Every Other Day of the Week is Fine

For the next little while and a half or so, my Mondays are going to be kind of nuts.

Normally, I'm slacker enough that, even though I roll out of bed at 5:30 or 6:00, I don't have to roll off to work until 10:30 or 11:00. But, on Mondays, that rolls back to (gasp!) 8:30 or 9:00.

Normally, I'm obsessive enough that, even though I don't know why anyone would want to read this dreck, I crawl in here and crank out a bit of it before I go. But, for the next few weeks at least (and, if I'm lucky, months), there's something else that I'll be cranking in that time. And I ain't waking up at 3:00 in the morning, no matter how much I profess to love you all.

The rest of the week will still work like it always did: I break something, Johnny suffers my stupidity, I write about it, you read same and make funny, funny comments, the AssVac sits back and plots her next move. But on Mondays I won't have time. I don't even really have time to be doing this today.

Which is, you see, why I'm being so brief about it.

Anyways...

All of this is by way of introducing a new feature on the blog. Let's call it Manic Monday. Or Blue Monday. Depending on which end of the bipolar spectrum I'm feeling. Or just Monday, Monday, in the weeks I'm catatonic.

Here's what we'll do: Every Monday morning I will ask a question pertaining to one of my posts from the week before. You can try to be correct, or just try to make me laugh. I'll pick the winner based on my own eclectic judging system, which will change from week to week -- but if I'm insisting that you try to be correct, I'll let you know.

The prizes will vary, and I'll announce them with the questions. Most of the time, honestly, it will be a poem written in your honor (hey, I'm poor, remember?). Sometimes I'll offer to send you something gross that I found under the bed. Once in a while, though, I will even shop.

And if you knew me, you'd know what a sacrifice that is.

So what do you think? Sound like fun? Shall we start right away?

Okay:

The other bear suggested that I give away that "tie-dyed" t-shirt, but we decided to wash it first and all the color came right out. The hand-print on Johnny's, too. Dang ity. So we'll kick off this week by playing for a poem, because I've already wasted too much time today to think of something else.

So, for a poem: Remember those empty Toblerone packages that I showed as evidence of my ill-advised chocolate bender? Which is more likely: That I ate them all at once, or that I had one every day and just let the empty wrappers keep accumulating on the floor beside my bed? Discuss.

Jeebers, look at the time. Go!

Attempting to Find a Motive

One friend is gone -- thank god. Now maybe we can actually get back on track around here!

Normally, as you know, I am a tireless worker bee, puking away for the greater good of the hive. But here it's been two weeks since we got anything accomplished in the kitchen. Well, except fixing that leak. Which has to count for something.

So -- now that Johnny's home and rested up, One Friend is gone, and I've got exactly one month before getting on a plane and flying all the way across the country, then getting in a car and driving all the way back home (!) -- it's time for me to buckle down.

I've got to tear that wainscotting out of the kitchen, run wires through the walls, buy and hang some plasterboard, rip all the old staples out of the ceiling and finish tearing those tiles off the floor -- all while coming up with an outline and synopsis for a project destined, if I do it right, to be hailed as "Huck Finn meets Leopold Bloom" (no "N" word, but lots of "F"s!).

Sheesh, that's a lot of work.

Hey! Was that the Times hitting my doorstep?

I think I'll start tomorrow.



P.S. I've taken a few weeks off of this as well, but I'm back over here today. Sort of. I might have phoned it in a little bit, but at least I got a poet killed before hanging up.

The Guy Sure Looks Like Plant Food To Me

Last night was One Friend's final night in town. Until next month, that is, when I will be flying out to Sacramento (that's in California) and driving alllll the way home (that's in Massachusetts) with her and her One Dog.

Well, actually, not all the way to my home. But to her new home, in New Haven (which is in Connecticut), from where I will board a choo-choo for the last, two-hour leg. And then, after that, One Friend and I will not only be in the same time zone for the first time in seven years, we will also be just that teeny-tiny little two-hour train ride away from weekend visits whenever we can scrape up the $120.

Yay!

But for now, back to where I started.

Last night was her final night in town. Also the first time since she got here that she and Johnny were both in the AssVac. So I requested that he make his Special Chicken Curry for our sup. This is something he wants to make at least two times a week, and usually I want to fall to my knees and cry "No. More. Chicken. Curry!" But it is really good, and since One Friend and I have been living since she arrived on a diet of variously-melted cheeses, plus whatever happened to fall under them -- with the incongruous exception of a shockingly large wooden junk decorated with raw fish -- I thought it best to send her off with something healthy in her bel. One Friend was due on the 3:15 from New Haven, she'd be under our roof again by 4:00. I chopped up some veggies to be a healthy snack for us while dinner was cooking, and Johnny agreed to feed us sometime before dark.

One Friend, fortunately, is an avid student of The House and I. So -- even though she was due to arrive at what is, for normal people, just an hour or two shy of suppertime -- she went ahead and ate a sandwich on the train. It's a good thing, too, because when we got back from the station, Himself was still up at the pub. And, for some odd reason, the AssVac smelled like dirt.

We ignored the dirt smell, watched Top Chef reruns, and munched on crudité. And, since I brought it up, let me just say this about this season's crop of "chefs": without lamps, my friends, there'd be no light. (Even One Friend didn't get that reference when I made it out loud in actual, real-time context, but I'm still proud enough of it to want to share. Maybe somebody out there will understand. Amalie?)

Anyway, Johnny got home just in time to ruin the final judging so we don't know who got sent home (though we hope it was Big Baldy. He deserves it for saying that "fine dining and Mexican don't go together" -- as if there is not a single high-end restaurant in all of Mexico. That, and for cooking corn dogs four hours before they would be served. Neomaxizoomdweebie.). And then he (we're back to Johnny, now) had the sterile balls to announce that it was time to make some pickles.

Remember at Christmastime, when we made pickled beets and eggs? Well, Johnny gave a jar of them to Andy. He didn't open them until February sometime, and when he did he ate those suckers up. Liked 'em so much he wanted more, and he also wanted to learn to make them for himself. So -- two days before Johnny left for Ireland -- Andy showed up with sacks and sacks of beets. Twenty-five pounds, all together; ten for us, fifteen for him. He wanted to get started right away, but we convinced him the beets would keep until Johnny got home. Which ours did. In the refrigerator.

Andy, apparently, chose to skip this crucial step. Andy, apparently, brought his beet-sacks home and abandoned them upon the pantry floor. Andy, apparently, was now the proud owner of fifteen pounds of soft white fuzz. So Johnny, being Johnny, determined to save the day.

Which is why the AssVac smelled like dirt when we walked in:

Eau de cooked beet = 1 part corn, 1 part sugar, 1 part dirt. And of course, once they're boiled, they really must be pickled right away. Otherwise, ten pounds of cooked beets sitting in water overnight would leave us with -- well, since this is us (by which I mean since this is Johnny), it would probably leave us with yet another carboy of something homebrewed and disgusting. So I gave him permission to pickle away. One Friend had had her sandwich, after all, and I was picking at my crude. We could wait a few more hours for our curry.

A few more hours later, Johnny was still dicking around with the vegetable peeler. He said he didn't want to just slip the skins off (which is one of the only joys, as far as I'm concerned, in handling cooked beets) because it would make the skins look ugly. Because he planned on pickling the skins as well. Because, as his mother's son, he is constitutionally incapable of throwing anything away.

(I kid you not. Yesterday, I found a small head of Romaine lettuce that was in the fridge before he left. It was not what I'd call fresh, but it was not exactly rotten either -- just sort of limp. He wouldn't let me compost it. He plans to put it with the half-cabbage we didn't cook on Patrick's Day, and make himself a soup. That's right, a lettuce soup. The kicker is, it will probably be delicious.)

But by 7:00, knowing that dinner can take Johnny the best part of two hours once he starts it, and also knowing how I get when I get hungry, One Friend took it upon herself to stop the movie we were watching and go in to help.

Only, instead, she killed him.

There was blood everywhere. On the new cabinets.

On the floor in the back hall.

But, fortunately, most of it went back into the pan the beets came out of. When I saw it there, it suddenly occurred to me how long it's been since I tie-dyed anything (which would be since the last time somebody made me do it when I went to summer camp). I looked around for an appropriate textile to hippie-fy and I found this, which Johnny brought home from his recent trip:

But with his dying breath my husband cried "Ya will, me bollocks!" And, since it was his last request and all, I found a shirt to dye instead.

I left it in too long, though, and something vile happened. I still don't know exactly what. But whatever it was, yuck.

The shirt came out looking like someone washed the car with it. If, that is, anyone around here would ever do a thing like that.

And, also, it smells like dirt. Skips the corn and sugar and just goes full-on underground.

Anyway, after we had finished chopping Johnny into bits...

We drained the blood into the newly drip-free kitchen sink...

And ran the pieces of Himself down the disposal...

I'm telling you, man: when I'm hungry, feed me!

And you don't ever want to mess with One Friend.

Bleah! Boo! Boogah-boogah!





I kid, of course. She didn't really kill him. But she did do this:

And you have to promise not to tell.

I Snooze, You Lose

My alarm didn't go off!

Or else maybe I'm suffering the effects of an ill-advised Toblerone hangover...

Nope. Alarm. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

At any rate, I just woke up, and Johnny has a doctor's appointment in less than an hour that I've got to drop him off at on my way to work. So I can't tell you right now about the pony. Or the princess. Or the magic, magic beans...

But maybe later.

Snip, Snap, Snout.

Continued from the post below.

Whoops. No. Not the post below. Toblerone stands up pretty well all by its lonesome. I meant to say the post below the post below.

With me now? Okay.

Pretty much by the time I reached the car in the Home Depot parking lot, I knew I wasn’t going to use the waterproofing tape. I just wasn’t convinced the leaking pipe needed to be torn out and replaced like the Home Depot Plumbing Guy suggested, and something told me that if I taped over the joint I might make it more difficult to fix properly later.

But oh well. The tape only cost $7.49, and I’m sure it will come in handy for something else. If there’s one sure thing about life at the AssVac, it’s that something is bound to need waterproofing sooner or later. You can make book on that, and tell 'em Prudence sent you.

So I drove the twelve miles home, debating: Would I call Andy after all? Would I do dishes in the bathroom sink and leave the leak for Johnny? Or would I drop a match and “accidentally” burn the house down? I could see pros and cons for each one of these perfectly reasonable resolutions.

And then, as I came around the rotary on the other side of the Fore River Bridge, I saw my answer. Cue rays of light from heaven and Zarathustra music, please…

Mazzini Plumbing Specialties! Old Skool!

Since the AssVac lies just the other side of that same bridge, I'd always known this store was there – I'd even been inside a few times (okay, once) – but I'd forgotten. Now that I remembered, I knew exactly what to do.

I went home, got my trusty camera (for which I had fortunately purchased new a new battery that very afternoon), went down cellar, and took a picture of the leaky pipe.

I know, I'm brilliantin', amn't I?


Although, huh. As it turns out, that's not so much an elbow joint at all (like I told the Home Depot guy it was, after I said a couple other, even wronger things).

Oh, well.

I also, while I was down there, upended the empty bucket (the drip was dry, since I hadn’t run the water in two days), clambered onto it, and laid hands on the pipe itself. I figured I might as well see if it was glued. The man at the Home Depot had wanted to know, so there was a chance the Mazzini Plumbing guy would ask me, too.

It wasn’t. I could pull the two pieces clean apart. Considering that Home Depot Guy said we needed to cut the pipe out and replace it only “if it had been glued,” I took this for good news. So I headed with my good news – and the camera – back over the bridge and around the rotary.

There were two guys behind the counter at Mazzini’s. One looked kind of like this:



And the other, kind of like this:

I chose door #1.

“I wonder if you could help me out,” I started. “I’ve got a leaky pipe in my basement, and I brought a picture of it—”

“Great!” said Joey.

“Let’s see!” said the old man.

So I pulled out the camera and I called up the shot. I tried to hand the camera to them, but they did not reach out their hands. They just bent over and peered at the little screen – Old Man over Joey’s shoulder – while I tried to guess at the optimal viewing angle for them with the overhead fluorescent lights. After a few seconds, I gave up.

“You can go ahead and take the camera,” I suggested.

“Gee, thanks!” said the old man. “I could use a new one! Ha ha!”

I tell you, these guys were chock full of exclamation points.

Joey took the camera from me, gingerly, and when he looked at the screen again his face went pale. Oh, shit. Shit! What? Just tell me. Whatever it is, tell me. I can take it.

“I did something,” he said. “I hit something. I hit this button over here, and now it's gone all black.”

“Oh! That’s okay. That’s what that button does. I only figured it out myself a few weeks ago. Here, give it to me.” I may not know much about plumbing, but at least I don't go around breaking cameras by touching them. Not anymore, anyway. Or yet.

I took the thing back and got the screen working again, called the picture up and handed it back over. Joey took it, this time by the corners – where there were no buttons to be accidentally pushed – and he examined the picture right up close.

“Looks to me,” he said, “like the pipe was never glued.” Old Man wasn't paying attention anymore, having taken a quick glance and turned to root around for something on the shelves behind them.

“What you want to do,” Joey continued, “is – can you pull it apart at the joint? Do you know?”

Why, yes, on both counts. Yes, I thought to check that out before I came here. And yes, indeed, I can pull it apart at the joint. (Dig me, having answers to the questions people ask!)

“Right,” he said. “What you want to do is take a bit of sandpaper and sand it down. Sand the pipe and inside the joint. Then clean it – pipe and joint – and cement it, also inside and out. Put the cement on, slide the pipe in right away, and hold it for thirty seconds or so to let it set. That ought to do the trick.”

“So I clean it with what? Rubbing alcohol?”

“Nope,” says Joey. “He’s setting you up right now.” And thunk, Old Man set a tiny can down on the counter, labeled Whitlam Clear Cleaner. And thunk (or actually more like tink, considering they were so small) another one, labeled PVC Cement.

(For comparison’s sake, that’s my Toblerone behind them. And no, I did not open it and eat one already – why?)

“Great!” I said! Those exclamation points are catching! “So what do I apply the cement with? Does it matter?”

“There’s a brush right on the lid – see?” and Joey opened up the cleaner-can to demonstrate.

Well, I’ll be. What they won't come up with next.

Old Man rung me up. “That’ll be $8.17, please. Hell of a lot cheaper than a plumber!”

“You got that right, boys!”

As I turned to go out the door, somebody I didn’t see hollered out from behind some rows of shelves: “Hey! Did she pay the consulting fee?!”

And we all had a good, exclamation-pointy laugh.


So I went home and I fixed it. I couldn’t, as it turned out, pull the pipe apart enough to clean the inside of the joint, but I did the best I could. I put extra-globby amounts of cement on the pipe before I shoved it in, and I held it for a full minute instead of the thirty seconds recommended. I also, for good measure, painted a little cement around the seam when I was finished. And, just to be safe, I continued to not wash dishes for another day or so. But when I eventually did, my patch job held.

Andy called to check in on me that night after it passed the washing-dishes test, and I was so excited to tell him what I’d done. He let me tell the story from beginning to end, the same long-winded way I’ve just now finished telling you, and he made all the appropriate ooh-ah noises at the proper times. But when I was done, after laughing and congratulating me, he said: “Yeah. I told that little troll what he had to do before he left.”

Troll. It's what Andy calls Johnny when he's being silly. I think it has something to do with Johnny's diminutive size, although I always thought trolls were big old hairy things that lived under bridges.

Anyway, when Johnny stepped off of the plane last night, I told him this whole story – shortened a bit, because he already knew about the leak and stuff, but also including what Andy had told me the night before. And do you know what he said?

“I know. But I didn’t have any of the cement.”

Well, maybe if you’d come out from under your bridge once in a while, troll!

Johnny's Home!

Toblerone!

Oh, hang on. What I meant to say is: I love him and I'm so glad he's safe and sound.

P.S. But also...

You are so jealous.

Darkened Kitchen #1,000,001

Continued from the post below.

After I discovered that the drainpipe drip had morphed into a madhouse shower, I shut the water off and went to bed.

Well, what would you do?

In the morning (this would have been Monday morning), I didn’t have much time – what with all the watching-John-Adams-On-Demand that I wanted to get done before I had to go to work. But as long as that faucet wasn't running, the leak was held at bay, so I resolved to keep doing what I’d been doing all night. Namely: not washing dishes.

I don’t mean to brag, but I could keep this up indefinitely if I have to. I’m selfless and brave like that. Especially when it comes to putting out fires in the AssVac, I am perfectly willing to do nothing for the cause.

But then that voice piped up again. “If Johnny gets home,” it said, “and you have not only managed to turn a drip into a madhouse shower, but you have refused to call for help and left a week’s worth of dirty dishes in the sink – well, what would you do to him if the situation were reversed?”

Reflexively, I covered my testicles – only to realize anew that I had none. On the spot, I resolved to grow a pair of my own by the end of the day.

On my way home that afternoon, I swung into Home Depot. Walked into the plumbing department, searched out the most-knowledgeable-looking sales clerk I could find (read: oldest, and carrying an official-looking gadget of some sort), and cleared my throat.

“Excuse me,” I said, squeaking the way I do when I’m trying not to come across all submissive and dumb (it works a charm, I tell you what). “Could I ask your advice about something, please?”

“Certainly.”

“I'm assuming you work in the plumbing department?”

“You assume.”

Hm. In retrospect I realize that wasn’t quite a yes. But I’m sure he did, ’cuz watch what happened next.

“I have a PVC pipe that’s leaking at the joint,” I said – and let me tell you boys and girls, I was damn proud of myself for knowing those two things. “I’m wondering if there’s any sort of cement or putty or something that I can just sort of shove in there to make it stop.”

I don’t know how he figured out I had no idea what I was doing.

“Well,” he said, “that all depends. Has it been glued?”

“…”

I tell you, I don't know how he sussed me out. Maybe the crickets filled him in?

“How about this,” he continued, still mercifully willing to pretend we might come to a solution. “Is it at a corner?”

“Yes! Well, not at the corner, but there’s a u-joint, and the leak is right below.”

“Ah, so it’s at the trap?”

“Yes! Yes. Definitely at the trap.”

“What kind of trap is it?”

“…”

Damn crickets.

“All right, come with me.” He led me around to the next aisle over, held up two different kinds of traps, and asked me to point to the one I recognized.

“Oh,” I said, “the trap...

“No, ahem, I didn’t mean to say it’s at the trap. It’s in the basement. The pipe goes through the floor and turns a corner, and it’s right after that.”

“So it’s at the elbow joint?” And he picked one up, just to be sure.

Elbow joint, that’s what I said! Oh no, wait a minute. Rewind up a couple paragraphs. Yeah, I said u-joint, didn’t I? Damn. I must have been thinking about my car. You see: cars, I know. U-joint, exhaust manifold, carburator, all that good stuff. (And if you're familiar with these terms, then now you know I've never owned a car made in this century -- or in the final decade of the last one -- but that's beside the point.)

“Yes,” I said in a distinctly Eeyore tone. “Elbow joint. That's what it is. Elbow.”

And here is where I just gave up. I hung my head and said the words that I’m sure had Mary Lyon rolling over in her laurel-laden grave:

“My husband’s out of town.”

Somehow, this did not surprise him.

In my defense, this was not intended to be a “save me, I’m a helpless woman” plea. It was meant as more of a passing-of-the-buck excuse: “I’m not quite the idiot you think I am; this is not supposed to be my job.” Like explaining that the sandwich I’m ordering is not for me when the guy at the deli doesn’t understand why I don’t know what kind of cheese I want. He doesn’t care who it's for, he just wants to get the sandwich made and move on to the next customer.

“The thing is,” Plumbing Guy went on, and I could tell by his tone of voice this was the end of our interaction, “if it has been glued, there’s really nothing to be done but take the pipe out and replace it.” My eyes, I know, went all a-goggle at this bit of information. “But I can sell you some tape that will patch it temporarily.”

He was kind enough to not say what he really meant, which was: “until your husband gets home and can take care of things for real.” But I don’t blame him for thinking it. How could I?

The tape seemed like a bad idea to me, but I bought it anyway. At least, if I did decide to use it, I wouldn’t have to go back out and repeat the whole humiliating process.

Maybe I would wash the dishes in the bathroom. Maybe I would continue to not use the kitchen sink, and maybe I would warn Johnny when he got home to not use the kitchen sink, and maybe this would not exactly thrill him, but at least it was better than being greeted – after an exhausting week of traveling from stout to bitter to Budweiser and back again – by a kitchen sink full of dirty, stinking pots and pans.

Speaking of which: if I’m not mistaken, there still ought to be a Guinness or two around here somewhere, leftover from St. Patty’s Day…



Sorry folks, brevity has never been my strong point. I’ll wrap it up tomorrow. Figuratively speaking, that is. Unless I decide to use the tape.

In the meantime, that TITLE is pretty darn obscure, but if anyone wants to take a stab at EXPLAINing it, I feel as though I might have a POEM coming on. The hints are all here, if you plug the right combination of keywords (plus – here's another hint – one extra "s") into the search engine of your choice...

