The Scent of Shampoo

If you didn’t know already, we moved to a new house last month. Except that it’s not new, but very old - built in 1926. We are renovating it, and it’s so cute and clean and cozy...in our mind’s eye.

We were prepared for the significant task of making new the old; we were told that it would cost more than we thought and would take longer than we imagined. Yes, we knew what we were getting into.

But then again...

We were not expecting the burglar who broke our window and took my computer and the camera off the couch (but handily left behind fingerprints that sent him right back to jail because taking other people’s things and trading them for illegal drugs is a parole violation. He obviously does not watch C.S.I.)

We were not planning for the monthly pest control visit (and bill) to banish the hundreds, nay, thousands of creepy spiders decorating the outside of our house like horrific haunting halloween ornaments.

We had not foreseen the need to put out two kitchen fires, dousing one with an over-zealous and obviously malfunctioning fire extinguisher which exuberantly emptied it’s entire contents in our kitchen, creating a terrific yellow chemical dust-covering in the newly arranged and cleaned room.

We did not have a system set up for chopping vegetables while simultaneously keeping tiny sugar ants off the cutting board - the ants, or as Rob describes them, ‘the construction workers of the insect world,’ who have invaded our kitchen floors, countertops, and ingeniously, the dishwasher. What are they building, I ask you, other than resignation and patience in me? (And gratefulness that at least the spiders haven’t found a way inside.)

And most surprising of all, we did not know that Rob would be allergic to the house, having asthma and terrible allergy issues for 6 weeks straight, leading up to a nasty sinus infection for the last 2 weeks of that.

But now, finally, the glorious dawn is breaking, thanks to our new fabulous (and gigantic) air purifier and the volunteer doctor at the free ($40) clinic who prescribed beautiful pricey drugs.

So to my great delight, and even more so his own, yesterday he could again smell the shampoo.

FANCY AIR PURIFIER: $795
FANCY DRUGS: $110
BEING ABLE TO SMELL THE SHAMPOO: Priceless