Back to it and a bathroom

Deanna stretched her Christmas break through Monday, so we had a nice brunch at Horn’s when the tourist crowd wasn’t stretching the line out the door. Horn’s hits the locally owned(often the owner is working the floor), good craik with most of the servers being a little edgy one way or the other, a solid local clientele mixed with the airbnbers who pay the light bill, and an excellent menu of mostly savory food-lots of slowed cooked meat and veggies in various combinations. The cochon au lait over a corn waffle was especially good. I feel almost spoiled having such a great selection of neighborhood restaurants within a block or two, and the whole lower French Quarter within five or six blocks.

So it was back to the pool Tuesday-no drowning- and trying to eat less than a week’s worth of calories every day. The floor calisthenics as always are fun and easy the first day, and get progressively harder over the course of the week as you fight soreness and a lack of motivation. A good thing about the upcoming Boys Trip is the motivation to look good naked, or nearly so(nearly good or nearly naked, works both ways), and the three weeks is short enough to stay on track, even in the Big Easy during Carnival. Or so I say to myself. Adding sunbathing to the required lists of tasks each day will be the easy one.

The project for the week was refreshing the bathroom with a new vanity and sink, a new mirror and medicine cabinet, and a new light. As always, these projects require more time and thought than they should as I struggle with my lack of skills and experience and desire to have them turn out looking like they weren’t done by a 12 year old who failed shop class. I’m still a little concerned that the electric work will burst into flame or the cabinets will fall off the walls, but I was momentarily stymied by a cabinet to be mounted to drywall—it was too heavy to hold level and mark the spots to drill into the wall for anchors. I think I will have to go backwards—set the anchors and then drill holes in the cabinet to match, always a sketchy proposition. I still will have the problem of holding the cabinet up against the wall and driving the screws, but I will not have to be leveling at the same time. Not today.

I did break into the dive bag to get fins out for the pool-don’t want to blister or cramp in the ocean-and will have to go through the gear, replace batteries and such, and re-pack over the next couple of weeks. As always, I will have more gear than I need, but be missing just the part to make everything work. I’ll see if I can stick with the promise I made to myself to bring less stuff this time.

Today will be cleaning house after a couple weeks and a minor construction project, making groceries, and perhaps Tom McDermot and Aurora Nealand at Buffa’s in the evening. The weekend is shaping up to be a big one with the usual shenanigans, a big Cajun music show at Tipitinas if I choose to go across town, and the Saints game on Sunday. And Mardi Gras is right around the corner!