White on White

With Abby and the kids in North Carolina for the week, I've been left to my own devices. And that means, in the last four days, I've made three trips to Home Depot, spent fourteen hours painting, and have somehow reinvigorated our contractors. Don't ask me how on that last one, because if I knew, I'd kick myself for not having done whatever it was a whole lot earlier.

Just like Adam Duritz of Counting Crows,
I have stepped into a fog where no one
notices the contrast of white on white.

First off, what I'm doing myself. Painting. And more painting. We have about three miles worth of trim in our house, and all of it is plain white-primed wood, just ready to be finished. No idea why it was put in prior to being painted, but I'm not about to pull it off piece by piece in order to make the painting process quicker, as my cousin Tim the contractor suggests. (Tim the out-of-state contractor, I might add; otherwise, he'd be Tim my contractor.)  I know pulling it off would speed up the painting process, but I have nowhere to do the actual painting once that happens-- no basement, no yard that isn't entirely mud (and would therefore likely force me to clean the trim after painting it), no workhorse things (isn't that what they're called?) to set up on the street outside. So for this project, it's the slog of alternating between a paintbrush and a mini-roller, laying on the ground and climbing ladders and choosing a shirt to ruin with paint-- my old, huge Albany tee, in this case.

The painting is satisfying up close, because I can see the paint going on wet, but frustrating from afar. That's because, after eight hours of painting on Saturday, I stepped back and saw pretty much no change at all. White paint replaced white primer. (At least all the furniture was moved away from the wall and my Albany shirt was sufficiently messed up, so I could prove to neighbors passing by that I had actually been doing something the whole day!) However, on day two, things changed. Only three hours of painting on Sunday left me with completed trim-- two coats-- throughout the entire upstairs. And since it's high-gloss, while you can't necessarily see the difference, you can feel it. Just run your hands across the door frame on the way to the kitchen, and instead of a blunt, matte surface, your hands are greeted with a smooth, cool surface that says "people might actually live here!"  Monday night I started downstairs, and after three hours I stopped, having completed a first coat in the bathroom and mud room-- that's it. Holy cow: whose idea was it to get trim?

This afternoon I'll have a choice: go back home and keep brush-painting the as-yet unpainted surfaces, or stop by Home Depot for a fourth time in five days to get a new roller so I can do the second coat. I tried the trick Abby told me about-- wrapping the roller in cellophane and sticking it in the fridge-- but rather than keeping it wet and usable, like the paintbrush, it just hardened the roller into a latexy rock.

"Now real people can use me!"

Well, while that excitement was forming in the refrigerator, something was actually happening just a 90-degree turn to the left. Yes, contractors were in our house, and they fixed the problem with the range hood-- namely, that it was positioned about nine inches above the range itself, so as to aid denizens of Munchkinland in their cooking travails, should they ever need to make use of our kitchen. In their defense-- the contractors', not the Munchkins'-- the range hood had been placed level to the bottom of the cabinets, so there was a pretty line from one side to the other. But then there was that whole pesky not-being-able-to-reach-the-back-burners issue to deal with. Rory called me at work, asked me a bunch of questions pertaining to the things on our list, and surprised me when he said he saw what I was talking about-- meaning he was actually at the house. His being sent out is probably a sign that I have pissed Mark off enough that he wants to shut me up, but I think that's a good sign. Especially since when Rory's on the scene, things get done.

It all probably emanated from my frustrated email last week.

Mark + Rory: What is going ON? No one has been here for at least ten days. Meanwhile, we're living in a construction zone, and people are downright laughing at us. We would be too-- this is beyond ridiculous. There is NO acceptable reason your guys were not here this week. NOT amused. We need action immediately on the items we emailed you with already three times. There are NO excuses. Gregory + Abby

I'm not usually an emphatic capitalizer, but come ON.  Actually, I bet it came from the fact that I copied Rory on the email, rather than just sending it to Mark; that's worked in the past, and I don't know why I had stopped doing it. Whatever reason, something was done yesterday, and a large piece of drywall was left on our front porch, so who knows what else they're planning for this week?

