House Party

Oh, hello, there, how nice to see you again.  I had to dash off to New Orleans last week to meet up with the architect handling the plans of the renovation of my house there.  I was sort of dreading this, in part because my previous experiences with architects have been very much of the "I am an Ayn Rand sized diva and you had best watch out" type of soul withering punishment, and also because I assumed all the ideas I had for revamping the shabby little joint would be kicked to the architectural curb.

Instead, Katherine, Queen of Architects, was supportive and interested, complimentary about my ideas and made all of them work and improved even the most crack pot ones.

So now, demolition is proceeding with speed and my friend Stephen, who is running the project, and whom I think we can refer to as Sister Mary Legs in the Air from now on, is a genius.  He's very practical and so energetic about getting this crap done, I have to go lie down after watching him dervish around, ripping and tearing and nailing and all kinds of other butch things.

He and my friend Magda whipped up a pair of temporary gates from some scrap fencing in an afternoon.  This was after some riff raft had busted into the house the night I got in town, so some more secure access seemed like a good idea.

I also had dinner with Jason from Night is Half Gone who was down with pneumonia just a couple of weeks ago.  Everyone should go tell him they wish him well, although I have to say the whole story sounded suspect to me.  He just happens to have pneumonia the night my house is burgled and then is up to (not particularly outstanding) dinner and drinks on the town?  Hmmmm.

Anyway, photographic proof:

Before

After.  Or actually, during.  We'll see about after in a few months.

Also, Saki has sort of tentatively decided the cat tree is not an instrument of torture from the devil.  Sort of.  Yay.