Appreciation--Part III

Twenty-five  years ago, my first rental unit had no shower.  Many people thought this was awful.  Not me.  For five years I lived with taking baths in a cast iron clawfoot tub.  It was deep and comfortable and I would soak and read.  As the water started to cool, I took my toes and turned the hot water on for a few minutes.  I could do that two or three times before the water was too cold to stay in any longer.  I loved bubble baths or scented bath oils.  Shaving my legs was almost a pleasure, it was so easy and convenient.  And the tub was surprisingly easy to clean.

Similar to what I had all those years ago.

At my parents’ house, I still occasionally took baths, although I couldn’t lounge in them like I had in my clawfoot tub.  When I got chicken pox at the ripe old age of 31, I don’t know what I would’ve done if I couldn’t have soaked in a tub of Aveeno Oatmeal Treatment.

When my father decided it was time to get a new tub, my mother and I convinced him to get a deeper tub than standard.  He did, except that it was also narrower.  It wasn’t a problem at first.  But when I moved back in with them after I sold my condo, I discovered it wasn’t comfortable any more.  I can’t imagine why.  I mean I’m pretty certain that tubs don’t shrink.

So for the past 13 years, I’ve mostly taken showers.  I think I took a bath maybe three times during that time.  But the tub was available.  How else do you wash a dog when there is no utility sink or a wash tub?  And I don’t know about you, but I used the edge of the tub for lots of things.  For instance, there has almost always been a cat that liked to sit on the edge of the tub while I showered.  It’s also where I put each foot to shave my legs and then again to dry them when I was done.

Now I have no choice.  Just a shower stall.  And not a good sized stall either.  When I first saw it, I was worried I’d get claustrophobia in there!  I don’t, thank God, but it’s a close thing!  I did, however, bleach it thoroughly before I used it.  I don’t know how many back ends brushed against the sides of the stall!

When the weather started getting warmer, one thing became apparent.  Shaving my legs in that stall was going to be difficult, if not downright impossible.  Even if there was a ledge in there to put my foot on, there wouldn’t be enough room to do so!

First, I tried to shave just putting my back to the water.  No good.  The shave cream was gone before I got more than one stroke done.  Next, I turned the water off.  Okay, that worked—until I turned the water back on to rinse and it came on cold!  Brrrr!  The third time, I turned the shower head until it was mostly off.  With just a trickle coming down, I started shaving.  I didn’t even get one leg done when I realized that the trickle of water was getting hot.  More than hot.  It scalded me!  I have a shower head that I can lift off and rinse everywhere, so the next time, I tried turning the head to the trickle and leave it hanging down.  Nearly scalded my calf and, when I went to grab it to turn the water on full, certain other more sensitive areas were almost burned!

The last few times, I shaved with no shave cream and then slathered really thick body lotion all over my poor abused legs.  My skin is already very dry just from getting older.  *sigh*  Add to that, this hard water is very tough on my skin.  It took me a few showers to figure out that it was the hard water making my knees look like a dried up old creek bed.  Now I’m scraping a razor over them without benefit of a soothing shave cream.  Or even a cheap shave cream.  The lotion I dug out is the thick lotion I usually use on my feet in the winter.  Although nothing with urea in it!

I’m considering getting a good electric razor.  Do they make such a thing?  With technological advances, electric shavers should be better than a razor!

Panasonic Close Curves

But, in the end, anything I do for my legs, isn’t going to give Khai a place to sit while I take a shower.  Sitting on the floor just isn’t the same, I guess.  Poor kitty!

Appreciation—Part II

“The best time to plan a book is while you are doing the dishes.”—Agatha Christie

Ms. Christie did not have dishwashing appliances in her time. I never really minded washing dishes by hand.  But then, for more than 20 years, I had a dishwasher and only had to wash whatever was left when the dishwasher was full or stuff too big for the dishwasher.  You don’t realize how you come to take that for granted.

With my foray into a world where appliances are in short supply, the dishwasher is the second “luxury” item I took for granted.  Item 2a would be soft water.  I have never had to deal with hard water in any home I lived in.  Until now.

The first time I washed dishes, I noticed spots all over the glass and metal items.  Frequently used items, like my glass measuring cups, were cloudy.  So, when I went shopping, I made sure to get a good brand of dish soap.  Spots everywhere.  My flatware looked so bad that I purchased plastic flatware.  Good enough for me!  But then I ran out.  A friend who lives in the area told me that Lockport, while it has city water, does not have good water.  So I blamed the spots on the water.  Then one day I set a glass measuring cup in the sink and turned the hot water on to rinse it.  I got sidetracked wiping the counters and stove so that when I went back to the sink, turned the hot water off and picked up the cup, I was surpised to see it was fairly clear.  So it seems that the hottest water (and in apartments they crank those water heaters high!) leaves less spotting and clouding.

Operative word is “less.”  But it’s enough that I can allow myself to use my stainless steel flatware.  I still keep plastic flatware, however, because I hate washing flatware.  Getting in between fork tines is a pain in the neck.

