New Bedroom! Okay, it’s the same room we’ve been in for 23 years but I painted it. So it looks like new. Or it would, if the new wall color didn’t highlight how beat up and awful the trim is. Whatevs, I’ll get to the trim later. Jay was on a week long trip with the team and I’ve been planning on changing the wall color for a while. Perfect time to do it; he’s not here to get in the way or complain that all the bedroom furniture is in the living room for three days. The bedroom situation in this house is less than perfect. When we moved in, there were two bedrooms upstairs, two on the main floor and a room in the basement that was used as a bedroom but wasn’t really a legal bedroom until we put in the egress window about fifteen years ago. In fact, there really aren’t two bedrooms upstairs. There are two spaces and a full bath but the front space has no closet and you have to walk through it to get to the back room so it really can’t be considered a bedroom although we used it as one and so did the previous owners. The upstairs is actually a lovely master suite; a sleeping area, sitting room, walk in closet and full bath, taking up the entire floor. It just hasn’t been used that way in decades. The upstairs bedroom is the nicest in the house and clearly meant to be the master. Jay and I didn’t take that room when we moved in because I had to be between Zack and the door. Zack was two when we bought this house and he was nearly impossible to contain. There was no way in hell I was going to go to bed upstairs while Houdini the Toddler got out of his bed downstairs and took himself across the street to the park every night, which is what he would have done if I hadn’t been there. So my girls shared the best room in the house and Josie has had it all to herself since Katie went away to college twelve years ago. She doesn’t have the whole suite, of course; I took the front room and made it my office before Katie moved out. My plan for this house was always to eventually make the entire upstairs my office/studio. I could put skylights in the north facing dormer. It would be perfect! We’ll probably just sell this place when Josie graduates, though. Our bedroom is small. I don’t mind. I don’t really understand the current mode of huge master bedroom suites. Who needs a sitting area in the bedroom? Isn’t that what the rest of the house is for? Like a lot of kids, I used my bedroom as a hideout when I was a teenager. It was my refuge from the world, my own private space, where I could do my own thing and shut out the rest of the world. I read books, listened to music and drew and painted to my heart’s content. Now I’m an adult and I have an entire house for that. My bedroom is for sleeping and changing my clothes. About fifteen years ago I painted our room a medium brown. I was going for ‘dark as a cave’. I thought the color went well with our dark green and blue plaid comforter. It gave our room kind of a backwoods charm. I got dark green curtains to cover the windows. I liked it. Jay never did. I didn’t take it personally, since I hadn’t actually chosen the color; it was a gallon I picked out of Hirschfield’s free box. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars over the years by using free and deeply discounted paint. But it’s been years and I was tired of the brown, too. This time I did choose the color; Liveable Green by Sherwin Williams. It’s a very pretty, soft, nearly neutral green. I used their Cashmere line because it wasn’t terribly expensive and I don’t think it has any primer in it. Paint and primer in one is the worst. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until paint manufacturers get their heads out of their asses; paint is paint and primer is primer. It’s as if some moron decided to throw a can of frosting into the cake batter, thinking ‘now I won’t have to frost the cake!’ When you mix them, you don’t get both, you get neither. So STOP IT. You can’t just feed the tuna mayonnaise. Our bedroom is small but I suspect that it was originally two even smaller rooms; a porch and a closet. There’s a definite division where the walls and ceiling don’t match. I painted it one part at a time so I wouldn’t have to move all the furniture out at once. I just shoved the dressers away from the walls and left the bed. Of course, the curtains all had to come down. There are few things in real life more terrifying that discovering what hides behind your bedroom curtains. All I wanted to do was paint my room but instead I had to wash curtains, spackle holes, redrill the walls so I could someday rehang the curtains, dust the walls down, destroy acres of spider habitat and vacuum the carpet to within an inch of its life. I also found several pairs of shoes I hadn’t seen in years. I threw them all in the bag for ARC. When I finally got around to opening the can