Everything, But …

The day Johnny left, about two hours before drop-dead go-time, he suddenly interrupted his last-minute packing with a look of panic on his face and made a mad scramble for the cellar stairs. A minute later he came back up, lugging a half-full five-gallon bucket.

“I forgot to tell you,” he said. “The kitchen sink is leaking.”

Wha wha wha WHA?

The brand-new kitchen sink? The okay-not-exactly-brand-new kitchen sink, but the kitchen sink we just put in two years ago? The kitchen sink that we are only now lollygagging through the process of completing the rest of the room around? Correction: not the sink that we put in, but the sink we paid somebody to put in? Sort of? No money actually changed hands regarding it, but still: wasn’t this supposed to not be the type of shoddy work we usually bumble through ourselves? Wasn’t this supposed to be actual, genuine, know-what-you’re doing, licensed mastery?

That kitchen sink?

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Well, not the sink itself, but the drainpipe in the basement.”

Oh, well, that’s a relief. At least it’s not affecting the new cabinets, or rotting – like the old one – through the floor.

“So, while I’m away, make sure to keep an eye on this bucket down there, and blah-de-blah-blah-blah…” I know he said some more words after that, but all I heard was “one more AssVac disaster,” then the blood rushing in my ears made everything go all white-noise and drowned him out completely.

My own personal Defense Against the Dark Arts: selective deafness. Amazing, these self-preservation superpowers that kick in without our even being aware that we possess them, don’t you think?

He left, you may recall, on a Sunday. That Thursday, four days later, I was talking to a friend on the telephone when she said something that called to mind the image of Johnny lugging that heavy bucket up the stairs. So I told her the funny, funny story of our leaky kitchen sink, we both had a good laugh over the AssVac’s brilliant mind for base misfortune, and then, while she and I moved on to shoes and ships and ceiling wax, I jotted down a quick reminder to myself:

Check bucket.

Fortunately, it turns out you don’t have to empty the bucket every day. Fortunately, it turns out that the full five-gallon bucket is just too freaking heavy to be lugging up those (also f-o) basement stairs. And fortunately, I did not wait until after work as I told myself I’d do.

Yikes. And, may I just say, pee-freakin’-yew.

I think Johnny must have dumped some bleach in there. He’s a big believer in the bleach, my Johnny is. Because it had a sort of cloudy yellow tinge and a distinctive acrid note – but the rest of the bouquet was decidedly stuff-that-went-down-the-drain-a-week-ago. Skanky, smelly, cloudy, chunky, funky, fetid — bleah! I dumped half of it from the full bucket into that empty one conveniently standing by, lugged the half-bucket up the stairs, then decided I’d had enough of that and went to work.

When Johnny called that night, I asked him.

“About that bucket in the basement,” I said. “Is there anything else I ought to know?”

You like how I did that? He won’t remember what he already told me, he never does, so he’ll start at the beginning and tell me the whole thing again, as usual. Normally I find this trait annoying, but this time I was glad. It meant I didn’t have to admit I wasn’t listening the first time, didn’t have to admit that I’d done nothing up till now.

“You know what?” he said. “Why don’t you just call Andy? He’ll come by and put some cement on it for you.”

Dammit, Johnny, that is not what you told me the first time. At least, I don’t know. I don’t think it was.

Andy. God bless him. Whenever Johnny goes away, Andy always keeps an eye on me in his absence. He calls every couple days, we talk about going out for breakfast, but somehow we never do. This sort of chaperoning is not something I would have thought to ask for – I Am Woman, after all, and I did live alone for years before teaming up with Johnny – but I like it. It’s very old-fashioned and chivalrous, and though my Seven-Sisters soul feels as though she ought to bristle at the very notion that a bicycle might come in handy for a fish once in a while, she just can’t seem to get her hackles up.

But still.

I hated to bother him for something as small as this. It bothers me enough that Johnny’s first response in these situations is to call a friend rather than try to piece it out himself; I certainly didn’t want to turn into the Friend-Caller just because he wasn’t home. If Johnny’s only solution to the problem was to get Andy to fix it, then I could empty the bucket until Johnny came home, at which point he could make that call himself.

And so that was my plan. Until.

Sunday night, as I was washing dishes, I heard water running somewhere after I had shut it off. I checked faucets and toilets – even checked under the fridge, because sometimes it drains weird and fools us like that (and yes, we need a new fridge; and no, we won't be getting one for a while – but that's a story for another time). I found nothing. But by that time the noise had stopped. So I went back to the task at hand.

Wash a few dishes. Shut the water off. And sure enough: there was that noise again.

Oh crap, the bucket! For all my trans-Atlantic, making-sure-I-know-what-I-should-be-doing talk, I had not been in the basement since that first time on Thursday. The bucket must have overflowed and is now running all over the basement floor! I grabbed the spare that I’d brought up half-full the other day, and tore down the cellar stairs to have a look.

In my haste, I forgot the camera, but the good news is that the bucket was not, in fact, spilling all over the basement floor. The bad news is that the leak had graduated from a steady drip into a sort of madhouse shower.

I decided that the best plan, certainly, was to stop washing dishes right away and put myself straight to bed.


Hm. This story’s turning out to be longer than I intended it to be, so I suppose I’ll tell you how it all turned out tomorrow.

Happy Easter Everybody!

Ta da!

I intended to show you a picture of the truly stunning, Faberge-quality, little ovoid treasures we created, but I can't. Because, immediately upon taking this in-process shot, my camera died.

Don't fret, though: it was just the battery. And the old one had enough juice left to download the images that were in it, which I did without panicking because I knew I had a spare. For once in my addle-headed life, I actually had the foresight to buy two of something, so that I would have backup in an occasion just like this.

(Actually, I'm lying a little bit here. The fact is, they just so happened to come two to a package. And the truth is, I really didn't want to spend that much money that day. The reality is, I looked and looked and tried to buy just one. But they didn't have any one-battery packages, so I sucked it up and bought the pair. Still, though, it was nice to know I had the thing around. Until...)

I couldn't find it.

I looked where the other batteries go, I looked where the camera goes, I even looked in the camera box, which I also saved for the first time in my dispose-all existence. Nuthin. Although I did discover that the CD with the camera software on it has somehow broken clean in two. I don't know how Destructo pulled off that one.

I looked in the junk drawer, and in the other junk drawer, and in the junk drawer in my bedroom. I looked on the bookshelf where I shove shit, I looked in the file envelope marked "camera" (which I have since conscripted for something else because I thought it was empty, but where I found, lo and behold, the SD card I thought I must have thrown away).

I looked in that tray on the table where things sometimes get put. I looked in both little pot-fors on the mantelpiece. I looked in the stationery drawer, the random-electrical-cord drawer, and the Drawer Where Secret "Things" Go. I did find one Secret Thing I had forgotten that I owned (woohoo!), but still no camera battery.

I looked in, on, under, and behind my desk. I looked in the crack between my pile of "ideas" and the shelf where they belong. I looked -- very carefully -- in the place where I cram all my to-be-filed paperwork. I even, just this very second, sucked it up and emptied out the pen thing.

Nothing.

For some reason, One Friend thinks this is hy-ster-ical. For some reason, One Friend thinks this is "oh-so-very-typical" of me. For some reason, One Friend is not at all surprised.

For some reason, One Friend is spending Easter with Somebody Else.

Dr. One Friend Answers!

Welcome to Ask Dr. One Friend, in which we (mostly I) ask questions (mostly about me) to my One Friend, who will answer truthfully (or not) in the Wise Old Manner to which she is now contractually obliged to be inclined.

Ha ha.

Let's begin with a write-in question. Khurston says: "why do AM radio stations fuzz out when you go under a bridge, but FM radio stations don't?"

Dr. One Friend says: A little known fact is that AM stands for Always-clear (Mostly), and FM = Fuzzy (Mostly). So, like a "grande" being medium, and a medium pizza being the smallest...AM is sometimes fuzzy and FM is (mostly) clear. Glad I could help!

Now one from me: What do you think about me, Dr. One Friend?

Kerfuffle!

Hm. Interesting. Let's go back to the peanut gallery. Jean at I Love Upstate asks: "Why does Erin only have "one" friend? Is it her deoderant?"

I feel sorry for her...and yes, her pits do smell nice.

Why, thank you Dr. One Friend! May I call you DOF?

No

Balls.

Can I call you Ass?

Why not? Everybody else does! Okay, so let's see here... Ah, yes. Donna Staf asks: "What is clam pee?"

A reliable source (okay, my dad) once told me that the foam in the ocean is clam pee. I am starting to wonder if he was pulling my leg....

No, no. Parents would never make up stories just to shut their children up. Right, Donna?

So, back to me: Dr. O. Friend, I am not drinking a beer at 11:00 in the morning. Am I?

Please, please feel free to call me Dr. One Friend. No, I believe it is only 10:59...

Ahem. It is 11:07. Moving on---

Ahem...I don't want to be obnoxious, but you opened the beer at 10:58...

Moving on: Su asks: "Why do sting rays jump out of the water and into boats?"

Well, Su...I guess the real question here is "why do people jump out of boats into the water?"

Fascinating. Now let's bring the mood down a bit. What do you think of the AssVac, Dr. One Friend?

Lovely, simply lovey. I really love what you have done with the place. Have you seen my cane? It was white with a red tip? I think I left it by the door?

Whoops, we're out of time.

One Friend's Recipe for Spaghetti Pie (Soooo Good)

1. Pie plate. The deeper the better. That's why we used this disposable one. Because my glass ones are very shallow.

Yours doesn't have to be leftover from the pastry shell somebody (cough, cough, not me, cough, cough) bought at Christmastime instead of making it from scratch. But if it is, you can ignore the printing on the bottom.

I'm pretty sure that's just talking about the (ahem) store-bought food that used to be inside.

2. Spaghetti.

Regular old spaghetti. Not thin or fancy. 1/2 box (i.e. 1/2 lb.). Drain. Don't rinse.

3. Eggs & butter.

2 & 1 (tablespoon, that is). Plus Parmesan cheese that I forgot to take a pitcure of. The cheapy-shake kind. You could probably use the real kind and shave it yourself if you want to, but why bother? Use about 1/3 cup. I think. But One Friend is still sleeping, so I'll double-check that amount with her when she wakes up. [She says yeah, 1/4, or 1/2, or 1/3, or whatever.]

3. Stir spaghetti into egg mixture. I also forgot to take a picture of this.

4. Spaghetti --> pan.

Press it around (with a fork! it's hot!) to make it sort of like a shell. It won't really work, so just give up when you get frustrated.

