Marsha Canham's Blog, page 3

What do you do when you run out of renovations?

Yeah, like that would ever happen *snort*.

So, it’s been a while…again…but as promised, I’m back with some updates and new pics. Firstly…Cabinet Guy. He’s been back a few times putting the finishing touches on things. I keep putting yellow post it notes on sticky cabinet doors or missing trim or lights that don’t work the way they should, and Cabinet Guy dutifully shows up and goes through the notes one at a time. I suspect he has begun to grind his teeth each time he sees one or gets a cheery (not) email from me. 

He was here the last time on Payton’s birthday, fussing with the hearth of the refaced fireplace in the kitchen while she and I had a rousing game of Hand and Foot. Every now and then I’d hear a giggle and he’d explain that he was getting flashbacks of when he and Jefferson were younger and we’d spend weeks up at the cottage, with the adults playing cards and the kids staying out of the way. At one point I suggested to Payton that we play for her birthday money and Jay yelled: “No! Don’t do it! If she wins, she WILL take it. It happened to me!”

Pillock.

So I assume he has one more visit to go just to clean up the two or three post-its still stuck to the walls. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see the end of this TEN MONTH reno job, just as much as I will be happy to finally get the ducts cleaned and see the last of the carpentry dust vanish. Must remember to send him a broom and plastic scoop for Christmas. I could always tell where he’d been working from the little pile of filings and sawdust he left behind.

All in all, however (and I’ve already posted the pics) I’m immensely pleased with all the work that’s been done. The kitchen seems more splendid each time I sit and study it. The family room is perfect. The upstairs bathroom, with the claw foot tub, makes me smile every time I walk past the door. He’s added TONS of storage in almost every room he’s worked in…and considering he’s worked in 7 out of 8 rooms, that gives all my trinkets, books, collectables, and STUFF a happy shelf or cupboard to occupy. I even have empty spaces!!!! *gasp*

With all the major work inside almost done…and I say major because there is still the dungeon to tackle…Landscape Guy was called in to start work on the outside. My last house sat on 3/4 of an acre and about half that was covered in splendid gardens. This house sits on maybe 1/4 acre and 99% of it was overgrown weeds, 20 yr old gnarly shrubs, grass that wasn’t grass anymore but a combination of clover, grass, weed, and more friggin pansies and out of control groundcover than I’ve ever seen before. Just last week I discovered that the lower tier of the front yard isn’t grass at all but a spread-out bed of tarragon. The enormous garden in the far corner is filled with everything from rhubarb to peonies, to ferns, to chives, to bluebells, to lillies, to yellow things, to white things, to big purple spikey ball things. There is a shrub in there too and some vines, along with a patch of *augh* asparagus. Blech. I was going to leave that patch until next spring and just concentrate on cleaning the upper tiers, but…with Austin working for me this summer, he just may learn a lot about gardening *evil grin*

Back to Landscaping Guy, however, he’s been working here for five weeks now. The first two days he had gone around the house with a machete, axe, pick, and shovels and whacked down the overgrown jungle that surrounded the place. He dug out trees and shrubs and made numerous trips to the dump with his van filled to the roof with all the crap he pulled out, trimmed, pruned, and hacked. He’s built fences and gates, he’s hauled gravel to shore up the six inch gap beneath the family room addition where the squirrels were making merry. He’s edged and turned over and planted gardens around three sides of the house and the garage. He’s hauled and spread a small mountain of mulch. He’s fixed plumbing issues with the outside taps (apparently the previous owner was unaware that one should drain the pipes in winter and most of them were cracked wide open) He dug out drainage tunnels and excavated a dozen or more railroad ties that were once, eons ago, steps leading down from the upper tier to the middle tier. Hell, he found a flagstone patio on the middle tier that was totally overgrown, and a rubber liner where there was once a pond.

My original plan for the front was to have stone steps replace the rotted railway ties, but that got changed as being too impractical. Then I was going to extend the present deck onto a lower level, but then I thought…I have three farking decks now, do I really need a fourth????? Nooooooooo. Keep in mind, each time I changed the design, Landscape Guy drew up plans, figured out materials, lined up equipment. After the deck got the big thumbs down, I thought he might get a little feisty when I said: I have a better idea!  But he didn’t. He just waited three or four days to make sure it was what I wanted. LOL

So what I wanted was an interlocking path across the front of the house, replacing icky non-grass and grotty old weedy, gnarly trees. Eventually I’ll have it go around into the back yard and join up with the existing stone patio, but for this year’s project…and budget…laying it across the front would make everything clean and lovely. It would also crown the spiffy new rock garden that spans the full front of the hill. He still has a few more days worth of touch-ups and finishing things like a step down from the deck and facings to cover the sides, but here are some before and after pics to show the progress from jungle to happy landscaping.

