Kitchen Catch-All

I've been promising and failing for so long to update you on the kitchen project, that I've amassed a little bouquet of short stories. A nosegay, as it were. Not much actual progress has been made yet (hey man, that's how we roll) but we have discovered lots of interesting things...

Johnny got every last bit of the wainscotting down and salvaged -- except for one piece that has the live wire for the kill-switch on the furnace running through.

We're going to think a while on what to do about that one. Don't really want to risk sawing through the wood there, even if we shut the power off. Could we maybe saw very, very close to the wire, and then, like, ruin a scissors or something to cut through the final bit?

(Let's not talk about the fact that this is a kill-switch installed about a month ago, after Johnny pulled off the old one and Andy came to help us out. Let's not mention that where he mounted it anew is where the refrigerator is supposed to go when the kitchen's done, so the switch has to be moved again. But let's do mention that I, just now, looking at these pictures and talking about this, realized that the switch can go on the other side of the doorway, and therefore not be in the way of the fridge at all. Yay, me! Thanks, guys!)

At any rate, back to the wainscotting: The good news -- perhaps the goodest news I've heard all year -- is that the back of it was never varnished! And the back of it looks just like the front!

Which means... I don't have to strip it!

Come on, y'all, get your italics on and say it with me: YA-FREAKIN'-HOO!

In other news: whoever did this work the last time apparently didn't understand the concept of weight-bearing. Didn't understand that, in order for weight to actually be borne in any sort of useful fashion, there has to be a constant stream of solid matter from the roof down to the floor.

Instead of that, though, beams just stop

and start

and stop and start again

Which is comforting, to say the least.

Ah, well, on the bright side: I think we've just discovered where the Golden Ceiling Spiders have been emanating out of all these years.

Ew.

Moving on, a little to the right...

We think they must have literally punched this box through the drywall without bothering to first cut a hole.

There are so many things odd about this outlet, beginning with the fact that the wiring is so obviously newer than the rest -- the rest that we can see, anyway, in the kitchen -- and yet there were no holes in either wall on either side for whoever to have worked the wires through. Also, it's not screwed onto anything, except presumably the faceplate in the front.

Speaking of which, wait a second. The other side of this wall is in the -- yes -- spare bedroom. And there is not an outlet on that wall in there. Did they actually install the weird cork panelling (which is a story for another time) onto the wall over a power-outlet?

Oh, wait. Hang on. No, they didn't. It turns out, if you move the dresser, you find all sorts of useful things (including but not limited to Johnny's dusty, cat-haired knee brace that would have come in really handy when he hurt himself last fall).

Oh well. That outlet must not work. That must be why I didn't know about it. I must have tested it when we moved in, discovered it was dead, and then put its existence clear out of my already-cluttered mind.

Nope. It works.

Huh. Well anyway...

Ooh, here's something: When I was taking that picture of the smashed-in outlet up above, I noticed a small rock in the debris. I thought it was odd, so I zoomed in and took a picture of it:

But when I downloaded the picture, I noticed something I hadn't seen in person. And if you click on that picture to enlarge it, you will see it, too.

Did you see it? The amber trail?

Seriously. I shit you not. Look here.

The wood the house was made of wept its sap, and in the near-ten decades since, it turned to stone. Or glass, or something. I tried to pick it up in one piece, but I failed. I've squirrelled the bits away now in an envelope for safekeeping, and someday -- when I'm stupid-rich and have money to burn on such frivolous things -- I might see if I can get those fragments made into a piece of jewelry.

In the meantime, the only amber I'll be working on is ale.



Oh, also, I was here this morning. Testicles only figure in a little, at the end.