Then one day I had just finished washing the dishes and wanted to use a measuring cup that was still wet.  So I dried it with one of those superabsorbent microfiber dish towels.  Lo and behold!  Very few spots.  A lot less clouding.  But don’t assume that I am now drying all my dishes right after I wash them.  Nope.  Having to hand wash dishes is enough, I am not standing there drying them, too.  I have one drawer allocated just for plastic flatware and half a cabinet for paper plates of different sizes and paper bowls.  Yes, I use paper bowls. Not the cheap ones and not the Styrofoam.  I get the good, heavy-duty ones.  They’re bigger, too.  Hold more ice cream!

I did some research on products that counteract the effects of hard water on dishes.  I found what seems to be a great product for the dishwasher.  Lemi-Shine.  Google is a wonderful thing!  I also found a question posted on the website of Lemi-Shine's parent company.  Somebody wanted to know if it could be used in handwashing of dishes.  Since the main ingredient is citric acid, the answer was yes, but as they have not tested Lemi-Shine for handwashing, they did not have guidelines.  Their best answer was to experiment!  The stuff won't hurt you.  The worst thing would be that you end up wasting a lot while you're testing it.  I also found a review on Amazon in which the person used a tablespoon or so disolved in warm water to clear the bottoms of vases and a large glass pitcher  She said she's used it to clean her shower, too.  So guess what's on my shopping list for this week?  Lemi-Shine!

There are other drawbacks to not having a dishwasher.  I used to clean my glass menagerie in the dishwasher.  I have a collection of glass and crystal animals.  A run through the dishwasher made them sparkle!

And there’s the sponge issue.  I like a good sponge.  I have tried various brands and always come back to the Scotch-Brite sponges.  Since I change my sponge about every third day, that’s about 10 sponges a month.  Allow a couple of extras for unexpected messes and we’re at 12 a month.  A good price for a 3-pack of Scotch-Brite sponges is around $4.00.  So figure $16 a month for sponges!

I used to put the sponges in the dishwasher and use them again.  Usually only one wash per sponge because the cellulose starts to break down.  Now I see that there’s a “green” sponge that is made to be put in the dishwasher several times.  I’d really like to try that…oh well.

Now I have to buy dishwashing gloves, too, so that I can use the hottest water possible.  Those don’t last forever, especially if you wear them—as you should—to wash with any caustic cleanser.  I don’t wash with bleach very much because it sets off an asthma attack, but I do mix it with water in a spray bottle so I can spray my shower and sink.  I also use Barkeeper’s Friend to clean the stainless steel sink.  That’s a harsh cleanser, but wow, does it get the sink clean!  I found "designer" rubber gloves.  I don't know how expensive they are, but maybe I can at least get any other color than yellow.

I also broke down and bought a drying rack.  I had been using towels or mats, but Tabitha would stroll down the counter and knock stuff off.  (I double-dog dare anyone to convince Tabitha to stay off the counter!  That’s what Clorox wipes are for.)  I store the rack under the sink and bring it out only when needed.  It does not stay on the counter!  When I was a kid, my mom left it out all the time.  It drove my dad crazy, but she just couldn’t be bothered to make room for it under the sink.  I hope I’m not offending anyone who leaves their drying rack out 24/7, but it’s really tacky.  What’s more, it takes up counter space.

I miss having a dishwasher.  And good water.  However, I do find that, like Ms. Christie, I am using that dishwashing time to plan.  Anything from a blog post to posting on eBay.  I work on my book in my head.  I can live with that.  For now.

Appreciation--Part 1

I knew when I moved that I would have to give up a couple of “luxury” items.  The things I thought would be no problem to live without are becoming more important to me:

Washer & Dryer
Dishwasher
Bathtub
Gas Heat
Gas Stove
Spare Room
Level Floors

For so many years I took these things for granted.  The washer & dryer, for instance.  When I lived where I didn’t have one, it was no big deal to haul my laundry to my parents’ house.  Most of the time--I’m talking 90%--I would drop it off and my mother would do it for me!  I rarely asked her to, but she always said she didn’t mind at all.  And when I was working 50 hourse a week with an hour commute each way, I really appreciated her help, but I still didn’t expect it.  I didn’t mind visiting with them and doing my laundry myself.

Now, I have to take my laundry to a laundromat.  That, in and of itself, is not the problem.  I spent years hauling my laundry to my parents’ house or sometimes to a friend’s house.  The problem--or I should say, problems, are: 1. the cost, 2. the ambience (or lack thereof), 3. contending with detergent and softeners, 4. machines out-of-order or banged up, 5. strange people and 6. quarters.

