The best stripper in the world

With a house under renovation, another house needing to be shown and rented, two kids on summer vacation and a husband once again off in -- hey, where the hell is Al again? (Japan and China this time) -- the blog is getting neglected.

It may leave me.  I'm convinced one day I'll log on and it will be gone, leaving only a sad "Dear MJ" letter behind.  It will tell me it needs to find a writer who isn't so caught up in their "life" and I'll understand.  But if it tells me we'll always have Paris, I'm going to roll my eyes because hello, cliché. 

The renovation work continues on Banister Abbey.  Much of the impressive front facade has, until recently, been covered in disgusting aluminum.  Contractor God got up on a very high, very wobbly ladder with a couple broken rungs (Contractor God lives dangerously) and started pulling the stuff off.  We couldn't believe what was underneath: dentils and corbels and a whole bunch of other words I only just recently learned.

It's like the house comes up with a new way every day to tell us it loves us.

Contractor "Danger" God did a lead paint test on all that peeling paint up there and, of course, it's full of the good stuff.  By "good stuff" I mean "the stuff that can kill my kids if they ingest it," so I guess it's really not good at all.  I excel at misnomers.

The front of the house now has to be tented and the lead paint removed in a specific way, likely with a monocle and a pair of tweezers, before we can continue with the restoration.  I will take pictures of the house burka once it has been donned.

In the meantime, I've moved indoors and have started making rooms look like this --

It's not finished but I think you can see the direction...

...I'm taking this sh*t straight to Crazytown.

Supermodel Neighbor is a carpenter (another misnomer thanks to me -- he's more carpenter than model these days) and came over to remove all the original woodwork from the windows.  The woodwork is now being stripped of its decades of darkened shellac by another man we call "the best stripper in the world." I'm talking the "wood" kind of stripper, not the "sexy sad" kind, although I wouldn't mind seeing him in a g-string.

Stripped wood by the talented but not sexy stripper.  

This is some of our woodwork with sample stains.  Can you understand now why I don't have time to blog?  I have to stare at the stripper's wood!

This is the bathroom we recently gutted.  This is what it looked like two weeks ago --

Here it is now.  It's not finished but given the hellhole of chaos and despair it was just a couple weeks ago, I'd say we've made good progress --

The harlequin travertine floor gives even our most sure-footed of friends a serious case of vertigo.  They have to sit down immediately.  Luckily, the toilet is nearby and that's what they went in there to do anyway.

Seattle Mom and Dad invited us over for dinner Wednesday night.  Lucien wore his shoes without socks on the walk over.  By the time we arrived, he had blisters on both feet. The two Seattle daughters ran up to their rooms to each get Lucien a pair of socks.  They argued over whose socks he would wear.  Lucien, the greatest peacemaker in the world (HA!) solved the problem, and looked pretty snazzy to boot --

Later that evening, Seattle Mom saw Lucien grabbing himself and asked, "Lucien, do you have to go to the bathroom?"  Lucien shrugged and said, "Nope, I just like touching myself."

Aaaahhh, the honesty of youth.

I burned a layer of skin off the roof of my mouth on a very hot breakfast sandwich.  It hurt a lot and, even worse, made drinking coffee very difficult.  Both Contractor "Danger" God and Seattle Mom wandered into my house later to find me sipping coffee slowly and deliberately through a straw.

I explained to them my coffee delivery system -- I had to funnel the coffee directly into the side of my mouth to avoid the roof of my mouth.  It was the only way I could continue to consume my caffeinated beverage without excruciating pain.  Seattle Mom listened then said, "Whatever, you look ridiculous."

Aaaahhh, the honesty of friends.

Strip away, stripper,
MJ