Other than painting and the stove, the only other movement on the house has been self-initiated. After seeing the constant influx of cricket spiders and regular spiders and fruit flies and now wasps inside and out, I made an executive decision to get us some pest management. Terminix came out and sprayed the place, and now there are clumps of dead little bugs in the corners of the bathroom that I have to sweep up every day. I was told to wait two weeks, then call for another round, at which point everything should be dead. The exterminator was amusing-- he started the appointment by telling us how he's pretty sure he and his friends used to get high in our house back when it was abandoned (then apologized if that offended us, which hopefully you know it wouldn't, especially since he's not the first to tell us he'd done that!), then told us our house had an inordinate number of bugs in it, finishing up by asking if he could grab a ziploc bag to take a few back to the office, since there was a specific bug-- teeny tiny white ones-- he'd never seen before. Always ones to be unusual, we are.

I also finished the row of bushes planted over the last two weekends by filling in the holes with nine bags -- 360 pounds -- of topsoil. The holes were the result of taking huge clumps of rock out of the bed. I guess I could have left 'em in there, but we want those bushes to grow, and I don't want rocks I left in the ground to be the reason all those bushes may get stunted. And as far as stunted bushes go, there's one issue I've been avoiding: our front yard.

They're gonna have to dig it up. And someone's gonna have to pay. A few weeks ago now, Mark was telling me that he was fighting the inspection issue with the county, because the inspector had looked at the retaining wall, regardless of their records. Rory concedes that he probably should have called to follow up with the inspector, who had been there to look only at the footer, but that he definitely had done the inspection. I didn't believe Mark 100%, but I do trust Rory. Thing is, Mark mentioned the inspection while noting he had explained to the inspector how it "would be unfair to have to charge the homeowner $4000 to re-dig."  No response from me, other than quiet bewilderment. So Rory mentions this time that they had feelers out to get quotes on the dig. So that sounds like they're at least trying to get the cost down... But I feel we shouldn't have to pay at all. It's not our fault, and although I'm now unconvinced that it's entirely the contractors' fault, it's not our fault. Similar to how I expect not to have to pay for the patching of two spots in the porch roof where recent downpours have revealed leaks, this was not a repair job-- it was a job from scratch, and we shouldn't have to pay to fix their mistakes.

But something tells me what I think ain't what's gonna happen. Sigh.

So for now, I'm gonna focus on painting enough that it looks like something was actually done when the fam gets back, and hoping the contractors do enough that it can be a decent surprise to both me when I get home from work every day and Abby on her return. Hey, stranger things have happened. Like, for instance, work restarting this week.

Nerves and Mascara: Lots of Both

So now I'm nervous.  You all know yesterday I went to Home Depot and designed the cabinets.  Well, this morning I talked with Abby, who's in North Carolina, and she had some tweaks she wanted to make.  I called Home Depot again, and John had an opening for this evening, so I found myself going up again just to make the changes ahead of my trip, which starts Tuesday.  It mostly worked out, although a couple of the cabinet changes we wanted weren't 100% possible because doors and drawers might not open fully due to interference from the range handles.  Or rather, the handles that might be on the range-- because we haven't yet picked out appliances.  John said Home Depot is really not happy about putting in cabinetry without knowing exactly which appliances are going in with them, which is completely understandable, because with appliances everything can go in exactly.  We just hadn't thought of that.  Now I've got about 38 hours left in the country, and I'm kind of freaking out about the appliance issue.

The updated cabinet plan, although it too will be tweaked before all's said and done.
Dare you to find the differences... and know what they mean! :)

With the current house, we shopped around and bought a few different brands from a few different stores; the fridge was a scratch and dent from Lowe's, the microwave was a clearance item from Home Depot.  No one notices that our fridge doesn't match our stove, because they're on opposite ends of a galley kitchen.  But the bungalow kitchen isn't the same; it's more square, and all the appliances will be in the traditional kitchen triangle design, more or less.  So mismatched appliances will be a lot more evident.  For instance, Abby wants a built-in microwave, and unless we want to spend over a thousand bucks on a microwave-- we don't-- we'll probably buy it from IKEA.  (It's got a funny Swedish name on it, but it's built by Whirlpool.) But I don't want to buy all of my appliances there, because for instance their ranges are at least $200 more than anywhere else.  And to top it all off, I keep thinking of my mother-in-law, who bought all of her appliances (and good ones, too) on Black Friday for under $2000 in this crazy sale at Best Buy.  Argh.  I just want more time, but the thing is we have to buy the cabinets between July 19-29 if we want to get the sale price from Home Depot, and that price is nothing to shake a stick at: we'd be saving just about $4000 off their regular prices, which are still lower than the other estimates we got.  

