"...so, this is our house, our mom will be home in a few hours and we'll have to figure out how to explain you to her but in the meantime welcome, can I get you anything to eat?"

I don't think so. It's a very interesting house. Did you build it?

"No, people mostly don't build their own houses here."

Maybe they are too busy having wars, he says privately.

It can't keep you that busy, can it?

Some people don't build their houses at home, if they don't like architecture or construction.

"Building houses, especially ones that hold up well in the weather and have electricity and plumbing, is a specialized skill many people don't have time to pick up and some people don't have the physical ability to carry out."

That makes sense. In Valinor houses just hold up fine but in Endorë they don't do that.

"Valinor doesn't have weather?"

It has weather! It doesn't have decay, except in certain places for plants that need that to grow.

"That's... interesting. Valar again?"

Yes. They don't like things falling apart, it apparently gets exhausting after enough Ages.

"Huh. Okay."

How do you keep libraries, do you have to recopy everything every few centuries?

"...recopy?"

- oh, the way decay works in Endorë, parchment deteriorates over time so eventually old books would become unreadable. Endorë doesn't even really have books, probably partially for that reason.

"Watch this," she says.

She goes over to a bright green-shelled Mac in the corner of the living room and turns it on and opens a document and types in 72-point font "WE INVENTED THE PRINTING PRESS AND NOW WE HAVE THIS SORT OF THING". And then she prints it and the printer on the desk spits out a copy.

They quite evidently cannot read it but they pick it up and examine it delightedly. 

That's so much more precise! You could do such intricate lettering things! Wow!

Bella giggles.

"Do aliens not have printers?" asks Alli, who is microwaving leftover sweet and sour chicken.

We don't have that! Even looking at it I do not know how to build it. If you want to build one with us that'd be very interesting!

"We don't know how to build most of the objects around us. We buy them. Single people don't create most of the objects we use, they are made by systems of people working together. With machines."

- isn't that really stressful?

"I'm not sure how you mean."

I wouldn't like being surrounded by things I didn't understand and couldn't build or fix if I needed them. I could use them but I couldn't - use them as extensions of my brain.