Is the Honey Bucket still here? Yes. Is our neighbor down the street, who actually knows how to do his own remodeling, jealous? Yes. For the love of God, he has saved himself and his lovely wife tens of thousands of dollars by working on his own place and not hiring contractors — it looks great, their house, total showcase now — and he loves the damn Honey Bucket.

“When you do your own remodelling, you don’t get one of those babies,” Hockey God told him. They both looked longingly at The Bucket.

Have the contractors been leaving The Bucket unlocked at night, for the neighborhood derelicts to use? Yes. (And yes, I realize that “transients” is a more p.c. term, but I’ve seen these guys try to walk. They are derelicts, I’m sorry.) My friend A is also remodeling and they do not have a Honey Bucket, either. I think she’s jealous, but she was trying to hide it. She is having a jacuzzi tub installed. And dormers. I am jealous and am not hiding it.

Does Wacky Girl have her Soccer Kickathon (ie — Give Us More Money or We’ll Kick You in the Shins, and You’re Not Wearing Shinguards, Are Ya Punk?) Fundraiser tonight? Yes. Am I going? No. I will send her off with her doting daddy and drink beer instead. I may make nachos; I may send out for pizza. Hard to say at this point. I filled out the 20 raffle tickets and wrote ’em a check, what more do they want? Cannot deal with machinations of overwrought soccer parents and their demon spawn tonight, no, sorry.

Open house/BBQ night was last night at school. Too much chaos, but they did have a lot of cake. We’ve made a bunch of new friends so far this year and are still hanging out with the old friends, too. WG is settling in OK. She’s not keen on the bedlam in the cafeteria before school and at lunch. Can’t blame her.

It’s 5:30 p.m. on Friday and I finally am able to log in again. Really, I am addicted to e-mail and the internet. I had no idea how much they meant to me til the contractors shut me out of my office. They’re all gone now, but they left behind some spectacular finish carpentry, including some heavy-duty stuff that is guaranteed to hold up the front end of the house, plus a new cedar stoop off the French doors in the office. (Stairs to follow, on Monday.)

(Am I spoiled? Yes. Duh.)

Yeah, they needed to boost things up cuz it turned out the house was kinda falling down. (Didn’t we just have this “falling down thing” taken care of a couple months ago?)

“The whole house is falling?” I asked one of the guys.

“Naw,” he said, “Just the front end.” Well, shoot, no problem then. And get this — they were spending quite a bit of time in my bedroom, resetting the window, watching soap operas, giving each other pedicures, I’ve got no idea what they were doing, and one says to me, “Your wedding picture, wow! You look so happy!” (This would be the wedding pic on my vanity. In my room. Next to the drawer where I keep my lingerie.)

I was like, “Yeah, what happened, huh?”

Hardy har har. They’ll be back Monday, no fear. They like it here. I give them snacks in the afternoon, along with the kids. Today it was apple juice boxes and miniature peanut butter Ritz; yesterday it was M&Ms, Snickers and raspberry juice, in cups with ice. They were extremely happy. I would have given them beer for the road today, but they split at, like, 3:05 or something so I missed them, cuz I was getting WG from school.

Week after next, Painters: Part Three. Does anyone have any home remodeling stories to share? I could use the humor, at this point.

Much love, and happy weekend to you,

WM

PS — Did anyone catch “Lost”? OMG so good! I didn’t breathe for the whole hour.