Numbers 1 and 6 are two different things.  The cost of doing laundry like this is astronomical.  Maybe I exaggerate.  But only a little!  The first time I went to the Quick Wash a block away, I had to drive because I had so much laundry to do.  The Max Load washers (which hold roughly 4 times what a regular front-load washer holds) are the most economical way to go.  The first time I went, they were $3.75 a load.  After that, they were $4.00.  The trouble with that, though, is that I don’t care to throw everything I own together.  I have four basic divisions of laundry: lights, colors, denim/towels and delicates.  I have been handwashing some of my delicates, so that leaves the other three.  Well, I don’t want to throw my red, green, blue and purple t-shirts in with my white socks and underwear!  I buy white socks for a reason and I want them to stay white.

So, to wash things separately, I have to use the smaller washers.  There are five types of washers at the laundromat I’ve been using: top-loader, double-load front-loader, triple-load front-loader, max load front-loader and heavy-duty.  Rugs, heavy blankets, bedspreads, comforters, etc. go in the heavy-duty.  I haven’t used those yet.  The triple-load machines are $3.50.  The double-loads are $2.75.  The top-loaders are $1.75.  And this is one of the least expensive laundromats in the area!

Then there is the dryers.  These are a quarter.  For 10 minutes!  My smallest load is usually the lights/whites which I can wash in the double-load washers.  That takes 30 minutes or 75 cents.
My colors are usually a max load wash and take from 50 to 60 minutes.  My jeans/towels load are also a max load wash and take 60 to 80 minutes.

In regards to problem #2, the Quick Wash just opened in January.  Of course, it had been a laundromat before that.  The floor is industrial grade tile and I have yet to see it clean so I’m not certain of the pattern.  If there is a pattern.  The washing machines don’t look too bad, except for the top loaders.  They look like they’re from the 1960’s.  There are newer dryers towards the front, which look good and show the time remaining on a digital timer.  Those are the first to fill up and I half the time I have to use the older dryers.  Not only do they look old, some have broken knobs, and one has a tear in the lining on the inside.  The tables look like they’re pre-war.  WWI, that is.  The walls are an indeterminate color.  In a vain attempt to add a touch of whimsy, the new owner put up cute, laundry-related border paper.

Problem #3 is one of those things that just take time to get the knack of.  I refuse to buy small bottles of laundry detergent.  It’s a consumable good, therefore I will try to get the best deal, which is the larger bottles.  However, when you have two or three huge mesh bags of laundry, trying to carry those heavy bottles is just not feasible.  So I have compromised with myself and now purchase the middle size, but I make sure it’s double or triple concentrated.  I also solved the Oxyclean problem nicely.  Instead of bringing the whole bucket, I fill a little Tupperware container with it, since I only use it for the lights/whites.

 And I now have a reusable bag that I put the detergent, Oxyclean and dryer sheets in.

Problem #4.  Well, I mentioned the dryer with the torn liner.  There are five of the max load washers--which most everyone wants to use--but one has been out of order since I started going there.  The broken knobs on the dryers make it difficult at best to get your quarters in.  I have no control over fixing those, so I deal with it by not going on a weekend or after 3:00 p.m. on weekdays.  Everybody who works is there at those times.

Strange people, my fifth problem, is probably the least, well, problematic.  I try to be friendly when I’m at the laundromat.  I’ve met a couple of really nice people.  Most people, however, won’t look at anyone else, let alone talk to them.  I will smile at other people, but rarely get one back.  No big deal, really.  Keeping to myself is fine with me.  However, some of those people can be rude.  I remember one time I had a load going in one of the new dryers up front.  I was gathering the other loads to dry, when I turned around to move to the dryers, this woman had filled every available new dryer!  Now it’s not that I hate the older dryers, but I already had a load up front and had to put the other loads in the back.  Maybe I’m weird, but I like to keep an eye on my stuff in the machines.  Very hard to do when it’s split up like that.  You might be saying, “well, she wasn’t rude, she just beat you to the new dryers.”  And I might’ve said that was true, except when I looked at her before heading to the back, she had an unmistakable smirk.  And she snorted as I passed her.

No solution for strange people.  I just make sure I’ve taken my meds.

The last problem is something I hadn’t considered until the second time I did laundry.  The first time, I had dollar bills and used the coin changer every time I needed more quarters.  The trouble is, even with two change machines, they jam or run out of quarters.  So the second time I went, I had about $12 in quarters already.  Where do you put them?  Wouldn’t fit in the change compartment of my wallet.  If I put them in a pocket, my pants fell down.  That time, I put them in a Ziploc bag.  The bag tore.  The next time I brought quarters, I dumped them in a pocket of my purse.  Nearly gave me a pinched nerve and then I had a heck of a time getting all the quarters out of the pocket.  There’s probably still a couple in there.  Finally, I remembered a coin purse I have.  I had just emptied a bin of odds and ends at this nice leather coin purse was in there.  I kept it, because, well, you just never know.  And it has worked out beautifully!  Max cap on the coin purse is about $15, but I can fit about $4 in quarters in the change compartment of my wallet.  That’s usually enough.

The next time you want to complain about having to do laundry, consider the alternatives.