What we will NOT be doing on Tuesday afternoon.

So my guess is our three-hour layover in Charlotte will be spent poring over the laptop at different appliances from different stores, rather than gazing longingly into each others' eyes on the rocking chairs they have there.  (Okay, that wouldn't happen anyhow, but you catch my drift.)  I'm hoping we won't have to do too much Internet-shopping from London, but if we must we must.  Maybe I'll ask Mark and Rory if they have any ins anywhere where we can get contractor pricing or something.  Worth a shot.

Speaking of nerves and Mark and Rory, when I went by the house last night I noticed wetness downstairs-- right next to the brand-new retaining wall that has just past its moisture inspection.  It was dark, and I wouldn't have noticed it had it not been for Frank and Lisa's kids stepping in the wetness and tracking it around on the plywood.  Took some pics and sent them to Mark and Rory to ask what was up, and they both wrote back within about 20 minutes to say it was a combination of the porch plywood not being waterproof since it's not the real porch floor, and actual water being poured there on purpose the day before.  A) Glad it's nothing; and B) Really impressed with the communications skills of my contractors, who definitely did not need to get back to me in 20 minutes on a Saturday evening.  They're great-- I had even asked Mark earlier in the week if he would be able to bring a ladder by so I could cut down a limb on my tree at the current house that had broken in the storm a few weeks back and was now hanging precariously over the backyard.  He came over, looked at it, and said not to worry; he'd send someone over while I was gone to take care of it, and he'd fix the back gate too.

Wetness in the downstairs storage area.

Also a cool idea is Mark's to place some of the stones that were in the original underground retaining wall (that match the rest of the house) around the front side to cover the new cinder-block retaining wall, rather than just painting it.  I think it could look great, because then the same rocks would ring the whole place.  I also love that they're local rocks-- when you go out into the Glen you can find a bunch that are similar looking.  For now, the completed wall still looks nice (as in "done") from the front, although as I mentioned above, the porch hasn't been connected for good yet.

... and from inside (the guest room).

The finished retaining wall from outside...

And finally, nerves because more of our paint job is going on, and I'm not in love.  Actually, I kinda hate it.  Abby has a five-color design she assures me should work, and showed me similar designs online, but I'm not convinced yet.  I told her she has the say on color, and I just want tweaking and veto power (remember the main green debate?), but with the front door all finished, I'm reminded a bit of women who wear way too much eye makeup.  However, the columns still need to be painted, and my guess is once they're done, their dark green color will offset what is currently a way-too-bold front door.  I hope...  (Not to mention, I really liked the outline all white...)

Primed...

... and painted.

Hopefully, our house will not look like Christina Aguilera.

Slow Going

I know I haven't posted anything in a while when I get pinged by my sister.  "New blog post!"  Okay, Courtney, but it's not going to be very exciting.

Slow going these couple weeks, doing a lot of waiting.  It's been pouring lately, and the ground's pretty saturated.  So the plumber hasn't been able to finish, because there's water everywhere.  And the wall behind the retaining wall needs to dry too, I think.  But supposedly both of those things will start up again tomorrow, when the plumbing inspector comes out and puts his stamp of approval on the connections that have gone in.  Yes, the plumbing is not 100% done, but we went yesterday and saw we are now officially hooked in to municipal water and sewer.  The plumber dug up under the sidewalk that faces the kids' bedroom windows-- getting awful close to the huge Yew tree in the process-- and around the corner into the house.  We got there just as the crew was pouring gravel on top of the pipes, so we did get to see the PVC before it was closed up.  And it's not just the water piping that's done-- Washington Gas came out in the last week or so and relocated that crazy pipe that was outside Isaac's window, sure to break the glass the first time he tried to open it.  That big metal thing's now a thing of the past, and we didn't even have to pay for it's removal and relocation.  Yay!  Montgomery County had supposedly been giving Mark the runaround on the permit for the retaining wall downstairs, so the excavation has been at a standstill.  However, yesterday I think he got it all sorted out, so hopefully, since there's a dry forecast for at least the next week, that project can get back on track too.

The water/sewer pipes snaking around the side of the house.

