A few of you have wondered if Ivan and I have dropped off the face of Planet Earth for the past month or so. 

Well. Almost.

We spent most of the months of February and March into early April working on the World’s Ugliest Bathroom which sported the World’s Ugliest Wallpaper.  I know it is the ugliest because I sent pictures of it to friends who, for the most part, were left speechless by its malevolence. (Note to those who did respond: Ewwww…. is not a word.)

I spent weeks sharing a living room with two boxed toilets and boxed sinks. Two of everything because we also rehabbed the little bathroom under the stairs. It's about the size of Harry Potter's cubbyhole with about the same warm inviting feeling. 

 I also spent a great deal of time cleaning up drywall mud. That stuff has a permeating power of a bioweapon of ecological disaster proportions.

 Ivan, poor dear, as the Man of the House, was in charge of saying “yes” and “no” and “when are you coming???” to various independent contractors. He learned first hand that “independent” is the most important word in independent contractor.

The upstairs bathroom, once an eyesore, is now a place that we want to show company. No more shall we invite guests to view our etchings. We now invite guests to see our bathroom (one of them, at least).  Not use it, of course, lest they disturb its magnificence.

Being the quirky types that we take pride in being, we chose a British Empire theme for the upstairs bathroom. From the maps on the walls to the lobby-of-an-Egyptian-hotel fern, the look is eighteenth century. We even have a real Siamese sleeping on the bath rug.

While we concentrated on the home front, much may have changed somewhere, but not any place that I can see since we checked out and checked back in.

Here are my personal top ten of what we may or may not have missed:

1. The GOP and Dems are still at each other’s throats. They continue to play – gasp! – politics with everything from health care to the tax code.

2. Romney will be the GOP nominee and he is a very wealthy fellow.  (Okay, I knew that before we took out the claw foot tub). 

3. The Kentucky General Assembly went home without finishing their work. They failed to fund the Road Fund.

 The Kentucky General Assembly came back because they failed to fund the Road Fund and do some other stuff that Guv Beshear wanted. So he called them back this week. Coming back costs a minimum of $300,000.  No worries. It’s taxpayer money.

4. Governor Beshear and Senate President David Williams said nasty things about each other. For why, see Election 2011 and #3 above.

5. This spring has been the hottest on record. Granted, the record is only about three hundred years long, an eye blink in geological time, but still worth noting.

6. Soldiers and civilians continue to die in a war half a world away that no one seems to want to wage – but no one has the courage to stop.

7. The US Supreme Court appears to have members with links to American culture and politics. Wow. Who knew?

8. The Hunger Games, a film about post apocalyptic young people killing each other for sport, has been No. 1 at the box office for weeks now. And No. 1 at the bookstore. And No. 1 as a musical score.  The Hunger Games is rated PG-13.  

Because there is bad language used by real kids, Bully, a film about real young people tormenting other real young people sometimes to the point of suicide, received an “R” rating.  That meant that young people could not see Bully. (But they could see The Hunger Games.)  Bad words removed resulted in the “R” rating becoming “PG-13”. Now kids can see them both. (Wanna bet they won’t?)  

9. April 17th is Equal Pay Day, recognition that women should be paid the same as men. Enjoy the recognition. April 18th is Back to Business as Usual Day.

10. Women who work at home and women who work feel guilty whichever they do.

My work here is done.

Off to the new bathroom and the new bath tub where I shall glory in Equal Pay Day until the sun goes down upon it.