This was the garden outside my kitchen window, right at the front entrance.

This is how it looks now:

This was the side of the garage before, which faces the main front door

And here it is now:

Grotty side leading to the back:

And now:

Blah back patio before:

And now, my lovely and peaceful retreat with fern garden:

Front view of the upper tier before:

And after:

Path across the front of the house before:

And now:

 

 

Still a bit of work to do and the weeds and friggin pansies come up quicker than I can blast them with Round Up, but everything seems happy and ready to burst into bloom, which makes me happy and ready to…just sit back with a glass of wine and enjoy it!!!!

And…I almost forgot to mention my Harry Potter birdhouse! It already has residents!!!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my trials and tribulations. It never ends, of course. Next job up is the dungeon (the basement). Neither of the grandkids will venture down there willingly and I must confess I’m not too keen on it either. Bit of drywall, a ceiling, some paint….yeah. Much easier to reach the wine cellar then *g*.

 

 

Another pithy update on the New Digs.

I am literally wiped out most of the time these days. Finally down to a few dozen boxes instead of a few hundred, and half of those I can’t get to cuz they’re in the garage. Cabinet Guy says he’ll be finished SOON and he’ll clear some of the crap out of there so I might have a chance of finding stuff that’s missing. I can see some of the errant boxes if I squint into the gloom of the shelves in the garage and read the son’s writing on the sides. My good wine glasses, for instance. LOL. Where else would you put a box that has FRAGILE written all over the sides, and MOM’S GOOD GLASSES, and CARRY AT OWN PERIL?  Yeah, I’d stick that in a cramped little garage *snort*.

Landscaping Guy is moving like a dervish. Five days work and he’s torn out all the scraggly trees and overgrown 40 yr old ugly shrubs and dug up at least two dozen stumps and root balls, cleared a bazillion weeds, and turned the earth in three gardens. He’s had me running almost as fast to buy plants and shrubs and trees to replace the old stuff, but I now have three new, loverly gardens and he’s starting around the side and back next week. He’s leaving the deck and stairs and icky rock gardens to the last, and I don’t blame him. Big jobs. But knowing Mikey, he’ll zoom through them like shit through a duck. Probably not a good metaphor, but it works for me. LOL

I also went out and bought myself a Big Girl drill with bits and everything. Always wanted to play with a drill but Stupid would never let me. Now I have a big honker all charged up and ready to do stuff. I also have my very own electric lawn mower. Not saying I know how to use it, and not saying I will…isn’t that why we have sons and grandsons???

MOST of the rooms are finished. My office and bedroom furniture was permanently fixed and fitted on Friday, the doors balanced and the crown moulding restored. Even have my keyboard shelf attached again. Woo hoo. There were a few setbacks in other rooms. I had him take apart the bathroom pocket door cuz it didn’t work…I couldn’t reach the water shut-offs and that made me freak a little. He’s redoing a section of the fireplace surround as well to fix something that was bugging me. And I’ll need to get a Plumber Guy in cuz with all these gardens going in, the old farmhouse pump and well just isn’t cutting it. After Landscaping Guy finishes planting, my job is to water, but as I found out yesterday, there isn’t enough pressure in the pump to work a sprinkler. Most of the outside taps are cracked and leaky, which sorta gives me an idea why, if the idiots who lived here before me couldn’t be bothered to fix anything, why the gardens and lawns are in such an ugly state. Does NOT explain how they could live here for at least four years with the smell of raw sewage from unvented and wrongly installed drainage pipes in the basement. Or how they could fail to notice, if not smell, the inch thick mouse crap that was everywhere. Or how they could fail to notice that someone had disconnected the heating vent to the bathroom and simply rerouted it into the family room instead of installing new vents. It’s a good thing I don’t winter here because the heating system sucks, the floors are like ice in the newer half of the kitchen and the family room addition. The latter can be explained by the fact the underneath of the family room is completely open. I had squirrels taking up residence under there last week, scuffling around under the floorboards and driving Suzie nuts. Four bags of moth balls took care of that temporarily, but that’s another job Landscaping Guy is going to tackle next week. Even before I moved in, my son closed up all the open air highways leading inside through the foundation and stopped the mouse problem; hopefully Mikey can block up all the highways leading under the family room.

