Of mice and men

I guess you could say that today was day 1 of the build. Today began the teardown of the deck. But first, a comment on omens.

You know those moments when you just KNOW you're making the right (or wrong decision)? Well, we had three of those moments over the past few days. the first happened last week or so, when the kids (and, well, okay, the parents) were dancing around the room to Smashmouth. All that glittered wasn't so much gold, but broken glass, and oil.

Okay, I've lost you. I shall explain. During the festivities, someone knocked over an oil lamp (basically a glass jar full of kerosene) all over the living room carpet. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get oil out of a carpet? Our living room floor suddenly turned into the set of an infommercial as we discovered the wonder of the absorbent chamois cloths we obtained at a recent home show. Now the carpet is so lumpy that Natalie's remote control car wouldn't even drive over it. But hey, with the renovation the carpet goes away. So be it. And it reminded us that now would be a good time to start potty training Jessica.

The next omen occurred the evening we signed the loan papers. We told our kids that we were definitely going through with the project. The generaly response was, "yeay. Can I watch a video?" So we obliged, flipped through Comcast's on-demand programming, and discovered that the "preschool network" (or something like that) had a show teaching kids about home renovation. Daddy and daughters watched intently. Mommy will be forced to watch it before the end of the weekend so she can learn what HVAC stands for. How many 2-year-olds do YOU know that know what HVAC stands for, huh?

The final event (or straw, as it were) occurred this morning. I was making my morning coffee when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed furry critter bounding across the kitchen floor into the dining room. And it wasn't a muppet. It seems little GusGus (Cinderella reference for all you non-parents) had been snacking on a bag of brown sugar, and I disturbed him. I then went all Bill Murray on his ass, chasing him around the house, overturning chairs and couches, all the while swearing a blue streak and working up a good sweat. I cornered him behind the piano, behind the bookshelf, under the computer desk, until finally I managed to direct him out the back door to freedom. After the chase ended, I tried to think of a way to debrief my wife on the chaos without completely freaking her out. Unfortunately I'm not that strong a thinker. Hilary spent the rest of the day traversing the house across countertops and couches, a broom in one hand and a saucepan in the other.

But hey. We're renovating. A chance to clean those corners full of cheerios and other kiddy snack foods that GusGus has obviously been squirrelling (well, mousing) away for years.

So back to Day 1. As mentioned above, the deck comes down this weekend. The excavators come on Wednesday afternoon (quite an event for the first night of Passover, dontcha think?). So out come the power tools and beverages, as I'm expecting a small crowd of helpers to arrive tomorrow. Here's to a summer of barbecuing in the driveway!