Last night Forest and I went to visit Bill and Kathy for pizza and movie night. We're supposed to be making this a regular thing, and I'm realy going to try to make that happen, despite the scheduling difficulties associated with it. It's nice to hang out with them, and we just plain don't see them enough. If we're going to keep functioning as a tribe, it's pretty important to meet frequently. We all laughed our way through dinner, and then watched Episode I on their TV, which is more fun than ours, because Bill spends a lot of money on stuff like Dolby systems and subwoofers. Actually, after hearing the difference I'm tempted to improve my system a little bit. Just a receiver with digital decoding chips and a pair of decent speakers would help.
Listen to me! "Just." The stuff that would "just" help would probably cost a thousand dollars that I have no prospect of having any time soon, and if I did, I should replace my porch ($2000) install air conditioning ($500, because Chuck would do it for free), fix my lawnmower, and re-side my house ($8000).
Forest was dreaming last night that for his birthday he might ask his dad and brother to come over for a day and just spend it working on things around here. That would be lovely. There are some things for which I just plain lack the expertise; cutting and hanging panelling, hanging and mitre-ing moulding, ducting from the oven range so I can install a fume hood, fixing the light fixture in the dining room, and the list goes on.
Bill did a really nice job remodeling his front porch. I should put that much effort into the mud room, and it would be decent, too.
I guess this is enough 'shoulds' and 'coulds'. It's time to go DO. See ya.