Oh, and I found a basement window I didn’t know was there…and a third chimney. Also found the old coal shute.  Now if I could just find those wine glasses…..

The light at the end of the tunnel

Okay, so I’ve been home for 10 days, and I must admit I came through the door with some trepidation. While I was wintering in Florida, I got mixed messages from home about how the progress was going on all the renovations. Cabinet Guy, naturally, said that everything was progressing as planned. The DIL sent emails and pictures showing, as of a week before I was supposed to return, that nothing was close to being finished. Luckily there was still snow and cold weather here, so I delayed my return for a week, giving Cabinet Guy some extra time…which he apparently needed to do major clean up.  (Why is it that men think their farts don’t stink and their boots don’t leave dust behind???)

So to set my homecoming mood a little, yes, we left sunny, hot Florida a week ago Saturday. I was driving by myself, following another couple, keeping in touch via walkie talkies which worked out great. We had frequent stops but still made pretty good time to Wytheville Va, rolling into a Best Western around 10:00 that night. Asked for and were given non smoking rooms where a pet was allowed, cuz I had Suzie, my little dawg, who did not sleep a wink on the long drive. She hates car rides and usually sits stiff-legged and owl-eyed regardless how long the trip takes. When my Brother in Law and I drive down, straight through without stopping, Suzie sits stiff-legged and owl-eyed for the full 22 hrs.

Normally, I have no problems with Best Western but on this trip, tired and seeing crosseyed from driving all that time, I checked into a non smoking room that smelled like the ashes on the bottom of seven day old ashtray left outside to get crusty and molder in the heat. Worse, at some point a cat had stayed in the room, and while they never bothered me when I was younger, I go into sneezing fits now if I’m around one. So there I was…hastily changed into jammies cuz I was tired, snuggled up in bed with Suzie, who was asleep the instant she found an accommodating pillow. I started sneezing in earnest around midnight, and because most of my things were packed sardine-style in the car, had nothing to take for it, not that I would have ventured out into a dark parking at that time of night anyway. The smell of the old smoke started to work on me too, having quit the habit before Christmas, so by 4am, I gave up trying to sleep at all and watched reruns of NCIS until it was time to get up and drive again. Yes, I did complain to the front desk advising them to make note of the rooms where cats stay. My own sneezy reaction was mild compared to how my son would have reacted. He swells up like a bloated yak and his throat closes within five minutes of breathing feline fumes. The manager’s reaction? “So sorry you were inconvenienced, dear, but why didn’t you call the front desk we would have changed your room?”  Well, the hotel was full, for one thing. For another, it was 4am when I was most uncomfortable, and not in any mood to go slogging to another room.

Even more fun, when we went outside in the morning it was raining. And it rained alllllllll day long, all the way north from Virginia to Ontario. More fun…there was an hour and a half line up to cross the border (Although I did get to play with some of the previously unexplored buttons and knobs on my car and found out how to lower the aim of the headlights so they don’t blind the person I’m following. Sorry Jim, but who knew?) So it wasn’t until close to 10:30 pm that I pulled up in front of the son’s house, where I was staying the next two nights with the kidlets while the parental units were off for a weekend to celebrate Jefferson’s 40th birthday. Yes. My baby turned 40. I suppose that means I must adjust my age slightly upward as well, since few will still believe it hasn’t changed in the last ten years. Bummer.

Kids were happy to see me, I was happy to see them. Suzie was so happy she crapped all over their living room, so I spent a good part of that initial homecoming two days steam cleaning their carpets. *snort*

On to my own little abode. Again, with some trepidation, I drove the few short blocks and was met at the door by Cabinet Guy, who looked like he was suffering major trepidations of his own. Not sure if I mentioned it somewhere in these reno blogs that I’ve known Cabinet Guy since he came home from the hospital in his mother’s arms. So I have no qualms about smacking him upside the head, and he is very much aware that I will do so if I’m not happy with something.

