Day 35: Goody-nough

Day 35: Accomplished. The deed thing. I decided. It may not be home "improvement" per se, but it is home-related, and it is a huge load off my mind, because honestly I've been worying about this for a lot longer than I let on. Also because I've been freezing all day even though it's 90 degrees outside, which makes me think I might be getting sick.
Time: See, here's another reason why it counts: About an hour and a half, including research, finding paperwork and making phone calls.
Cost: Nothing.
My Favorite Microsoft Word Spellcheck Alternative For Doofus (Which I Realize Now That I Edited Out): Doomful

Day 34: Didn't I Tell You, Tina...?

I got into the knob-less closet.

I didn't get a chance to start doing anything around here today until before I knew it Johnny was calling to be picked up from work. The weather is too gross and sticky for staining or painting, too gross and sticky for any work harder than staining or painting, and Goody (who, by the way, is pissed at having been locked down celler for the weekend) wouldn't let me make my very first day back also be my very first self-declared day off.

So on the way to go get Johnny I decided if I could get into the closet, that would be enough. It might not be that hard -- it might take all of thirty seconds -- but if there's one thing I've come to know about this house it's that you never know.

Lesson: Magic flowery screwdriver does not open handle-less doors.

Well, I'm stumped.

Prudence...

Oh, fine.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, I know! All the doorknobs in this house are the same, and original -- they pulled the trim off the windows in the dining room and replaced it with horrid plywood crap, but somehow every single doorknob in the house made it through a hundred years unscathed. Well, almost every single...



The point is, I can take one off of somewhere else and poke it through the hole, then give it a twist and open the door just like -- well, like opening a door.

I know where I'll rob the knob from, too.


Not a door that's getting pulled shut accidentally. Poor old thing. Just the thought of reaching up there to take her down makes my back go into twelve different kinds of spasm -- lord knows if I'll ever be able to actually put her to use again. But in the meantime I give her a rub with Murphy's oil twice a year or so and let her know that she'd still loved.

One screw on the knob was stripped and one was wedged behind the hardware (if there's one thing that I've come to know about this house...), but still it only took a minute and a half to pull it off. Another thirty seconds to open the door and screw it into it's new home...

And oh, crap, here comes Goody.

The thing is, Johnny did mention on the way home that he was going to paint the bathroom finally (wahoo!) as soon as the humidity broke. Who knows when that might be, but it would be nice if this closet was ready to paint while he had the rollers out. If I get it clear today, I can wash it out and sand it down tomorrow...

So that's how the wire hangers got thrown out. Johnny wouldn't have let me do it if he'd known, because, I don't know, he'd want to make soup out of them or something. But they were mostly here when we bought the house. He actually made me save them when I pulled off all the moldy-oldy clothes when we moved in. And they've been rotting in this closet ever since. So this time I didn't even ask.

As a -- oh, let's call it a concession -- I did save all the plastic ones. Even though all the closets are full and there's nothing left to hang. I think that's mighty big of me. Who knows, maybe they'll come in handy when this closet's finished, for all the other moldy-oldy, making-soup clothes that Johnny's bound to be dragging in. And where'd I put them in the meantime?

Yoink:

Scary cubby under the stairs.

Hey, I never said I could keep the entire place in order all at the same time!

Oh, speaking of order. Today I also did this:

Oh no wait, I mean, hang on... Okay, I did this:

Watermelon on the freshly-tidied desk... Who would do that?

Not me, that's for sure.

Day 34 (I may be confused about that but I'm sticking with it): Accomplished

Time: ?? 40 minutes?? I forgot to count. I'm out of practice.

Cost: Nothing, if I can keep the watermelon off the keyboard. I mean -- what watermelon?

Being A Weather Whim Away From Getting Two Painting Tasks Accomplished: Priceless, provided nobody tells Himself about the wire hangers...

Miles To Go Before We Sleep... (A Photo Essay)

I can't quit now.

Just from where I'm sitting, for example, I can see something desperately needing to be done:

Ain't it cute? It's Superman. Johnny's nephew drew it on my desk when he stayed with us a couple summers ago. How old was he at the time, you ask?

26.

I didn't do anything about it at first because he said he was coming back and I was going to make him do it when he got here, but he knocked up some girl and never did come back, and I put my dictionary over it (which is maybe what he should have done, if you get my drift) and pretty soon I almost forgot that it was there.

