Are you my puppy?

The great puppy wait is almost over! We go north this weekend to meet the puppies and pick out which little guy will be moving in with us. We won't get to bring him home yet, but he'll be here around December 10.

We've started stocking up on doggie stuff, with more yet to come. We bought pretty dark green bowls and we've got a start on the toy box. My goal is to have enough chew toys that the puppy never has to look far for a toy to chew on. "Hmm, no toy within six feet. This table leg will do! Yummy!" No thank you. Chew toys are my friends. Until they get all drooled on and slimy. Then they're Adam's friends.

Somehow, though, we've stalled on the two biggest items: crate and bed-roll. [In my head, that was a really hilarious play on the name of the store Crate and Barrell, which is where we registered when we got married, and I thought it would be funny to mention it in reference to dog stuff, which we thought about registering for via Amazon wishlist, you know, because registering + dog stuff + clever word play = Mel is a big fat dork.]

The great crate debate [dork dork dork] centered on plastic versus metal, and was settled mostly by the question: Are we ever actually going to put the dog on an airplane? In other words, do we really need a plastic crate that is air travel certified? Pretty much no. So, we're probably going to get the wire crate. Of course, then I start looking at what you can do with them, and I totally want the one that folds up and has two doors and cleans itself and teaches your dog how to knit while you're not home. Hope you all like dog hair scarves.

Then we come to the bed issue, which culminated in, "Ooh, look at this one. It's nice and firm. Look, it's made out of recycled fleece from clothing factories. Hey, and it's totally machine washable. Where's the...it's how much?!" And when two DIY-ers start saying that, you know what the next phrase is about to be: "We could make one for less than that!" So, stand by for the greatest dog bed that Adam and I have ever made, kids. It's gonna be *awesome*. Until it gets all drooled on and slimy.

Top 10 Reasons to go on Lam Family Vacation

10. The vomiting only lasts a little while, and then you get to ride in an airplane.
9. The reassurance that if your upset stomach was due to pregnancy, you'd be getting a lot more sympathy.
8. Getting to witness your inheritance going into slot machines.
7. Watching your brother and sister-in-law swear at each other during a game of Disney Princess Uno.
6. You never eat at the same restaurant twice, even if you wanted to.
5. Someone else always wants to nap, too.
4. Getting to play, "What's that smell?" when you come home.
3. Hearing your Dad say, "I've got to shoot the hell out of Mom," during a tense game of Robo Rally.
2. Not being at work.
1. The scenery:

One small chair for man...

one giant sofa for mankind. Yes, friends, we have finally purchased some major furniture. Thanks to a generous donation from Aunt Irene, we will have a sofa AND a chair. Woohoo!

Of course, they won't be delivered until long after Adam's party on Saturday, so you'll all have to put up with folding chairs for yet another party. BYO cushion. :)

Graffiti, or dirt?

Hard to tell now, since I painted over it. We've been wondering when the neighborhood vandal was going to tag our garage. It's a giant white building--who wouldn't want to tag it? Well tag away, punks. I have more white paint than you have time to stand around in my alley. Bring it.

Adam's Birthday Masquerade!

Get your costume ready, because it's Adam's first birthday at Thorne House!

****

Saturday October 22

7pm - late

Thorne House

***

We'll be happy to provide some snacks, which you can contribute to, also.

Please BYO beverage of choice.

***

Presents are not expected, but if you are so moved, please consider gift cards relating to pet items. Adam will be happy to fill you in on all of his canine plans, as he is planning on adopting a puppy in December!

Falling, falling

And lo, the angel came to them and said, "Make a joyful noise, ye homeowners, for it is time again to put plastic on your windows and rake leaves onto your flowerbeds. Rejoice!"

Of course, the angel never sticks around to help with any of that, but what can you do?

I'm pleased to report that the furnace works. It's been nice and toasty in the kitchen these past few mornings. We taped cheesecloth over all of the vent openings in case the more powerful furnace fan blew out a bunch of dust. It didn't. So much for that bright idea. We also realized that all of our coats and hats and shoes are in the unheated mud room. Brrr. We'll have to reorganize that system for sure!



I purchased this book on cleaning your house with non-toxic things like vinegar and baking soda, and I've decided that the easiest way to get rid of all of the other cleaners that I have right now is...clean the damn house. So, this weekend will be washing all our windows, replacing the screens on the porch with the window units, and putting plastic on the upstairs windows. If anyone wants to have some shrinkwrapping fun, come on over Saturday afternoon. BYO hair dryer!