First thing I saw was the new storm door and steel door on the kitchen. They replaced an ugly brown screenless thing and a scratched up wooden door with single-paned window inserts that let in more cold air than an AC unit. Woo hoo, good start.

Then came the kitchen, and I must say I was holding my breath a little. To save having to flip back, here’s how it looked to begin with, taken all those months ago with a fisheye lens….

And…..

Here’s how it looks now…(taken with my iPod cuz I haven’t unpacked my camera yet *snort*)

Ugly white cupboards…gone. Blue tiled island…gone. Outdated angelstone fireplace…gone. Useless (and hollow) bulkheads…gone. The placement of the sink and stove were reversed and the dishwasher was installed in the island. The pic doesn’t do justice to the height of the cupboards or the size of the pantry, nor do they show all the secret spice drawers and corner nooks that look like solid wood but they open up to store trays and cutting boards etc. And all the drawers and cupboards are slam-proof, they close softly on their own unless you dive at them like a linebacker.

I think I actually hugged Cabinet Guy…Jason…he of The Woodworking Shop in Brampton, Ont. Yes, that is a shameless plug. The cabinets are gorgeous, I have almost as much storage space as I did in my huge kitchen in the other house, but the workmanship is soooo much better. I’m very very happy with the result and it was almost…allllllmost worth all the aggravations. LOL

The second most amazing transformations happened in the bathrooms. You may recall the long, narrow 50′s era pink arborite, pink tile, pink toilet, pink sink, dwarf washer and dryer beside a dingy, and claustrophobic shower that I never would set foot in?

Well, thanks to Bathroom Guy, it was completely gutted, walls pulled down, bulkheads again removed, the jaundice-inducing florescent light box ripped out and the dwarf machines dispatched to Snow White’s camp.  Mind you, the bathroom is still long and narrow, and fitting full sized machines in was a bit of a magic act, but it all works….

With the ugly half wall and bulkheads removed, the shower is twice the size of the old one, the slate is gorgeous, the double shower heads are mahhhh-vellous! Especially after a long day of unpacking, sweeping, dusting, washing…augh. And you can sorta see the original farmhouse window on the left that Bathroom Guy found buried behind the drywall. It has been restored and painted and I’ll be putting mirrors into the four arched panes. Very spiffy.

As for the upstairs bathroom…*sigh* Once again, I think I hugged young Jason.

It’s not that it was so terrible when I first saw it. I mean who can complain about a deep two-person jacuzzi with a million jets? Ummm…maybe the person who has to use two tanks of hot water to fill it?

So here is the original…

And the new look…

What the original photo didn’t show was the incredibly grotty, gross, plastic shower on the right hand side of the room, which, as you can see by the middle pic, was replaced with a huge new linen closet and three deep drawers. That stained glass pic was a birthday gift I made for my dad for his 70th birthday, and Jason has built it into the wall with tiny lights behind it. I *know* there was a tear in my eye when I saw it.

The other major reno job was the family room, but as you can see the Guys are still working on it. When they’ve finished…I’ll post more pics.

I hate giving writers advice.

That goes for all writers. New writers, experienced writers, weekend writers. I tend to be blunt when asked to do a critique. I look at the work as if it was my own—which is probably mistake #1—and criticize accordingly. On the other hand, I’ve been through the grist mill, suffered editors with bad attitudes, editors who wanted me to change my books to what ‘they’ would have written, and enough rejections to fill a thick file folder. But that was my trial by fire. Each and every one of those rejections, those criticisms and comments made me take a harsher look at my writing. They more or less forced me to improve my craft, to read more outside genre to see what I could do differently to avoid those dreaded words: predictable and stereotypical.

 

Romance novels surely must suffer the most from those two words. There can only be so many ways two people can start out at opposite sides of the room and come together at the end to waltz happily away into the sunset. I would say the majority of central plot lines begin with the hero and heroine being antagonists, then they go through some crisis or have an epiphany that brings them passionately together. It’s the stuff a good romance is made of. And it’s predictable, from page one, if the heroine is feisty and strong-spirited and goes against the social norms of the day, and if the hero is darkly dangerous, a womanizer, a rake convinced he will never fall in love or marry.

 

I write historical romances, so I’m super critical when I read one and I honestly read as few of them as possible. That qualification aside, my litmus test is the first chapter. If I can see the entire plot spool out in front of me in those first few pages, then I gently set it aside…not unlike, I would imagine, what editors in publishing houses do.