Almost.

Then there's this:

When I finished stripping woodwork after however many years, my (thanks for not hitting me the other day!) sister made these curtains for me. I finally got around to actually hanging them a year or so after that, but I forgot that if you don't have tab curtains then you need to position the brackets out from the window a bit or it winds up all pinched and anal-retentive looking.

And yes, since you're asking: a window most certainly does have an anus. That's why you can never get them 100% streak-free. (Because also, apparently, all windows are boys.)

Yay, poop jokes!

Moving on...

I painted the porch windows this lovely cranberry color the first year we moved in...

...but I forgot that, when you opened the windows, the outsides of them (the lovely chippy-dirty "white" part) would be on the inside. Also, come to think of it, those hinges could use a shot of 5F5.

Still Life With Wood Panel (AssVac, 2007):

Then of course there's this damn door left yet to deal with:

(that's a close up of where the water it absorbed this time actually formed a little puddle and ran down -- see the drip?)

There's also this door, of course:

And this one (which you haven't seen yet, but which is really, really special):

ooh, hey look! In the bottom left, there? Them's my boobs.

Mommy, Dearest, don't look. I have a booby shot on the internet. Or the top of one, anyway. Which, apologies to Dave Barry, would be a great name for a rock band: The Boob-Tops. Booby Shots. The Booby Topshots. Booby and the Topshots. Booby Topshot and the Streak-Free Windows?

All righty then, so that's one dick joke, one poop joke and a handful (so to speak) of boobs. Anything else?

Well, the back hallway could use a second coat of paint...

And here's where baseboards are supposed to go...

The bathroom's not completely finished yet -- but I'm not going there (get it? going? to the bathroom? oh, I kill me)...

Some proper shelving for the likes of these would come in handy...

though I think they might be reproducing when the lights go out, because I found this in there this morning:

and I don't read Oprah books (well, except for The Corrections, but that was a coincidence and, anyway, I think it hardly counts).

There's the scary cubby under the stairs...

And the closet I just cleaned out...

... which Johnny decided was "creepy-looking" and so he closed the door. (CONTEST ALERT) Anybody see any reason why that might be a problem?

I think this wants stuffed and mounting...

This, cleaning....

And I hardly need to hire an electrician just to change the faceplates on these horrid things...

Finally, and at the heart of everything, there's always this to worry about...

So you see, Prudence wasn't quitting these past few days after all, she was merely making a queer little stop in the woods along the way.

I'm going to come up with some new rules for myself, though, because this every-day thing was kicking my butt -- I'm not sure I even realized how much until I did nothing (nothing, nothing!) yesterday (well, except go to work of course) and was shocked (shocked) at just how many hours there can be in a day. Plus I kind of miss the other little essays I used to write, even if nobody else does.

So sometime later, or tomorrow or something, I'll post again with a new plan, and then I'll let Goody out of the basement (I couldn't keep her locked in the attic in this heat -- I know, I'm such a softie) and we'll be off.

Day 33 (late), Project 13: Not Recommended

... Not while the machine's on spin cycle, anyway. Oh, it didn't fall -- but only just. Only just. (Please note how carefully I placed the iced coffee up on the shelf, though. Wouldn't want that spilling all over the floor. I might have to clean it up with, like, a mop or something...)

Also not recommended: questioning every step of the way a job that is spelled out in every how-to book and that your husband has been doing for (have I mentioned?) thirty years. Yes, you have to sand between the coats of varnish (why? because the second coat won't stick if you don't break the shiny surface of the first coat. I know because I asked.). And no, the scratches that you make when you sand it are not permanent (they'll get filled in and magically erased when you put on the second coat. I know because I did it. I mean, I asked about this one, too, but I didn't believe the answer until I saw it for myself).

(I would, however, like to interject here that -- that woodwork in the living room I was working on for (ahem) a couple years? -- I didn't sand that. I didn't know I had to until I was ready to put on the second coat of varnish, which was my final step after all that time, and when Johnny told me I had to sand I had a temper tantrum and refused. I know, that's so unlike me, but I guess I was possessed. Anyway, it seems to be sticking just fine. And I sincerely hope that, if it ever does fall off, it will at least have the decency to wait until we move away.)