Better than Elvis

GRANT KJOS LIVES!!!

One day last week, I was eating lunch with my coworker Eric Johnson at the Olive Garden on Hennepin in downtown Minneapolis, and who should be my server but the one and only Grant Kjos. So smooth, so suave, so bottle blonde! It was all I could do to keep from swooning into my pasta. Why, oh why doesn't he ever recognize me? I'm such a fan! I'm such a devotee! Oh, if only I were as alluring and mysterious as Michael Stenner is, perhaps then I, too, could get a voicemail from Grant Kjos. Alas, I am fated only to have him as my server once in a while, during a heavy lunch rush. I must content myself with the extra mint that he brought with my bill.

Happy First Anniversary To US!!

The Quasimodo Point

Well, Happy Valley is over the hump, and it's all downhill from here. It couldn't actually get much more downhill than Friday night, when we discovered (in the middle of the first light cue) that the power outage at the theater had messed with the dimmer packs, and that the computer in the light board couldn't actually talk to the lighting instruments. We were able to fix it at intermission, but it was the worst first half of a show that I have ever called. My fabulous sound board op, Colleen Sommerville, covered her own cues beautifully while I was in panic mode. She had her own issues during last night's performance, but those were smaller oops-es that are expected to happen sometime during the run of a show. Live and learn--it just means that I have a new step in my pre-show checklist. Fortunately, the critics had all come opening weekend!

We had a cast and crew party at the house last evening, and once again I forgot to put out the guest book. My next chance will be at Adam's Birthday Masquerade on October 22, so somebody please remind me.

No time at home tonight, because I'm volunteering at the Ivey Awards. They are sponsored by Ameriprise, and I'll be working at the ticket desk. Then I get to see the show for free. Yay! This is the first time anyone has put together local theatre awards for the Twin Cities, so I hope that it goes well. Don't worry--Adam has a new Xbox game, and won't miss me at all! :)

Love in the time of goose-eggs

We've been having a wonderfully productive Labor Day weekend. Saturday morning we bicycled to breakfast with Sara, then I had rehearsal and Adam and our friend Smee started building a stand for Smee's new aquarium. Saturday evening, I put books on our new bookcases, and then there was a huge storm and our power went out for most of the night. That put an end to the construction project, and then Adam fell asleep on the couch before I could find a project that we could do with no power. On Sunday, we hit Menards and Home Depot for a new drill and more construction supplies. Then I shoved books around some more while Adam and Smee finished building Smee's stand. (Right now, they're out building the stands for Adam's aquariums.) I joined them in the garage to witness the new drill in action (ooooh) and to help cut some plywood. Once they finished with the stand, we took some time to clean and organize the garage. Which led to not only today's title, but also moved one of our intended improvements to the top of the list. Right now, the attic of the garage is accessible by a ladder that you pull down from a hole in the ceiling, and then climb up. The ladder itself is not secured to anything at all. On our project list, we have down, "Replace garage ladder with permanent folding stairs." After we dropped the existing ladder on my head, we decided that was a more important project than we had previously thought. Ow. The swelling has gone down now, but there was quite the lump for a while. We're both just thankful that it wasn't worse--just a lump, no bleeding or concussion. Poor Adam felt so terrible! He finished in the garage while I took lots of Tylenol, and then we decided that we couldn't face cooking and went out to eat. Which just goes to show that nothing can kill my appetite. Speaking of which, isn't it dinner time?

The other thing keeping Mel busy:

Mu Performing Arts presents

Happy Valley

A Theater Mu World Premiere co-presented with Intermedia Arts

Written by Aurorae Khoo

Directed by Jennifer Weir

Featuring Sara Ochs, Sherwin Resurreccion, Jeany Park, and Maria Kelly

*****

Life in Hong Kong for 13-year-old Tuppy and her guardian uncle is a magnificent world of horse racing, chinchillas and make believe. But as the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to mainland China looms, their untraditional family, including her uncle’s new girlfriend and their Filipina maid, must scramble to devise an exit strategy. At once a charming comedy and a complex drama, Happy Valley explores racism between Asian ethnic groups, the struggles of adolescence, and the life changing nature of emigration. Best for ages 12 and up.