 

And that brings me to the reason I sat down with this blog….(that and a cloudy day threatening rain *s*)…that being one of the major problems with self publishing.

 

As previously mentioned, I have a rejection file an inch thick. They were accumulated over the course of my first four manuscripts, all of which, in turn, I considered to be  brilliant, ingenious, passion-inspiring, intriguing, exciting…yada yada yada.

 

All of which sucked.

 

I think I’ve mentioned before that when I used to do workshops on revising and self-editing, I usually handed out a Xeroxed copy of a horribly written chapter from some anonymous author and asked the writers to critique it. After the gales of laughter some of the honest criticisms inspired, after it had been torn apart and pilloried front to back, I told them the chapter came from my first manuscript. There was always a long, heavy silence after the admission, but in the end, they got the point. I learned from my mistakes. Each rejection made me take a long hard look at those manuscripts until I understood…or thought I understood the problems in each one. And for the next book, I would try to change or improve. I like to say the process is like going to school. You don’t go from kindergarten straight to high school, you have to endure all those years of learning in between.

 

And that is what is missing these days, with the ease of self publishing. There is no in between. There is no trial by fire, no rejection slips that make a writer sit back and wonder why, why? What’s wrong with it?

 

The writer writes a book s/he thinks is brilliant, ingenious, passion-inspiring, intriguing and exciting and she puts it up on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Smashwords etc then sits back to wait for the flood of fantastic reviews and avalanche of sales.  When neither of those things happen, the writer is stunned, confused, angry, even discouraged. If so and so can write an indy book and publish it herself and sell a gazillion copies, why can’t I?

 

Well, maybe because it sucks.

 

And NO, I’m not saying ALL indy books suck, so don’t threaten to send me a bag full of fleas and a smelly old yak to foster them.  I’m merely saying that there are good indy books out there, there are indy books that could be better, and there are indy books that would never have made it past the desk of an assistant editor.

 

There are a gazillion blogs out there by new and experienced writers who say the most important part of writing a book is having that book edited. I agree wholeheartedly. As much as I may be somewhat confident that I sometimes know how to weave a storyline together, and as much as I edit myself half to death and revise and revise and revise… I still don’t trust what I see or do on paper. I have readers who take the pages and, I hope, give me honest critiques. If it sucks, I want to know. My ego isn’t that huge that I expect every word I write to be a gem and that I don’t need editing or proofing. A quick read through some of my blogs is proof of that *snort*. And yes, when I was typing out China Rose and Bound by the Heart, and The Wind and the Sea in order to self publish them, I groaned out loud and banged my head on the desk multiple times at the adjective overkill and the wordiness of scenes where I took 50 words to say what I could have said in 10.  The storylines held up, the writing sure didn’t, and again, I credit those theoretical years in between a writers kindergarten and high school where I learned how to say what I wanted to say in those 10 words, where I learned to make pictures out of words and scenes that would suck a reader in and make her flip those pages faster to see what happened next.

 

I did an interview not long ago when I was asked if, in this day and age of self publishing, did I regret or resent the years it took me to get my first book into print. My answer was no. All those rejections made me more determined, made me a better writer (I hope), made me think the indy writers today are missing out on those learning years. Then again, perhaps not missing them entirely because if they’re savvy enough and take a good hard look at why their book isn’t selling, they might channel some of that confusion and discouragement and determination into making the next book better.

 

Please, no yaks. No fleas.

Friends and lifelong friendships

Having just returned from a week in New Mexico with friends, I thought I’d scribble a few random thoughts on the subject. Friends, not New Mexico…although I must say the scenery and atmosphere in Albuquerque was some of the most beautiful I’ve seen. Probably not to the residents, who see the desert and mountains and mesas every day, but for someone who comes from a land of forests and lakes and snow…it’s pretty damned spectacular.

