Nothing doing

Sorry, no books or movies to blog about; until we get settled at the new place this 'blog will continue suffering its current half-assed hiatus. For a third weekend in a row I read nothing, and didn’t watch a film on DVD. I only caught half of half of a game of NCAA (and routed for a team I loathe—Georgetown—because they were playing a team I loathe even more—UNC). Normally I’m attached to the television during March Madness, but this year I’m entirely out of the loop. We did manage one episode of Deadwood, which remains satisfyingly ambitious, almost operatically so.

We also went to SCAN and dumped a butt load of cash on overpriced trendy furniture we’ll surely regret buying in a couple years. And to make things worse we bought said furniture in very vivid colors. God help us. We followed this up with bank-breaking trips to Home Depot and IKEA. Most of the weekend was spent shopping or assembling IKEA CD shelves.* I only say this because I spent two hours alphabetizing classical stuff last night, but I have too many goddamn CDs. Can't wait to unpack the frackin' books--perhaps I'll just roll boxes down to Normal's instead of opening them.

We also found an early ‘50s dining set we liked in a Fell’s Point antique shop, and a barrister’s bookcase and a library table to boot. We haven’t bought them yet, but are heavily considering renting a truck and going back tonight.

All that money we made selling the Towson house is going fast!

This year’s tax refund was less than half what we got last year. WTF? Nothing really changed on our end. We both made about 10% more money, but it’s not like we jumped up a bracket or anything. Jesus.

Saturday we bowled ten pins for charity. I hadn’t bowled in ages, and my consistency suffers. First game I bowled a 118, the second was a more respectable 183. Cha wants to join a league, as if we have time to do anything else right now.

Thanks to those of you who sponsored us. Pay us when you see us next.

*It only seems that way. We also spent a lot of time in the Park, and had a nice afternoon with Julio and Yo! Adrienne touring around downtown on a gorgeous day. You gotta take advantage of city life.

Dust to duct

The contractors who refurbished our house put the wrong size filter in the furnace, and didn't even attempt to seal the gaps around the filter with duct tape. During a gut remodel, a lot of dust and debris ends up in the basement, and when the furnace was fired up without the appropriate filter in place, a good portion of that dust and debris ended up in the duct system. The entire house was consequently coated with a thin layer of grit, and more grit was drifting down each time the HVAC kicked on. Try settling into a new place and keeping it clean under those conditions. I used to do drywall work and each morning in the new place I'd awake with that long-forgotten gritty taste in my throat.

No more. I hired some guy with a big blue sucking machine to suck all the stuff out of our ducts yesterday. Said duct sucking was quite satisfying, and if you have ducts you ought to get them sucked. It is expensive, but worth it.