The day started early. Our handyman arrived as I was buttering my toast and informed me that I’d need to clear out another third of the living room so he could finish putting down tile.

Since every surface in the house pretty much already had stuff on it, that left one spot — the bed (and the path from the bathroom to it. You now have to squeeze past our bureau, hop over the giant box that contains stuff from the desk, and hurdle a milk crate just to get to the bedroom. There you’ll be greeted by a bag that contains Christmas presents, half a dozen board games, the garbage bag box (that contains only one garbage bag), a manilla folder that may or may not contain Rudi’s political stuff, six loads of laundry that need to be washed, all our winter hats, gloves, and scarves, and a balance ball. Oh, and there’s a travel guitar resting near my head, a laptop on my lap, and piles of videos at my feet. Della, who enjoys sleeping on piles of clothes, finds it heavenly. I, who can sleep on clothes but who would prefer not to sleep on board games, do not.

And the handyman will be back at 9:30 in the morning.