Lights, Radio, Clothing!

Saturday, 17 December 2011

My home improvement today concerned the room we use the least: the spare room in the basement.

We use the room for the cat’s litter box, and to store shelves, boxes, and chairs that we’re not using at the moment. The annoying thing about the room is that the light fixture is (was) a fluorescent light. Actually, the previous homeowner installed fluorescent lights in three areas in the basement.He even cut out the sheetrock and recessed them in between the ceiling joists for some reason. Maybe so that they looked uglier and gave off less light.

I already replaced the fixture right at the bottom of the stairs, but this one in the spare room was a little trickier. For some bizarre reason, the fixture was installed on one side of the room, and I wanted the new fixture to be more centrally located. This required drilling through a couple of joists, then running the wire down the length of room and fishing it through a hole I punched in the ceiling. Yeah, I really punched it. Owen got a real kick out of the mess I made. I didn’t mind the mess so much, because I knew I would just assign Owen the task of cleaning it.

It took about an hour or so, but everything’s good now. A regular incandescent light near the center of the room. Unlike the fluorescent light that was there, this light turns on instantly when the switch is flipped and gives off enough light to navigate without stepping on cat surprises.

Sunday, 18 December 2011

This morning, I was once again on the radio show Atheists Talk. As you may recall, I was on the show once before, but on that occasion, I was the guest. This time, I was the interviewer. How cool is that?

With Owen joining me for moral support, I interviewed author Glenn Kleier regarding his recent novel The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Glenn wasn’t in the studio; he was tied-in via telephone. That was a little weird. I didn’t really like having a conversation with someone who wasn’t there.

Regardless, the host, Brianne Bilyeu, said that I did a great job, and the sound technician said I was one of the best interviewers yet. He also said I have an ‘awesome voice for radio,’ which, actually, I have heard before. And now that I think about it, in all the times I’ve hosted Atheists Talk TV show, no one has ever said I have an awesome face for TV. Huh. Go figure.

If you didn’t tune in to the show when it was live, GO HERE and listen via RSS feed.

Monday, 19 December 2011

So, during the mass organizing and cleaning that took place this past weekend in preparation both of my mom’s visit and our impending holiday party, we found yet more stuff left behind by the previous homeowner.

Yesterday, in fact, I found one of those little packages of Kleenex that women keep i their purses. Their was one tissue left inside, and I used it to wipe up some of the dust under the stove. Also, behind the dryer, I found a box of Dryel dryer sheets and stain remover. This was especially unexpected, because I already found a box of Snuggle dryer sheets back there two months ago when I was installing a fan. So…I’m not exactly sure how I missed a box that’s about 8 inches long on each side. Weird.

The big find, however, was on Saturday. I found a large box of toddler clothes.

“How,” you ask, “could you guys possibly have not spotted a box filled with baby clothes for three months?”

Good question.

Here’s the answer:

You know how, above, I mentioned that we never spend any time in that downstairs room? Well, while I was down there installing the new fixture, I had to move some stuff out of my way. In the corner, there was this one very heavy box filled with floor tiles. The previous homeowner left it on purpose so that we could use the tiles to finish the floor down there, if we want. Well, underneath that box was an identical box. Naturally, I assumed it was also tiles. But when I went to lift it, it didn’t weigh 50 pounds. It only weighed about 2 pounds. Then I noticed writing on it:

Mary Kay’s summer clothes 1989 to 1990 18-24 months

Curiosity piqued further, I opened it up. Sure enough, ‘vintage’ baby girl clothes from the first Bush Administration years. Also included were three banana clips:

We decided to contact the former owner to see if he or his (now adult) daughter wanted the clothes, for sentimental reasons. Of course, he’s left plenty of other things here, but everything else was either obviously left on purpose (such as the fireplace tools) or probably had no value to him anyway (such as those dryer sheets). But these were different.

He wrote back today appreciating our thoughtfulness, but said we could do whatever we wanted with them.

Our current plan is to grow Isla into a human that fits into 18-24 month old clothes, and then put them on her. She’ll look totally, like, 80s. It’ll be rad.

Finally, a co-worker sent me this most excellent music video. Take a watch: