Marcia bought a Roomba yesterday. It’s one of those little self-guided vacuum cleaner robots. It does a surprisingly good job given its small size, although it is sort of disconcerting . . . I keep catching glimpses of something moving out of the corner of my eye, and hearing bumps when I’m not expecting to. The cats are edgy too. I hope it takes itself back to its home station and puts itself to bed soon. But only after it brings me a bottle of water and a bag of chips. If it wants me to respect it as a robot, I mean.

On Painting

Not the satisfying arts kind of painting, the soul-crushing and frustrating house kind of painting. We replaced our front door, and I spent today taping and priming and painting, and still have a good amount to go tomorrow. I don’t like painting, not one bit. But our house has had a bizarre purple door since we bought it six years ago. It didn’t match anything, but it got even weirder looking when we replaced the roof last month with green shingles. So I’m painting the door a deep, forest green. It looks great from a distance, although up close it becomes pretty clear that I don’t have the temperment or talent to be a great house painter. Oh well.