of paint, I was exhausted. But I persevered. As usual, I didn’t bother taping. Tape just makes me sloppy and with my good three inch Wooster, I can hold such a sharp edge, I don’t need no stinkin’ tape. I did use plenty of drop cloths, though. I don’t care how steady your hand is, paint drips. One coat of pale green in the morning and another late afternoon and I could shove all the furniture back against the walls by bedtime. The second day, I did the whole process again with the cubby where the bed fits. Filthy curtains, new screw anchors for the rods, dust the walls, kill the spiders and vacuum. It was harder than the first day since the vacuum had to be lifted over the bed, which was too big to shove out of the room; I just shoved it out of the way. Dropcloth the bed and the floor and paint. Fortunately, the weather was cool and breezy. On Sunday, it was hot and sticky but sometime before Monday morning, autumn arrived. All week long it was cloudy, breezy, wet and cool. We might have cracked 80 degrees once or twice but most of the week was in the high 60s, low 70s. I kept my windows open and there was no paint stink by the time I went to bed. Not that it mattered; I never sleep well when Jay’s gone. But I was too tired to toss and turn. I like the new color quite well. But I chose it to go with the green comforter and curtains and now I’m thinking I want new curtains. It’s not just the trim that looks old and beat up next to the fresh new paint. Jay looks like hell! Kidding. He looks fit, rested and relieved to have escaped the dinosaurs and returned to the first world. but he did take one look at the new walls and say "I'm buying a new comforter today." That lamp on my bedside table has to go, too. |
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Books
I’ve been reading a lot lately, although still not as much as I used to or want to. First, a novel called He’s Gone by Deb Caletti. It was a good little mystery tale. Woman wakes up on her houseboat the morning after a party where she and her husband had a fight. Husband is gone. Vanished without a trace. The story is about their relationship, why she thinks he may have left, etc. Two things I didn’t like about it: it was told in the first person, present tense. That’s my least favorite style of narration. I find it distracting and unnatural. It’s the most heavy handed of styles, the author never gets out of the way to let the reader into the story. It seems to be a very popular style these days. Boo. The second thing I didn’t like about the story was the conclusion. Did I mention she lived on a houseboat? Exactly. Second book I read was Life by Keith Richards. Far and away the best autobiography I’ve ever read. If you like autobiographies, if you like the Rolling Stones, if you like Rock n’ Roll, if you like the second half of the twentieth century, if you like tales of romance, drug abuse, adventure, heartbreak, friendship and success, you’ll enjoy this book. Mr. Richards claims he forgot nothing and the book sure seems to hit on everything. I kept in mind that he was a raging heroin addict for about ten years so some of his recollections may be…influenced. What is impressive is how honest he is about all of it. He pulls no punches, especially when they hit him in the face. The book is not just a list of accomplishments and the musical aspect of it is so much more than the Rolling Stones that it’s actually easy to ignore that while all the things he describes were happening, he was the guitarist in the iconic band. He can write (and I imagine, talk) about music for hours. He loves all kinds of music and admires all kinds of musicians. I’m not a Rolling Stones fan. They’ve been doing it for most of my life so naturally there are a lot of songs that I like but I’ve never bought an album and I’ve never had any interest in seeing them in concert. Doesn’t matter; Keith tells his story in such an entertaining way that I’d have enjoyed the book even if I’d never heard of the Rolling Stones. He writes very candidly about his misadventures and his description of what it’s like to lose a child to crib death are painful. He says you never get over the pain of it; you just learn to live with it. He went on tour right after the boy was born, so he never even got a chance to know him. He says he’ll never forgive himself for that. He also says that even though the boy died over thirty years ago (forty, now) he still runs into him at least once a week; he’ll be minding his own business and suddenly be confronted by the hole in his life where his son was supposed to be. My favorite passage in the whole book was a paragraph where he talks about what music does for him. “Levitation is probably the closest analogy to what I feel. Whether it’s ‘Jumpin’ Jack’ or ‘Satisfaction’ or ‘All Down the Line’, when I realize I’ve hit the right tempo and the band’s behind me. It’s like taking off in a Learjet. I have no sense that my feet are touching the ground. I’m elevated to this other space. People say ‘why don’t you give it up?’ I can’t retire until I croak. I don’t think they quite understand what I get out of this. I’m not doing it just for the money or for you. I’m doing it for me.” I know what he means. I totally feel like I could hang out with Keith Richards but reading his book lead me to the conclusion that Charlie Watts is by far the coolest member of the Stones. Hands down, no contest. The third book I recently read was another murder mystery called The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson. It is also told in the first person, present tense. By two different characters. The tense changes, depending on whether we’re in the present or flashback. It’s a lurid little tale of seduction, abuse and murder. The victim was a teacher who preyed on young, inexperienced girls. After years of abusing both girls in every way; sexually, emotionally, physically, he is found stabbed to death. Two girls, one convicted of the crime, both convinced the other is guilty. My big objection to the story is that twenty years later, both girls agree that as horrible as he was to them, he didn’t deserve to die. I disagree. I think an adult who becomes a teacher in order to stalk, manipulate and seduce children in order to make them his sex slaves whom he threatens, rapes and beats so severely that bones are broken absolutely deserves to be stabbed to death. The problem isn’t whether he deserved it, it’s that no one had the right to mete out such punishment. The last chapter does reveal what happened and who the culprit was. I believe she slept like a baby every night for the rest of her life. Death Wish
I’m varnishing a desk in the garage, decorating an end table in my office, trying to keep up with my orders while finding time to enjoy the last few weeks of Josie’s summer vacation. In less than two weeks I’ll be returning her to school. For her, summer will be over. For me…I’ve got two more months of summer! This year spring came early. We didn’t believe or trust it when the weather turned nice in early April but it really was spring and it was beautiful. As I’ve written recently, the summer weather could hardly be more perfect. Blue, clear skies nearly every day, not too many really hot ones, not too much humidity and most of the prodigious rain has been overnight. There’s no reason to suppose we aren’t in for an equally gorgeous autumn and that’s the best season of all. So I’m not throwing in the beach towel just because Josie has to go back to school. They may drain the pool at the park after Labor Day and send all the lifeguards at the lake back to school but they can’t really ‘close’ the beaches, as much as the politicos think they can. Lifeguards? I don’t need no stinkin’ lifeguards. But I do have to finish the furniture I told her she could take to school with her. So my days are a bit packed just now. Oh, my Mom finished stitching the seat for the chair we’re giving Katie as a wedding present, so I’m trying to block it. Soon as I get it back to square, we’ll run it up to the upholsterer. One more project I can check off my list. The other night I watched the old Charles Bronson movie ‘Death Wish’. Mark Steyn said something about it in a column last week. He was writing about the current NYC administration dismantling all the law and order measures put in place since the seventies and reminding his readers what that great city was like before Giuliani’s time. I remembered that I had enjoyed Death Wish when I saw it, decades ago, so I put it on my list. It’s actually a much better movie than I had remembered. Yes, Bronson does become a vigilante but the movie is about how and why. Its action/adventure set in the real world. It’s a very right wing movie, not because right wingers want to go around shooting everyone but because it makes the point that if the citizens are armed, violent crime goes down. It makes this point in a couple of different ways. Bronson is able to stop a few robberies, beatings and muggings on a first person basis, so there’s that but the larger issue in the movie is that violent crime plummets as word of an armed vigilante spreads on the street of New York. Also, the middle section of the film takes place in Arizona, where Bronson’s buddy flat out tells him that everyone in AZ is armed, so there’s very little violent crime. The would-be baddies all know they’d get blown away if they tried anything. Criminals, even violent ones, know how to choose their victims. Like animals in the wild, they go after the weak and unprotected. The scene that made me gasp was at a cocktail party taking place after the vigilante has been in the news a few weeks. As Bronson makes his way through the room, he passes a couple and hears the guy saying that the vigilante is racist for shooting more black muggers than white ones. His companion immediately tells him he’s an idiot; that there are more black muggers than white ones. Then she asks him if he thinks there should be an affirmative action movement to get more white guys into mugging. In 2015, forty one years after the fact, that conversation played like satire. No one in Hollywood would dare to allow a character to say anything so sensible. Anyway, I liked the movie so much I went on Amazon and bought my own copy. It was under $7.00. