Renovation

I have taken my Thromdimbulator apart.

There's a great Dr. Seuss book called Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? that tells of different folks who are in a dreadful circumstance because of some unfortunate event. One of them is Poor Herbie Hart, who has taken his Thromdimbulator apart. There sits Herbie surrounded by countless pieces of something: pipes and wires and connectors and fasteners. Two whole pages are covered with the bits and pieces of this mechanism and Herbie is having a little trouble putting it back together.

This book and that page are infamous to our family because it perfectly articulated CoolGuy's problem at work the first year we read this story. He was in the Navy, working at a submarine base as part of the team of sailors tasked with keeping the Advanced Submerged Shipboard Control Trainer up and running. This was a new technological marvel that trained sub crews in an environment that was so accurate, that when we visited, there were covers on the gauges to prevent anyone without proper vetting from seeing the capabilities of a modern nuclear sub. It was on hydraulic legs so it could mimic the motion of the sea. One Christmas stand-down period, something wasn't working. There was a lot of pressure to get it back on line before the holiday ended and the training schedule started back up. CoolGuy saved the day, naturally, and got a commendation, too, for his efforts. But, at the time, we likened it to Poor Herbie Hart.

Now, I am Poor Herbie Hart. I got a lovely, thoughtful gift from CoolGuy--new computer! But as we set it up on my desk, we realized that it needed to be in a new spot in the room to minimize window glare. Sure, move the desk, you say. Except that for 6 months I've been just putting stuff into this room thinking I'd get to it later and take care of it, or put it away or something.

Then school ended and I had foot surgery. Then I got healed up from foot surgery and went on vacation to see my family and then we went to the beach and then I started the new school year. And then I got hired to teach the Instructional Aide class. And then I got hired to write lessons for the Tobacco Prevention Task Force. Oh, and don't forget graduate school, and, oh, hey! I teach fourth grade full time, too. So, of course, I didn't actually get to anything "later" except adding to the piles of crap.

Well, we got to it yesterday. I took everything out of the room and we moved the furniture and I washed the Venetian blinds and vacuumed and washed the book shelves and dusted everything. Now I am tasked with putting things away in here. So far, I've filled four boxes and two bags of books for the thrift store. I've thrown into the trash quite a selection of things. We're boxing up some more books that I can't yet part with, but will go to our storage unit. It's going to take a bit of time to get everything put away or thrown away, but I'm confident that it will occur. Then, I'll try to curb that tendency to just stick stuff in here for "later"---bwaaaaa haaaaa haaaaa! As if.