Also not recommended: bending from the waist. Ever. But see, I have a bit of a back (me and everybody else on the entire planet) and sometimes, as bad as it is for you as a concept and in the immediate ow-now, sometimes it's just easier to bend from the waist rather than to have to get all the way down and then all the way back up again. (And when I say "bend from the waist" of course, what I mean is find something to hold on to and kind of lower yourself down. I can't actually bend from the waist. Good lord. What do you think I am, some sort of contortionist? Haven't been able to do a thing like that in donkey's years.)

So it's easier to "bend from the waist" than to get down and get back up again -- unless, when you bend from the waist to varnish the bottom part of the doorjamb, you get your hair caught on the underside of the windowsill...

... in which case you then have to get your bum to the floor from a bent-at-the-waist position before you can get untangled and back up again, none of which is really any fun at all.

Oh, and that little device on the floor at upper right? That's the little Sony Watchman. I laughed at Johnny when he brought it home (from the dustbin, naturally), but it's what got me through this final project. I watched The Daily Show, I watched Colbert, I watched Ellen, and then when Martha came on I realized that was some sort of sign from up above that I was finished, finished, finished with this Puritan project once and for all.

Unless I change my mind.

(This is the post I meant to do on Tuesday, but I got distracted. And then Wednesday was the fourth and I had a party to throw. And then yesterday, well, yesterday I've no excuse for. I just needed a day of not touching the computer...)

Day 33: Accomplished on time, even if posted two days late.

Time: Just over two hours.

Cost: Nothing.

Declaring Oneself A Newly Minted Puritan And Swearing To Work On One's House Every Single Day For More Than A Month: Not recommended.

Day 32; Project 13: What I SHOULD have done...

... would be to take the handles off the closet in the bedroom, and stain them while I was at this, since they're the exact same doors and handles that I'm working with, but somehow these handles got forgot about when they were stained two years ago.

Good thing we never close them or they might be all greasy from fingerprints.

Okay, enough with the italics already.

I did it.

I varnished the hall.

And I found this:

Where I apparently decided oh, what the hell, I'm running out of stain so there's no need to cover every single square inch of woodwork (and yes, I know I said I swore off italics, but sometimes I'm too lazy to find the perfect word, okay?).

It's not the only flaw I found, but it's the worst. The good news is it's on the hinge-side of the doorjamb, so no one's ever really going to see it.

Except, you know, Himself.

But where was He when I was cleaning out my own forsaken brushes?

Day 32: Accomplished.

Time: 2 hours.

Cost: Zilcho.

I Still Have To Clean The Stove Before I Can Eat Dinner: Puke

Day 31, Project 14:

So, I don’t know…

I was in bed this morning, with coffee and newspapers -- as any civilized person should be of a sunny Sunday morning -- when suddenly, with no idea how I got there, I found myself in the back hall in some sort of a fugue state with a paintbrush in my hand.

Methinks Prudence and Goody are trying to kill off the other selves.

...the people the people the people the people the people…


It took four hours -- which means either Johnny overestimated or else I’m better at this than either of us thought (both of which explanations upset my entire understanding of our relationship, so I'm going to just let it lie for now).

And I cut it all in by myself -- because I realized that the new windows are made of plastic so if I got it on there (which I did) I could just wipe it off (which ditto).

I got it on the walls a little, too, but they needed a second paint coat anyway. They have, in fact, been waiting two years for their second coat for just this reason. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m in charge of second-coating now.

And this:

Is where I ran out of stain. The last panel on the inside of the laundry room door. Seriously, the entire rest of everything was done, and -- yoink -- I dipped my brush into an empty can.

(Well, the entire rest of everything except undersides of windowsills -- which Johnny said, if he were doing this job, he would do -- but which I didn’t care to do at all, so I on-purposely left them till last for just this in-case reason. )

So after three and a half hours of being Sybil and Mike and feeling all good about myself, I had to go out and buy this weeny can:

Now, Johnny’s sick on the couch today for some reason (stomach ugh), so I checked in with him before I left to see if he needed anything. His face fell when I told him I was out of stain. He looked like he might throw up (which, stomach ugh and all, was not entirely unlikely). I couldn’t begin to imagine why this news would upset him so.

“I’ll just get the itty-bitty can,” I said. “It’ll only cost a couple dollars. And it’s stain, so there’s no dye lot. It’ll match.” I was throwing out all I had, and he wasn’t looking any better.

