Summer Doldrums...

.......as if at sea with no wind and only a sail:  The house is on the market, which required a thousand hours on the third floor sorting, cleaning, making decisions about which yarns ought to go to the studio and be put on the block as "Stash," our all-purpose category for yarns that I no longer want or yarns that I buy at a steep discount (many of them discontinued).  Friends helped.  Without Lois, Katie, Ava, Ann, et al, I doubt that anybody could have navigated the stairs to the third floor, much less found it habitable.  So now it's presentable -- vacuumed, for heaven's sake, and possessed of a fully clothed dress form to suggest 'fiber studio' instead of attic.  I had the place re-insulated a couple of years ago to hedge against the chill of winter and heat of summer.  But, while the air conditioner and furnace are more than adequate, the ductwork up there is NOT adequate.  So there is still heat in summer and cold in winter, though less of each.  Were I to stay here, I'd spend time finding a company willing to redo the ducts.  As it is, people mostly want to stick an expensive separate air unit in a wall and be done with it.  A shocking lack of gumption and imagination.  The problem with my third floor is that some complete fool put the intake register in the main room and the exhaust register (which spews out heat and cold) in the hallway.   DUHHHHH. 

My real estate agent, Patti Bargnes, who is wondrous and recommendable -- we have worked together on three buying and selling projects over the years -- tells me that people are just sitting around on the showing and viewing schtick because they're used to sellers not getting offers and think they don't need to act.  I hope nobody will be disappointed when I abruptly take the thing off the market in a couple of months.  It can go back on the market next year.  Or maybe Chase would like it back!!!!!!  I am SO sick of house nonsense.

At the studio:  We are experiencing the summer doldrums, made more insufferable by invading swarms of smelly, aggressive fish flies.  The outdoor sign, the windows, the walls of the building are covered with them, and this year, unlike in past years, we had at least two separate generations of them.  They crunch underfoot and under automobile tires.  When brushed off of windows, they leave oily smears.  The whole thing is ghastly.   And because the house is close to the water, we have them at the house as well -- indeed, during the broker's open house last week, people complained about an odd smell near the entrance, which Larry and I now think had to do with piles of dead, fishy fish flies all around the house.  

With any luck at all, local artisans will rediscover Artisan Knitworks' collection of hand-crafted yarn and vintage buttons, and so on, SOON so that we can pay rent!!!!!!!!   I hate summer in that respect.  I am working on financial matters, to make it worse, and not crocheting or knitting very much -- this will change.

Thanks for slogging through this vacant entry to the bitter end!

svb