Nothing but ordinary

Things that crazy people do:

1) Befriend inanimate objects.

2) Speak in tongues.

3) Buy houses built in the 1700s with no central air and move into them in triple-digit summer heat.

While I am fond of my cordless drill and have been known to utter words of encouragement as it powers through thick boards, most of my best friends are, in fact, living creatures.  And although my wife, Weezie, and I give our dogs strange nicknames (Boober McPhee, Little Miss Cannellini Beans and Stinky Pete, among others), that’s about as close as I come to speaking in tongues.  So, the best evidence yet that I’m crazy came on June 28th when we closed on William Reed’s Ordinary, a 1754 colonial house in Hillsborough, NC.

Never mind that we own two other houses and that it doesn’t have air conditioning and not one of the seven fireplaces is functional.  The house is utterly beguiling, and we fell so hard for its spell that we’ve signed away a good chunk of our life’s earnings for the privilege of living there.

Here she is in ’55:

Over the next three years decades or so, I’ll spend many most of my spare moments giving this crazy old place the love it deserves.  Stay tuned…