At Least One Happy Ending

My regular readers have followed the ordeal of renovation hell that Kim and I endured this summer, including having no running water for over a week, including no shower or bath.

We appreciate having a modern kitchen and bathroom now, but the contractors my landlord hired were, unbeknowest to him, incredibly stupid. They still have work to do-- loose ends to tie up.

To add insult to injury, at one point, Mr. Kissell, an heirloom that had been in Kim's family for decades, disappeared from the back porch, where it had been hanging. Kim was livid. My landlord asked the contractors workers about it and they denied knowing anything about it. We knew that they must haved knocked Mr. Kissell down; we figured they probably threw him away, hoping, somehow, we wouldn't notice his absence.

Then, a couple of weeks later, Mr. Kissell reappeared, broken into pieces, in a box in the garage.

I went to Target and looked at all of the different glues-- I knew that plastic can be very problematic, even for Superglue. I found one that claimed to work even on difficult surfaces; you had to apply a compound to the surfaces before gluing.

It worked. Mr. Kissell lives.

My in-laws are driving in from Minneapolis for a celebration here in Chicago, and are staying with us. Kim emailed me, asking me to do a couple of household chores before they arrived, and asked if I could rehang Mr. Kissell.

I went down to my toolbox in the basement, dug out a spool of wire I'd bought 15 years ago to hang something else, my hammer and some nails. I threaded the wire through hooks in the back of Mr. Kissell, secured the wire and hammered not one, but two nails into the stud, behind the porch swing.

Now, even the stupidest contractor on god's green earth would have trouble knocking Mr. Kissell down, even if he tried.



While I was at it, I hung the Route 66 sign that our dear friends Greg and Christina got for us this summer. They and their daughter, who is my stepdaughter's best friend, drove as much of the old Route 66 that still exists. Very cool.

After the craziness of this summer-- home renovation craziness, job craziness, going back to college craziness, Mr. Kissell MIA craziness-- I'm looking forward to sitting on the back porch this evening with Kim, my in-laws and a glass of red wine and relaxing. I think I've earned it.