This is Javier and Juan placing the last piece of the granite backsplash above the kitchen sink at 7:23 p.m. They knocked on the door at 8:00 a.m. and as far as I can tell they didn't take much of a lunch. They were sawing granite on our balcony all day long. It was really fucking loud, and Jackson napped right through it. I finally gave up sorting through boxes and lay down next to him for just a second and I was out cold for twenty minutes. I must be a contractor's wife if the sound of a table saw lulls me to sleep. What's far more interesting is that after taking down the little stone shop they'd set up on our balcony, vacuuming the carpet, and saying goodbye at 8:00 p.m., Javier appeared quite crisp. Juan not so much. Of course, they'd have been done two days ago if they hadn't done this:

Bummer, huh. Cracked the slab. They looked at me? And I said patch the fucker and put it in. Jack's in Belgium and I'm tired of washing dishes in the bathroom sink.

Yes, a music promoter thought that flying Jack to Europe for the Spring Blues Festival in the middle of our renovation was a dandy idea, and let's face it, how many times do you get asked to go to Europe to be in the rhythm section of a woman named Sugar Pie? So I drove him down to a hotel next to LAX last Tuesday night, where I learned that he had packed this in his suitcase:

He's a contractor! Of course he needs a screwdriver in his suitcase! It was actually because he had to take the neck off his bass so it would fit in his bag, but it also came in handy for this:

Can you see what he's doing? He's unscrewing the windows so that he may release us from our hermetically sealed environment so that he may do this:

After Belgium he's got a club gig in Paris for a week. So I know you're dying to ask: how does one survive the disappearance of one's spouse during a high-stress week of packing, moving, unpacking, child earache, dog constipation, exhaustion, irritation, and the discovery that I'm an inept construction project manager? With bouts of uncontrolled weeping, and lots of take-out food. Of course, I'd be a lot more snotty about the whole thing right now if I hadn't decided to arrange a week-long sleepover with the neighbor kids for Jackson and buy myself a plane ticket for Paris.

So, yeah. See you in ten days!