Yesterday, in the continuing saga of everything-kitchen-all-the-time, we placed the official order for the appliances and handed over a hefty deposit check to get that started. We also ordered the pendant lights that will hang over the center island – a process that went surprisingly quick, considering that neither of us really cared all that much about the lights in the first place, but also thankfully quick because I’d only managed to scrounge up enough quarters for half an hour’s worth of parking, and amazingly we did not run over.
As for today, the morning started off with two hours at the permit office going through the plan check review, since we finally got the updated plans from the structural engineer last night. But it was two hours well spent, ultimately, since I left clutching our approved building permit for the kitchen. So at least that’s one more hurdle crossed (and the timing is especially apt, considering that demo starts tomorrow). I then went to work and spent the next three hours either catching up on the email and voicemail that had accumulated from me being out yesterday (I took yesterday off to be there with my dad while my mom had knee replacement surgery), and sitting in on long conference calls, after which I then shut down my computer, having accomplished not remotely anything close to what I had hoped to accomplish, and hopped back into the car to drive down to Dixon for a funeral. The man for whom the funeral was being held was one of those amazing people who was funny and brilliant and kind and generous and basically larger than life, and he and his wife had the kind of marriage that most of us can probably only dream of having – 58 years and still just as much in love and in tune with each other as when they first met.

On the way back to the office I took a quick detour by the hospital to check in on my mom, since with everything else going on this week I figured I ought to take any chance I can to stop in. She’s still mostly doped up on pain meds after her surgery yesterday morning, so I’m not sure how much of the visit she’ll actually remember later, but it was good to see her, especially because I could then provide a progress report later to my younger sister when she called this evening. We had a nice long chat on the phone and I also got to talk to my niece, who first wanted to know what replacement knees are made of (sadly, I had no idea), and then to tell me all about her Irish step dancing classes, a conversation which then rather inexplicably segued into a story about someone who found a dead bat behind their cupboards. Such are the ways of the mind of an eight year old. Heh.

This evening is going to be all about the final packing and clearing out of the kitchen and the back porch and taking advantage of one last night of having a functioning kitchen sink to do a load of dishes, oh, and also figure out how to rig up a temporary door at the base of the stairs that will incorporate an industrial strength shower curtain, an expandable baby gate, and several packages of adhesive strips and also, possibly velcro, so that the cats can remain safely downstairs for the foreseeable future. Do we know how to have fun, or what?