Wow! What a difference a day makes. The basement is looking like a real space now. All the drywall is installed, apart from around the windows and doors. I’m amazed at their skill in cutting all the pieces and fitting them to size. Tomorrow they’ll finish, and then it’s on to the next phase (trim and doors?). It’s also becoming apparent that we’ll have to buy some furniture. In the coming weeks we’ll be scouring the regional estate sales, which are always good for a few bargains on nice stuff, if not for snooping around some nice properties (we’ve seen some doozies).

For fun I started another project: re-arranging all the shelves in the pantry so that I can fit the small chest freezer there. After moving it out of the basement for the construction project, it’s become apparent how convenient it is having it upstairs, although the dining room isn’t the best place.

At the office later in the day I watched from the 14^th floor this amazing storm blow in from the northwest. Another quiet day in a huge open-plan floor space all to myself. My amiga in the café loaded me up with bagsful of tuna sandwiches to bring home, otherwise they would have to throw them away. She’s always looking out for me. It’s a shame that some laws have unintended, poor, consequences—namely health department ones that dictate companies can’t redistribute perfectly good food to homeless shelters or food banks. Instead we throw away millions of dollars of food in this country when people go starving. When I’m elected Benevolent Dictator of the Universe, things will change. In the meantime, I’ll settle for bringing home free food.