paint fumes

oh dear- the travelocity gnome just flew by on his balloon-propelled lawnchair to let my office know that the paintfumes have reached dangerous levels:

the other half of our floor has been undergoing renovations for a couple of weeks now. first up was a week of new carpet aromatherapy. our office canary didn't make it through that one. and now we've moved on to eau d'paint. there's also the non-stop 'hum' of powertools, hammering, and aerosmith to keep the workday moving on along. and getting on/off the elevator has become something of an obstacle course a la sarajevo with random pieces of wood, tangles of wires and stray light fixtures everywhere. if j.mo worked here he would have been injured long ago. oh, and let's not forget the intermittent plumbing interruptions... nothing brings co-workers closer together than passing a bedpan around.

so i'm going to blame my inability to blog for the past 10 days on all of this workplace upheavel. don't these construction guys know we're trying to browse the internet across the hall??

there's also been the whole lack-o-sleep issue. could it be our concrete-filled mattress that leads to all of the tossing and turning? after 5 years on the thing you would think we would have managed to break it in by now. or perhaps it's a little stress over the infinitelycrap family situation? every morning i wake up with a stiff neck and feeling rather grumpy. that was especially true this morning because above and beyond spending the evening on a bed of nails, j.mo was awakened from his slumbah at 2am by the sound of a dying smoke detector chirping away every minute or two for a new battery:

j: 'g- wake up... do you hear that?'
g: (rubbing eyes, looking at clock, wondering why j.mo is not in bed) hear what?
j: that beeping noise- i think it's the carbon monoxide detector.
g: (getting out of bed, i'm already feeling dead so what's the big deal if we're breathing in 100% carbon monoxide?) ok, i'm up.

we're both now standing in the spare room in our underwear, blinking up at the ceiling

j: see? and it's blinking red too. where did you put the instructions?
g: i have no idea where the instructions are. (meanwhile we're not dying and the beeping noise happens again and now i'm sure it's *not* coming from the spare room. not to mention the fact that the heating unit hasn't been on in weeks... so there's more carbon monoxide coming from the goldfish than there is from heating unit. it's 2am- you want to read the instruction manual?)

we both spent the next 10 mins circling around the house and couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from. fine- whatever, back to bed. except now not only is j.mo being kept awake by the beep, but so am i. finally we stuck our heads out the window and discovered that it's coming from the neighbor's house. and despite the fact that we can reach out the window and touch their siding, there really isn't much we can do about their dying smoke detector at 2am.

things went downhill from there-now i had been awake long enough to get hungry. and the windows are closed, and the temperature is a balmy 94 degrees. 3.36am... 4.14am... 6.40am and alarm #1. 7am and alarm #2.

feeling fresh today. upwards and onwards.

so now we have bigboy cable and are no longer limited to PBS, wifeswap, NECN news and random on-demand tidbits. why we did it to ourselves for so long was beyond me. yeah, we have netflix and all 5 seasons of six feet under and not a ton of time for tv anyways, but it's so lovely to turn on the tv and scroll through nothing but listings for a good 10mins before settling on anything.

my new personal favorite is the midget channel. seriously, TLC must have been hijacked by broadcast savvy primordial dwarves armed with cameras and 18inch hems. it seems like everytime we flip past we get sucked into a tiny vortex of little people sitting around a table at the outback steakhouse as they discuss their jobs as software designers or their latest helicopter ride (truth be told, i'm a tad bit jealous that my full-size life is not half as exciting as theirs) seriously- check it out. it's actually amazing to watch. and i was absolutely furious last night when the dad & mom were at the hospital with their sick son and mentioned they would have to pay for everything out of pocket- no one will provide health insurance to little people. how wrong is that? how american is that?

ok, so i started this post talking about the travelocity gnome and finished talking about TLC's 'as the midgets turn.' clearly i've come full circle and should go now.

sorry i left you all by your lonesomes for so long. and sorry this post was so long. hope you're all having a good week and stay tuned for impending travelshananagans- i'm off to merida, mexico on monday for work. and then costa rica at the end of august.