This is hilarious

I meant to blog this when it came out last week. Steven Colbert writing Maureen Dowd's column. "There, now I've written Frank Rich's column, too." Check it out.

It's cold in my studio. In order to meditate in there I have to fire up the pellet stove in the family room next door and leave the doors open a while. I go in long enough to read my email and then dash out. So I've been meditating in our den, the downstairs room with all the books and the piles of boxes, and turning on that pellet stove. And I have my laptop on the island counter in the kitchen.

I hope to rig up something more permanent once the den is cleared out. And with any luck, that'll happen in the next week or so. The laundry room is almost finished -- last I heard Alex the Carpenter thinks this week -- and just needs finishing touches, like paint and doors. We need to decide on the flooring and put that down soon, as the floor is cement and very dusty. And we need to get shelving in there. Then we can put the boxes in there and free up the den for more than just storage.

Last week I spent the day with some Northampton and New York colleagues at some offices in White Plains and chatted with a designer from Family Fun. She's an artist and had lots of ideas for how to set up an art space for Lily, including an all-color bulb (?) I forget but it's better than the glaring fluorescents overhead now. And a shelf for her supplies, and a table, of course, and a radio/CD player. I feel inspired.

Oh, and we have a laundry chute! It has an opening on both the first and second floor. It's a luxury, but fun. Dave has big plans for the pantry off the kitchen, now that the chute is mostly done. And our new windows look great! They need one more coat of something, and the walls around their edges needs to be re-painted. But they are snug and warm and much bigger and let in much more light. We like them a lot, especially the three big ones at the end of our bed, looking into the woods, that replaced two little ones. We hung a bird feeder up there, way away from the bears, and most mornings it's the place to be for those with wings.