*****

September 16 – October 2, 2005Intermedia Arts (2822 Lyndale Avenue S., Minneapolis)

Previews: Wed., Sept. 14 & Thurs., Sept. 15 at 8pm, Tickets: $8

Performances: Thurs. – Sat. at 8pm, Sun. at 2pm (AD/ASL: Sat., Sept. 24 at 8pm)

Tickets: $16 ($2 discounts for students & seniors – Group rates available)

Reservations: 612-871-4444

Visit http://www.muperformingarts.org/ for more information

Stacks

The kind you find in libraries, which is what our dining room is looking like. We finally decided on which bookcases we liked (yet more trips to Ikea!), and none too soon. Adam's parents brought a load of books from their house, that Adam had collected in high school. It was interesting to see how many books we had in common, and how many we agreed were only good when we were in highschool. Those are going to join the millions of books in the Land of Used Book Stores. The others will join the hundreds of books in the Land of Thorne Book Sorting. Adam sorted books in the dining room. I sorted books in the spare room. Next we have to sort the books in the office, and then we'll sort the many, many books in the basement. Whew. Eventually, the bookshelves in the house will be full of the little paper friends that we have collected, and then we'll buy more. Then we will weep with the despair of the Bibliophile, "We need more bookcases!" [sigh]

Tha Update

Holy macerel it's been about a million years since we wrote anything on here. Now here I am to update it, for any of our friends who have not written it off yet.

A LONG TIME AGO -
Let's see the first thing that happened that I didn't blog about was that Mel's parents came to visit. Mel's parents have been to the house a few times now, but they're very project oriented people - they come here, do stuff, then leave still with as many things in mind for our house as they arrived with. This particular trip involved birdfeeders, yard work, and - fatefully - a garbage disposal.

The garbage disposal went in, and we overcame a number of obstacles such as "how shall we mount a switch for it" and "how will it get power". We began to get overconfident. When we attempted to patch it into The Drainline Of Betrayal we learned the truth of the situation. The truth is that our old kitchen drainline (which had given us trouble before - see Home Emergency #1) was a house of cards, and the slightest disturbance would bring it down on our heads. As we ever so gently attempted to remove a bit of line with loving strokes of hammer and pliers, the pipes began to disintigrate. In the end the house scored a very palplable hit upon us, and we had to call a professional plumber. As of now, the whole kitchen drainline has been replaced and is made entirly of non-rusting PVC now, thank goodness. It was expensive, but we got our revenge as a length of pipe remains, like Fortunato, in our walls.

The birdfeeders were hung easily, but the two of them go from full to empty in about 24 - 30 hours 'cause we've got glutton-birds. The yardwork, while hot, was uneventful.

We thank the Lams for all they have contributed to our house.

THE NEXT WEEKEND -
Shortly after that MY parents - the Thornes (elder) - visited. They had not been here before, but that doesn't mean we didn't come up with some stuff for them to do. My father and I installed a less-crappy latch in our back gate. Now one can open it from the inside without a length of coat hanger! Mel + my Mother trimmed back the rasberries. If we're lucky they might grow back and fruit again in the fall, which would be sweet. The next day we hit the Powderhorn Park art fair. Lots of crap, some neat stuff. My parents bought a picture of a cow. It was a short visit from them, mainly for us to show off the hiz-ouse. We thank my parents for what they have contributed to our house as well.

JUST RECENTLY
My sister got married! It was on August 20th. Here, lemme bust out a couple of pics...
There you go - sister and new brother-in-law. The wedding was in Bloomington, IN. From the Twin Cities it is about 10ish hours to Indianapolis, then another hour and a half or so south to Bloomington.

Incidentally, we have found it is better to go around Chicago with the I-94 to I-90 to 39 to 74 to Indy. AND instead of coming into Indy on 74 you can take hwy 32 (um, around Crawfordsville - halfway between the boarder and Indy) over to hwy 65 and shave a bit off your final approach if you're going to the NE side like where my parents are. Yeah, the exits for that are all open now, Mom and Dad.

If you happen to be taking that route, you should stop for food at WOODY'S FAMILY RESTAURANT at the town of El Paso in Illinois on 39 just north of the 39/74 intersection at Bloomington (yeah, every state's got one). It was quality old school food fer cheap.

Well, that brings us to the present. I'll update again in a couple of months or something...