5. Cottage cheese.

About a cup. If you live in Massachusetts, I'm going to have to insist that you use Hood Lowfat, because all the other brands are just disgusting. But if you live elsewhere and can't get your hands on Hood, then I'm willing to forgive. You cook it anyway, so your guests will probably never know the difference.

6. Meanwhile: Veggies!

About a pound of whatever's in the fridge all chopped up and sauteed with olive oil. You could also use meat instead. Or with. Or whatever. Make a filling, is what I'm getting at.

7. Sauce it up.

One Friend makes her own using canned tomatoes and spices and tomato paste. When she goes home and I make this for myself, I will use sauce from a jar. If you tell her, I will kill you.

8. Slop it in.

Mmmm... Steamy....

You'll notice this is all overfilled like any good pie should be. Hence the cookie sheet it's resting on. You don't want to mess up your nice new oven.

9. And shut up about the messy oven.

10. Mozzarella Cheese.

Loads of it. This is not all of it. Keep going. More. More. More!

More.

Okay, you're done.

11.

12. Yummy yum yum yummy!

If you're smart, you'll let it sit five minutes or so before you cut it, to let it sort of grab on to itself. We didn't. Tastes just as good all piled in a gooey mess as it does in nice firm slices.

Tune in later for the answers to Ask Dr. One Friend. Plus questions of my own because I am obviously curiouser (and curiouser) than most of you good people.

Hm. Maybe I better go check on the cat.

We're Back!

And we're stacked for the duration:

Neither one of us is leaving this house until Sunday morning. At which point neither one of us may be able to fit through the door.

Later: One Friend's recipe for Spaghetti Pie!

Ask Dr. One Friend!

I wrote this whole essay here about how I met My One Friend, but then I realized: she's still sleeping, and she might not want me to run it without running it by her. It involved hot dogs and ladies underwear, and she might not want everybody knowing about that part of her past. Especially now that she's been officially offered the New Haven job and everything.

(I'll pause here, whilst y'all applaud My One Friend... thank you. Now, moving on.)

So instead of telling you about all the transvestites and ETs we used to pal around with, I'll open up the table for discussion:

What do you want My One Friend to tell you?

It could be about this house, about me or Johnny, about her or the Ivy League. It could be about the weather or the clam pee or the stupid, stupid cat. Ask her anything!

Remember, she's very, very smart. So she might just know the answer. And if she doesn't, she's very, very good at making answers up.


We'll check in later this afternoon to see what you've come up with. If you come up snake-eyes, then I'll ask her some questions of my own.

Play! Play! It's Fun!

The Mother in the Jar

I take it back. I was right the first time. It's Johnny that has the pack-rat problem.

He not merely orders everything they sell on late-night informercials. He not only hangs on to every working toaster. He not just takes everything off everybody's hands that they're looking to get rid of.

Oh, no.

He also spends a lot of money, and a lot of time and effort, starting things he never finishes and yet refuses to throw away.

Exhibits 1 through however-many:

These are in the guest bedroom. I don't even know what's in them anymore. I'm sure Johnny does. I think one is maybe Green Tomato wine and the other is peach port or something. He insists that it's still good. He swears that wine is not like beer. He says that wine can sit in the carboy (glass bottle) or plastic bucket until the endtimes come. That the smaller, glass bottles we're used to using (or, lately, for some of us, the cardboard boxes) are only for convenience's sake.

Whatever. When he opens it, I'll smell it. If I don't gag, then I'll take one tiny sip. If that doesn't make me throw up I might drink up the whole glass. Slowly. But experience has taught me that tomorrow-me will loathe today-me if I let her get schnockered on my husband's homemade wine.

Headache... I thought I'd die!

This is what I learned that lesson on:

Tea wine. How we invented this was, Johnny put a gallon jug on the fire escape of our old apartment, with a couple Irish tea bags in it and some lemon slices stuffed with cloves. It was July. He thought he was making sun tea.

In August, when I remembered about the sun tea on the fire escape, I pulled it in to dump it down the drain -- but, of course, Johnny (say it with me) wouldn't let me do it. He threw in a little yeast, makeshifted a gallon-carboy, and he let it brew. That time, we did actually bottle it. It tastes like whisky for non-whisky drinkers, if you see what I mean. Same sort of flavor, but we non-whisky-drinking lightweights can still get it down. We've made a batch or two of Johnny's Sun Tea Homebrew every summer since. I recommend it. But I have to warn you: this shit will knock you on your ass.

Okay, what's next? Oh...

That doesn't count. Somebody handed that down to us before we moved here, because they'd fouled up their own homebrew adventure. Johnny was supposed to dump out the vinegary contents and just score the carboy for his own use, but he figured five gallons of vinegar was still five gallons of possibly-useful vinegar. Five years down the line, he hasn't tapped it. And I love him and I try to be adventurous enough, but even I don't know about the looks of that. I don't think the hole in the stopper is plugged up anymore. And I really don't like the look of that ring around the surface.

So but this one?

Eh, this one's just dirty. I'd drink what's in there. If I knew what it was.

This picture I took before I checked the bucket:

Turns out the bucket is just full of empty bottles. So why is it not in the basement, then? I don't know.

And this seems to be the only one of these that I can find:

One-gallon jugs full of random experiments. There are usually five or seven of them wandering around. A canteloupe goes bad and he throws it in a jar. Somebody hands us down hot peppers. Water, yeast, and anything vegetative means to Johnny the potential for alcoholic drink. But they're all gone now.

Maybe he dumped them all when we tore out the kitchen? Nah. They're in a cupboard or something somewhere.

Okay, so here we are, back where we began, at the Mother in the Jar. Three people this week have slept in my guest bedroom, and all three have commented on this ... thing. Now, out of pure coincidence, I've posted a picture of it, and now Tara's asking, too.

I called it a Mother, but it isn't really. It just looks like one. So what the disgusto is that Moreau-Island-looking thing?

It's this:

Some big fat stupid mushroom that some "eat according to your blood type" friend of Johnny's recommended that he buy and brew. It's supposed to, I don't know, make you grow wings and crystals or some such shit like that. Johnny brewed it up, he tried it once, it tasted foul and did nothing, and yet still he just can't seem to throw the nasty thing away. And so it sits. On the dresser in the guest bedroom, begging all our guests to ask us what it is.

Actually, no. It's there because I was getting it out of the kitchen when we re-began the Kitchen Project. But now that it is there, and they're inquiring as to what it is, I ask them all if they want to try a sip. I figure that we got Jean to eat a year-old Christmas pudding, and we got LadyCiani to eat a year-old New Year's pig-rat, so I've got to at least try to get somebody to drink this shroomy brew.

Oddly enough, we've had no takers so far.



It would be really funny right now if I offered to send a sip to somebody, but I don't think I can have that on my conscience.

In the meantime, let's all be glad that this is not a part of any intended-to-be-potable project.

Yeah. I'll tell you about those buckets some other time.

The Apocrypha

My One Friend is here this week -- well, she's not here today, but she was here yesterday and she'll be back tomorrow. Really! She's even agreed to team-blog with me, so you will know she does exist, so there. She's here because she has Post-Doc interviews in Cambridge and New Haven. (I'm trying to be all Miss-Manners modest on her behalf about those secret locations, but you know what I'm saying, don't you? Wink wink?)

Anyway, she'll tell you more about what she really thinks of The famous House (and I) tomorrow, but for now I had to elaborate upon this observation:

"I love," she said, "how you have all these secret stashes of books everywhere."

What? No, I don't. There's only one bookshelf, and it's not even really a shelf, per se, but just the hole in the wall where the old window used to be. Secret books? Whatever are you talking about?

So she commenced to pointing.

Oh, those. Those aren't books. Those are just ideas that I keep handy in my office. Also one pig-rat (can you spot her?) and some soup.

Oh, those? Those aren't books. Those are just the leather-bounds that we keep next to the guest bed. See, Johnny's severely dyslexic, so reading is a chore for him, but still important. Because it takes so much out of him, he reads only Important Things, and every time he finishes one through to the end, he buys himself a copy bound in leather. So this is really more like a trophy shelf than it is a bookshelf. I merely filled in a few empty spaces. Plus a purple paperback that One Friend left here. (That adjective is not a comment on the contents, I don't know what the book's about, but the cover of it is the color purple -- see it? On the top right? So that proves it: One Friend is real, and she was here.)

Those aren't books. They're just a few things that wouldn't fit on the actual bookshelf. Plus Superstar. And, behind Jesus, the Partridge Family. (See? The glass on the table? One Friend was here! She's real, I tell you!)

Now that is the real bookshelf. The old back window that was boarded over on the other side when Previous Owners built the addition that is now my bedroom. See that starburst parttern on the bottom left there? That's where I duct-taped a blanket to this wall in order to keep Him and Her from escaping while the construction was going on out back. Four years ago. Yeah, no: we haven't gotten round to painting this bedroom yet. So?

Those aren't books. That's just Johnny's secret stash of magic.

And that is mine.

Those aren't books. Ahem. They're cookbooks. And empty beer cans. And maybe a pot or two that I've yet to put away from our St. Pats party. They're clean, though. The pots, that is. Not the cans. Sorry, Redemption Guy.

That's just my bedside table. The on-deck circle, as it were. What? Oh, I sleep fine, thanks for asking. Why?

Those aren't books. That's Johnny's music.

And those are his National Geographics. Plus a few other things. And hey, come to think of it, why are there other things in the FLW magazine-holder that Mom bought us last year? It's supposed to be only for NatGeo (that was not a condition of the gift, just a House Rule that Johnny and I have Agreed Upon. Because once a NatGeo is read and put away, it doesn't tend to get touched again, and the FLW magazine rack Tips Over easily). Oh, that's right. We had Company last weekend, and a few Things just had to get Put Somewhere. Remind me when I finish this, and I'll go take them out.

Hey, now! Those really aren't books. Mostly. With a few exceptions. How did that happen? Well, I guess I know what I'll be doing this afternoon with that long-neglected box up in the attic! Ah, Mr. Mezzrow, we will at long last be together again...

Hm.

Someone may have stealthily snuck in here yesterday and insinuated that my husband is a pack rat. Lots of you may have shared your own male-of-the-species woes in this regard. We may have all commiserated and agreed that they are the pack-rat problem, and if it only weren't for them, our houses would be clutter-free in a New Haven minute (well, come on, have you seen the AssVac? That's a lot to cram into a New York one, don't you think?).

But then my One Friend came along, opened her very impressive, PhD-finishing, soon-to-be-Cambridge-bound eyes, and without even meaning to -- with, actually, the intent of complimenting me -- pointed out what a hypocrite I was.

So, the moral of the story is:

Them Ivy-leaguers are some snobby bitches, ain't they?

