progress

I've spent a goodly portion of the last three days in the dungeon basement. There is much damp, much rotten wood, and much mold. Wood laying on dirt floor is a bad idea. If I had been concentrating on one thing I might have finished it, but I've also been cleaning up stray wiring (mostly cable TV wires), pulling down broken/rusted/unused pipe hangers, reattaching wall insulation, plugging random holes, and putting in sill to floor insulation where that's missing. I built a rack from the joists to hold long construction materials that were laying on pallets on the floor. The cardboard boxes that they were once in are no longer boxes and in fact no longer cardboard, more the consistency of cooked noodles.

Overall, I've got everything mostly done. This is a good time to do the work because it's not too hot working, but warm enough in the basement that fingers stay dexterous. It's also nice that most of the creepy crawlies are dead or sleeping, they like cold weather less than I do.

companionship

I haven't said it in a while and I was noticing it specially this weekend, derien is an excellent companion. I like to use that term because it covers such a wide range of things from someone you go to the movies with, to someone you slog through arduous tasks with, to someone you listen to snore, to someone who you do lots of other things with. Like the term, derien is versatile.

Most people talk about relationships being a lot of work. Every now and then, ours takes a bit of effort, but for the most part after the initial bumps of learning to communicate with each other it just goes along. NRE involves work, a real longterm relationship involves more paying attention to the tiller than climbing up to furl the sails. Well, I guess that's if you're doing it right.

One of my favorite bits is seeing her when she's crushing on someone. It's so cute. I must confess, I tend to encourage it. It is a bit sad when she gets over her crush, or worse yet her crush doesn't turn out as good as the initial shine might have appeared. It's still fun when it's shiney. I wonder if mono people recognize that in their partner or if they overlook it entirely.

"Every old sock, meets an old shoe." - Kate Bush