sneak preview
These are some of the home improvement shows you can watch.The one where neighbors swap houses for two days to redecorate each others’ rooms. The one where a designer redoes a room in someone’s house inspired by the house of a moviestar or athlete. The one where a designer redoes a room in someone’s house inspired by the house of a moviestar or athlete, but for $1000. The one where an old grumpy contractor goes to the tragically flawed house of a person in need to fix a tiny leak, and ends up ripping out miles of faulty plumbing. The one where a strapping handyman comes to grant fix-it wishes. The one where a house gets a makeover in order to be sold for more money. The one where rooms are redecorated entirely based on color. The one where an annoying woman assigns you a “style” with a cheesy name like “Tuscan contemporary” or “Mediterranean modern.”
There are more, but you get the idea. I know about them because I watched them all. I watched them all between the hours of seven p.m. on Friday and five p.m. on Saturday, because you can watch one flavor or another of home improvement show at any hour of the day, and sometimes more than three at a time. I turned the first one on to unwind from work and I didn’t stop flipping until I realized that I’d wasted half my weekend, neglected the dog I was supposed to be dogsitting, and blown a perfectly good leap night. But I was helpless. The friends I was housesitting for have a cozy couch in front of a wide flatscreen tv with approximately eight hundred channels, and I am defenseless in the face of such Tools of the Devil. It’s why I can’t have a television myself.
Usually when I dogsit for these friends I watch cooking shows or movies, but this weekend in their big beautiful house felt like a dress rehearsal for homeownership. The home improvement shows were just the beginning. I studied their appliances and their outlet placement. I flipped through their back issues of Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living. I considered their wainscoting.
And when I woke up Sunday to a sunny Portland morning, I leashed up Dog and went for a long walk in a new neighborhood. I bought a New York Times and sat at an outdoor table drinking a latte with the pup curled at my feet. People walking by stopped to say good morning. One of them informed us It’s dog-o-rama at the park so we headed off that way, and spent a while socializing on the lawn.
Back at home, warm and tired and pleasantly muddy, I cranked up Tito Puente and baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the sunny kitchen.
I could get used to this.
posted by tortaluga @ 2:39 PM
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