Sweeping Discovery Under The Carpet.

It's upheaval time chez nous as anytime now, Stanley Steemer should be coming to clean our carpets.

Despite the name, this isn't an old British music hall comedian but a nationwide US company and although I've seen their vans outside many houses in the park over the years, this will be my first 'up close' experience of them and their work.

Anyway their scheduled arrival this afternoon meant we had to clear as much furniture as possible out of the living room, dining room and hallway this morning and I'm happy to report that this has been achieved. Both bedrooms and kitchen now resemble furniture stockrooms and we have retired (again.....hehe) to live in the lanai until said carpets have dried off. Tomorrow morning most likely.

I must say it's no hardship to be spending time in the lanai as it IS a sun room after all and we have plenty of that. With all its windows open and the ceiling fan spinning faster than a ConDem spokesman (ohhhh get me !), it's very pleasant indeed out here.

Pixie, our long haired dachshund, is not so keen on change, and cannot understand the word, temporary. Actually her vocabulary is quite limited and she really only responds to 'byebyes,' 'out' and 'bed' and even then, only when she is in the mood. One of her daily pleasures is to lie in the sunbeams which flood the living room during the morning and so she was not well pleased with all the upheaval that went on today. She went around sniffing at the newly exposed carpet areas but couldn't settle until we had finally cleared the room.

Sadly for her, by then the mid-morning angle of the sun meant there wasn't much sunlight coming through the windows and only a small triangle of light was left next the front door. Not one to miss out on her daily routine, she waddled moodily (it's a technique she picked up from a PBS documentary on British Royalty and she uses it to let us know she is not amused) over towards the door and plunked herself down on the carpet despite only half her body covering the small, and rapidly diminishing, area of light.

It was hilarious and cute. I went to the far side of the living room to better show her 'isolation' and the spot of light had almost gone even in that short time.

Seconds after this photo was taken, both the light and Pixie had left the room. Not the building.....just the room. As I type this, she is in her lanai bed (Pampered ? Not a bit of it) as out here she'll get a bit of afternoon sunshine while watching Oprah.

Speaking of tv, in just over 3 hrs time, at 4:50pm EST, space shuttle Discovery will lift-off on its final mission to the ISS. I'll be making the short walk to the park entrance to see her rise spectacularly into the clear blue Florida sky (which right now is a bit cloudy so I may not see anything at all !) but as if to reflect the worldwide apathy about such events, the local FOX tv station last night announced it would be covering the launch.......via a split screen with the Judge Judy Show !! I think I'd prefer it if they just didn't bother at all. Sometimes apathy is better than insulting.

I know there are important events going on elsewhere right now, from natural disasters to even more natural revolutions but as they're never covered at 4:50pm on tv here anyway, why not give full screen coverage to this launch ? I'm sure if she was asked, Judge Judy wouldn't mind.

Maybe there will be a bit more interest when the last ever shuttle launch takes place in late June.

It's due to be at 3:48pm EST and Judge Judy isn't on.

But Judge Joe Brown is.