stupid things.

Friday, I took off of work. In the morning I had an appointment scheduled with my parish priest to talk over some of present predicament. In the afternoon I had an appointment scheduled with a barrister specializing in real estate law. On the way to the Church, the law office called to reschedule for Monday so I spent most of the afternoon doing not much of anything but moping around after the pain of deciding to accept a few key facts about the way things just kind of are.

Thursday, I went all day without eating or drinking save for a single cup of coffee in preparation for a Vesperal Liturgy to commemorate the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple on Feb 2. After the Divine Liturgy, we invited about half the attendees back to our place to partake of a crockpot full of about 6 pounds of chili. Only about five people took us up on the offer and there was much merrymaking.

The first three days of the work week were unremarkable except for being far too hectic. I'm a busy man. I need some self-control to start handling the hectic pace.

Last Sunday was so long ago that I can scarcely recollect just what happened.