Brown Bread

When I cleaned out the cabinets a couple weeks ago, I found a toaster. A typical, shiny, metal-with-black-sides, two-slot toaster. I’d forgotten all about it, but it was ours maybe five years ago, before we got the white one with just one BIG slot, that actually holds slices of things heartier than Wonder Bread.

When we got the big fat white one all those years ago, Johnny insisted that we keep the old one. Johnny, in case you hadn’t noticed, never throws anything away. He thought maybe someday the white one might break, and it would be convenient if we had a spare.

Mind you, we pretty much only make toast around here if there’s company, but that’s beside the point. Which is: Never. Throw. Anything. Away.

He wasn’t home when I unearthed that baddy this time, and I almost tossed it in the trash before he could ever see. But then the little voice in my head said “It still works. You are being Very Wasteful. Which is the 21st-century equivalent of worshipping a Golden Calf.”

I told that voice to shut up and it did. But then the other one cleared its throat and chimed in: “Johnny will find it. Somehow, he will know. He will have accidentally thrown out his eyeglasses or something, and he will dig through the trash, and he will find it. And then you will get in a Big Fight with Screaming and Yelling and Dishware Flying Through the Air.”

That happened anyway, as you know, but not because of anything I did with the toaster.

I left it on the kitchen floor, along with that old one-burner which used to be our entire kitchen, and a toaster oven I’d also forgotten that we owned. I told him the Calf’s-honest truth: they all still worked; we didn’t need any of them; but if he wanted to we could shove them in the attic for a rainy day. I did point out, however, that we’d forgotten we owned them already. If anything they might replace had broken last week, we would have gone out and replaced it. If anything broke more than, say, three months from now, we will probably have forgotten them again.

He agreed that they should go.

Holy crap, I think I’ve stumbled on to something here! Tell him to throw it away, and he will divorce me over his right to keep a broken thing, but tell him he can have something that actually works, and he’ll throw it away!

Well, not “throw it away” exactly. He did insist that, since they worked, it did behoove us to at least attempt to give them proper homes. I didn’t have a problem with that. It did, after all, genuinely seem to be the proper thing to do – and hey, in the end it still meant they’d be out of my house.

We tried. We did not put them on Freecycle or Craigslist or ebay because, well, because I just haven’t decided yet that it’s time to break through that cyber wall. But we tried the old-fashioned way. We offered them to everyone we knew. We did, actually, have a couple takers, but no one actually came by to pick them up. They sat stacked on the floor of the front porch for three solid weeks, until finally, just this past Friday, I left for work and they were stacked up with the trash.

Holy crap again, please! Johnny actually threw something – something actually useful – some three actually useful things – away! Everybody, quick, check out your windows for horsemen and angels. All clear? Well, okay, I guess it isn’t quite a sign of end times, then. But still pretty significant, if you ask me.

Maybe we had turned a crossroads, not only in our house, but in our relationship. Maybe we were learning to unclutter our home by uncluttering our hearts. Maybe, by taking baby steps towards compromising our desires we were, like that bald, perpetually late couple in “The Gift of the Magi,” canceling each other out. Maybe the lesson here was: Give of yourself, give what you know the other truly wants, and receive more than material goods in return. Receive in return serenity, happiness, and peace inside your home.

Yeah, blah blah blah – guess what?

The big white toaster broke on Sunday.

Oh, Henry!

Hits A'Comin

Johnny's alive. I got home to a message from Marty, telling me to call Marty or Billy. So of course I panicked.

I called Marty, but got his voice mail. Called Billy, and Johnny answered. Drunk off his ass! And you know what he said to me?

"Do you know where I put my ticket for my return?"

Oh, my god, is he going to get a boot in the shin when he gets home.

On an unrelated note -- can anybody tell me what happened at www.boston.com today? I got like 400 hits from there, but whatever was up there is gone by now.

Yeesh!

The Curl in the Middle of My Forehead

I’m a pouter. I’m a pouter and a grudge-holder and a foot-stamper. I’m also stubborn and pig-headed and, honestly, a little fat. That last has nothing to do with anything I’m about to say, but I just figured, since I was pointing out my faults…

I’ve always been this way. Well, the fat’s been off-and-on, but all the rest. At age seven I stormed out of the house in my pyjamas and lay down in the snow in the front yard, waiting for whomever I was mad at to feel sorry for whatever they had done and come outside and get me. They didn’t. You’d think that soggy-assed, shivering perp walk back through the front door and past my nice, warm family – half of whom never even noticed I was gone – would have taught me something about the merits of a pouty temper tantrum.

It didn’t.

By age twelve or so, I did at least break the habit I had of “accidentally” kicking people in the shins. And in the quarter-century since then, I’ve managed to suppress my pout-bouts for progressively longer intervals. Unfortunately, I’ve also discovered that, the longer you suppress a pout, the bigger and darker it is when it does come bursting forth. It’s not a trait I would have chosen for myself if I’d been asked, but you gotta dance with the one what brung you. Right?

So I’ve learned to use this little – oh, let’s call it a quirk – to my advantage and, considering the raw material, it’s served me well. Maybe not so much in personal relationships (I’ve got my share of ex-friends floating around out there who, if they still think of me at all, probably tell stories about how psycho I am) but on the job, getting mad and “showing them” can be one hell of a motivator. You can get a lot of work done if you’re giving the world the silent treatment. Especially if the world, like a good family, doesn’t so much as notice in the first place.

So did you? Notice? Because I’ve been ignoring you for going on three days now. Hello?

Crap.

I’m going to take that to mean you love me like I’m family.

See, I sort of, kind of, got pooped on a bit last week by the universe. Not even a real poop, in the grand scheme of things. I mean, it’s not like I found Prozac in my fish sticks or got monumentally stuck to the toilet seat or anything. No, in the grand scheme of things, what happened to me was more like a little fart.

But it was right in my face.

I was so busy over the weekend that my immediate reaction was to shove the fart in a box for smelling later and then get a little manic. Do everything I had to do, at double-speed, with a great big scary smile on my face. Eventually, though, everything was done. Johnny was dropped off at the airport. And I was home alone. On Sunday night. Smelling like Universe Ass.

I tried lying down in the front yard, but there was no snow on the ground, so it didn’t have the hair-shirt effect that I was aiming for.

I tried finishing all the leftover beer from our St. Patrick’s do, but Sunday’s a school night, and on school nights I draw the line at twelve.

I tried kicking somebody in the shins, but pizza delivery guys are just too skittish around here these days.

So I buckled down and got to work.

Well, no I didn’t. But wouldn’t that have been a nice way to end this post? “I wrote an essay that got accepted sight-unseen by The New Yorker. The End.”

I tried, but the fart smell was coming from my computer, and it lingered, and it made me gag. I did, however, buckle down and think about it. I thunk and I thunk till my thinker was sore. And trust me, when your husband flew to Ireland on Sunday night and by Tuesday you still haven’t gotten that phone call telling you he landed safely, the last thing you need is a sore freakin’ thinker.

This is not the fart to which I was referring – and besides, I’m sure he’s fine. I know the flight arrived on time, and I have no doubt that his friend picked him up there like he always does. I’m fairly certain Johnny’s just been too busy having St. Patrick’s Day-related fun (which, in Dublin, apparently involves church services, pigs feet, and something called a coddle) to think about telephoning his pouty wife. And that's all well and good. I hope he has a grand time over there.

But when he gets home, I’m gonna kick him in the shins.

Grr

I'm not in a very good mood today at all.

O'No!

O'Buddha.

O'Bear.

O'Monk Guy.

O'Mozart.

O'Popcorn.

O'Pig-rat!

Dear St. Patrick, please send more hats! We've been very good. Thank you.

Hey, Look!

So I went up to the attic for the good plates (I went, not Destructo) and lookit what I found:

Another piece of kitchen trim I thought had been destroyed!

We'll talk some other time about the state that attic's in..

O'Destruct

Yesterday, on her way to see the Baseball Buddy, Destructo turned the doorknob to leave the house and both screws fell out onto the floor. Johnny found them, but it's as if they shrunk three sizes and were never meant to fit those holes in the first place. It is freakish.

They are now held in with scotch tape.

(Please ignore the ugly door jamb. Somehow, when I painted the porch, I thought the doorjamb didn't count as porch. And then, when I stripped the entryway, I thought the doorjamb didn't count as entryway. So now the doorjamb is an ugly no-man's land between the two nice, pretty, finished spaces. Someday, maybe, I will do something about it. In the meantime, who else out there can say their house is held together by scotch tape?)

Also, last night, after we got home from visiting Baseball Buddy, I sent Johnny to the pub because it was his birthday, then I scoured and scrubbed and rubbed and washed and wiped and mopped and dusted and cleaned for six hours straight. For dinner, at ten o'clock, I didn't have the energy or appetite for anything but ramen noodles. So I made them. Oriental flavor. I made enough for Birthday Johnny, too.

And then Destructo dropped the bowl.

It smashed everywhere.

I threw some towels over the mess to protect cat feet from shards of glass, and then I took my tired and destructive ass to bed.

Now I've got to start all over again this morning.

I had washed the rug and everything.

Bollocks.


Hey, while I'm posting: does anybody know where the heck I put the ribbons so I can finish the Irish Baby's christening set before Johnny gets on that bleeding plane?

Look! Wee Tiny Person!

Welcome to the universe, Baseball Buddy!

Are you kidding me with this dook?
Where am I?

Today! It's Today! It's Today!

Forty-eight. Who'd a thunk it?

Because it's your birthday, I'll let you sleep in.

For another ten minutes. And then we really gotta go.

Things to do, places to go, brand-stinkin' new people to see!

Pink Spit?

You know what's not a good idea?

Eating a contant stream of raspberry-flavored hard candies in an attempt to keep yourself awake to watch the new Top Chef. The re-broadcast at 11:00, not the original one at 10:00. Jeez, you're not that old.

You know why this is not a good idea?

#1. It doesn't work, and you probably could have died because for all you know you fell asleep with a raspberry-flavored hard candy in your mouth, just waiting for a chance to choke you.

#2. Which of course means you fell asleep without brushing your teeth, and after the six months of dental hell you've just been through, you really should know better than to eat raspberry-flavored hard candy before bed and then not brush your teeth!

#3. But when you do brush them the morning, you will give yourself a turn. Because raspberry-flavored hard candy makes for some pink-ass spit.


I'm going to be VERY busy for the next few days. Johnny's birthday is this weekend (sh, don't tell him I told you -- I'll remind you again on the actual day), and there's a new baby being born almost as I type this (not to me; if it were me, there would be pictures. Also: flying pigs!). We're crossing the state to welcome her to Planet Earth on Friday, and we have the family coming over for St. Patrick's on Saturday. Plus there's that whole only-mop-the-floor-once-a-month issue looming over my head. Some family parts (including Football Buddy) are spending Saturday night, and then on Sunday, after making him cook us corned-beef hash for breakfast, I'm dumping Johnny at the airport and meeting Baby-Daddy for a Say-Goodbye-to-Planet-Earth, congratulatory drink.