Mishaps and Mayhem

Some 40 plus years after female demonstrators protested the 1968 Miss America pageant by throwing their bras, girdles and other constricting clothing in the garbage, I did it.  I burned my bra.  Unlike those women who did not actually burn their bras, however, I did burn mine.  (FYI, the whole thing in the 70’s was blown out of proportion by the media.)

My bra-burning was unintentional, however.  I had a stack of dirty laundry piled too close to the radiator.  Well, it wasn’t really stacked that close to the radiator, but the pile grew to such a height that, when it toppled, some pieces ended up on the radiator.  I smelled something strange, but didn’t really think about it.  By the time I found the pile, it was too late.  The only other item that was burned was a half of a towel and one bra. 

The half towel was no big deal.  I keep those for the cats’ beds or carriers or to clean with.  The bra is another story.  I would have rather had a pair of jeans get burned.  I spend less on a pair of jeans (usually) than I do on my wireless support undergarments!  *sigh*

Last week, I was puttering around late at night getting ready for bed.  I heard what sounded like a small body hitting the floor in my bedroom.  It was.  A small body, that is.  It was Khai.  While I’m not certain, I believe he was going to jump up on my bed.  He had been jumping up on it from the floor and had gotten cocky about his ability.  Poor Khai!  Pride goeth before a fall.  Literally.

Before I could turn around to check on him, I heard a weird meow and then all of a sudden there was hissing and spitting and yowling and the two cats came flying into the kitchen!  Tabitha was all over Khai like shopaholics at a one-hour sale!  I had to pull her off of him—earning a deep gash in the thenar.  With my blood flying all over, I couldn’t tell if either cat was bleeding.  I had to take a moment to calm Tabitha down, because every time I let her go, she would leap at Khai again.  When I finally turned my attention to Khai, I could tell he wasn’t moving his legs.

With my heart in my throat, I gently prodded his back and rear legs.  I didn’t feel any protruding or obvious bone fractures.  I manipulated his back feet and was pleased to see that he could move them, but he didn’t want to.  I spent another hour setting him up in my room with the litter, his food and some water.  I also got out the mattress protector pad that had been my mother’s.  I didn’t know why I kept it, but I put it on the floor and gently settled Khai on it and locked Tabitha out of my room for the night.

I spent the next two days shuffling the litter box between the two cats, helping Khai into the litter and cleaning up after him.  It was painful to just watch him try to walk.  While his back legs started to hold him up a little bit, he couldn’t seem to get them to move properly.  So Monday morning, I called a couple of vets.  I really wanted to take him to the clinic that just handles cats, but they were way too expensive and, more importantly, they could not squeeze him in until the next day.  So I called Lockport Animal Hospital and got him in that afternoon.

The Lockport Animal hospital is about six minutes away, by car.  Khai complained every second of those 12 minutes.  He was good inside, except when the vet manhandled his sore rear end.  He gave a full-fanged hiss right in the vet’s face!  But he had no broken bones.  After a steroid shot and two prescriptions—one for prednisone and one for a muscle relaxant—and advice on making a ramp into the litter box for him, I took him home.  He’s been doing very well, except for one thing.

He stank.  Having wet himself but unable to clean himself, Khai smelled very bad.  I waited until Thursday to give him a bath because I didn’t want to hurt him too much.  I really only gave him a half bath, just from the middle of his tummy down to his tail.  I washed and rinsed as fast as I could.  Then I realized I should have given him his pills before I gave him the bath.  Uh oh.  He was tense and angry when I sat down with him.  The first pill I tried to give him was the prednisone.  After the sixth or seventh time he spit it out, the pill was about a third of its original size, so I figured he must have swallowed some of that. 

I sat with him on my lap for quite a while.  I scratched his neck and he fell asleep.  Then I gave the final blow.  As quick as I could, while he was still sleepy, I grabbed his neck, pressed my fingers on each side of his jaw to open his mouth and popped the muscle relaxant down his throat.  Done!  He wanted nothing to do with me after that.  He did not lay on my lap for five days.  He’s doing much better now.  After another trip to the vet and more prednisone, he’s walking more normally, although slowly.

This past Sunday I decided I better treat the bedroom carpet again with an enzymatic cleaner to make sure the cat pee smell was gone.  I was moving stuff around and putting some of it on the shelf in the closet.  Since I had to take Khai to the vet again the next day, I pulled the cat carrier off the shelf.  Unfortunately, a small, solid oak shelf fell off and landed, corner down, on my right foot.

Holy cow, that sucker hurt!!  I dropped everything on the floor and lunged for my bed.  As I lay there with my foot up, I tried to breathe through the excruciating pain.  I whimpered and moaned, which the cats did not like.  Very sympathetic, they left the bedroom together.  After about a year, the pain started to ease.  I did a quick assessment of the injury.  Can I wiggle my toes?  Check.  Can I move the whole foot?  Check.

