We got the house inspected as part of the escrow process on Monday. The inspector was nice, and he gave us a lot of good information—but he seriously tried both Al's and my patience by burying that good information in mounds and mounds of useless jabber. During a long and tedious speech about how to run the heat pump efficiently, I had to interrupt him to suggest that he assume a modicum of intelligence on our parts. Al has a degree in mechanical engineering, for pete's sake—he knows how a heat pump works!

I think I could have filtered through most of the endless chatter to pick out the important bits (and tune out the rest), but it just made Al MAD. Rather than try to arbitrate, I gave my attention to the kitchen contractor, who we had come at the same time to minimize the disruption to the current owners. I know, it was probably wimpy of me to abandon Al to Mr. Never Shuts Up, but I justified it by reasoning that the kitchen contractor needed some attention too. He was so quiet, competent, and gentle that the inspector could easily have overshadowed him, and there were questions that needed to be asked on both sides.

Two hours later we were all done; we had the inspection report, a ballpark idea of how much it would cost to remodel the kitchen and some specific ideas about how we wanted to do it, and an even higher regard for the house. We met another neighbor on the way out (the listing agent lives a block away and sold many of the houses on the street, so she knows everyone), and now I'm counting the days until we can move in!