it's the pits

I am a fan of Mark Bittman, food critic and essayist for the New York Times. Recently he had a piece about food myths. One of the favorites here is about the avocado pit in the guacamole. I agree with Bittman; there's nothing to it. My solution: the only way to avoid having guacamole turn brown is to sit down and eat it as soon as you make it. That's how I get around the problem. If others discover what you're making you might be forced to share, so be discrete.

As for the kitchen in which the above mentioned delicacy is prepared, it's 99% done. Left to do are install and connect the faucets, replace the switch plates, paint the new surfaces (either end of the new corner work top/storage). In the bathroom they have not yet installed the sink and faucets. Our bedroom and bath are all tiled and grouted and ready to be re-furnitured. Half of the living room slider has been installed, the bedroom slider needs it's screen, but the glass door from the terrazzo into the living room is in and needs it's screen door. Downstairs they have finished the small bedroom, the laundry room, the 1/2 bath and most of the breezeway. The big downstairs bedroom/bath took a bit of doing; the entire floor had to be removed and the cement that held it down had to be chipped away. That was bone-jarring work that took almost 2 full days with 3 mozos down on their hands and knees pounding away the old cement. They had to do this because they took up all the tiles from the terrazzo and had to level out the surfaces between the two spaces to take on the new tiles. The bedroom/bath will get a new, level cement floor before they lay down the new tiles.

My guess is that the project will be finished sometime mid-week, perhaps on Wednesday. Jaime has several other houses going up around town, but he has been on our work site every day and has done most of the floor tiling himself. I walked over just now, 7 PM, and they're still hard at it. The light is not good to take photos; I'll do that in the morning. I am so, so happy with the results. It will be a pleasure to get back into the house and stay settled for the next two months and enjoy what we have done.