Carefully, I sat up on the bed.  As my legs swung over the side, the foot started throbbing.  I clenched my teeth, reminded myself to breathe and waited for the pain to abate.  After a month or so, it did so I tried to stand.  That wasn’t too bad, but then I started to walk.  Leaving the stuff I dropped on the floor, I limped to the kitchen, grabbed a bag of frozen peas and collapsed on my recliner.  I propped my foot up and gently set the bag on my poor abused foot.  I think that putting the bag on my foot so quickly is what helped keep it manageable.  I was able to get my stretchy shoes on Monday morning to take Khai to the vet.  While it would hurt if I stepped a certain way or bent the toes too far, it was okay.

On Tuesday, I did laundry.  I mention this for two reasons.  One, I handwashed my delicates on Monday night and I had opened the new bottle of laundry detergent.  Two, I had to take the rest of my clothes to the Laundromat, which meant carrying the detergent, stain treatment, dryer sheets, etc.  These two things are very closely related because as I was carrying said laundry detergent through the living room to put it in the car, liquid detergent spilled all over the rug.  The same rug—different spot—that I had spilled paint on and, on another occasion, I had spilled Weiman’s Furniture Cream.  In the case of the laundry detergent, I had forgotten to tighten the cap after doing the handwashing the night before.

After blotting it up as well as I could, I stuck my driver’s license in one pocket, my money in another pocket and headed to the Laundromat.  I had $8 in quarters and another $14 in singles.  A full hour and a half later and $15 poorer, I counted my remaining few dollars and headed to Target to get my decongestant.  That’s the one you need an I.D. to buy.  I stuck my hand in my pocket.  No I.D.  I checked all my pockets, the car seats, the car floor.  No driver’s license.  Well, I had to drive home and the Laundromat was on the way, so I stopped there to see if it was there.  Didn’t find it and nobody had seen it.  I had met the owner when I first got there earlier so I asked him to keep an eye out for it.

Remaining hopeful, I went home and unloaded the laundry.  After a cuppa and a brief nap, I took the laundry and sorted and folded it, watching for any sign of my driver’s license.  Nothing.  One of the most annoying things is that it was a brand new license.  I had just gotten it less than two weeks’ prior.  I only paid $5 for it since it was just an address change, but to get a duplicate will cost $10.  I’ll have the $10 soon.  Right now it’s floating around in cyberspace on it’s way from my checking account to my Paypal account.  But it’s not there yet, so I have to wait.  *sigh*  I’ll check the car more thoroughly tomorrow, looking under the seats and between the seats and console, but I’m not very hopeful.

There have been a number of other, more minor incidents, too, but I’d have to turn this into a book to relate all of those.  I’ll just say that I now know why I am so slow at painting.  I’m being careful.  Between being forgetful (I can’t remember any examples right now) and somewhat awkward (I have bruises in some startling places), for most of my problems, I have no one to blame but myself.  So I’ll keep slogging through the rest of the unpacking and sorting, trying to be more careful physically and maybe writing more notes so I don’t forget so many things.

Although who would write themselves a note that they hadn’t screwed the cap on the laundry detergent?  I mean, if I had realized I hadn’t done it, I would just put the cap on properly, not write myself a note about it, right?  Right.

Now I'm wondering if I should even get out of bed tomorrow.  Oh, I have to.  The cable guy is coming.  Well, maybe if I sit very still...

Pratfalls of Painting

I decided to jumped from Christmas 2011 to present day.  The angst of apartment hunting, the misery of moving, the heartache of homesickness and the lament of loneliness is just not fun to write about, let alone expect anyone to read.

So, on February 1st, I became a tenant again for only the second time in my life.  Wanting to paint, I put off moving in immediately.  And February 2nd found me and my friend, Ingrid, priming the walls of my new living room.  It was good to spend that time with her and to have a jump start on the painting.  We spent three hours painting together, and, after she left, I spent another three hours finishing.  Nine hours for one coat of primer on everything.

I should mention this room (for I am reclining in my Lazy Boy in said living room) measures 19 feet by 12 feet.  That's a lot of wall space.  Except there are four windows, the front door and a doorway to the kitchen.  The windows are good size, too, which you would think would be good because they help lessen the amount of wall space to be painted.  Well, no and yes.  That is no, it's not good, but yes, it does reduce the wall space.  The thing is, it creates a lot of trim.

Surprisingly, the definition of trim that I'm using is the sixth one in the dictionary: "to decorate or adorn with ornaments or embellishments, usually on the edges."  In this case, I have baseboard, crown molding, four window framings and the front door framing.  The baseboard is broken up by two doorways and the four windows are placed (more or less) in the middle of the wall.  Crown molding however, covers every inch of the 228 feet of walls.  And the ceiling is about eight feet high.  My parents' living room ceiling was seven feet.

This difference wouldn't be a problem if I had a taller ladder.  But I don't.  My sister was going to come today to help paint and bring her taller ladder, but she was sick.  I was determined to get this living room done today, so I grabbed my shorter paint ladder and a longer-handled paint brush and went to work.