Phew!

I don't know what all of that will mean for this space here. I may go dark, or I may run in after accomplishing each task and give y'all a one-sentence update about how my ass has gone south for the winter and so I'm doing that thing with my hand while I wait for it to migrate north again.

Probably the latter, so stay tuned!

I Remember! I Remember!

It had something to do with my ASS having gone South for the winter, and taking its sweet time about migrating back up.

See? I told you it was funny.

... and 99% Obfuscation

I don't know if this is how it works for everybody, but when I write a note to remind myself to do something later -- or when I tie a string around my finger (which yes, I've done) or do any of those other little memory tricks we've all heard so much about -- I don't ever actually have to see the reminder later. Just the act of doing it cements the item in my mind. It's as if I can read the note I wrote myself off a little screen inside my head.

(Or read the string around my finger, which is secretly also a note that I wrote really-really small, in code, so as to hide it from the bad guys: dear self buy cat litter pee-yew. They'll never catch me!)

The reason I mention this today is that last night, as I was falling asleep, I thought of something I wanted to write about this morning. For years, when this would happen -- when I'd be half-asleep and think of something brilliant, but so didn't feel like rolling over to scribble the note that, by its very existence, would make itself unnecessary -- what I used to do was repeat my idea over and over to myself. Maybe think of something that would make it rhyme. Do a little word-association. Mnemonics. Basically run through all the tricks in the Improve Your Memory book.

It worked really well, too. As a sheep-counting device. And for convincing myself I did not have to roll over. But not one single time did I wake up in the morning with any clue as to what it was I'd rhymed about the night before.

But at least I know this now. So I no longer trust my sheepy-brain. Now when I get one of those sleep-hazed ideas, I turn myself into Super Editor. Able to judge ideas on their creative merit with a wink, blink, and a nod!

In other words, I ask myself: is it genuinely good enough to merit rolling over? Usually, in this as in most other things, the answer's no. And if only I'd sussed out that bit of wisdom a couple decades sooner, I could have saved myself a lot of grief back in the early '90s. But I digress.

This happened to me last night. Twice already I'd sunk down to the precipice of sleep, pivotted, and jetéd back to wakesville -- once because I choked on, I think, air; and once because Johnny was snoring so loudly from three rooms away. So when The Big Idea occurred to me, I really had to think it through.

I knew if I woke myself up a third time, it might be hours before I got back to sleep. And I've been having trouble sleeping lately. Rolling around in the night, begging Nickelodeon to show something, anything, besides The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

But I've also been having trouble coming up with topics lately. Rolling around in the morning, begging myself to write about something, anything, besides my dirty socks.

So finally I did it. I rolled over and I wrote it down. It was good enough, I decided. It was funny enough. And if I lost a bit of sleep over it, well, that was the price I'd have to pay. I am an artist, damnit! Sometimes we have to suffer if we want to enlighten mankind with our flashes of Artistic Inspiration.

As it turned out, I didn't stay awake. I grabbed the pen with my left hand (the better to not fully wake myself, my dears) and scrawled four big, quick letters going the wrong way on the page. Just enough to remind me in the morning of the thought. And then I fell asleep.

I woke this morning all refreshed. I don't have to go to work today, and so I'd not set the alarm. I was excited to see that I'd slept in and made up for one of the many hours I'd been missing lately, until I remembered that 7:00 is really still 6:00 in my normal-time adjusted head.

Ah, well. So I didn't sleep in. At least I slept. And, also, I had my Thought!

Just like always, I remembered. Even though I'd written it with my left hand in the dark, I could see the scrawl in my mind's eye. When I picked up the pad, I knew exactly what I would find written there.

Unfortunately, I have no f'ing idea what it means.

No Rest for the Sole

The bottoms of my socks are always brown. See?


And it’s not like I don’t keep a clean house. Honestly. It’s just that—

Okay, fine. I don’t keep a clean house. I used to, before we lived here, but at some point over the last four years I seem to have thrown in the towel. And the soap. And the detergent and cleanser and cleaner and powder and paste and wax and bleach.

I think what happened was, I got so accustomed to living in a construction zone that I ceased to notice. After all, isn’t the distinction between sawdust and dust-dust essentially semantic, really? Plus, the sawdust-and-fiberglass, sandpaper-and-little-wire-bits mess that we lived in for so long (and are starting to, again) was, by hands-down default, much less gorge-rising than the AssVac’s move-in state – about which, let's just say: when the going got tough, the spores hunkered down in the detritus.

But still, it’s true: if you walked in here unannounced these days, you’d probably be embarrassed for me. Although I would like to point out that it is not dirty so much as generally cluttered. Things piled on tables and in corners. Things like oh, I don’t know, cobwebs. Cat toys. Random shit that Johnny pulled out from where it really goes and didn’t put away.

Also (and I know this will shock you, but) sometimes I leave stuff around as well.

And okay, sometimes it’s just plain dirty. There, I said it. Are you happy? I tend to dust only for company – expected company – and we tend to have that only on St. Patrick’s Day and the 4th of July. But I do mop. I do! Not as often as I should, perhaps. Not every week – or even, let’s be honest, every other – but not so infrequently that your socks should turn brown in the two hours between when you kick off your shoes at the end of the day and when you go to bed.

I got really anal about it for a little while this past fall. I threw out all my old, brown-stained socks, bought new packages of white ones, and mopped the entire house with a fresh bucket for each room. Did it every weekend for a while. Still didn’t dust, but man, those floors were clean.

And yet, my socks turned brown. So I sent the mop back down to the reserves to be called upon one weekend a month, except in a state of emergency.

I more or less admitted defeat and tried to put the whole thing from my mind. So all my white socks have brown soles, so what? They’re clean, I know they’re clean, and isn’t that the thing that really matters? Nobody’s ever going to see them anyway, except for Johnny, and his are probably just as brown as mine.

Except they’re not.

One day this winter, when it was really stormy-blowy and I just knew my Lady would request I take my snowy boots off at her door, I actually went in to Johnny’s sock drawer. He’d gotten two packs of nice fresh socks from Santa, and I knew for a fact he had not yet worn them all. I’d rob a new pair off him, wear ’em, wash ’em, and put ’em back before he ever knew that they were gone.

But when I looked in his sock drawer, all of Johnny’s socks were snowy-white! How could that be? He can get a little heavy-handed with the bleach when he does his delicates, but I’ve tried going that route with my footwear, too. All it does is thin the color to a washed-out grey. No, Johnny’s socks had not gone brown and bleached again, and I knew they weren’t all brand-new. At least some of these socks had been worn, and stayed pristine.

Is it my feet? Am I a perpetual slough of toxic chemicals like you see on those heretofore-considered-bullshit late-night commercials for Kabuki foot pads (or whatever they’re called)? If you opened me up, would you find lots of tiny Mr. Yuckmouths running through my veins? The idea scared me enough to give the mop another go.

Maybe he doesn’t go sock-feet as often as I do, I thought as the bucket filled, and I just never noticed it before. It’s the floor, I thought, it has to be the floor.

But room by room, bucket by bucket, the water came up clean (see? even with the mop on reserve-schedule the house is really not that bad). I was just about to give up and call the Kabuki people, tell them they’ve never seen such poison as I leech out from my feet and they’d better ship me out a truckload—when I started mopping in the final room.

This room, that is. My office.

What had been a brand-clean bucket turned instantly a muddy gray. And I remembered.

When we first moved in, and for about two years, I slept in what is now the spare bedroom. Before setting anything up in there, I spent three days washing that floor on my hands and knees before I realized the dinge that would not stop appearing in the bucket was in fact not dirt, but rather the color coming off the lovely lino floor.

We put rugs down to hide it and to protect my mud-brown feet (which were usually bare at the time, since it was summer), and now that it’s a guest room it doesn’t matter much. But somehow, probably because the room that is now my office was piled full of boxes at the time, I never grokked the notion that I’ve got that same poo-brown floor in here.

These days – and for the past year and a half, at least – I wake up, put my socks on (in three seasons out of four) and then spend three hours kicking around the computer before I go to do the work that pays the bills. When I come home, I kick off my shoes and spend another one or two hours seeing what all you people had to say while I was gone. And Johnny doesn’t.

All Johnny ever comes in here for is to get a beer out of the fridge. Which, granted, can happen several times over the course of an evening. But when he’s drinking, he usually wears shoes.

So anyway, after the kitchen and after the roof, but probably before the dining room and certainly before the bulkhead, we’ll take this lino out and have these floors done.

In the meantime, I’ll be putting my spare pennies in the sock market.



Ba-dump BUMP! Oh man, that was a lot of work for a truly awful pun. I'm so sorry.

Sentence First

Oh my gosh, I just realized I've been lax on filling you in on some belated verdicts regarding the Tortoise Project usually referred to as The Kitchen. So here goes:

First of all, remember this?

Well, we've decided it is definitely not the same as the old kitchen floor, which we uncovered the last portion of when the cabinets came out. We're pretty sure it is the same tiles, however, just put down in a different pattern. Although I can't imagine what would have made them change it up. That kitchen floor was stunning.

Gag.

Second of all, as regards the whole breakfast-nook conundrum, we have decided, for now, to do...

Da da-da daaaaa....

Nothing!

That's right: we'll just finish the kitchen as far as walls and paint and stuff, and then slide the table over to the corner and live with it a while. Maybe someday we'll get around to doing something else. In fact, Johnny seems to be coming around to my whole corner-bench idea that started the kerfuffle in the first place.

(How could I have forgotten about the debate technique that involves pretending to agree with him until he sleeps on it and comes around to my side? Dang! I could've avoided a whole week's worth of donnybrooks!)

Oh, and speaking of finishing the kitchen as far as walls and paint and stuff:

I've been crippled by a few decisions that really should have been made weeks ago -- specifically regarding woodwork. See, I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but I spent two freaking years stripping woodwork in the living room. I am really not emotionally ready to start all that again -- plus I can't say I relished the experience of picking scabs out of my nose without at least the accompanying weight loss that a coke habit would bring. But three big pieces of kitchen trim that it turns out did not get ruined when we did the first half of in 2006 are already stripped. Johnny did it. And I hated the thought of just painting them over. Then again, those are only three. Out of like nine or ten. So what to do, what to do, what to do?

