Yes, Thompson, we like wine. We also like dinner parties, which tend to involve wine, and French food, which also frequently contains wine. On the other hand, a fair few of the sections of drainage pipe are unoccupied; I think our current holdings stand at about five dozen bottles.

No new stove for us. The gas technician came on Thursday, took one look at the current set-up, whipped out his tape measure and declared it Not Up To Code. Alas, according to the most recent revision of the Canadian national building code, a gas-fired stove must have 30 inches of clearance above and to the sides of the cooktop. In our current kitchen, that would mean ripping out three cabinets, finding a new home for the very large microwave oven, and installing a new exhaust hood ten inches higher than the current one. What is wrong with the current one, you ask? Well, its light sockets contain flammable plastic! Who knew? Not I.

So the plan did not survive contact with reality. What a surprise.

On the phone with Sears, I cancelled the delivery and "returned" the new stove with which I had quite fallen in lust. We will replace the old one later in the sell-the-house project, with an electric job that does not call for extensive surgery on the overhead cabinets. It won't be my kitchen any more, so Not My Problem.

Meanwhile, the foul weather of an Ottawa winter has given the carpenters a Very Good Reason to cancel their date with us today, so the contents of two bathrooms are scattered throughout the house. All my need-for-order nerves are tweaking like crazy.