Kurt Vonnegut and me

[carbonel]

I'm very fond of Kurt Vonnegut's collection Welcome to the Monkey House. One of the stories in there is "More Stately Mansions," about a wife, Grace, who is obsessed with home decorating and a husband, George, who loves her but is mostly ineffective -- as seen through the eyes of the new neighbors. When the neighbors finally get to see Grace and George's house, they realize it's a shambles, that all the decorating has only been in Grace's mind. When Grace has to go to the hospital for two months, George decides to decorate the house the way Grace always wanted. When Grace comes home, she's bowled over -- at how clean the house is, but nothing else. To her, this is how the house has always looked. Though after that, she gets rid of all her decorating magazines.

This story has been rather on my mind over the last couple of days, because I just paid around $7,000 to painters and a handyman to repaint the entire house and garage and do other necessary repairs, including replacing windows and a door in the garage. I didn't change the color of paint, and it was perfectly matched. Which means that I've spent $7,000 for something that is essentially invisible. I can point out the places where the rotted wood was replaced and other minor changes, but no one is going to notice anything unless it is pointed out. (I know this because I tried it on lydy and Pat WINOLJ, the two people who come to my house most often.)

As Vonnegut said in a more dire context, so it goes.

Comments

[tournevis.livejournal.com]

This is one of my faves for Vonnergut. Though I have to say I have not liked a lot of what I have read of him. Unrelated to decorating, though, my favorite thing from him is his Shape of stories lecture. Have you seen it?

[naomikritzer]

Oh, yeah. So it goes.

We had a short in a circuit a couple of weeks ago: it knocked out power to our dining room and part of our kitchen. We could still use the stove and fridge and microwave, but the overhead lights didn't work.

It turns out that electricians have no magical way to find a short circuit. And it turned out that on this circuit, unbeknownst to us, was the line running out to the little outdoor birdbath fountain that the old owners had put in but we never turn on ever, and that's what was shorting out. It took several very expensive electrician-hours to figure that out.

We have the money for this sort of mishap, but you know, even when you have the money, it's hard not to think about all the much-more-entertaining ways that one could spend that chunk of cash. Other than "have an electrician working in my house from noon to six on a Tuesday." Stupid fountain.

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

Well, at least you didn't have to recover the couch in fabric just one shade lighter.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

That's the reason it took me way way too long to get the roof replaced. Huge amount of hassle, noise, mess and money and when it's done you don't see any difference.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a lovely story, worthy of Kipling or Colette.