Update from the Museum of the Weird

Just a short update tonight - that's the plan, anyway, but you know how loquacious I get, even late at night when I'm terribly tired.  We'll just have to see, won't we?

I managed 4 1/2 hours of sleep last night, which is better than four hours but not exactly healthy.  But it was worth it.  The house is the cleanest it's been in years.  I don't know whether you can tell that from these pictures, but in person the change is dramatic.  John and I are both pleased and relieved.

The appraiser was pleasant, and didn't diss the house at all.  Apparently a working furnace counts more in the valuation than non-working central air conditioning, for all that the former is barely needed in Arizona and the latter is almost essential.  The appraiser said that such standards were set by people "who have probably never been south of Duluth."  He was satisfied with the full swimming pool, even though it was dirty, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that both John's office and mine count as bedrooms, and that my office counts toward square footage despite not being on the duct work.

I was sleepy, but I got through the day at work and was moderately productive.  Tonight I've been mostly rereading Dragonsinger, and worrying a little at how heavily that book influenced bits of the Mâvarin books.  We ate dinner I-forget-where in celebration of the end of the appraisal stress and the cleaning.  I mean it.  I honestly can't remember where we had dinner tonight.  After dinner we used up a bit of our lavish and newly-acquired trade credit at Bookman's, where I spent a good part of last Saturday unloading excess books and video.

Tomorrow we head for Phoenix and IKEA. 

A few updates regarding this week's other entries:

* Note to Sarah and other Beatle fans: I will be updating the pie entry when I'm done with this one.  I can say no more.

* Ever since receiving several fun comments to the Monday Photo Shoot entry, I've been thinking of this house as a "Museum of the Weird," which was an early name and concept for what became the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. 

As such, I have a modest exhibit for you tonight.  See the two middle cushions on the bright orange couch?  My stepmother Ruth made them from some of my Dad's vintage ties.  We think they're wonderful!

In the other picture, the doll is missing a foot, but not a shoe, the framed photo is a Quantum Leap prop, and the bookcase contains games from two less-than-wonderful old tv shows: Space: 1999 and The Six Million Dollar Man.  If none of that is weird enough for you, let me make amends by explaining that the earthquake in a can is supposed to rock and shake if you spin it and then set it down.  Being over 20 years old, though, it no longer does this, as we discovered when John tried to demonstrate this function for me.  I'm sure I can come up with weirder stuff later for you.

Yawn.  That's enough for now.  I'll talk to you again on Sunday.

Karen