hmmm...

Holiday vacation...ten days away from all that is everyday.

Lots of running around...two round-trips up to the Boston area, one to Providence...or is that three trips to Boston? Was there one before Christmas? Oy! 'Tis a seasonal blur, it is.

Skipping out on a work-people party tonight because a) running all over when I really did have a horrible stomach bug makes me feel entitled to lay around doing nothing for at least one day now that I'm over my horrible stomach bug and b) I'm a big dork. Sometimes, I just don't have the wherewithall to hang with the cool kids. Tonight, I feel my dorkiness like a warm woolen blanket...comfy, familiar, but totally unsuitable for a night out on the town. Wouldn't want to move up to a Linus-level with that dork-blanket.

The foundation for our mega-garage was modified over the course of the last two days. We built it anticipating wood-frame construction, but had to shift gears to a steel-frame construction for various reasons. This meant that we had to make cut-outs in the foundation wall for anchor bolts. Two guys with a really big saw came and chopped notches in our wall. The pups were fascinated, and astonishingly good. In fact, they barked when the truck pulled up the driveway today, only to calm down immediately as soon as they heard the saw start up. "Ah, it's those guys," they seemed to say. "We know them."

Puck has always enjoyed construction work. He made a thorough inspection of the work today after the guys left. Brittany has always enjoyed potential toxins. She taste-tested the concrete dust today after the guys left. Mmmm...concrete dust.

Now that the foundation is fixed, all we have to do is assemble the steel trusses, frame things up...uhhh...y'know, other stuff...and then: poof! mega-garage! As may already be evident, when I say "we," I mean my hubby and other helpful people, not so much me. I plan to stand by, ready to spring into action, should vainly hopping around worrying about power tools be called for. Tricksy power toolses.

In addition to new notches in our foundation, we have a nifty new pile of concrete chunks sitting slightly to the left of our garage-ish. So, the hubster has grand plans (coinciding with the grand garage-building plans) to rent a dumpster and rid ourselves, not only of the concrete chunks, but of all of our assorted meaningless clutter. Yup, we will de-clutter our lives. Poof.

Mmm-mm. Poof, and then poof again.

If all goes according to plan, then, the new year will find us finally garaged, and (could it be true?) clutter free. So much for all my plans to use the garage as a storage place for limitless amounts of clutter - stacked on shelves, arranged chronologically perhaps, or alphabetically - indulging my genetic tendancies towards pack-ratitude, curatorship, and cataloguing.

Oh well, woulda been fun.

Is it at all significant that I'm so stunned by Victor's desire to fill a dumpster with the assorted detritus of the past seven years? I'll admit: there were things that got packed when we moved from the apartment that should have been thrown out. There are things that have yet to be unpacked (and could therefore most likely be thrown away without me every noticing), and there are a few oubliettes throughout the house where out-of-the-way corners have become hidey-holes for things we'd like to pretend we've already thrown out. But to actually throw it all out? Shocking. Strange. What if I decide later that I want it?

Ah well. I suppose it may be time to take arms against a sea of clutter, and by opposing, end it.