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a little justice/vengeance in their movies. Now I really have to get back to work. Here it is, mid August already. The last two days were mostly rainy but the sun came out when I needed it. This has been the most beautiful spring and summer in my memory. Back in early April, when it first started to warm up, no one trusted it because early thaws in Minnesota are frequently the precursors to maga storms. We’ve had cool summers, short summers, hot sticky summers and wet summers. Every once in a great while we get a long, warm summer in which we get lots of night rain but the days are sunny and bright. The summer of ’15 is shaping up as being nearly as perfect as summer can be. We’ve had few days in the ‘90s, few days where the humidity has been unbearable, few days where we ran the air conditioner for more than couple of hours. Yet, we’ve also had a lot of rain. The lakes are higher than they were in the spring, after our nearly snowless winter. It’s very unusual for the creek to hold more water in August than it did in April. Even last week, which had more rainy days than the three preceding months, I couldn’t complain. On Wednesday night, a storm dropped lots of lovely rain on us. Friday morning was cloudy but I had plans to go to the arboretum. By the time we parked the car, the clouds had gone and it was a perfectly lovely afternoon to spend walking amongst the flora and legos. Saturday morning was again rainy but by the time we headed off to the barbecue at Katie’s house, the sun had come out and it was a perfect afternoon for a backyard party. Katie and Adam’s party was great, by the way. Their enormous backyard was gorgeous and Katie had strung the white lights she bought for their wedding reception all around the half acre lot. The back deck and patio had dining room tables set up beneath a wonderful maple tree. I have no problem with patio furniture but there’s something really inviting about a dining room table and wooden chairs beneath a tree. It’s so brave. It’s like you’re saying to Mother Nature “I know you could ruin all my furniture, but you won’t.” Sometime between the party Saturday night and church Sunday morning, it got rainy again. By late afternoon, the sun had come out, there was a lovely breeze and I walked around the lake with my sisters. When I got home again, I was hot enough to turn the air on in the house. Then I sat on the deck and read my book while Jay fired up the grill. Summertime food is the best food there is. We’ve had chicken, steaks and burgers of course but it’s the fresh produce that makes every meal. We’ve been eating a ton of sweet corn, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and melons. Last night I did strawberry shortcake. By bedtime, the house was cool without a drop of humidity. So was outside; I opened the window next to my bed a crack. Jay always freaks out when I do this without turning off the air but if I turn off the air, I’d have to open all the windows and that would wake him up. He has enough trouble sleeping. Besides, when it’s the same temp outside as in, the air doesn’t kick on. I just need that freshness coming in the window. I spend all winter breathing the same air, I’ll take the fresh stuff as long and as often as I can get it. it really bothers him when I open a window while the furnace is running. What can I say? Fresh air and dark chocolate are my only vices. This morning dawned as bright and clear as a summer day should be. I turned off the air, opened all the windows and let the house fill with the aroma of the freshly mowed park across the street. I’ve got a list of projects to work on, now that I finally finished the deck and I’m excited to get at them. We’ve already had five months of gorgeous weather this year and no reason not to expect three more. This is especially serendipitous, since Tyler and his family chose to move back here this year. Ty was happy in Texas and dreads the coming cold weather. But this Minnesota summer has made Texas look like hell on earth. A sticky, stinky, parched and cracked hell. Minnesota is green, lush, fragrant, breezy, fresh and warm with lakes, lakes, lakes everywhere! Yay! You want to know what joy looks like?