When I paint trim or cut-in I like to use my straight edge tool.  It doesn't look like the picture above anymore.  The blue part is covered with many colors of paint.  The edge, however, I keep clean.  You just jam this baby into the corner and paint away.  The nice, straight edge keeps the other side clean.  Well, that's what it does IF your walls are straight.  Even reasonably straight works, because you can shift the edge tool a bit as you go.

The corners of my apartment come close--in a few places:

That is an actual picture of the front wall of my living room.  The gaps are clearly visible both above (toward the corner) and below (in the middle) the molding.  I really wasn't sold on the white trim with the creamy tan walls, but I had run out of options.  The light rose color I was going to use was too "cool" and the peachy-rose color I had for the bedroom was too dark.  It looks fine, especially by the end wall, which is a deep blue:

Anyway, my handy edge tool wouldn't work well.  The crown molding was just too high up for me to do free hand (even if I thought my hand was steady enough to still do that).  What to do?  I grabbed the blue tape.

I hate that blue tape.  It goes beyond the fact that it's made by the company that so flippantly fired me 13 years ago.  The stuff is difficult to put up in a straight line because it'll stretch ever so slightly as you try to keep it firm.  It's difficult to take down because the dried paint keeps it connected.  If you just pull it, you leave all these tiny painted pieces of tape in the corners.  An even bigger problem is that it'll pull off bits of the paint from the wall it was taped on!  The first two problems you learn to work with.  Don't pull too hard when placing it and remember to break the paint-tape bond before you pull.  The last problem, though, seems to depend entirely on whim.  Since I didn't plan to use the tape, I taped as I went along, which doubled the amount of time I stood on the ladder--on tiptoe--with my head craned back.

A quick bit of background should be given here.  Comcast came on Friday to install the cabling for my internet connection.  (I got TV, too, since it came as a packaged deal.)  When the installer left, there was the typical octopus left behind.

So I was tired, sore and cranky when I was more than halfway through the fourth wall.  Ironically, I was running ideas through my head for a blog posting on swearing.  Since my mom passed on, I've noticed I've been cursing more, or at least using stronger words.  I was thinking how epithets show a person's ignorance and, unless there was a tornado coming, there were scores of words to fit the situation better.  Maybe if I'd been more focused on my painting and less on my next blog post, what happened next, wouldn't've happened.

I got off the ladder to move it down a couple of feet when I tripped over the octopus.  You know how some people will say they saw an accident and it seemed like it was in slow motion?  Not this.  It happened so fast all I could do was let out the f-bomb.  Yep.  If there was a word that my daughter would say I would be the last person in the world to use, that would be it.

I really can't give you a run down of the accident itself, except that I remember grabbing the paint container (with 3/4ths of a gallon of paint in it) as it tumbled off it's shelf (which is ridged, so that the paint cans can't slip, but this was Dutch Boy paint so it wasn't in a can it was in a plastic jug).

Huge amounts of white paint poured over the the ladder and the drop cloth below.  Now you'd think "Thank God for the drop cloth!" wouldn't you.  Heh.  This "drop cloth" was an old sheet folded in quarters because I was too lazy to pull the professional painter's drop cloth from my bedroom back into the living room.  While it did keep the mess a bit more manageable, it did not eliminate it.  White paint--actually Sweetened White paint--on the dark brown, brand new carpet.

I grabbed up the other two "drop cloths" and used those old sheets to help stem the flow.  I couldn't really get to cleaning the carpet until I stopped the white stream running off the ladder.  Trying my best to save some of the paint, I used the paint brush to push it from the ladder back into the can.  I used the edge of one sheet to wipe the leg of the ladder.  Then, after I was able to set the paint jug on the ladder, I turned my attention to the carpet.

The three sheets seemed to be containing the spillage, so I ran to the kitchen and grabbed an old cloth.  I wet it thoroughly with warm water and ran back to the scene.  As I lifted the sheets, I disrupted the little dam that the fold of one sheet had produced and another small wave of paint rolled down the edge of the carpet to nestle against the wall under the radiator.  Oh, didn't I mention the radiator?

Yes, there was also paint on the radiator and in the radiator and on the wall, the window sill, the window, the mini-blinds and me.  Thankfully, Khai, who had been following me around the room as I worked, had run off when I dropped that epithetical bomb.  Or maybe it was the banging of the ladder.  Whichever.  Anyway, the hot air from the radiator did not help since it was drying the paint faster than I could clean it up.  Of course, since it was a nice day, the radiator couldn't be in it's down cycle.  Oh, that's right, this electric heat doesn't have a down cycle.  I have it set at 53 degrees and the rooms stay at about 74 degrees.  Dare I hope it'll keep my electric bill down?  Probably not, since it runs constantly.

Even though I hadn't yet painted that one wall, the heat dried the paint into gloppy runs.  I'm thinking maybe I can lightly sand it.  And the window sill.  The blinds are plastic so I can scrape the paint off of those, but that's going to be tedious.  It's not like it was just a sprinkle or light splatter on them.  The window glass will be the easiest.