“It’ll be dry by the time you get back,” he moaned. “It’s gonna flash.”

Oh good lord.

That’s my perfection-painter of a husband for you. Worried about the stain flashing on the bottom right panel of the inside of the accordion door to the laundry room -- where you would have to actually be in there with the door closed to ever even see it.

I talked him off that ledge, using my super logic powers. And, since I was going out anyway…

Yoink.

It did flash, by the way.

I don’t know if you can see it in this picture (I can; lord knows Johnny will):

But if you ever come over to my house and find yourself shut in the laundry room, please don’t look too closely at the lower right-hand panel.

(I haven't forgotten about the poem, by the way, I just got shanghaied by Eve and her three faces. I'll do it now...)

Day 31: Accomplished
Time: Four hours.
Cost: $3.84 (including tax) for the wee can of stain (which I dipped my brush in exactly twice, and still didn’t bother with the undersides of windowsills).
Handing Some Of These Tasks Off To My Other Selves: Psychotic

Day 29, Project 12: Happy, Nana?

I don't have a "before" picture -- because it turns out when you check the box that says "delete photos from camera after copying", it actually, you know, does. Same thing happens when you highlight all the pictures in your folder and hit "delete." Go figure.

So I don't have a before picture and I don't have as many other pithily-commented illustrations as I'd planned (and maybe, just maybe, when I deleted all my photos after spending an hour carrying heavy boxes -- of albums, no less -- to the basement on a day I didn't feel like doing anything at all... maybe, just maybe, I squeezed out a tear or two). But I cleaned out the closet in my office.

Found a lot of good stuff, too.

Found lots of things for hanging on the walls (potential projects for the next feel-like-doing-nothing day, t'ank god).

Including this beautiful thing:

Which I went ahead and hung already. Because really, how can you be expected to write without an Afro'ed, eight-ball shooting, Schlitz-drinking disco muse? Now maybe I'll finally be able to get some work done...

Ooh, speaking of books (which I know I wasn't, but anyway), I found this:

...which I'm not entirely sure was ever ours, and which I think I might be better off to throw away. It ain't exactly current (it boasts "covers 1987 code; the next code will be the 1990 edition") and, as I've proven over and over again, a little knowledge can be a kangaroo (which rhymes with dangerous if you pronounce one of them incorrectly, and they'll both kick the shit out of you if you try to pin 'em down).

I thought to run a contest to guess what this thing is, but then I realized even I'd have no idea, and the dang thing belongs to me. Any thoughts?


It's my old, "portable," Macintosh IIsi. It's a pre-internet machine, so I haven't used it in, I guess, ten years. But I love the dear old thing, and I've never been able to bear the thought of letting go. Besides, I wouldn't know how to throw away an old computer if I wanted to. (Although, now that I'm looking at it, I think there might be some old poetry in there from the first time I ever fell in love. Hmmm... Sledgehammer, anyone?)

Ooh, and I found this:

It's a leather case for videos or cassettes or something (yeah, it's a little dusty: so?). But when I opened it up, and I don't know why I did that, I found these:


Shelf brackets! Yeesh. See, before I decided that I wasn't doing anything today, the shelves were going to be my project. I wasn't certain where the shelves themselves were, but the brackets, I knew, were in a grocery bag in the leftover kitchen cabinet in the attic.

Obviously not.

Whatever. For today I'm done. All that's left to go through is this box:

Which I dragged out to the living room and will tackle while I watch Rocky Balboa. I believe -- yes, I'm certain -- that this is the very last box left in the house from when we moved in three years ago. If boxes of record albums can be excepted, that is. Wow. I wonder what I'll find in there?

In fact, oh my gosh! This closet was the last bit of untouched space. I didn't even think about that fact until now. I guess you could say that, with this little project, the house is now officially 100% ...

Ours:

It's needs a good scrubbing and a coat of paint -- but hey, you know what?

So do I.

Day 29: Accomplished (thanks, Nana, for the nudge!).

Time: Including the temper tantrum and having to re-take the pictures (oh you bet it counts): 95 minutes.

Cost: Nothing.

Owning My House All The Way Through Front To Back And Top To Bottom After Three Hellacious Years: Pro tempore...