It looks like a dozen or so little girls buzzing and shimmering all over the park, eating pizza and cake and smacking at a piñata. It was noisy but since we were all outside, the squealing didn’t make my ears bleed. The occasion was Bananas’ golden birthday party. The only reason I was there (I’m not in the habit of crashing first grader’s birthday parties…although the cakes are delicious!) was that Babydoll and Babalouie had been invited and Megan and I used the event as the perfect time to swap the kids. I had agreed to take the babies overnight so Megan and Tyler could have a grown up party with some good friends who were in from out of town. Megan and I met at the park, joined the party and the kids didn’t even notice when their mom abandoned them to the tender mercies of Nana! After all the girls had taken turns burying each other in the sand at the playground, their mom’s picked them up and I took my grandies home with me. I also took home an extra pizza. Score! When we got home, we put on our swimsuits and went down to the park. The wading pool was the perfect way to cool down and get frosting out of those hard to reach places. Babalouie’s neck folds can hold a lot of food. After playing like maniacs all day, we came home and ate mac ‘n cheese, curled up together in the recliner and watched Finding Nemo. The kids both crashed by nine o’clock and slept all night long. Sunday morning, I popped them in the stroller and we marched around the lake together. It was hot and gorgeous. After lunch, we headed west to yet another family birthday party. This one was out at my cousin Mary’s house, in honor of her brother Billy, who turned fifty. Fifty is a big deal birthday for everyone but especially for Billy. Born with Down Syndrome, he wasn’t expected to live more than two or three years. “Just think!” Billy’s proud and happy dad said, “When he was born, the doctor told us ‘the signs point to your child being a mongoloid idiot.’ That’s what they called them in those days. He told us that taking our baby home would only disrupt the family and the best thing we could do was to turn him over to the state home. They’d take care of him there for the short time these kids had. We said no thanks, we’re taking our baby home. And now here we are! Fifty years later!” The party was a blast. Mary and her husband Mike own a big ranch west of town. Like Megan’s family, they rodeo. One of the two large barns has an indoor arena as well as stables for their dozen or so horses. On Sunday, the horses were all corralled outside. The barn had been turned into a giant dining room/dance hall for the party. The party began in the circular drive beneath the shade of the trees surrounding the house, where an outdoor mass had been set up. A priest, for whom Billy had served as an altar boy thirty some years ago said the mass and Billy served again. The music was provided by a cowboy with a guitar. It was beautiful. It’s hard to ride herd on two toddlers at mass. It’s really hard when it’s an outdo mass and there are horses right over there, Nana! Let’s go say hi! Come on! As if the horse corrals fifty yards away weren’t enough to beckon my two horse crazy grandkids, the trail that led that way was lined with enormous balloon bouquets. Big, yellow balloons, billowing in the wind, practically singing “Come on kids, let’s go say hi to all the pretty horsies!” So we did. After mass, they cut all the balloons free and we watched as a hundred or so yellow balloons flew over the house, the trees and off into the clouds. It was awesome! Babydoll and Babalouie each tried to hold a balloon for about twenty seconds but it was much more fun to watch them fly away. Then we headed into the barn for lunch. There were tables set up, a band playing and at least three long buffet style tables of food. The floor of the barn was an inch deep in sawdust and wood shavings. My grandkids were much more interested in throwing wood shavings at each other than eating. I was having fun seeing lots of cousins I hadn’t seen in a while and showing off my grandkids. Eventually, I dumped the babies on my parents so I could fill up some plates for us. The food was great but all the kids wanted was watermelon. There was a lot of watermelon. Ty and Megan made it out to Mary’s around three to pick up the kids, eat some birthday cake and dance. The band was good; they played all sorts of music but all very danceable. When they did UpTown Funk, my Dad turned to my Mom and said “they’re playing our song!” I was happy to introduce Mary and Mike to Megan because they have that whole horse/rodeo thing in common. I’d been to Mary’s place before but I’d never actually been inside the house, which they’d built and had decorated by a very close friend of my Mom’s. I’d seen Ginny’s own apartment; very contemporary, gorgeous and sophisticated yet comfortable. She went another direction with Mike and Mary. I can only describe it as Nineteenth Century Wyoming Cattle Baron with all the modern amenities. It’s breathtaking. You want a deep porch that wraps all the way around the house? Check. Need enough of it screened so you can have dinner parties out there? Check. Want a soaring great room complete with giant stone fireplace? Check. How ‘bout a cutting edge kitchen designed to blend into the woodwork? Check. A ‘man