Electric Boogie!!

 Finally the electricians arrived to replace ALL the wiring in our house!  One more step toward TOTAL INSULATION AT LAST!

I'd always told my husband that we were running live 'knob and tube', which he did not want to hear, but then he can't get into the attic and I can, and it was pretty obvious up there since the remodeler didn't even bother to close the junction boxes.  I'm not a dumbshit ffs.

Presented here on a bed of Filberts because presentation is everything.     

Behold!  This is the kind of horror that was up in the attic and all over the house.  The electricians were appalled!  More importantly,  I was vindicated!  

That this house ever passed inspection before being sold was probably a matter of an inspector having driven by and going 'Yeah, it's standing,' and receiving his kickback.  This shit was illegal twenty-five years ago and it's illegal today.  The company that did the remodeling is notorious around town for his shortcuts and shoddy workmanship.  We figure, what the hell, it only has to last us until we go into assisted care.  We're throwing money at it now just to stay comfortable until then, and part of staying comfortable is not waking up on fire.

The kitchen and dining room are up and running, and we've been playing 'Outlet Roulette' for the past three days.  The power is glitching since we're on temporary connections until they can run new service to the house and replace the master fuse box. 

Where is the fusebox?  Why, in my bedroom!  HUZZAH!

Still, the outfit we hired is really banging it out in record time.  Most importantly, they're running the lines through the attic instead of under the floor joists.  We flood, and it's only going to get worse over time, so we're planning ahead for the time when the floodwaters reach the actual structure.  Here's hoping that never happens, at least while we're in residence. 

I have made many discoveries and had many core realizations during all this activity.  I discovered that a family of Gods' little creatures was living in my kitchen by hearing the sounds of an electrician gagging when they moved the counter out from the wall.  That was embarrassing as hell.  I did a record time deep-clean on that and apologized profusely.  

I discovered that we own entirely too many tchotkes.  Entirely. Too. Many. And I discovered that all our furniture is really heavy, too.  That's the tradeoff for owning original Mid-Century Modern pieces because we are super cool and trendy here at Rancho FirstNations.  Yes I am bragging.

Core realizations?  I am not the housekeeper I used to be.  I used to be, as one woman noted years ago, The Hippie Martha Stewart.  I was very exacting about order and cleanliness.  Now, the combination of being really short and having crappy glasses has resulted in accumulations of crud that I simply didn't see until I had to move things around.  The stuff in my linen closet is aligned with geometric precision, but spiders, mice, and wildfire soot have added to the overall state of entropy despite that crucial detail.

Another core realization was that I have internalized the tenor of my social environment to the point of going to the trouble of hiding certain things from the gaze of the electricians, such as my copies of  The Autobiography of Aleister Crowley, Witchcraft In Europe, and the Malleus Malificarum.  Every one of these guys live here in town, and I'd rather be known for my garden than I would be for my reading material. (I have actually had problems with this before, when one of my daughters' friends told her mother what I had on my shelves and her mother forbid the kid from ever visiting again. Yeah.  We have well over a thousand books in our collection, most of it non-fiction, but no - the kid zeroed right in on the three eeeeeeevil titles and narked to her mom. The rumor went all over the school and straight to the parents: SSA's mom and dad are Satanists!!! which we are not.  Still, thanks, ya little shit.)

Still, as much of a nuisance as all this is, I am very happy despite my bitching and whining. We won't have nearly as many power dips and surges as we have had for years, and the likelihood of death by rodent - assisted fire will be greatly reduced.  Then the insulation will go in!! This Winter isn't going to be anywhere  near as hard as last Winter was.  I'm really looking forward to that!  And similarly, next Summer isn't going to be as rough, either.  My house will be a refuge from the weather instead of being at the weathers' mercy!  Imagine it!