Tight fit for the water/sewer pipes between the sidewalk and the Yew tree.
Notice the big root they dug around; hopefully it won't cause any damage.
The blue pipe sticking up is where our responsibility ends and the
water company's responsibility begins.

We're having more than just a little feeling of crunch time lately, not necessarily because we're behind schedule but more because we have a crazy busy summer coming up.  Between going to Buffalo for a week for the Fourth of July to going to the Olympics for a month for work and going to Russia for a couple weeks to cover a summit, I have literally four free weekends at home the entire summer.  I've been trying to impart this to Mark & Rory, giving them our schedule and pleading with them to tell us beforehand what we need to have decided, and they're slowly giving us things to do.  We went the other night to Home Depot after work to pick out shower heads; not a good idea.  Shower heads are incredibly boring to choose, and taking the kids between school and dinner maybe wasn't the best choice.  We came home grumbling to ourselves, "we are not being overly strict to expect our kids to behave in Home Depot for an hour, are we?"  Lola actually got a time out in the shower-head aisle.  We came out of the experience with one "meh, that one's fine," and one "I guess--"  not the best results for a shopping trip!  Luckily we don't have to pick out bathroom faucets, because they come with the vanities we've already chosen and Abby loves.

Yesterday we stopped by to meet up with people who are going to give us an estimate on kitchen cabinets.  It's a place where they specialize in custom stuff with an ecological bent-- they sell sustainable cork and bamboo flooring, as well as kitchen counter-tops literally made out of paper, for instance-- and we've already chosen floor tile for the bathrooms from them, so they said they'd give us a discount on a custom kitchen.  Fine with me!  But when they came by, I think they confused me more than helping.  Of course, seeing a blank slate, they had all sorts of ideas... that were different than hours.  And when we told them our ideas, it was kinda Seinfeldesque: "Not that there's anything wrong with that..."  The two were an older Iranian guy, Mo, and a younger Serbian guy, Igor.  Mo was kind of the idea man, and Igor was the planner. Or something.  Either way, Mo mentioned moving the wall abutting the bedroom back a foot because our bathroom closet was too wide to be a normal closet and too narrow to be a walk-in.  He mentioned moving the pantry over to the window side of the entryway and blocking out that one window-- a non-starter with me, since the windows overlooking the glen are way too important to block, in my opinion.  He mentioned moving all of the cabinets over to one side of the room, getting rid of the counter-top that blocks the bottom pane of each window, and putting in seating and a quasi-breakfast nook in the corner.  I hate breakfast nooks.  And I am truly scared about the potential lack of storage in this house, even though he assured me there'd be the same amount of storage with his idea that there'd be in mine.  The one important thing he mentioned I hadn't thought of before: the exhaust vent from our stove.  I had thought it should go straight up and out of the roof, but he said it'd be better to make a 90-degree angle and have it exit through the side of the house, since apparently roof exhaust pipes deteriorate more quickly than wall ones.  Problem with his idea is it blocks out the top 6-9 inches of half of the upper kitchen cabinets.  My response was to suggest the pipe go through the wall before making the 90-degree turn, instead using the top 6-9 inches of our bedroom closet.  He was intrigued...

So, they took measurements and will get back to us.  We have someone tomorrow coming as well to give us an estimate; a man Abby met a week or so ago that she described to me as "an old man who is literally in love with granite."  Since we are not putting granite in our kitchen, I hope he's okay with our plans!  In the meantime, we're going to do some more independent study, and hopefully the slow moving will speed up.

Excavation and an Acadian. Maybe.

For those of you who have been here from the start, you may remember that our front porch is built on top of nothing.  Literally, nothing.  Not on top of dirt, or stone, or rock, or, I dunno, quicksand?  Nope-- nothing.  We found this out when our home inspector pretty much fell through the porch and said the equivalent of "um, hey guys?  I fell through the porch into nothing."  Except with a French-Canadian accent.  (I think he was French-Canadian, although I may be imagining things...)

Where the possibly-Acadian home inspector fell through the porch.

What you could see of the dirt under the porch, originally.

Looking down into the abyss, under the once and future porch.
This is the laundry room and guest room you're looking at.

For some reason, the front of the house is perched on a bunch of load-bearing two-by-fours, while the roof is held up, via the four front pillars, by an underground stone wall, unconnected to the two-by-fours.  Over 115 years, this setup has allowed dirt to seep in.  How much dirt?  Well, here's how it looked last week:

Once we got down there, this is the mound of dirt.
The porch is up top, and you're standing in what will
be the downstairs bathroom, looking through the
guest room and into the laundry room.
Notice the lovely load-bearing walls on either side.

