The Electrician Finally Comes

He was supposed to come in January, and then we all got the flu and it was postponed...but one night last week the gray cat brought in something squeaky into the living room around 2 AM-- and I could not get the touchplate switch to work at all, and that was the last straw (the dining room lights have been out since February, but as we seem to use that just for craft storage and there is a floor lamp there, it was no big deal.) J could have fixed the switch himself, but there was the complicating factor that someone had built a fireplace over the fuse box, and there was a fuse box and not a circuit box. So the electrician came, and walked around inspecting things, and saying "oh..wow" at various electrical stupidies. He did say none of them would burst into flame, though he pointed out that we needed to get rid of the fireplace (which we knew already). So he fixed both sets of switches, and now I can turn on the light with a flick of the switch. It's like magic!