Our foundation is dug, poured, and laid. That job wrapped up last Thursday, and now we’re waiting for the carpenter and gang to begin demolition and new building. Tick tock, tick tock. Tomorrow… carpenter Erick (hypothetically) finally begins his work.

It’s probably a good thing this part is going slow, because Anthony and I are definitely procrastinating on emptying our kitchen, which will disappear later this week under the weight of the wrecking ball. Not a real one, of course, which would trouble me no end by bringing to mind cringe-worthy images of Miley Cyrus in white undergarments and, well… ew. On the other hand, maybe it would entertain the hard-working demolition crew if Jesse and Nick and I stood out front in white t-shirts, rubbing our cheeks with our wide-open palms and bellowing “YOU CAME IN LIKE A WREEECKING BAAAAAALL…”

That’s kind of disturbing, actually. Never mind.

Sometimes I think this sort of ideation is a sign of mental illness, but another part of me says it’s just a desperate coping mechanism. I’m not sure.

Oh. Today, without any further delay, we have to bring our dining table down to the basement, empty our kitchen cupboards, and set up our alternative kitchen for the next two months. No more daydreaming about wrecking balls and Miley tears.

Meanwhile, our back yard is trashed.

We tend to keep gardens that are quite nice, in our opinion.

Oh how lovely. Look at all those textures. A little fastidious here, but it’s a young area that hasn’t filled in yet to cover all the mulch spots. Also it’s not flower season in our garden. We’re past daffodils and tulips, and not yet at our butterfly wildflowers.

And here are our shady spots. Boring plants to be sure, but you know, not so bad.

These are all on the east side of our property. Here’s what the west side looks like now.

That’s a “silt fence” that the city required the contractor to put up around the construction zone. I’m not sure what it’s accomplishing other than making things a bit more ugly. The giant piles of dirt were dug up for the new foundation and basement crawl space. There used to be plants where the dirt now resides. In fairness, the plants were total junk — random ground covers and weeds, and plants we dropped in there because they were dying elsewhere. I’m not that sad about the tear up, though the weeds still looked better than the dirt.

But that trashy-looking construction zone certainly sits in stark contrast to our well-tended gardens.  On the other hand, it fits perfectly with the kids’ junky plastic shit in our front yard.

Onward HO. In 3 hours we appear before the architectural review board to bitch about them requiring us to put brick on the rear elevation of our addition. I’ll be back this evening, stiff drink in hand, to tell you how that went.