May 6, 2007  

29 bulbs

Today was the first day in months that my calendar had not a single colored box on it. Nothing. Zip. Not a single thing to do. A good thing, too, since I got home at 4:30 this morning after a day I wasn’t sure I would live through.

Start with a friend’s annual Kentucky Derby party early in the afternoon, add a Cubs home win (.500 baby!), season with Cinco de Mayo cheer and a frozen margarita machine, then cap off with a concert that started at 1 AM at the Metro. (Amon Tobin. Mixed live in 5.1 surround. Sick sick beats. My mouth was agape half the show.)

So needless to say I woke late, way late. Had lunch with my saintly wife and the three kids who she mercifully steered clear of me. (Mercy for them, I am sure. I was no role model.) Then, of course, nap time for all. So, essentially my day began at 3:30 PM today. And then I started to feel guilty about wasting a completely open day. You know, the guilt of a thousand to do’s paired with an empty calendar.

Why not enjoy the free day, you say? Well, I did an inventory of home tasks and here’s what the list read:

Rear screen door is permanently locked from a particularly hard wind-slam. We’ve removed the glass pane for exit, but my kids have biffed over the door frame so many times that it seems parentally negligent not to remove the whole thing from the threshold.

Grill on the deck is rotting from the inside-out. Not that we didn’t cook dinner on it tonight, but it is a serious fire hazard. Basically it is no longer a grill. It is a open gas line where one may prop foodstuffs upon several layers of carbonized former foods for cooking.

Car with expired temporary tags and plates that simply need to be affixed. You’d think I would have gotten to this after the latest ticket. Sigh.

But here’s the kicker. There are 29 burnt-out lights in this house. Yes, 29. Can bulbs, regular bulbs, vanity bulbs, chandelier bulbs, outdoor floods. This place is a like a medieval scriptorium.

How did it get to this point? Not entirely sure. I kinda exhausted myself inventorying all the burnt out bulbs so now I’m on the couch catching up on Lost episodes with thelovelywife. I guess it’ll all have to wait until the next empty calendar day.

UPDATE: Wife reports that the oven light is burnt out. That should be nice and dangerous to replace. Total: 30.

2 Responses to “29 bulbs”

  1. cbjg says :

    move on to CFLs, I am almost done converting the entire house

  2. Rob O. says :

    I’m trying to embrace the CFL bulbs, but they simply don’t work well in every situation. Unless this is just an indication that I’m using too cheap a variety, CFLs seem to need some warmup time before reaching full output. So they aren’t the best fit in a couple of spots (like our laundry room) where we use motion sensors to turn on the light hands-free.