All the Latest from Philly...

The floor people are almost done. Yesterday they stained. Today will be two coats of polyurethane and then the same on Friday. Two hours after they're done on Friday we can walk on the floor (in socks) and have the furniture moved back not long thereafter. In the mean time, however, we've been sleeping at the local Marriott. I had originally made two reservations-- one at the Residence Inn near the house (they, after all, accept pets) and one at the Marriott. We checked out the Residence Inn and it was a bit scary. I mean, surely, it was probably just fine but it was the type of place you'd pull off of the highway to stay at while driving cross country. At least the Marriott is a "resort and conference center". I will say that given that the last hotel we stayed at before this was the White Elephant in Nantucket, before that the Mandarin in Miami and before that the Villa D'Este in Cernobbio, we're a bit spoiled. But, whatever, it's nice enough. The main complaint I have, however, is the tv service. They're clearly not Comcast subscribers. I'm not sure exactly what cable service they subscribe to here but all I know is the hotel is in the same zip code as the house and all of a sudden we've gone from having all three major networks broadcast from both New York and Philadelphia to having just Philly stations. I feel so out of touch. It is really weird to only have Philadelphia news. I never watch the Philly stations when I'm at home, I'm a local news snob. I guess it's because we used to live in NY so things just don't seem normal unless Bill Ritter and Liz Cho are involved. Janice Huff is the only weather person (besides TWC's Jim Cantore) who seems vaugely informed and trustworthy. Now I'm stuck with these people I've never seen before and they're reporting about things happening in Delaware. How is it that you can literally drive 2 miles and be out of range for New York news?

Let's also not forget the bed. Before we moved in here we were sleeping on the old guest room mattress on the floor in the family room. I thought that was bad. It's a queen and it's hard as a rock. Not to mention that the Husband spilled some gasoline in the garage a while back (where the mattress had been residing after being displaced during nursery construction) and now the bottom portion of the mattress kind of has that gasoline smell to it. Luckily when you're sleeping on it, you can't notice it-- hopefully nothing toxic is seeping into our feet. Anyway, again, I thought this was bad. Then we came to the Marriott. They initially gave us a room with a king size bed but it smelled like smoke and it looked like there was mold. We asked to be moved. They moved us to a room with two double beds. We quickly learned that me, at 8 months pregnant, the snoogle maternity pillow and the Husband can't all fit comfortably in a double bed. Thank god the cat wasn't with us. Since that fateful night we've been sleeping in separate double beds, a la Lucy & Ricky. I'm actually looking forward to getting back to sleeping on the mattress on the floor in the family room, cat, gasoline and all....