Anyhow, I had the brilliant idea that we should excavate the whole thing and expand into that space.  We're pretty much not allowed to do anything to the house because of historical rules, but they don't care what we do underground, so as long as we're on our own property, theoretically, the sky's the limit.  (Or the opposite, really.)  This week they've started to excavate, and have hit a few small snags.  First off, there's apparently a lot more dirt down there than they expected.  $4000 more, actually.  Yeah, I know.  They were unable to use a big machine to do the digging, because the porch above would not support a machine. (Recall, if you will, the Quebecker screaming.  "Mon dieu! Zut allors! Et autres phrases francais!")  So everything had to come out by hand.  If you ask me, $4000 means everything came out with tiny spoons, but that's neither here nor there, and look what a great job they did, spoons or no spoons:

All excavated!

We had to go to the house this afternoon to meet with Sheyy for loan stuff (another story completely), so Mark and Rory wanted us to come over to talk about a few things having to do with this lovely excavation.  Lovelier than the $4000?  Maybe...  Anyhow, it looks like the wall to the right, made of lovely stones, is also pretty much useless.  No way we can build a real wall against it, let alone expect it to keep out any kind of moisture.  (Luckily it's been pouring, so we can see how much water we might expect in a non-hurricane worst-case scenario.)  So we have to put a moisture barrier all the way around, then build a cement-block wall in front of it for stability before we frame it out and put drywall in.  All in all, we're losing about ten inches of space from that side. Putting quite the squeeze on the guest room, that's for sure.  

Another issue is the bathroom.  The downstairs bathroom is in the corner of the house, in an addition that was put on several decades after it was built-- I think in the 1920s.  Anyhow, this is the one area of the house we couldn't really get into well the whole time, because the floor was unstable.  So we learned that apparently our architect also couldn't really get into it either; apparently he just estimated where things were by measuring the outside of the house and doing some math.  Now we find out there's this strange 6-inch half-wall running the length of the bathroom, and a load-bearing pillar smack-dab in the middle of it all.  After a bunch of thinking, we came up with a plan we hope will work, which basically involves moving the bathroom sinks from one wall to another, and having to deal with the fact that instead of a mirror over one of the sinks there will be a window.  With a HUGE ledge of about 18 inches.  That we can't really put stuff on because the window opens by swinging in. 

Positive: We found that, under the stairs and behind the mudroom-to-be's walls there's this oddly shaped circular space where we may be able to tuck our water heater.  (FYI, we're getting the kind that has no tank, but heats on demand.  It saves a whole bunch of energy when you're not home for a while, which kinda happens sometimes...)  

Notice the curve of the circular staircase at left, and the
strange space between that and the load-bearing walls at center.
We'll be able to do something with that, but we're not 100% sure what.

Negative: We found that having the boiler (which is also the air conditioner) in the center of the downstairs is just not going to work, and it won't work in the mudroom either.  Unfortunately, this means we're likely going to have to put it on top of the upstairs bathroom, which means we'll be losing some of the airspace we had gained in the Great Room.  The upstairs bathroom cuts out into the Great Room right now, and although the space above it is useless, it feels luxurious, and it also shows the gorgeous original rails along the wall.  Now, that will likely be boxed in, and we will probably lose most or all of the storage space behind the rails and above the window boxes to large duct work.  Better that than having huge bulkheads running through the house, but I'm still bummed.  I asked Mark to see if there was any way they could still finagle some storage space up there, and to see if we could get some faux rail to match the part that will be blocked.  Just have to make sure the MHT folks don't see the word "faux" anywhere, because that's something likely to make them kvetch.  (Tiny positive: because the AC unit was moved from downstairs, we will no longer have a weird closet opening up into the middle of the family room, and Isaac's closet can be much bigger.)

Unfortunately we're going to be re-losing the space above the bathroom cutout,
and most or all of the storage space behind the rails around the Great Room.