Residents Report Thorne House Warm

Thorne House, Minneapolis (AP)

In a stunningly predictable fashion, the daytime temperature of Thorne House has stayed steady at 90 degrees during the week after there was a housewarming party at the property. When asked, "Is it warm enough for you?" on Saturday, Alex Butterfield (age 19 months) made a face only a parent could love.
*No children were harmed in the warming of this house.


Friends and residents were concerned that the heat might result in a vicious game of croquet. Fortunately, a cooling breeze and the arrival of an unexpected half-keg kept the competition friendly, if fierce.

In the days since the party, both Thorne residents have been overheard complaining about the heat up to a dozen times a day. When asked to comment for this story, both declined, citing that they were too busy soaking their feet in cold water. This reporter can only hope that any housewarming parties in the future will be scheduled during November!

Thornes: 2, House: 1

There comes a time in the life of every home owner that you have to roll up your sleeves and do battle with the forces of home-entropy. Oh, sure, you clean up around the house, you mow the lawn, yadda yadda. These are skirmishes. Impolite encounters. No, the real hostilities commence when something breaks. And I'm talking about something with water in it.

Home Emergency #1
This happened and was mentioned in Mel's July 13 entry. We didn't blog about it in more detail because we didn't realize it was about to become a trend. I'll rectify that now, just so we can all draw our own conclusions about how handy the Thornes will be becoming over the period of their home ownership.

We noticed the kitchen drain peeing when I offered to show some friends our alternate toilet in the basement. I opened the door to point out that one could relieve themselves here should the other restroom be in use only to notice greasy water raining down from the joists. A couple of days later when Mel and I had time to actually begin to address the situation I was on the way out to the garage to get some tools to begin tearing stuff apart. As I passed through our back yard our neighbor Brandt spoke to me: "How's it going?" I complained of our situation, and Brandt began to tell me all the things I should do. 'Well, you TALK a pretty good game,' I thought. "Wanna come in and have a look?" As soon as he had a chance to check it out he started talking about how I need one of these, and some of that, and just do this... and he had tomorrow afternoon off and how about he just pick up the parts? I must admit that I felt a bit odd about this development. But he showed up with all sorts of PVC plumbing stuff. While I was out getting a tape measure Brandt pulled about a 5 ft section of pipe off of my basement ceiling. Don't leave Brandt alone in your house. But we managed to fit in the replacement PVC with some rubbery joints to mate it to the existing metal pipe. In the future I'll have an idea about how to accomplish this sort of thing, but choosing which joints to use and how to place them to connect two non-rectalinearly oriented bits of pipe seems like a question of instinct. This one might actually be "Neighbor Brandt: 1, House: 0"



Home Emergency #2
This one showed up Sunday night. Mel was doing laundry. I was slacking. Or maybe I was being useful, I don't remember. But Mel came up and asked me why the spin cycle might not work on our laundry machine. "The load is probably unbalanced," I said, wondering how my wife might not know this. Relief is not what I felt when I learned that the problem was not an unbalanced load. In a clothesless test run the washing machine fills up with water and then makes noises like it's running, but the agitator turns not. Thankfully the machine is capable of pumping the water in it back out, at least. We get out our 'fixin stuff in yer house' book (and the samurai fixit website linked by Mel) and have a look. Tilting the beast forward we are able to get a look at the intimate bits of our major appliance. There was a lot of shredded plastic laying under it. We were able to discern that the coupler - isolation disk - coupler assembly between the motor and the transmission had shredded itself. A few days later, about $16 dollars bought us a new assebly for our Whirlpool Cleantouch washer at Dey Appliance Parts.

BTW, even if your washer is called "Cleantouch", don't open it unless you must. The filth that you will find residing mere inches from where your clean clothes swirl was super super gross. I dunno, maybe your basement is cleaner then ours has been, but we were totally grossed out.

But that didn't stop us from fixing it. No, 2 hours was enough time for us to unhook everything, flip up the control panel and then pull forward the main housing, unhook and remove the water pump, then the main motor. This exposed the two coupler plates and the empty space where our isolation disk had been before being shredded to it's component quarks. We got some nasty brown grease on our hands, and what seemed to be dog hair as well (we have no dog - yet!), but we replaced the busted bits. Clearly, this brings the score to Thornes: 2, House: 0 (Brandt counts as a substitution). Shove it back into place and we'll get some laundry done, right? All we have to do is stick the drain out of the washer into that sink, and then hook the water inlets to their dedicated faucets, right? RIGHT?

