Before I launch into the teeth-gnashing woe of our latest attempt to drag the AssVac kicking and screaming into the modern age (and because all I did yesterday was measure for cabinets, so there isn’t much to say), I think it behooves me to back up and tell you about the kitchen that we actually bought and what it’s done to us so far. I mean what we have done to it. Eh. What we’ve done to each other.
The kitchen that we bought — wait a second, excuse me, I'm sorry, but I thought I had some quotation marks around here somewhere. Ah, there they are…
The “kitchen” that we bought was only a “kitchen” in the same manner that Ken is Barbie’s “boyfriend”: it said so on the box, and at first glance it looked the way it ought to, but further inspection showed a flat expanse of nothing where the functioning pieces were supposed to be.
It did have hot and cold running water, but that’s about it. And I am well aware of what a marvel modern plumbing is – I know that Laura Ingalls and Betsy Ross and Abigail Adams would have traded their muslin pantaloons for a kitchen like the one the AssVac had. Old Abby’s birthplace, as a matter of fact, is just a pleasant walk from here, and her ghost hovers around whispering smugly that if she had indoor plumbing, she would have been on the front lines with her husband instead of writing him namby-pamby letters from back home imploring him to “remember the ladies” in his fight.
Whatever. If Laura Ingalls had it, there’d be no Little House series. So there.
Anyway, no matter what a marvel running hot-and-cold can be, the mere presence of it does not a modern kitchen make. Especially if that same sink – that same, only-truly-functional-appliance (if-you-can-even-call-it-an-appliance) sink – has been leaking for so long that the cabinet underneath is more or less bottomless, and the whole contraption threatens to plunge right through the spongy, rotten floor.
Oh it was yummy, this “kitchen” of ours, I tell you what.
This took longer than usual this morning, so I've got to leave it there. I’ll continue it tomorrow, with all kinds of details about our hateful stove, but in the meantime...
Let’s have an explain-the-title POEM CONTEST!
We haven’t done this in a while, so for those of you who're new, here’s how it works:
1. There’s a reason why that title is especially appropriate for me, for this post, or for today.
2. Google if you have to. Not like I could stop you anyway.
3. First person to comment with the right answer wins.
4. Winner gets a poem written in their honor and posted on this blog.
5. Poem is usually mostly about me, but you’ll be in it too, I swear to god.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Begin the Beguine
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Hmmm...
Let's start this dance?
Now I'll have that song in my head all day.
Beginning the Beguine will make you remember everything that has happened between you and this kitchen. Which is what you're promising to do in this post (and tell us about it). Though if you didn't go through the memories, you'd avoid all the painful feelings they'll bring up, too, so maybe you should just stop while you're ahead. Let the fire remain an ember.
I'll have to credit Wikipedia for this shot in the dark, the song, Begin the Beguine, "is notable for its 108-measure length, departing drastically from the conventional thirty-two-bar form." I can't pretend to know exactly what they're talking about, but it sounds like something that took waaaay longer than it should have, just like your kitchen. pa dum pa.
plus there was a tim curry reference, but i couldn't shoehorn that in since it wasn't a rocky horror thing.
I was going to say something particularly snarkful, but then I saw j auclair's answer, and its punchy and funny. Can I just vote for her instead? Will it make any difference? See. I dont know as I've ever actually heard that song, but Sebastian sings something about how the "sardines begin the beguine" in a little ditty called Under the Sea in the (personal favorite of mine...)Disney movie The Little Mermaid. SO now I have THAT song in my head.
...up on da shore dey work all day, up in da sun dey slave away, while we devotin' full time to floatin' undah da sea...
You are all VERY clever, and certainly any one of these answers makes enough sense that it COULD have been the answer (well, except maybe Jen, but I like the undah dah sea song, too). I will pick a winner from among you if nobody gets it, but nobody's got it yet.
Here's a hint: sometimes words have more than one definition...
PS I forgot to say welcome, J Auclair! Welcome! Welcome!
I would have expected this to be over by now - that dang time difference. Although really you should all be jealous, I am a day ahead of you all, so I'm one day closer to the weekend.
So, my guess is that your 'begin the beguine' refers to the meaning of beguine when used to describe a member of a lay sisterhood who don't take religious vows but live an austere life. So you are starting a rather spartan period while you get that darn kitchen done.
Once you've practiced a bit on your own kitchen, by the way, can you pop over and do mine for me?
Yay, Other Bear wins! It's going to be fun to write a poem with The Other Bear in it...
Now be honest: did you know that, or did you have to look it up?
I actually had an idea that the word beguine could refer to a pauper type person in the middle ages as well as the dance.
I googled it to check I was right and I was not quite right but on the right track, so what I came up with for my answer was slightly different to what I had originally thought, but it is what my 'i feel lucky' google result told me!
Googling things is my way of pretending I am one of the young people who use that newfangled technology thing.
Well crap! I didn't know I was getting homework! I think the answer is D, its not the standard length meaning the kitchen will take longer to complete than anticipated.
Oooo! Nice reference EGE!
Well. Thanks for the welcome, and thanks for the vote of confidence, jen!
My problem was that I've heard that song a thousand times, and couldn't think beyond its meaning. Very good. Now I'll listen to the song differently next time it rears its head.
Post a Comment