Day 28, Project 11: Swearing A Blue Screen

My plan today was to drop the screen-door screens off at Curry Hardware (the Ace Place where I have the plus-five-dollar coupon for) -- which is conveniently located on the way to dropping Johnny off at work -- because they’re both torn and we were supposed to get them fixed sometime over the winter. (Oops.)

It wasn't until we were actually driving by Curry Hardware that I realized I forgot to bring the screens.

So my new plan was to drop them off at the other Ace Hardware on my own way to work.

I won’t get to use the extra $5 coupon from Curry (which expires tomorrow), but the fact is, as great a store as Curry is and everything, they are generally more expensive than the competition. The $5 they're offering would probably save me just about the difference between going there and going somewhere else (if I’m explaining myself clearly, which I don’t know if I am because it’s really, really hot still).

So okay. I put the door-screens in the car (step one: accomplished!), and I head to work. I park where I always park and I carry the screens (which aren’t heavy, just awkward and conspicuous) for the two blocks to the hardware store.

There’s someone waiting at the register, but I raise the screens above his head and ask the guy behind the counter “Do you do these? Just, you know, before I wait in line…?”

(Ruder than I usually allow Prudence to be, but I haven’t exactly left extra time for myself to get this done and still be to work on time. But if I wait to do it on my way home, then I won’t get to pick them up on my way home -- which was the beauty of the whole plan to begin with. Drop them off, go to work, pick them up, go home, put them in -- practically no time spent and day 28: accomplished!)

Yes, they do do them -- and, bonus! The guy at the register isn’t actually in line. He's just standing there. So I don’t have to wait!

Measure, measure, math, math, and then…

“There you go ma’am, that’ll be $30.09.”

See? At Curry I had a free $30. Here I only have a free $25. But I bet it would have cost more at ol’ Curry, anyway. I flip the guy my $25 Ace card and my five-dollar bill, and I go fishing in my pocket for nine cents.

“Um,” he says. “We’re not Ace, anymore.”

What? Oh crap. I knew that. They changed hands like a year ago. Crap. Crap crap! Now what do I do? Do I pay $30 because I’m here and it’s all done? Or do I got back over to Curry this afternoon? But I was just over there! But the only reason I'm doing this in the first place is because I have the card…

“You could go to Curry,” the guy sas, while I'm thinking. “But they’re all the way on the other side of town…”

Screw you, Mr. Guilt-Maker, I’m Curry-ing!

So I put the screens back in the car and go to work. And after work, I head back over to Curry.

Try to look on the bright side, I think to myself, as my brain fries in the 130 degree heat inside Chuck the Fucking Truck. At least this way you get to use your coupon.

Oh, yay.

So I get there and the lady at the register measures them and rings me up. She’s funny and she's nice and she's everything we love in Curry Hardware. It comes to $35.60. Minus the $5 coupon is $30.60 -- so I was right, almost spot-on, about what the difference in price would be. Minus the $25 gift card, it comes to five dollars and sixty cents.

Here’s $10.60. Just to make it easy...

“Thanks very much,” she says. But before she rings it in, she adds: “We’re lookin’ at two weeks.”

Two weeks? Crap crap! I thought I could pick them up later, or tomorrow. Or at least in time for the fourth of July. Okay two weeks fine whatever. Balls.

“Great, then. We’ll call you.” And she punches numbers in: $5.60 due, $10.60 paid…

NOT VALID AMOUNT the computer tells her.

HOLY MOSES the computer says.

And dies.

Bottom line: I stood there for another half-an-hour (okay, ten minutes) got three different sets of receipts (okay, two), paid $5.28 actually (instead of $5.60) and still have to wait two weeks for my screens.

And I got stuck behind the bridge on my way home.

So when I got here, for Goody's sake, I stuck this to Fucking Chuck:



Which I’ve been meaning to do since last December, when I got it in exchange for babysitting the wee Football Buddy. And also I stuck this:



Which I’ve been deliberately not putting on any car for seven years because the last car that I put one of these on passed away a few days later. But Chuck’s on his way out already, so who cares?

And then I baked a cake.

Really.

Day 28: Attempted. And, therefore: Accomplished
Time: All freakin’ day.
Cost: What’d I say? $5.28?
I Need A Shower Because I Smell: Pungent

Day 27, Project 11: Ta Da!

