No, damnit, I don't really know what it means when you say that my house isn't grounded. Please explain it to me like I'm stupid.

I like things to be easy. I like milk chocolate. I like People magazine. I like trashy books. I like slip-on shoes. When I find a song I like, I listen to it over and over and over and over.

I do not like things to be hard. I do not like to be challenged. I'm capable of digging a little deeper; I just prefer not to, and I complain about it when I do.

On the list of things I do not like to do:

1) Be responsible for things

2) Make decisions about things I don't understand very well

3) Manage people

4) Confront people

5) Tell people things they don't want to hear

6) Work hard

7) Talk on the phone

8) Spend a lot of money

However, I'm in charge of getting us moved into this house, and thus I've been responsible for doing all those things. I have been choosing contractors, checking their backgrounds, getting them to come in to do bids, scheduling the work, pushing them to do more work (or less) than they want to do, etc. The cellphone rings 25 times a day. I don't like it. I'm not comfortable with it. I hate calling the asbestos abatement contractor (popcorn ceilings!)* to try to figure out why on this green and now-asbestos-polluted earth his bid is more than twice as much as the other contractor's bid.** I hate trying to push Al the floor guy (who gave us a really cheap bid ) to give me a precise description of what he plans on doing with the quarter-round. Yes, the quarter-round. Because you know, I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

So I'm building a lot of character. And I am really, really tired. So is poor Skipper, who's been dragged back and forth to the house with me, and has gotten her one nap of the day in 20 minutes in the Ergo (while I talked to a contractor) the last two days in a row.

However, I've met the neighbors, who have been in the neighborhood for 32 years. They were able to tell me that our grapes are Concords, and two of the three vines have been there for over 60 years. Also, the guy who lived in our house until he died in September used to make wine in the garage (using different grapes) and store it in the room in the basement, which explains the mysterious stains. I'm pretty excited about moving in, once all this character-building is done, and the floors (and possibly the quarter-round) look beautiful.

*Hey, can we talk about toxics? Did you know that in the 1970s, people thought that EVERYTHING they put into their houses should have asbestos in it? (As opposed to now, when we just put it in some things.) Our house was built in 1922, and while it has some nice personality, it is by no means a historical showpiece, nor was it terribly well-built at the time. Anyway, 1922 was a good year for slathering everything with lead paint. As far as we can tell, the next time it was renovated was in the late 1970s, which is pretty much the exact time period when you would rather your house NOT have been renovated. Therefore, we are assuming that it has asbestos and other unpleasant things in ALL the ugly materials with which it was renovated.

*Do you want to know why, according to him? Because "I guess some people are just hungrier than other people."