Saturday was Bethy's birthday, so we headed down to Berkeley to meet up with a small crowd, go to a bar, eat lunch, and have amusing and loud debates on politics (hard to debate when everyone agrees that Bush is useless, but we *did* try, really we did), catch up on PernMUSH gossip, and generally have fun. Getting there was a bit hectic, however, because for whatever reason, I thought we had to be there by 1pm, and considering that it takes over an hour to get there, and by the time we left our house it was less than an hour til 1pm, I was a bit worried we'd miss the group before they headed out. Amusingly enough, however, even though we actually did make it by 1pm (we just won't mention how fast Jennifer was driving to accomplish *that* little feat), it turned out we had the time wrong all along and so we were early. Sigh. Ah well.

The reason we ended up late is because we swung by the house, only intending to be there just long enough to take our requisite weekly pictures. But while we were there, we were cornered by the air conditioning guy, who wanted to make sure that he was putting the vents everywhere we wanted, and by the way, we might want to think about upgrading the energy efficiency of the air conditioning unit. And then as we were heading for the car, eyeing our watches and realizing just how late we really were, the roofers waved us down. Did we want woven or valley metal, they asked us.

I should point out that Richard and I are begining to perfect the blank stare and the slack-jawed 'huh?'. Luckily, the roofer who asked us recognized the look, took pity on us, and pointed out the difference on some neighboring roofs. We mumbled out a choice, and then dashed out of there before anyone else asked any questions that we hadn't a clue how to answer.

Sunday we went back to the house, this time to do a walk-through and determine placement of light switches and electrical outlets, and this time we decided to take along someone to help. We enlisted my mom to come with us because even though we had a rather vague idea of what we needed to do, we figured that it would help to have someone who's lived in enough houses to have gotten a feel for what would be nice to have. While Richard drew little room pictures on a pad of paper, we wandered the house and pointed to walls - put an outlet there, and there, and one here, and what about there?

A contractor scrambled down from the attic where he'd been installing air conditioning ducts, and asked about fans. Did we want the normal ones or the more expensive, quiet ones? Did we have any thoughts on the placement of the fan grills themselves?

I think Richard and I really need to simply tattoo "First Time Home Owners - Proceed With Caution" on our foreheads. That would make life so much easier. Really it would.