Le laundry, c’est finis:


Here’s the thing.

I woke up this morning (sweating, I might add -- it is so hot here! 97, for those of you inclined to scoff, which I think is like 36 or something for you “Zed”-sayers) with a mind towards staining. I wanted to stain the back hallway -- two doors, three doorframes, and four windows.

Trying to decide whether to do it before work (when it would be less hot) or after (when I’d have more time) I asked Johnny how long he thought it would take.

“For you to do?” he answered. “Or for me?”

Which is not as obnoxious as it sounds because, remember, he has been doing this for thirty years

“For me.”

“Oh, probably a day.”

“A day!?”

“To stain it all and rag it off and everything? Yeah.”

“How long would it take you?”

“Probably about four hours. Four, five hours or so.”

Suddenly my mind felt more in the humor of hanging a quick shelf. (I’ll stain on the weekend, Goody, when there aren’t breathing-danger-warnings and I have more time…)

I’d love to say I put up some nice shelves for Shakespeare, but that would entail a.) deciding where to put them (the biggest obstacle), and b.) going to buy them (which I don’t feel like doing), and c.) probably staining them (which I might as well do when I’m staining anyway, if I can remember to go and buy them first).

We did, though, get some closet-type shelves handed down to us (by the same folks, in fact, who handed down the nice red love seat that’s been featured so prominently of late), and they would look just lover-ly in the laundry room. I mean, instead of having to step over the jugs of detergent on the floor, which has always been the strategy thus far.

I asked Johnny if he knew where the shelves were (oh yeah, he’s not working today after all. We got caught behind the drawbridge on his way to work this morning and his boss left without him. Nice, huh?).

“If you don’t know,” I said. “I’ll look. But do you happen to have an idea?”

Well, then I had to hear the “where-are-you-going-to-put-them” and “my-god-the-shower-plumbing-is-in-that-wall” speech, which boiled down to if I wanted to hang a shelf I had to move the washing machines. Again. And move the picture (that I just hung) to the opposite wall.

Good thing he missed his ride, though, huh? Otherwise yeesh, I might have burst a pipe in our brand-new bathroom and be writing this post from the loony bin instead of from the freezer.

So I shoved over the machines, then I had to vacuum and mop under where they’d been because apparently I’d missed that spot the last time, then I measured and drilled and put the hangers in and set the shelf and voila (with an accent, which I don't know how to do in blogger)!

And then I decided the picture really would look better hanging up behind the shelf instead of practically hidden over there next to the door.

So I crawled under and ooched up behind the shelf that I’d just hung. I forgot to bring the measuring tape so I just eyeballed it, and I didn’t have room to swing the hammer properly so I dropped the nail a few times (once, I caught it in my armpit-cleavage but once I had to slither down the wall and feel around for it). Of course once the nail was in I realized I’d forgotten to bring the g-d picture, so I had to back out bum first and grab it (and if anybody even thinks that beeping sound I’ll slug you) and -- once more, with feeling…

Le laundry room, c’est freakin' finis. I’m so glad I didn’t stain today, or I might have got myself all sweaty.

(Oh, and by the way, two weeks is up: I spent two years stripping paint, and I win the slap bet. You better watch your back, buddy. Nyeah!)

Day 27: Accomplished.
Time: Between finding the shelves and vac’ing and mopping and everything else: 40 minutes.
Cost: Nothing.
Choosing Not To Slap My Sister As Hard As I Want To The Next Time I See Her And Therefore Having Something To Lord Over Her In All Of My Prudential Goodness: Not as priceless as actually getting to slug her, but pretty close.

Anybody Want A Husband?

Oh my god he's making me nuts!

I just got home from running all those errands (ooh, and I got road-raged while I was out there! Some guy tried to cut me off in a parking lot and I didn't let him, and he honked and then he followed me! I wasn't sure he was following me until I pulled into Wendy's to get a soda but the drive-through line was too long and I didn't feel like parking and walking in just to get a soda when I was on my way to the grocery store anyway, so I just drove around and pulled back out again, and he did the same thing right behind me! Scary. I finally lost him by cutting through the liquor store parking lot on my way to Super 88. Phew!)

