Thursday, 1 January 2004

January to-do list

House:

  • Replace hot-water heater
  • Install a combustion air duct (that coal chute came in handy
  • Scrub, patch, sand, prime and paint the watercloset.
  • Pin cables in den.
  • Take down tree, put away stuff
  • Sort photographs
  • Reframe Granny's paintings
  • Mount ledges in dining room
  • Prime upstairs landing
  • Paint upstairs landing ceiling
  • Paint upstairs landing trim
  • Paint upstairs landing walls

    Before JGW gets here:

  • Replace watercloset in watercloset
  • Put away year's correspondence
  • Tidy study

    Errands

  • Appointment with kitcher measurer
  • Appointment with kitchen designer
  • Appointment with cabinet measurer
  • Take cardboard to recycling
  • Plastic bags to recycling
  • Phonebooks to recycling
  • New photograph album
  • Pages for scrapbook
  • Pages to make kid album

    Kinwork and Lisaism

  • Mail P&S's present
  • Mail CCN's present
  • Shop and mail RPR's sprout's present
  • Shop for and mail Emlet's present
  • Card for ZBD

    Reading:

  • Cathleen Schine, She Is Me
  • Cornelia Funke, Thief Lord
  • José Saramago, The Stone Raft

    08:08

    • stopping time

    Just before midnight, we paused our game of Taboo,* switched the set from DVD (either "Dead Again" or "Henry V": Clove was in a Kenneth/Emma mood) to Dorian Gray's Rocking New Year's Eve, and tried to pour sparkling cider for the non-champagne contingent. The cider needed a bottle opener, and RDC dashed upstairs to get it. I paused the ball drop at 11:59:02 to allow time for the dash and pour.

    Besides that the ball had dropped two hours before, how much of an insult to time was it to Tivo the time-delayed drop?

    * Taboo really isn't much of a game if you have any command of synonyms or culture. I couldn't say "Dutch" but I could say "Don Quixote tilted at ---" and go on to the next word.

    10:10

    wooden leg named smith

    Conversation over lunch led to RDC saying, "I always said I was going to be an inventor when I was a kid."

    "What did you say you were going to be when you were an adult?"

    "The kind of person who beats his wise-acre wife."

    17:05