Well, at length I got the worst of the paint soaked up.  I threw all three sheets into a plastic bin I had just emptied that morning.  I worked on the carpet for the better part of an hour and got a lot of it up.  Not all of it, however.  But, at that point, with the heat blowing the whole time, there wasn't much more I could do with just warm, soapy water.  I've got to google how to get paint off of a carpet.

For once I was glad that the building's management was cheap.  The carpet seems to be nylon and, with luck, I'll be able to clean it better.  I could just imagine if it had been a natural fiber.  Yuck!

Let's see now.  I still have to paint the one living room wall and the baseboard on that wall.  Then there's the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.  At least only the bedroom has crown molding and the bedroom ceiling is only seven feet high.  I have no idea why the living room is taller.

My original plan for today was to also get the wall in the kitchen painted where the buffet/hutch is going to go when the movers bring it Friday.  To quote Scarlett: "Tomorrow is another day."

Mission Impossible: Retrieval Conclusion

So…it’s been awhile.  My heart just hasn’t been into writing these last couple of months.

But, let me back up.  The last time I blogged, I was up to my armpits in Christmas decorations.  There were still some in the back of the storage space under the eave off the stairway.  I needed something longer than the cane.  There were lots of long-handled items in the garage.  As I headed out there, I thought of something even longer than a rake or hoe.  (Note:  Sometimes bigger is not better.  Yeah, I know, probably just this one instance.)  The snow rake!

This is just like the one I had, except my dad had affixed some type of spongey material on it so it wouldn't pull the shingles off with the snow.

The snow rake was an extremely long aluminum pole with a spongey end.  My dad used it to scrape snow off of the roof.  Ostensibly, this kept the roof in good repair.  I think he was just trying to keep the roof from completely disintegrating.  But that’s just my opinion.  I had to get it from the backyard patio.  I maneuvered the crazy thing through the back room, through the kitchen and living room and then started up the stairs.  The cats took off running when they saw this ginormous thing coming at them.  Then I tried to get it in the storage area.  Um, there was a problem with it being so long.

Since the stairway was enclosed, there wasn’t enough room to get the spongey end all the back to the boxes.  Did I put the snow rake down and go find something else?  No.  More’s the pity.  No, perversity made me keep trying because I noticed it was inching its way in.  It was doing that because the aluminum handle was bending!  Well, alright!  I could work with that.

I cheerfully pulled out two or three boxes.  When I grabbed it to go after another item, I heard a *snap* and the *ting* of aluminum hitting the floor.  Whoops, the handle broke!  It broke just close enough to the head that I couldn’t get anything more out of the storage area.  Well, there were only two things left.  One was one of those wire lawn displays.  The other was in a plastic bag.  I figured I had lived without it for nearly a decade, I wouldn’t miss it now.

I took the pieces out to the garbage.  The part with the spongey end was a bit too long to fit in the garbage bin.  No problem.  Feeling a bit like Wonder Woman (eat your heart out Lynda Carter!) I grabbed the piece and bent it in half.  It didn’t break, but at least I could fit it in the bin.

That was the climax to my Christmas decorations retrieval story.  If it left you wanting, well, maybe you should try chocolate?

Mission: Impossible--Retrieval of Christmas Decorations

I didn't really decorate for Christmas this year.  I put the red and green poinsettia wind sock out.  And the adorable brick snowman I bought at an arts and crafts fair is sitting prominently on the almost empty shelving  unit in the living room.  Those are the only two things that I purposely and intentionally put out to mark the Christmas season.  As I've sorted through Christmas stuff, a wooden angel and a mechanical angel have been placed on a shelf.  But that's because I want to keep them and I just set them there until I get a bin emptied.

I've mentioned before the sheer magnitude of Christmas stuff that was in this house.  Before my mother passed away, I had pulled out all of her old stuff from under the eave on the east side.  I had sorted through all that while she was still alive.  I wanted to go through it again, because now I could actually get rid of some things.

Under the eave on the west side of the house, I discovered, much of my Christmas paraphernalia had been moldering.  Unlike the east side, which can be accessed through the infamous Cubby Hole, the west side is accessed from the stairway.  Unfortunately, you need to either have a ladder for stairs (which, of course, my dad had, but was probably pilfered by my oldest brother) OR you need to be small and have some upper arm strength.

Back in the day--like 30 years ago!--I was small and strong.  After pulling out the boxes right in front, I used to hoist myself up into the storage area using only the railing (which is slanted, of course!) to brace one foot on, while depending on my upper arm strength to do most of the work.  I'd crawl in there and push the boxes to the opening.  Most times, there was someone there to pull the stuff out as I moved it within reach.  My dad used to do that or, once in a while, my sister or brothers.  When we moved back here 13 years ago, it was my daughter, then 11, who climbed in there to push the boxes to the front.