Things only got more complicated with the wainscoting. It was half-painted already, so we had to strip it all or paint it over. It seemed like, if we were going to paint it, we might as well just get new stuff -- but why get new stuff when we would never have planned on getting any in the first place if we hadn't found the old stuff there? Then again, there is a great swathe of it missing where the back door used to be, and it's not like you can just iron out the old stuff and make it stretch to fit. Yet it seemed like such a shame to rip it out.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

On Friday, Johnny asked me for verdicts on these things once again, and once again I stood slack-jawed in the middle of the kitchen trying to make up my mind. What to do, what to do, what to do? Finally, feeling pressure to say something, I started flapping lips.

"The thing is," I said, "I spent so long stripping that woodwork in the living room. This kitchen woodwork is the exact same stuff, and it really is beautiful. It seems a shame to not strip it and pull the wood look through -- except of course there's different trim in the dining room, which is annoyingly located between the living room and kitchen. Plus it seems sort of dumb to have one half of the kitchen be all new and the other half be all refinished-original. And also now I'm starting to feel a bit bad about what we've done to the kitchen so far. I mean, I know we didn't have a choice, but..."

"So, okay" said Johnny. He'd had it to his tits with my waffling, I think. "Here's what we do:

"We pull all the old trim out of the kitchen and put in new stuff to match the new back hall and master bedroom."

"But," I said -- he held up a finger.

"We save the old woodwork, you strip it when you feel like it, and when you're done we put it in the dining room to match the living room. "

Gasp!

"And, the wainscoting?"

"Pull that out, too. Clean it up. If there's enough of it left in decent shape, we put it in along one dining room wall, as an accent. Put it along the wall that backs up to the kitchen, even, as a sort of nod to where it used to be."

GASP!

"That way, the back of the house will be all new, and the front will be all old."

And that was it. Decided. Done. Makes perfect sense. And, best of all, I don't have to make any more choices.

Garsh, but I do love that little man.


Now all we have to do is actually do it.

Sunday Sad-Clown

The internet wasn't speaking to me yesterday but, in short, here's what you missed:

Nothing.

Andy was supposed to come and help us run wires in the kitchen, but Andy had the flu. Good old Andy, he offered to come anyway, but we told him to keep his plague germs to himself.

Oh, no, wait -- you did miss something! We had gallons upon gallons of rain. And here at the AssVac we don't just sit around feeling smug and dry when we get gallons of rain, now, do we?

Aw hells no.

But hey. At least it had the decency to drip into the sink.

Almost.

So we crawled up in the scary part of the attic to look around. We found this:


And this:


And this:


So we did this, and this, and this:


And that stopped the rainfall in the bathroom. (See wee Johnny? He's trying to squinch himself back out of the picture, but there just wasn't anywhere for him to go.)

So there now, it's official: The AssVac needs a roof. Good thing we found that big bag of money up there in the attic!

Oh no, wait, that bag was kitty litter:


But, on a related note, here's a would-you-rather for you:

Would you rather...

Crawl into your attic and find out that your roof's been leaking for lord-knows how long and you're coming into the rainy season with $9.77 in your bank account?

Or...

Crawl into your attic and come face to face with this?

Yeagh! I'll take roof leaks for $1000, Alex.

Oh wait, it's too late, I did both. Today, therefore, will be spent drinking calmly by the fire.



P.S. I'm also over here today. It's not really about Douchebags, per se.

Those Pesky Pols

You know who else is turning out to look a lot like the old Red Sox?

The Dems.

They all but had the Series handed to them on a platter, and now they're fixin' to spread their legs and let the freakin' ball roll through!

Ah well. As we used to say here in The Nation: there's always next year.

Oh, wait.

But maybe not...

Tonight At Thirteen

I have a dentist's appointment this morning. No big deal. Just, now that I'm finally done with all the rest, it's time for my six month checkup. I'm going to need courage to make myself tell them about the problems I'm having with some stuff they did last fall, because I don't feel like starting the cycle all over again. But I also don't feel like having to live on pudding and Ensure before my time. So please send me courage-y mojo.

In the meantime, I don't have time to write. Instead, I have been jotting down kitchen-related thoughts all week in anticipation of this moment. So I hereby present to you:

Headlines We Will Not Be Featuring This Week On The House and I

Why Do I Smell Gas?

Are You Okay?

Better Take That Down Before Somebody Gets Hurt.

Are You Going to Eat That?

Thanks for Suggesting Johnny Give Up Smoking, Jean!

Are You Bleeding?

Oh, Crap.

Oh, Shit.

Oh, Damn.

Oh, Fuck.

Ouch.

I Don't Like Choices.

I Can't Decide Now.

Don't Ask Me Again.

You Have to Stop Talking.

Wasn't the Fridge Supposed to Go There?

Yuck!

What's This Switch Do, Anyway?

Is That an Electric Smell?

Sparks!

What Did I Just Step On?

This Was Never Meant to Be an Eat-In Kitchen!!!!!!

and finally...

Neglected Cat Driven To Self-Imposed Cuteness

Why Are You Shouting?

What We've Got Here Is...

The Big Looming Problem in Johnny’s and my relationship – the one that causes all the donnybrooks (thanks, Sparkle, for the word!) and that we’ve not yet figured out how to defuse – is this: we each accuse the other of “Not listening to me!”

But the things is (and this is one huge, giant realization we’ve come to in just the past few months, so I will be expecting some measure of applause): we both do listen. Really well, in fact. We just aren’t either of us always so clear with the talking.

Things like “Do you want a cup of tea?” “Yes, please” – those we’ve got down pretty solidly by now. But things like “Do you want to go to Home Depot after work?” “Okay” can sometimes cause a row.

Take that example I just gave. In that one, the problem really boils down to his Irish sense of time (not my American one, nuh-uh – because, you see, we’re living in America. When and if we move to Dublin to fix up that other house (heaven forbid), then my Americanness will be the problem. But, for now, this one’s his fault entirely). See, when I say “after work,” he hears “sometime between work and bed, or maybe even some other day entirely.” But what I mean is “be here with your coat on, watching for me out the window, and run out when you see me pulling up.”

Okay, I’m not really quite that anal, but almost. And anyway, you see my point.

But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that, after ten years, at least one of us would start to learn? I might specify an hour on the clock, or he might sometimes at least pretend to acknowledge that he knows what country he calls home.

Ahem. Sorry. Back to rational discussion.

The truth is that we have. I do sometimes give him a specific time. And when I do, he meets it. In his own Irish way. Meaning certainly within the hour. So I sometimes lie to him about specific times, if they’re important. Plane reservations, weddings, doctors appointments. I tell him we have to be there anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour earlier than is really necessary. This worked for a while, but the problem was: we’d get there, and he’d find out the truth. So this only reinforced his notion that time is relative and not meant to be taken literally.

(A similar time warp takes place between our house and the pub. He goes up for “a pint” then stays a couple hours. I ask him why he can’t just say he’s going for a couple hours, he says why can’t I just understand that that’s what “a pint” means? Well, because it’s not, that’s why! After ten years of this, however, I have at least figured out the following: if he’s already been there for a couple hours, and he calls to say he’ll be home in twenty minutes, all it means is “Whoops, I just looked at my watch and wanted you to know I’m still alive.” You see? I am learning. Baby steps.)

Anyway, I didn’t start out this morning to talk about the Irish/American space/time continuum. I came here to talk about the AssVac. So here’s what caused the donnybrook the other night:

For years, we have been planning – in a nebulous, “someday” sense of the word – on putting in a breakfast nook where the old cabinets used to be. It was one of very few things about this house that was suggested, I don’t even remember any more by whom, and agreed on without discussion. Of course, in retrospect, that probably should have been the tip off there was something not quite right.

You see, although I’m sure there is some official definition somewhere of what a “breakfast nook” exactly is, we each had our own interpretation of the concept. To Johnny, it meant building an actual booth into the corner, with a dividing half-wall, into which he could slide his nice red table and chairs. Like this (except for this is not to scale but I don’t feel like doing the whole thing over – the space in the middle, where I wrote the word “wall,” is actually about half that size):

To me, it meant building in a couple benches and getting (or building) the perfect-sized new table that would slide right in. Like this:

And we had never talked about it. We thought we agreed on what to do here, but had never said so much as one word about it until the other night.

To me, building his wall would mean closing off again all the space that we just opened up by pulling the old cabinets out. To him, building my benches meant getting rid of his (admittedly fabulous) table and chairs. To him, me wanting those benches meant I thought that precious open space was more important than letting him keep one of the very few possessions he’s managed to hold on to for his entire adult life.* But he never said that.

What he said was “Fine. Do what you want. I don’t care.” To which I said “Why does it have to be like that? Can we not discuss this and agree on something?” To which of course the answer was a resounding no. And we were off.

Finally, finally, finally – after dishes had been slammed and water and glasses (okay, one glass) had been thrown around the room; after donnybrooks had dissipated and we'd both slept on it and nursed our bruises (figurative bruises, sheesh!) – I understood what he was really mad about. And last night, thanks to a therapy session on the phone with My One Friend, we came up with what we all agree (at least, I think we really do) is a workable solution.

But I can’t tell you right now what it is. Because I’m American, and I’ve got a schedule to keep.



*Seriously, the rest of his stuff from before we met fits in a steamer trunk. This is mostly because he tends to trust the wrong people with his things, and then both things and people disappear. Which is really his own fault. Even after being burned repeatedly for almost fifty years, he still believes that man’s basically good. This is one of the reasons that I love him. I only wish he’d find a Good Man to entrust with some of the junk he’s accumulated in the attic and basement since we moved here.

Get Crafty With the AssVac!

Lesson #1: Don't fight and knit.

Exhibit A: Two booties.

Same pattern, same stich count, same needles, same yarn. One bootie knitted placidly by the fire on a leisurely Sunday afternoon. And one knitted ferociously -- with occasional snot-wiping breaks -- in bed late at night after a water-dumping*, dish-throwing, AssVac-induced, ululating brawl. Somehow they seem to have come out with slightly different tension on the stitches.

Huh. Hard to imagine, that. Can you tell which one was knitted when?

I quizzed Johnny, and he said, "Beats me.

"But it looks like that kid's gonna have one hell of a limp."**



*Oh yeah, P.S. I may or may not have dumped an entire Britta pitcher over him in the middle of the rumble last night. And, if I did, it may or may not have been before the glassware flew. I told you, man: duck! But it's okay now.

**See? We're making jokes and stuff. Like dinner. And none of it's flying through the air.***

***Yet.

Big Fat Pain in the Dang

I couldn't get on line this morning. Comcast knew about the trouble in my area and wanted to assure me that their technicians were working on the problem. Did I want them to telephone when they had the problem fixed? Yes, please. Did they? No. Thank you.

