The Stepford Handymen

Just as in the book "The Stepford Wives," where everything is perfectly tidy and neat-- that's what I was faced with this morning. My doorbell rang promptly at 9:00 this morning and the two handymen there on my front porch were clean and neatly dressed and looked as if they had just shaved. Not only did they wipe their shoes on the mat outside, but they checked the soles to make sure they weren't bringing any clumps of grass or dirt inside. Bonus points! (I didn't ask them to do that, mind you.)

The result of this morning's work is that the wall behind the master shower has been stripped down to bare studs. They cut that wall down piece by piece, very neatly, without creating a mountain of sheetrock-dust. (More bonus points!) Definitely a good-sized leak in the shower pipes there. So much so that we were lucky that the carpeting wasn't ruined in the closet next to the shower, not to mention my husband's clothes. The owner of the remodeling company will be back tomorrow morning, to measure and take notes so he can make a list of everything that needs to be replaced in there. The plumber will be here on Monday afternoon at 2:00. My husband and I will be at their showroom on Monday morning to have a look-see at the cultured marble shower enclosures. Do you want a soap dish here? A shelf there? Maybe two? A bench to sit on over there? So many choices in such a big shower.

I spent most of this afternoon taking gifts out of my Christmas closet, wrapping and tagging them. Those are the gifts we'll give out on Christmas Day. As I went through the shopping bags, it was like Christmas for me-- I had forgotten some of the things I had bought for people. Happens every year. Who can remember in October what was purchased back in January or August?

Still to do-- the few gifts that I will be mailing out. I use catalogs for most of those gifts-- everyone we know has more than enough things that take up shelf space and need to be dusted, so I've stopped buying those types of gifts. We get a lot of specialty-food catalogs, filled with delicious holiday goodies... a lot of them made right in Texas. Those gifts are already ordered, set to be delivered during the two weeks before Christmas.

My sister and I exchange gifts for Christmas and our birthdays. Sometimes we have a theme, sometimes not. Such as the year my sister went to Paris for a weekend... for two or three Christmases after that, I kept finding cute things with the Eiffel Tower either embroidered or pictured on them. Of course, Paris had to be my theme for her for a couple of years. I found her a great pillow that was embroidered with the words: I'd rather be in Paris. Of course, the Eiffel Tower was embroidered onto that pillow as well.

I think I've Paris-ed myself out with that theme, however. This year, we decided to give just "stocking gifts," as my sister calls them. Nothing big, fancy or expensive... just little things that can be tucked into a Christmas stocking. My sister's Christmas stocking isn't tiny. So I've still got some shopping to do. My sister and I have had a gift-giving rule for the past four or five years--- we can't give each other something that has to be dusted. Which rules out everything that takes up space.

And what does that leave? Scented soaps, pretty candles, tea, notecards, memo pads, journals... anything that is gone after you use it or can be used while it's sitting around. My only exceptions to that rule are books. What would Christmas be without giving books? And my sister reads as much as I do. Probably more, since she doesn't have three cats and a dog. So when she sits down to read, no one is wagging their tail to go for a walk or staring at her with cat-blue eyes because he wants to go into the backyard to catch baby frogs.

Actually, speaking of the cats... they slept for most of this morning and afternoon. When the workmen were here cutting down that wall, Rusty and ShadowBaby ran into the porch and AngelBoy was hiding under the bed. It took me nearly 20 minutes to coax him out from under there. I wanted him out on the screen-porch with the other two because I didn't want to take the chance of him running out the front door if a workman went to his truck.

AngelBoy hated the noise of the work, but he also hates being under the bed. I think he just ran under there because he was so close to it when the doorbell rang. I finally got him out of there, by telling him we'd go out in the yard. Say what you will, but my cats understand what I tell them, and AngelBoy knows the words 'out in the yard.' However, being that I put him in the screen-porch instead of in the yard, AngelBoy now knows that mommy can tell a little fib now and again. (Isn't that a silly word? Fib. Past tense-- fub? Now I'm being silly.)

I watched Oprah this afternoon. She had the cast of 'Desperate Housewives' on her show today. I have to admit that I did watch part of that show one Sunday night-- not the first episode, but the second. I thought it was a little over-the-top, but I was just curious because The Chronicle had a huge article about it. But that's what I think about most night-time television-- it's all over-the-top, which is why I don't watch it. (My one exception to that rule is The Apprentice.)

Desperate housewives. And what are they desperate about? Keeping a clean house? Raising perfectly-behaved children? Making sure hubby is happy? Well, in my humble opinion... keeping a clean house is just a matter of being organized, and you either are or you aren't. Raising perfectly-behaved children--- no such thing, since there are no perfectly-behaved adults in this world. Striving for perfection will give you life-shortening stress. And most of today's children are being 'raised' by day-care workers anyway, so heaven help them all. And a happy hubby? Sometimes I think every man on earth just wants his favorite team to win either the World Series or the SuperBowl every year, his favorite foods to be in the fridge or on the table whenever he's hungry, and his wife to be ready for sex whenever he is.

Well.... no wonder we're all so blessedly desperate.