{ In which Home Improvement begins }

Conventional wisdom would tell you that after 8pm on a windy, rainy night in November isn't the best time to take your front door off its hinges. Apparently we don't always follow convention.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. See, the condo we bought is a whachamajigger--I can't remember the word for it (I haven't had coffee in eight days, people! It's amazing that I can speak coherently at all!)--a conversion, that's it: formerly apartments, converted to condos. It's not super old, but it's not brand new. And you can see under the door. Not under the whole door; just a section in the middle. Light and air and...who knows what...come in. It's a bit creepy, because it's a straight shot from the front door to the our bedroom. So if you're in bed and the bedroom door is open, you can lift your head ever-so-slightly and see light streaming forth from the sub-door region. Subconsciously this must bother me more than I admit, because last week I dreamt that our front door was a folding door, like you see on closets sometimes, and that it wouldn't shut. So we had it leaning at an angle against the doorframe.


The "perfect storm" of Mister, new weather stripping, appropriate power tools, and adequate time occurred last night. I was wolfing down fishsticks when Mike asked me to help him take the door off its hinges. I watched, wide-eyed, as he removed the old, torn weather stripping and put on the new, thinking, This is why I would make a horrible solo homeowner!!! I had no idea what-all was involved in eliminating that eery strip of light emanating from beneath our door.








The door had been down for a while before I had the brilliant idea to turn off the heater so that, you know, we're not paying the electric company to warm The Great Outdoors on a Howling, Windy, Dark and Stormy Night. I sat as much in a ball as I could (for the purpose of preventing hypothermia), writing thank-yous at the fireplace ledge (our camping/dining chairs are too low for the table...my arm falls asleep if I write at that angle, since my arm ends up being at shoulder height). I couldn't help thinking how comical this would look if any of our neighbors walked by: Front door off hinges, lying on living room floor. Man screwing weather stripping onto bottom of door. Woman crouched in front of empty fireplace, furiously writing on large photo cards. Small table in dining area with two camping chairs. Smells like fish sticks. Mmmmmm, these are the neighbors of my dreams!

The good news is that there is no longer a way for spiders and anorexic snakes to get from the outside to the inside.