Katie has made her decision regarding the babies’ room. She narrowed down the paint chips I’d put on the wall from 25 to four, then on Saturday, we put up the wallpaper.
This is the second wall we’ve papered in the last six months. I’d say we’re getting pretty good at it. We’re not so good that we can cut all the panels before we start hanging and we don’t have all the tools a professional would have but we do really well with what we’ve got.
We didn’t get started until mid afternoon and even then, it was nearly spur of the moment. Katie had been at a brunch for a cousin who is expecting in the next couple of weeks but she called me when it was over and I was ready for a break from designing ornaments so I put on my wallpapering clothes and met her at her house.
We remembered enough from the last time we did this to get going quickly and efficiently.
It was a gorgeous day so we had all the windows open. Her cat and dog have taken to sticking very close to her when she’s home. It’s like they can tell she’s pregnant and are determined to make sure nothing scares her, hurts her or threatens her in any way, which is cute but annoying when you’re trying not to get pet hair glued into your wallpaper. The dog caught on quickly and didn’t try to follow us into the babies’ room but the cat thought she could just stay out of the way by perching lazily in the open window.
It worked just fine until the moment Katie and I brought in a newly booked panel of paper to discover the cat missing and the screen popped out of the window.
I guess she leaned a bit too hard on the not-quite-tight- screen and was expelled from the house.
We got the screen put back in in no time. It took a few minutes longer to locate the confused cat, who was happy as a clam, lying in her window one second and the next, fending for herself in the cold, cruel world.
She did not appreciate our laughter.
We got the paper up with no accidents, very little waste and a surprisingly small amount of paste on the floor or in our hair.
The Wall is white paper with pen and ink renderings of rabbits and flowers. As soon as the girls are old enough, we are completely okay with them coloring in the wall paper.
I had begun to prime the wood trim, which we’ll paint a nice crisp white. The walls are going to be a pale, creamy yellow. Crown molding would add a gorgeous dimension to the room. Kate has to clear the rest of her clothes and what little furniture is still in there before we can really do much more. I think the closet doors would be better replaced than painted. Painting bi-fold doors is time consuming and new ones aren’t that expensive. We had all sorts of fun ideas for the bedroom door; from chalkboard paint to corkboard to mirrors. We’ll see. Not all decisions have to be made at the same time. The chandelier definitely has to be switched out. I think it’s very pretty but it hangs too low: Adam would bump his head on it if he came in to get a baby in the middle of the night. Also, it gives off no light.
I had to scrub the paste out of my hair when I got home, as Jay and I had a birthday party to go to.
The party was really fun.
I hate to describe it as ‘intimate’, since that sounds like we sat around, whispering secrets to each other. It was a small party. Despite a formal dining room six feet away, the whole party took place around the kitchen island where we ate Thai food, drank and laughed for hours.
Due to the nature of Jay’s job, most of our friends are professors. PhD’s outnumbered the un-credentialed and I’m certain I was the only one there who had dropped out of college.
I remember when I was a senior in High School, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of going to the U. I had pretty much hated every minute of the 13 years I’d already spent as a student (I’m including kindergarten, where I learned was that I had nothing in common with my peers and that conforming is for the weak-willed) and I was more interested (but not very) in getting into a commercial art program at a Vo-tech but my Dad talked me into Liberal Arts. He said the point of an education was so that no matter what circumstances I found myself in later in life, I’d be comfortable with any group.
He forgot to factor in my natural misanthropy: I’m never really comfortable in a group.
But his point was well taken. Despite the fact that I drove my advisor crazy by refusing to stick to a curriculum and then dropping out after three years, give or take a semester when I couldn’t get into the classes I wanted, I am equally uncomfortable in every sort of crowd.
My fondest memories from my time at the University of Minnesota involve a painting teacher from New York who told us that Minneapolis had everything NYC did as far as the arts were concerned, perhaps not in quantity but definitely in quality, and a conversation in a stairwell with my poetry professor. I’d been sitting there, reading a book and waiting for class to start when my professor came up the same steps and saw my book. He admitted to me that he’d been trying to get the school to let him teach a class on Louis L’Amour for years but so far, no go. We talked about how great L’Amour is as both a story teller and historian, how little respect the Western genre gets and how, taken all together, his stories paint an honest picture of the history of the American West. He was unable to spark an appreciation for ezra pound in me but he gave me an A anyway.
Then there was the drawing prof. who scolded me for bringing my sketch pad to his class, since representational art was so over and anyway, most of my fellow students couldn’t draw like that, so I was just making them (him) feel bad. I think he was afraid not to give me an A.
Between those extremes, my college days are a mostly forgotten blur.
In addition to studio art (my major) and English lit, I took a lot of philosophy classes because they were easy and I loved the building they were in. So yeah, if I hadn’t dropped out, it was going to take me nine years to graduate. Back in the early ‘80s, that would’ve been okay, credits weren’t that expensive. But I hated school. Then of course, Jay came along and offered me the life I wanted, which didn’t require a degree.
I have never had any regrets. Back in the early days, Jay asked me a few times if I’d ever considered going back. My answer was always the same; a Vitameatavegamin full body shudder.
When you’re young, you imagine that a small dinner party consisting of mostly Dr.s of Psychology, the conversation would be sparkling, erudite, personal insights into human nature…
We mostly told semi dirty jokes.
The favorite of the night: What did one saggy boob say to the other? ‘If we don’t’ get some support, people are gonna think we’re nuts’.
That’s just good comedy.