I don't know what made me check right now, seeing as how they hadn't called yet to tell me it was working. But I did, and it is. Only by now I'd already assigned myself tasks to fill my morning, and I don't even remember anymore what I was going to say.

So I will just say this:

I sucked it up and took responsibility for the snake-neck, head-biting fight on Monday, but I will not shoulder the glass-throwing blow-down that happened yesterday. It was him what threw the glass, because I was busy slamming dishes. And you want to know something? It -- the glass; the glass he tossed for the express purpose of hearing it smash so he could get some across some great big Fighty Point; that glass -- didn't even break! He literally threw the thing against the wall and it bounced off, hit the table, landed on the floor, rolled across the room and settled at my feet. I actually heard it say "Nyeah, nyeah, Destructo!" in this tiny little voice. Bastard. The glass, I mean. I'm done being mad at Johnny. That's the thing about our fights: they blow, and then they blow away. But when they blow, boy, if you're near us, you'd be wise to duck your head.

Anyway, he started this one by being in a head-biting mood of his own when I walked through the door. I put the screws in by refusing to walk away when I knew damn well it was go time. But the real instigator was the AssVac's g-d kitchen.

Suffice to say that the wainscoting I discovered two days ago and got all excited about is not the secret treasure that we thought. The wainscoting I discovered two days ago and got all excited about is, in fact, one Big Fat Pain in the Dang.

Can you tell me why?

I may post more later about the easy and fun final stages of kitchen remodelling if I get my homework done. And if Himself and I can stop circling each other like a pair of rabid wolves.

Otherwise, tune in tomorrow for the continuing stooory of a house that's gone to the dogs.

Who's THAT Guy?

Oh, those? Those are our dining room windows. We haven't ever discussed those beauties yet. Someday, my dears, someday. But in the meantime -- who's that young guy throwing them open on this bright springy morning?

Okay, here’s what happened:

I came home from work yesterday in a foul mood. I didn’t even know I was in a foul mood until Johnny came up from the basement, where he’d spent the entire day organizing and cleaning up. He made one innocent remark about his trip to Ireland – and I stretched my neck out like a snake and swallowed him up whole.

You should have seen it. It was gross. I still maintain the point I was trying to make was valid, but I concede I could have been a bit more diplomatic with my debate technique. My point, as a matter of fact, never quite so much got made after all, seeing as how it was hard to talk with his ears all stuck between my teeth the way they were.

When I spit him out, he retreated into the bathroom for a half an hour and came out looking like this:

Yuck.

I told him he looked like William Tecumseh Sherman, and that was not okay.

(It turns out I was confused: he didn’t look W.T. at all. Although he has been known to, after a rough night.

But Johnny, being a foreigner, never heard of old Tecumseh, so it didn’t matter.)

I can’t prove it, but I think he did it just to piss me off. I mean, the impetus towards shaving was certainly the itchy day spent in the dirty basement, but the leaving-it-unfinished was a big proverbial bird flipped at the monster in the living room. I told him he was going to have to go back in and finish up the job, and he said nobody ever told him what to do with his own face! I bared my fangs again and—

Okay, maybe by this time my braggadocio was fading. Maybe my bad day had caught up with me while he was in the jakes. Maybe it wasn’t a bad day I’d had, so much as a day that made me think a lot about loved ones and death. And maybe, while he shaved, I’d realized I was yelling at him not because of his plans or of his facial hair, but because he was going to goddamn die someday. Not tomorrow, hopefully. Hopefully not for years, yet. But, you know. It’s out there. Death. For him and all the rest of them. Including me. Goddammit.

So maybe, just maybe, there was a mist in my eye – perhaps the slightest tremor in my voice – when I said:

“What will we do, then? Have two winners?”

He agreed to lose the Van Dyck. Poor bastard, he had no idea what I was really upset about. I’ve told him since, but at the time he just saw my lip begin to tremble and turned into a puddle like he always does. Too bad I’m not a better actress; I could really rule this roost if I knew how to turn on those waterworks at will.

Anyway, he said he’d shave. But first he went out for a pint.

By the time he’d had two pints and come back, I had had myself a good cry over what a terrible person I can be. (It’s true, I’m an ogre. Or I can be. Especially to the people I love most. Random strangers can run over my sprained ankle with baby strollers big enough to hold four preschoolers, strollers with a single newborn infant in them that they’re trying wedge down brick Boston sidewalks like they own them, and I smile and apologize even though I had to move my crutch to let them through – but god forbid a loved one should be in my vicinity five minutes afterwards. I think I have some wires crossed somewhere or something. It’s a wonder all the folks I love aren’t raging alcoholics. Or are they?) Anyway, by the time he got back from the pub I was feeling better, but I still insisted that he shave.

So he did (see? I told you my bathroom looks just like Estelle Getty’s).

And did.

And here is where he had himself a silly thought:

And here’s what that thought was:

Then he wouldn’t let me stay while he finished the job. He kicked me out, I -- what did I do? I think I started knitting a bootie -- and he emerged again looking like this:

Baby boy!

Therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Official Winner of The House and I's Johnny Game is… DonnaStaf! Donna guessed March 1st at 9:30 p.m., and the beard came off completely on March 3rd at sometime around 6:00. (After all that hoo I made, insisting people say a time, I forgot to notice when it happened. but it doesn't matter, because the next closest person was more than a week away).

Let's hear it for Donna! Yay, Donna!

So, Donna, what do you want Johnny to draw you a picture of? There’s nothing in the rules requiring you to actually hang the picture in your house, so you can be as silly or as serious as you desire.

And now that I know who the winner is, I'm going to go buy myself -- I mean you, going to buy you -- a few more toys! One good trip to the toy store ought to steer my mind away from the doomsday trip it was taking yesterday.



P.S. Ew! Look what I just found on the bathroom sink:

He's gonna die, all right. Because I'm gonna kill him.

This Can't Keep Happening

Something else has been brought to my attention about which I was definitely wro-- I was wr-- I may have been mistaken.

But first:

LadyCiani got her toys! The ones I sent as her prize for naming the pig-rat -- which at the time was confirmedly just a rat, but has since taken on a bi-special identity (don't judge: we've all been through our freaky phases, have we not?).

These toys that I sent are great toys. I love these toys so much, in fact, that I thought about keeping them for myself. I seriously considered never sending them, saying I did, and blaming their failure to arrive on the U.S. Postal Service. But then I remembered about integrity and everything, and also the manner in which Postal workers tend to react to slights real or imagined.

So I stomped down to the P.O. and I mailed them, being very careful to smile nicely at all the postal Postal workers while I did it. But I took some pictures first. And now that LadyCiani has her toys safely in hand, I won't be ruining any surprises for her if I decide to show you.

So look!






And then, out of the goodness of my heart, I threw in a pig-rat, so she could have a Biscuit of her very own:

And you know what she did? She read the label. And you know what she found out?

Jeez. Imagine doing a thing like that. Reading the label to find out what something is.

I tell you, I have some of the smartest readers in the world.


And do you know what else LadyCiani did to her Biscuit? She ate it. She says it tastes like almonds. Which is odd, because Johnny said plums. But maybe they're not all the same. Or else maybe Johnny was drunk when he ate it. Or LadyCiani was.

Sober or no, however, I wonder if she checked for a date on that magic label before she ate the pig-rat (oh yes I am still going to be calling it a pig-rat, no matter what the label says). Because I still couldn't imagine why they'd be selling pigs at the Ratty New Year, so I checked -- and apparently last year was the year of the pig.

And, um, them biscuits were not refrigerated in the store...

Silly Sunday

1. I'm over here today. But I don't mention boobs until the very end.

2. We were supposed to take the cabinets down today but, after the destruction Johnny wrought last night, we may need to wait. The plan was to move the fridge to that now-destroyed wall while we worked, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable plugging it in to an outlet that is hanging by live wires. Johnny's got a call in to the electrician, I'll make him call her back if she doesn't call today. But I suspect I will be spending another Sunday on the couch with newspapers.

Ah well, if I must.

3. Despite much talk of itch and scratch, and many questions regarding who would win if he shaved now (which I've steadfastly refused to answer), our boy is still really beardy.

I think he may be holding out for Easter like he always meant to. But there are a few of you out there who guessed that day or later, so the game's not over yet. The trick is that we just booked him a ticket to go home for ten days and, without realizing that we'd done so, we put him there on Easter Sunday. So the three new rules are: 1. We're going to have to take his word, because I won't be there with him to witness the shearing, 2. All times are going to be local to where he is at the moment, and 3. I won't be able to show you a picture of him till he gets home.

Of course, he still might shave before he leaves. You never can tell with beards, I always say.

4. Johnny is laughing so hard in that picture because we've been reading this:

Nana sent it to us, in exchange for one of these.

And I hope Nana and Grumps are getting half as much fun out of Betty as we are from Barry Crump (not Crumb, despite what I may or may not have typed in an email -- sorry, Nana). The exchange was her idea, and it worked out so well (for us, at least) that I wish I could do it every day!

Anybody else out there got any favorite funny books they want to trade?

Yup.

Johnny pulled the paneling off that bit of wall.

He also pulled a couple other things off that were electrical,

and there was a bit of a panic concerning whether the house might burn down and whether the furnace would ever work properly again. But the rainbow-tour verdict on those questions was no. And yes.

He's mad at me for not having taken a "before" picture of that wall. But I'm mad at him for not telling me ahead of time he was planning on ripping it down.

So I think we're even.

Ta Daaaaaa... Shit.

Completely empty:

Completely empty:

Completely full:

Completely full:

That's the Ta-da! part.

The shit part is this:

Look what I only noticed after I posted that picture of the empty cabinet earlier this afternoon:

So... does that mean there is wainscoting around the entire kitchen? Let's pull back just a wee bit of panelling to see...

There is! And it's beautiful! Look at it!

See?

Except --

Look at those two pictures.

Can you spot the shit factor?

And Now For My Next Magical Trick...

Before...

Wave my wand and say the magic words: A la... peanut butter... sandwiches!

Phew! All that's left is to put everything away. Good thing it's noon, so I can start drinking.

Oh, and also, look what I found:

That? Oh, that was our entire kitchen for two freaking years! I'd forgotten all about her. She's kind of yucky-looking, no? I wanted to throw her out when we got our stove hooked up at last, but Johnny made me keep her. He's not home now...

But now I'm the one who doesn't want to throw her out.

Nostalgia is a sick and twisted mistress, ain't she?

Look! Mom! Mom, Lookit! Mom. Moommm. Mommy! Look! Mom! Mom! Mom! Look what I did! Look!

Those appliances don't count. They're staying there.

Oh, shit. Rabbit rabbit. Dang.