Friday, September 17, 2010

House, Episode 4

In this week's episode, Ellie and Riley spend two days helping Wendy attack the most overwhelming project of all: the basement. They arrive at this task in a roundabout way: they begin cleaning out the coat closet and Wendy realizes that Brian's coats need to go into a tote and be stored with the rest of his clothing (which will be dealt with later), an empty tote needs to be found, and somehow, the storage room becomes the project for the week. They take everything -- everything! -- from the storage room and put it into the bar (for those who have not experienced the joy of the Boka Bear Den, Brian and Wendy had two rooms in the basement: a storage room and a Chicago Bears bar room complete with beer on tap, a dartboard, a bar, a mounted tv, neon signs, and all the Bears memorabilia you can shake a stick at). Once the Bear Den is full to the brim, they discover a bit of mold on a wall where some ceiling tile had been leaned against it, as well as an outlet with damage from a cordless drill having been perpetually plugged in there. They realize that now, another wall will have to be painted. They clean the mold, put up painter's tape, remove outlet covers, and get out the painting supplies (which, at least, have been conveniently grouped and stored together).

Jeremy, Brian's brother, plays a role in the basement renovations as well. He replaces the damaged outlet and then patiently explains to an admittedly clueless Wendy what various tools are, how they are used, and what she should keep and what to sell or give away. Comically, he does not show Wendy how the cordless drill and its components actually fit into its case, and Wendy and Ellie struggle with it for several minutes the next day before mastering the spatial skills challenge.

Wendy's friend Jackie (whose husband Troy worked with Brian at Sears) comes over one evening and helps Wendy do some cleaning around the house. This happens to be the first day Wendy's allowed the new kitten to wander around the house, and Pat the roommate has finished moving out, so now there are no rooms "off limits" and Wendy is greatly relieved to be able to vacuum (or, to have Jackie vacuum) all the upstairs rooms at the same time and to regain the use of another closet!

In one of the cuter moments of this episode, Riley (who is 3) shows that she is at home in Wendy's house by coming in and calling Picaboo by name and then asking about Mittons. Ellie the Cat remains leery of children and continues to make herself sparse.

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