Playing Cards With a Man Named Doc

It was a day full of complication and difficulty before the Christmas tree fell over -- which is getting to be a recurring theme in my life; my mother's tree fell over just after being put up, and I had to assist in the recovery there as well -- which makes me exceptionally happy to be officially on my vacation.

Construction on the new basement continues forward at a blinding pace -- they dropped off materials Thursday, did rough framing for walls and the drop ceiling on Friday & Saturday, and rough electrical was done yesterday. Today was the electrical inspection, plus a few other small things, and tomorrow is the building inspection, so it might actually be "done" -- leaving aside our clean-up; floor-painting; rug purchase and installation; furniture purchase, moving & assembly; and actually putting books back up on shelves for the first time in four months -- by the weekend, and Christmas.

On top of that, Thing 2's birthday will occur over the break, so he and The Wife (and occasionally me) spent much of the early evening making a marshmallow/melted chocolate/sprinkles concoction for his classmates to eat tomorrow. (And he had a lot of homework tonight, in part because he forgot to do his spelling work for most of the last week and in part because he's doing an essay for class that has gotten very long because he's writing about a video game he loves.)

Before that, The Wife -- who is also fighting a cold, and feeling not up to normal -- and I had to run out and shoot a few games of pool after dinner, because that's what we do on a Tuesday.

(I won't even mention work -- it was the last day before a long vacation, which is always hectic -- except to note that, at least, four of my seven scheduled meetings were cancelled before they happened.)

What else? Did I mention the cat vomited in the middle of the kitchen during the snack-assembly? And that all of the usual nightly routine (showers for the two boys and so forth) had to also happen? And that Thing 1 was working on his own essay, which I had to read and comment on? And that this computer has been ridiculously slow and crash-prone recently, due either to a program called TuneUp that I accidentally installed, or due to increased "parental controls" due to one of the various recent bits of drama, or both, or neither?

So, when the tree fell over -- almost hitting me, by the way, since it's right behind me in the dining room -- it was just the cherry to the drama sundae that was my Tuesday.

Tomorrow is more construction downstairs, and who knows what else. Thursday we go to pick up a new desk for me, and Friday I get to meet my brother at the airport. But I hope to spend a lot of the other hours those days lying down, or otherwise relaxing, reading 1Q84. Let's see if I can manage it.