26 May 2005

Do you know how many ugly kinds of lighting there are? I'll tell you: way too many. But having examined several, we bought none, and instead purchased a non-hideous fixture (one of I believe three that would have worked for that room -- the one that emits the most light). Mark and C.J. installed the new one last night, and it fits much better with our taste and also does not hang down to conk unwary passersby in the head. The room we use as a music room was originally intended for a dining room, so its light fixture was intended to hang over a table, where no one would attempt to walk under it. We don't have a dining room table and also have no intentions of having a dining room table. Our kitchen eating area is nicer and no smaller, and we need somewhere to put pianos and music (and saxophone, flute, recorders, and anything else we acquire in the future). So having a dining room fixture in the music room would be ridiculous, and now we don't.

It is all part of my diabolical scheme, which includes a corner bookcase for the music and a lot of pale blue paint. (Michelle has noticed that rather a lot of my diabolical schemes in this house seem to involve the color blue. This is sadly true.)

The more I think about Mark's birthday party this weekend, the more it occurs to me that there's one more thing to put on the list -- and then one more -- and then another. A lot of stuff shouldn't be done until the day of the party, but I've been doing the rest as I can manage it among other errands and family stuff and getting some writing done. Which means I'm not reading much this week (though I've gotten into O'Brian's Desolation Island and will likely take it with me tomorrow to read in line at Target and Cub and wherever else), and am generally running about trying to handle this and help with that and deal with the other.

But we have a new light in the music room, and now Mark is eyeing the rest of the fixtures speculatively, and this is not entirely bad. It could, as we say here a lot, be worse. Just not this week. This week, it would be worse to have to deal with more light fixtures than to move on to dipping apricots and dusting bookshelves.

Alas, but that's what I'm up to now, and I haven't much to say about it. More later -- before the party or after, I don't know.