My home improvement project

That was the title of a post I wrote yesterday. I was so excited because I changed the battery to a smoke alarm. The smoke alarm is in what many of you call the “spare room.” There’s a smoke alarm in the master bedroom, another in the hallway over the stair case and two more downstairs. It went off when I took a shower in the master bedroom.

In New York we name all of our rooms. Actually we give five names to different areas of the living room. Here’s the study (pretend there’s a picture of a desk). Here’s the dining room (see imaginary desk,) This is the library. Over there is the sitting area, and that section is the actual living room.

I was feeling very proud of myself. In New York I would have gone to the house phone, spoke to the doorman, told him it was an emergency and have the handyman come up. I do have much higher ceilings in New York.

Did I mention I’m scared of heights and equally scared of live wires? When I first opened the smoke alarm, I saw live wires and almost fell off the ladder. But I went on. I had to. The smoke alarm had stopped its long siren call and went into a one a minute high pitched sound guaranteed to drive a person crazy.

This morning I took a long shower. The smoke alarm in the computerspare room went off. I can’t imagine that steam from a shower set it off….I’m calling a handyman. The high pitched sound hasn’t happened. It might. My BFF, Lucia is convinced it’s only a matter of minutes.

I haven’t been here three weeks yet and I’m relaxed. Or as relaxed as I’m capable of being.

I had some business that occupied most of my time for the two weeks before I came here. Everything was finally finished Saturday and I was able to go to the beach, two blocks from my house, in March.

That is worth everything to me. I think I love it here.

I have been watching the complete first season of Friday Night Lights. Dillon is a small Texas town where everything revolves around football. Personally I find football to be incredibly boring, and have been to exactly one game in my life. Friday Night Lights transcends football.

I forget that I’m watching TV and feel intimately involved in each person’s life. It’s an amazing show that deserves to be renewed for a third season. The first three episodes can be slow at times but are necessary to set the stories up.

I also have the first complete first season of 30 Rock, Gone, Baby, Gone, No Country for Old Men, and four of James Spader’s best films.

I’m not watching as much TV as I had planned to. It’s so beautiful here and I feel compelled to be outside as much as possible. This particular area feels like the North Fork of Long Island but with a real ocean–can’t help it I’m from Long Island and tend to compare places to places I know. It’s very country like.

When I’m inside, it’s even fun to clean. I was running the dishwasher and washer/dryer every day but have come down to earth.

Life is good and getting better every day. I reserve the right to change that last sentence.