I went to Albuquerque to visit friends, and we were sitting around one night trying to figure out exactly how long we’ve known each other. You may have seen “Surfergirl” posting on my facebook page or here. It was here, on the internet,  where we started our friendship. We both frequented the same message boards years and years ago (we figured it was close to 20 years) when the internet was something shiny and new and computers were sold with 450 Ram memories, not a gigabyte in sight. They took ten minutes to turn on and warm up and at least a full 60 seconds to pull up a site, so commenting on message boards was an exercise in patience. There were several of us who bonded through humour…Judi was one, flip and Becca were two others who have stayed in touch. Perky, aka Jill Metcalf, joined a little late in the game and became one of the Intrepids, and still is. But we sort of lost touch with Penny and Ruth, Queenie and Cathy. Judi and Becca were the original adventurers who decided to venture north to the Tundra and visit a barely known author…me…who extended the invitation without really thinking THEY might think I was some kind of a nutcase. (And with me not thinking THEY might be nutcases LOL). But venture forth they did and we spent a great week eating and snorking good wine and generally laughing ourselves into fits every night. After that, there were other visits, back and forth, with me going to California (with Stupid) and Judi coming north with her hubby, Dave.  Penny, Cathy, and Queenie came north one year, when Romantic Times held their conference in Toronto, but to my regret, I never did meet flip or Ruth. Jill was already in Toronto, albeit on the very opposite side of the city, so I see her the most, and I’ve known her the longest.

Perky and I first met at another conference…I think it was an RWA event. Virginia Henley and I were walking along a hallway, passing through a lounge, and we were chatting away…or at least I was chatting away. Virginia had stopped halfway through the room, distracted by a lifesized cardboard cutout of a male model with very few clothes on and was chatting him up while I carried on chatting with empty air. Jill, watching from a couch, was in hysterics, and thus a 30 year friendship, which I treasure, was born.

Virginia, at the time, also lived in Toronto. We first met in the Avon Canada offices. She flounced in like the amazing diva she was…and still is…in a white fur coat with a matching white fur hat perched on a jaunty, diva-like angle. A great effect if she didn’t keep having to blow puffs of air to dislodge the fur from her lips. We were both new authors at the time and our books had been chosen to launch the Avon Ribbon Romance line. This was back in ’82 and we’ve been close friends ever since…and oh, the stories we could tell LOL

Our writing careers took different paths and it was quite a few years later when Virginia and I both found ourselves writing for the same house again, this time Dell, where we fell in with another motley crew of authors who afterward called ourselves the Loopies: Jill Gregory, Jacquie D’Alessandro, Connie Brockway, Julia London, Julie Ortolon, Sherri Browning Erwin, and the late and sorely missed Kathleen Givens. The Loopies have been sharing good times and bad, tears and laughter for the last fifteen years…a long, long time in this cutthroat business and I have valued every moment.

I’ve lived in three whacky neighbourhoods and acquired three whacky sets of neighbours and friends. There were the Eden Pit years, when I was there at the birth of Kitchen Guy (who should remember the fact that I HAVE diapered him and so I know exactly what to cut off if the renovations aren’t finished by the time I return to the Tundra)  and the North Noake years, where my son joined a baseball team and the parents all became close friends in yet another motley crew. Some of those parents are still best friends of mine today, one of whom…Gaile Brockman…was the catalyst to my current migration to Florida during the winter months…and my introduction to yet another splendid group of friends who also migrate south and have become the Hand and Foot Card Cult Club. And yes, we play cards whilst wearing our bling and our fascinators! Tres chic, doncha  know.  But Gaile and her hubby Bob are like family…our sons both turn 40 this year and we’ve been close for 26 of those years. Gaile and another baseball parent, Bunky, and I have stayed very close and dubbed ourselves the Three Muskatels for our affinity for good wine and many goofy adventures through the years.

Going back further, to the Bell Telephone years, I met Helen and her hubby Les, both of whom would drop anything and show up at my doorstep on a mere phone call. They were enormous help and support through the Apocalypse…aka the Divorce…and more recently, the Move.  Not sure what I would have done or how I would have managed to keep my sanity and humour over the past three years without Helen and Les and Bob and Gaile. I hope they know they can depend on me just as much.

And even further back, I made friends with a goofy guy from the Dominican Republic. He was an exchange student who came to my high school for grades 12 and 13. A bunch of us sort of adopted him because he had never seen snow before, never walked on ice, and much like Ziva David on NCIS, mangled his English phrases enough to have us falling out of our chairs laughing.  We stayed in touch for a few years after high school, but then kind of drifted away on our own paths for 45 years or so. Some people question the value of Facebook and think it more of an intrusion and an annoyance rather than anything of worth, but because of Facebook, Eduardo and I have gotten in touch again and it’s like nothing has really changed. Hearing his voice over the phone was like being back in those classrooms and bringing back all the great memories of the laughs we shared and the trouble we got into.  One thing that did surprise me was the fact that we both saved pictures and correspondence we had written to one another all those years ago. He kept a poem I had written and I kept letters and pictures…even through the recent blitz when I was filling dumpsters with all those keepsakes gathered through the years, treasured at the time, but merely dust collectors when vying for limited space.