Anyway, so I just got home and while I was out he "cleaned up" the back hallway. Where I'd been working all this month. Which means that now the paint thinner, the 5F5, the gloves and rags and steel wool are all in the kitchen -- on the floor next to the basement door but not actually in the basement. Because this is how Johnny cleans things up. He moves everything to another place, then he sweeps the floor and leaves the pile, all the while making jokes about what a slob I am.

That, or he follows me around and offers to do whatever I am doing. If I let him and move on to something else, he follows me again.

Yes, Dear. Thank you, Dear. Now go away.

He didn't help me put away the groceries so much as stand over my shoulder asking what everything in the refrigerator was, and then he decided it was time to go through the cupboards to visit his canned fish (the anchovies and mackerel and such he likes to get in his Christmas stocking but very rarely ever eats).

Didn't you say you planned to mow the lawn today, Dear?

Well, he figures he'll wait for that until the sun goes down a piece (it is really hot, but he has a guitar lesson at 5:30 that is supposed to be an hour but always runs till sometime after eight) so he thinks he might's well go ahead and make some pasta salad. Boiling the big blue pot of water on the gas stove. Because it's just too hot to mow the lawn. Yeesh.

He's already announced that we'll have pork roast for dinner. (Did I mention that it's hot? And that he's giving a guitar lesson through the preparing-dinner hour?) And now he just marched in to show me a spaghetti sauce he found in the freezer that he thinks we'll have tomorrow. Canned mackerel and salad the night after that (yuck, not for me, thanks). I don't know when he thinks we'll eat the pasta salad...

I'm not sure if I can manage to accomplish anything Puritanical with Wee Jimmy on a tear like this. He'll sit down when Christine gets here for her lesson, but I make myself scarce when she arrives because she's thirteen and I don't want to make her shy to sing and play.

Besides, when she's here is the only time I ever fold the laundry. Hide in the bedroom, sit on the floor, watch a DVD of something Johnny would not abide (tonight it's The Queen -- a woman often referred to in this house as "that dozy old fuck") and fold, fold, fold my little heart out. I'm not sure, but I think the pile might be breeding...



If I get it all done, does that count?

Day 25, Project 3: Opinions, Please?

Johnny’s a pain in my butt.


I finished working out this morning, and was going to step in the shower, when I realized if I got in now I’d have to listen to church on the radio while I was in there. So I decided what the hell -- family plans or no family plans -- I can take twenty minutes and slap a coat of varnish on the door, and that way I can listen to something more interesting than sin-and-salvation while I shaved my legs.

The irony of the fact that I am working Puritanically in order to avoid religious services on a day I was supposed to rest -- a Sabbath day, no less -- does not escape me.

The first mistake I made was mentioning this little plan to Johnny.

“Don’t you remember what I told you to do?” he said to me.

Um, take a day off, dear? Open up a bottle of champagne, we’ll have mimosas?

“You’ve got to hang the door first and decide if you like it. If you varnish it first it’s going to be a pain in the hole to have to paint.”

Pain in the hole is right. Johnny has to always do everything the right way. It’s so annoying.

Fine. I thought we agreed we didn’t care if the paint peeled off the door after we sold the house and moved away, but fine. I am kind of eager to see it hanging, anyway, so now I‘ll get to see it three days early. Plus this way I don’t have to wash a brush.

The good news is I seem to be only missing one screw after all. I don’t know if Johnny found them, if they were there all along, or if the polter-goosed picked them up for me, but there you have it. And that is good news. Because I wouldn’t have been able to do this at all if I couldn’t put the doorknob on, and I was not going to Lowe’s this morning.

But now it’s hung, and I don’t know what to do. There’s a part of the woodwork right next to the closet that didn’t come quite clean when I was shtupping it for beers. It never bothered me before, but the ass-hat door hanging right there accentuates it , and I think the whole entryway now looks like a a bag of coke exploded and everybody ran.

But if I paint it, I think that will look stupid as well.

Johnny doesn’t have an opinion. And he apparently means that literally right now. He wants to live with it and look at it a while.

So what do you all think? I know you’re out there, so come on. Tell me, Kalamazoo. Chime in, Edmonton. Hello, San Diego. Good morning Longmeadow, Massachusetts…Help me!

Does it suck?

Day 25: Accomplished, with apologies.

Time: 50 minutes, including panicking.

Cost: My sanity.

Having A Forum Where You Can Get Instant Opinions From People Around The World (Please Please Please): Priceless