Home Emergency #3
Can you guess what this is? I'll blog more about it when I've fixed it. Grrr.

Love in the time of Dirty Laundry

Remember that old song about which chores you did on which days? It was popular about the same time that we were still boiling laundry in the backyard. Which is what I'm anticipating doing soon, since our washing machine has stopped agitating. The good part is that we know what broke, and we're reasonably sure that we can fix it. The frustrating part is that nobody wants to sell you parts for your washer on Sunday night, which means that I don't know exactly when the clothes will be able to become clean. Good thing our jobs have office casual dress codes!

I did find this site when looking for troubleshooting your washing machine. This contains exactly the amount of scorn that you'd expect from anyone dealing with appliance morons like me, so it's quite funny. Read the very last yellow entry, which actually gives you a good idea about what my dad used to sound like on the phone when troubleshooting for his clients.

We did manage to get the spaghetti sauce into the crock pot last night, so this morning the house smelled fantastic.

Housewarming is easy to do in Summer

Hello, Friends! Here it is, the long-awaited invitation to our housewarming party! (Well, some ofyou were waiting without knowing it, but isn't it much easier that way?)

When: Saturday July 30, 6pm to late
Where: Thorne House

What: An Open House
Come and enjoy our yard! There will be croquet and bocce ball. Significant others, kids and well-behaved dogs are also welcome. If you bring your kids, please bring a leash. No, no, I mean if you bring your dog, please bring a leash. Yes, that's what I meant.

Come and eat dinner with us! We have a small gas grill and a small charcoal grill. We will provide condiments and utensils, as well as chips and soda. Please BYO whatever else you'd like to eat or drink.

Come and tell us what color we should paint our living room! We don't have a lot of furniture yet, so you'llbe able to have an uninterrupted view of our walls. Be warned--you might be invited to put your muscles where your mouth is. :)

Come and enjoy the fruits of your labor! A big thank you to everyone who had to listen to us talk about the entire house buying process ad nauseum. An even bigger thank you to everyone who helped in the (extended) moving process. You rock! Now come and relax with us!

Please note that gifts are not expected; however, if you are feeling generous, a small giftcard from your favorite home improvement store would not go unappreciated.

Little Bunny Fufu (or, Josh, to some)

There really is a bunny in this picture. He's just a little bitty bunny, and he lives in our raspberry patch. It's fun to look for him in the morning when I leave for work; sometimes he's out then. I scared him the other day, and he's too young to really know what to do, so he just kind of jumped spastically in circles for a minute.

Our raspberries are growing and growing. Thank goodness for Greg and Sara Feinburg, who gave us a short primer on what to do with them in the fall. Greg also spent some time telling us which plants were weeds. Handy folks, those Feinburgs.

It's been much too hot to do anything but the most pressing house projects. Like, fix the leaky drain pipe so that it doesn't dump dirty water all over the basement. That will get fixed tomorrow, and then we'll be able to wash our dishes again. Hurrah! Thankfully, the bathroom sink still works fine, so when I need to wash red wine out of my white shirt, I can do that. It's times like this that I really miss the backstage work. Red wine + black shirt = who cares?

All neighbors are independent, but some are more independent than others

I don't think that we need to worry about North Korea anymore; I think Kim Jong Il sold his arsenal to our neighbors across the street. They commenced setting off fireworks on Friday at 5pm, and stopped Monday night, sometime after midnight.
Now that's freedom, baby.





We had a very nice 4th of July, ending with the fireworks up at the park. We could see the fireworks by the Stone Arch Bridge, which started at 10pm. The Powderhorn fireworks started about five minutes later, but then ran at least 15 minutes longer. It was a good display, and I was glad that we had gone. It was much more relaxing to be able to walk there, and walk home, and avoid the crazy traffic. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the house to visit!

Love in the time of Little Tables

We had a successful run to Ikea today. We found little tables to use as night stands. We found a little table for the living room computer. And we found a neat little kitchen cart for a mobile island in our kitchen. Which will save me from continuing to use our step stool as counter space.

We also found, as you always do, various random things that induce thoughts like, "Oooh, look. We could put that in the bedroom. Oooh, look. We could put those on the front porch. Oooh, look. It's only $1.99. Let's get three." Thankfully, we were there long enough to become exhausted by the options, and give up on anything that was not a little table.

*photo credit: Sara M Ochs