Changes.

Singing son said he thinks this blog looks crazy now and he can't figure out what is what anymore. "Change it back!" he said, over burritos at lunch yesterday. Well, sonny, you can't go home again. Especially if you never saved a copy of your old template, like some folks do.

Other changes:

1. We are painting our hall bathroom (blue) and our bedroom (green and lavender, which will either be soothing as all get out or will be reminiscent of the Jack Nicholson Joker of the Tim Burton Batman ilk. Or a little of both.). Our eminent housesitter and his able compatriots took down wallpaper while we were gone. They would have painted but the wallpaper was possessed of the spirit of the devil, and thus we are still scraping pugnacious little stripes of ancient wallpaper paste. Wallpaper begone! We hope to have painted by the time the weekend is through, hurray.

2. We bought a new dishwasher. I kid you not, the first thought I had upon waking, after dreaming, I'm pretty sure, about bok choy--why?--was this: I wonder if the dishwasher got the dishes clean? And lo, it did. The dishes sparkled. I'm considering washing every dish, pot, and pan in this house.

3. We bought a new swamp cooler. Our old one was rusting out at the bottom and every year when the historian climbed to the roof to get it going again, he'd say that we needed to get a new one and this had to be the last year. The very last year. We could have gotten refrigeration, but we did not because we're old fashioned like that.

4. We are cleaning and straightening like it's our job because the Scotlands are coming to American next week, and they will be here in the SLC for two and a half weeks. I will spare you all the cleaning details, but let me just say that my books are all on my shelves, mostly, and I have done the once over two or three times on some kitchen counters, and I have a list, I tell you, of the straightening and tidying and cleaning that must be done here, there and everywhere.

It was a big transition (read: change) when, on Monday, we came down the mountain into the valley where it was hella hot, especially compared to the mountain, and for one night, there was no swamp cooler. Luckily, there was a basement, because there is no sleeping in the room of the ancient wallpaper, the palimpsest of which is still, but only barely, visible on our soon to be vivid walls.