cave’ that looks like someplace Wyatt Earp would feel at home? Check. Five bedrooms big enough for king-sized beds, armoires, sitting areas, walk in closets and wall sized views of the woods behind the house? Check. Beautifully appointed bathrooms artfully tucked into corners often enough so no one ever has to wait? Check. I loved it. I don’t want to live in a house like that but OH I like knowing people who do! The gardens surrounding the house were as spectacular as everything else. The hosta were flowering and Babydoll was disappointed when I wouldn’t let her snap all the flowers. I told her that she gets to snap my flowers but we had to let other people snap their own. I left the party around five because Jay was due to land. He’d been in Montana, speaking at a coach’s clinic and enjoying a Northern Lights reunion. He spent five days golfing, laughing and visiting with guys who played for him twenty five to thirty years ago. He had a blast! The clinic wasn’t in Havre, where we’d lived and he’d coached, but in Great Falls, where one of our former players is now practically the mayor. They’d all been kids back in the eighties when Jay was the brash young hot headed coach, whose antics were such that the boosters liked to sit right behind the bench and bet on how far into the game Jay would rip off his jacket and throw it at someone. I used to sit up in the balcony with the kids because I didn’t want Tyler and Katie to hear their dad using that kind of language. Now all those kids are grown up and successful and Jay has won so many games (by such big margins) that for the last fifteen years or so he’s been able to sit through a game without raising his voice or standing up. Now JT does all the yelling and pacing. When I left the party, Babydoll and Babalouie were dancing like maniacs and kicking up a cloud of wood shavings. Monday, I worked all day long to make up for taking off the entire weekend. Tuesday, I dropped off my orders and Ginny (a different Ginny) told me that the sale would be this weekend. She gave me a list of things that it would be great if they had them in the shop for the sale. I love painting the little things like Christmas ornaments and Bears. It’s not very often I get an opportunity to paint $400 worth of Christmas ornaments. All I had to do was get them all painted in 48 hours. And I’d already promised Megan that I’d come watch the kids on Wednesday so she could go set up her classroom. No biggie, I’d paint at night! I usually take Tuesday and Wednesday off, since I work through the weekends. This week I came home from the shop and set to work. I painted until Jay came home and made me dinner. He opened a bottle of wine so I didn’t go back upstairs after dinner. I painted for an hour Wednesday morning before heading out to the ranch. Then I spent the whole day playing with the kids. Even though Babalouie took a three hour nap during the afternoon, I was completely exhausted by the time Megan came home. No wonder I was so skinny when my kids were little. If I got that much exercise every day now, I’d still be a size 4. Oh hell, if I got that kind of exercise every day now, I’d be dead in a week. It would be worth it. Last week, Dennis Prager did an ultimate issues hour about doing things you don’t necessarily want to do, because they make others feel good. For instance, do you make your kids hug their grandparents, even if they don’t want to, because it makes grand ma and grand pa happy? As the Grandma, I feel it’s my job to make sure my grandkids not only want to hug me, but launch themselves at me when they see me coming. So far, so good. I got home Wednesday evening and went straight back to work. (Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m also in the middle of refinishing our deck. I had to do it this week; it’s the first time all summer where the forecast predicted six days with no rain. Our deck is huge so I did it in three separate stages; beyond the porch, in front of the porch and from the porch to the driveway. Zack helped me move the furniture and flower pots from the bit I worked on and I did one coat in the morning and the second coat in midafternoon. That way it was dry enough to walk on by dinner time. I did the far end and middle last week. Couldn’t work on it while the kids were here. Had to do the last bit on Monday and Tuesday because rain was predicted for Thursday. So in between filling orders, I was out back, rolling stain onto my big ass deck. I used Deck Correct by Cobalt and I must say; it really does look like new! I just hope it holds up through the winter. I don’t want to have to do this every year.) I came down from my office when Jay got home and we replaced all the furniture and flower pots on to the finished deck. Then he mowed the lawn and we made dinner. No wine, I had to get back upstairs. After dinner I cranked out another bunch of ornaments. This morning dawned rainy. I’m so glad I finished the deck! I got to work early. I painted for three hours and brought my stack of ornaments up to the shop at lunch time. The place was closed today so Ginny and Merry could get things ready for the sale tomorrow and Saturday. I came home and hit the wall. I just got up from a two hour nap. I can’t run at this pace very long. |
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