These developments are the first of what I'm sure will be many (hopefully not too many) unexpected on-the-spot changes, difficulties, and expenses for this project.  This week was kind of a shock to us, because it's been the first with out-of-pocket expenses, as opposed to the regular expenses which are already counted into our mortgage payment.  Had to pay the first $7,500 for the plumber to connect us to the water and sewer mains on Saturday; he starts Monday.  And had to pay the first $5,000 to the contractor for the excavation and a whole bunch of other stuff having to do with the excavation, such as removing the concrete-slab foundation under the half of the downstairs bathroom that has it (the rest of the house rests only on dirt) because with the foundation the ceiling will be less than seven feet tall.

However, at this point at least, it's still totally worth it.  It's fantastic to arrive at the house and see double-digits of people working (actually working, not just sitting around, either), and machines humming and people on ladders and piles of trash and NEW STUFF going in.  Yeah, nerves are being wracked, but so far so good, I think.  Abby?  Well, she's a bit more nervous than I am.  Or maybe I just hide it better...  But remember, comparatively speaking, this job is going swimmingly.  Swimmingly, I say; swimmingly. (And now for the pictures I promised the other day, of all this new stuff.)

If you look closely, you can see new cedar shingles and the new porch roof.
Oh, and the picket fence is gone!  Watched them tear it right off.

Look at the new flashing!  So crisp!  And not rotting!

Finally they've removed the Great Room windows for rehab.
These are the pieces de resistance for the room, along with the
vaulted ceiling. I CANNOT wait to see this completed.

And the removed Great Room windows from the outside.
Love the patchwork look the house is getting, with the new
taking over the old.  And notice the old paint is mostly gone.

Traveling salesmen?  Oh, please just step over here!  Whoops...
(Best part of this picture is that someone painted over the incorrect
address that been on the house, over the mailbox.  It used to be right,
but not for the past decade I guess.  And everyone, from the water company
to the US Postal Service, was very confused by it.)

Irene in the House

This morning we awoke to a mess of leaves all over the street, a freakishly clean car, and a nearly empty freezer, but other than that there was little sign of Hurricane Irene's overnight "wrath" in our neighborhood.  But we were not-so-secretly worried about how the storm treated the Bungalow, so we took a detour up to Forest Glen on the way to my sister's place in Virginia.  Little more than a half-mile from the house, we saw a tree that had formerly lined Illinois Avenue laying nicely on top of a surprisingly unsquooshed Cadillac.  Small limbs were abundant on the ground, but it wasn't until we got to Sixteenth Street Heights that the traffic signals were blinking.  Once we crossed the border into Maryland at Eastern Avenue the power to the signals went out altogether; not a good sign, we thought!  To make it worse, on the last split before the Seminary, at Brookville and Linden, a DOT traffic sign blinked "detour to Forest Glen."  Uh oh.  But from there on, no sign of Irene at all.  Driving through the tunnel on DeWitt, I crossed my fingers, but emerging from it we saw the fountain working, the trees standing, and the Bungalow, er, Bungalowing.  Roof looked wetter than normal.  Abby says the extreme left (as seen from the front) corner of the porch roof looked like something happened to it, as did the middle of the right side, but I think both of those things were already like that.  (You decide: there are before and after pics to compare below.) Not to mention, both are set to be replaced completely, so who cares?  Sigh of relief...

Bungalow pre-Irene

Bungalow, post-Irene.  Supposed new lean at far left,
and supposed deeper rut at center right of porch roof.

I went inside while Abby walked around the neighborhood with the kids.  Downstairs, where everything is rightfully musty normally, there was no sign of new wetness.  Upstairs, where there are BROKEN WINDOWS, no sign of wetness on the floors.  That's right: hurricane... broken windows... dry floor.  It had only stopped raining about an hour before, so it's not like things had time to dry.  Weird.  The only interior "issue" seemed to be the far corner of the upstairs bathroom, where there was wetness on the floor.  But that was due to a bad seal on the vent leading up through the roof, so all in all, the house made it through Irene like a champ.  Hooray!

Wetness next to the toilet.
Who can't aim?  Irene!

We met another new neighbor on the way out: Peter, a pediatrician who commutes to work via Ride On (the Montgomery County bus system), and his 18-month-old daughter Anna.  He recommended I get on one or more of the area's many resident Yahoo listservs.  We'll see... it might be a great way to find out the skinny on what people really think about the place... or it might just be a good way to be annoyed by people who themselves are annoyed.  Other than that, we're still waiting for the MHT decision.  Believe me, you'll all hear about it as soon as we do!