Letting my daughter do this job was like the passing of the baton.  Giving the control to the next generation.  Truly, an historic moment.

For two or three years, I put up a small, slimline tree up in my room in an attempt to keep me and my daughter as a family unit.  After my dad passed away, I didn't do a tree up here, since he had died the day after Thanksgiving and I wasn't feeling festive.  Subsequently, we mostly decorated downstairs, making me, my mother and my daughter into one family unit.  It was at that point that I stopped retrieving my Christmas stuff from under the west side eave.

The roof over that particular area was leaking.  Well, the roof was leaking in a few places, but the worst damage was over the eave where my Christmas stuff resided.  The roofers had to replace boards, which left the storage area exposed.  Oh, they put tarps over it, but wind and rain would blow under.  I knew that a lot of my stuff was ruined and I kept meaning to pull it out and see what I could salvage.

Well, since I am packing up to move into my own place, I decided I'd better go through that stuff.  I knew I had a plastic bin with ornaments that should be fine and I was hoping my nativity set was still in good shape.  Last Saturday, I asked my daughter if she would help me.  I got a grudging yes, but not until after the first of the year.  But I wanted to do it now!

So, on Sunday, I removed the cover to the storage area and pulled out what I could reach.  The first thing was my large bin of ornaments.  Great!  As I gripped the handles of the bin, I was getting excited--right up until I pulled it out.  There was black, heavy, moldy dirt covering the top of everything.  Ugh!

I tried to hold  my breath as I carried the bin down the few steps to the living room, trying to avoid tripping over Khai and only partly succeeded.  Both in holding my breath and not tripping. If the living room wasn't so filled with boxes and bins, I would've fallen face first onto that dirty, yucky bin!  As it was, I managed to get the bin onto a stack of boxes as I fell over Khai.  My chest hit the edge of the box and my breath whooshed out, blowing bits of nasty, moldy dirt all over anything nearby.  At that point, my bronchi decided it had enough and sent my into coughing spasms.

The coughing was so strong I that I was doubled over.  I tripped over Khai (again) and shuffled around stacks of boxes to get to my purse and find my inhaler.  Getting light headed because I couldn't draw in enough air, and coughing so hard I thought the end was near, the thoughts that went through my mind were incongruous.  I was worried about the bit of nasty black dirt I got on my shirt.  And I was afraid Tabitha would be attacking Bebe.  Or that she was going in the storage area and how would I get her out?  I finally got to a kitchen chair and as I started to sit down, Khai jumped on the chair.  I couldn't stop the downward motion of my derriere, so I sat on him.  He really didn't like that much.  But I won.

Just sitting helped a lot.  I was reaching for my purse, when I spotted my cup of tea.  It was lukewarm, but that was okay.  The act of swallowing helped settle my lungs or bronchi or whatever.  I do have face masks.  Upstairs.  Past the stacks of boxes, past the cats, up the stairs where it was blocked by the cover/door to the storage area.  Fortunately, I made that trip in my head before I actually got up and tried it.

After resting a while.  I went back to the stairs and the yawning depths under the west side eave.  Tabitha was sitting on the stairs, just a few steps above the floor of the opening where she could see into the gaping maw.  She had a look on her face like "I'd like to go in there, but it's yucky and I've never done it, so maybe I shouldn't".  Feline ambivalence at it's best.  She did, of course, meow at me.  I patted her head and turned my attention back to the task at hand.

There was a cardboard box that I could reach.  This time I was more careful, turning my head as the box came out of the filthy mess that was the storage area.  There were a couple more boxes that I couldn't quite reach, so I got an idea.

I remember putting one of my mother's canes with her walker behind the recliner. After telling Khai to get out of the way, I grabbed the cane and headed back to the stairs, once again tripping over Khai.  Tabitha was still on her step, watching, and meowing at me.  This time I just shrugged.

Wielding the cane like a medieval warrior, I jammed the handle of the cane into the next cardboard box and pulled it forward.  After retrieving a couple of boxes, I saw another plastic bin!  Yay!  That stuff should be okay, too.  The only problem was, the bin handles were rounded and so was the cane handle.  It kept slipping out from under the handle.  I pondered this a moment.  I looked at Tabitha and she said something in Felinian (cat language--my word).  But I got the message!  Carefully I took the cane and loosened the lid of the bin.  That it loosened so easily meant that it wasn't snapped on.  I grimaced at what that might mean to the stuff inside, but I persevered.  Without dislodging the lid, I slipped the cane handle over the side of the bin and pulled it towards me.  It was a huge bin.  When I finally manhandled the bin down into the living room, I decided I had enough to get started sorting.  When I put the cover/door back on the storage area, I made sure Tabitha wasn't in there!

No, Tabitha was in the living room.  Walking on the boxes and bins.  The ones from storage.  With the nasty, black, thick, moldy dirt on them.  Which was now on her paws.  And, in pawprints, on the rug.  Thank you Tabitha Darling.

Next mission:  Sorting and Packing