To all my friends, new and old…know that you have enriched my life beyond any and all expectations. I value each and every one of you…and there are dozens more I haven’t mentioned here, but you know who you are. *I* know who you are, and I thank you for all the love and laughter, the tears, the adventures, the moments of utter amazement. I hope we have many more years of memories to make.

In my own words, taken from that poem I wrote sooooo many years ago in the waning months of high school when none of us really knew what the future would hold…

I used to sit and think

How good it would be, to be

Part of something that wasn´t now

Or even then. Something new

And yet as old as a passing thought

That slips by on a summer´s evening.

I always thought that someday

A day would come when time was free;

Endless and bounding, filling my life.

But it´s not. Someday is gone; today is left

And today is just a hope for tomorrow -

Tomorrow.

How long can someone wish for tomorrow?

Today is what we have; what is real.

Now is time enough to live without borrowing,

And that is all that dreaming is -

Borrowing.

You borrow time, and hope, and chance

And in the end, none are the answer;

Nothing happens, except that the dreams become longer

And become harder to escape from. I hope I do.

I don´t want to dream of life;

I want to live it.

Well, folks, I have and am still living it. And I have loved every damned minute, even the ugly ones when I thought today would never be over and tomorrow would never come. Thats what friends do for you. They take you out of your head and drag you in to the daylight. They hold your hand while you’re venturing down unknown paths and they give you the push and support you need when you come to a fork and don’t know which way to turn. It was Diane Kelly (Kitchen Guy’s mom) who dared me to write my first book, and even though it took six years and four unpublished manuscripts before the challenge was met, she didn’t let me give up.

That’s what friends are for and I hoard them like gold.

Kumquats, Fascinators, and Kitchen Guy

I’m sure some of you are curious/dying to know how the renovations are coming along. As it happens, so am I. *snort*  Other than the occasional email, instigated by me with a subtle WHAT’S GOING ON UP THERE? I haven’t had a whole lot of feedback. I know the upstairs bathroom has been gutted, new drywall is up, the seams taped and mudded. I can only hope Kitchen Guy (who is now wearing two hats as Bathroom Guy as well…so maybe I should just call him Reno Guy) was properly schooled by his mom to close all extraneous doors in order to confine the dust and debris to the one room. What are the odds?

I knew the bathroom was done before Reno Guy sent a picture because the daughter in law went in to water the plants and happened to notice a piece of paper lying face down on the kitchen counter. She turned it over and saw a note in big block letters saying Do Not Turn on the Water!!!!!  Apparently Reno Guy had taken the bathroom apart and had not yet capped off the water pipes up there. The way things have been going so far, a fountainous spray from two outlets on the upper floor would have fit right in with the rest of the happenings. One must be thankful for small mercies…and for a curious DIL. The tile for the floor has been ordered, however, after which the clawfoot tub will be shlepped upstairs and will no longer serve as a conversation piece in the family room.

Other than that it has, apparently, been “too @#%#$ cold” outside to do any cutting, so the kitchen remains as I left it, without any crown mouldings over the cabinets or facings on the fireplace.

Probably a good thing I’m NOT there or veins would have popped long ago.

But I’m not there and I’m here enjoying sunny Florida weather. I can certainly spare sympathy for those mired under the white stuff and freezing off their nose hairs. Seriously, I can. And almost without smiling. All of us ladies in the Hand and Foot Cult Club exchange sympathetic murmurings every evening that we get together to play some cards and toast the warm Florida sunshine.

As you may know, if you have followed other blogs during other winter months, the six of us gather once or twice, sometimes thrice a week to play a rousing game of Hand and Foot. It’s very much like Canasta and there are a bazillion different rules and methods of playing, and long ago we decided to cull the best of the rules that applied to our style of laughing much, being serious less. Adding to the levity, we have occasionally show up with new pieces of bling to add to the ambiance. First up was lovely expandable rings with genuine rhinestone chips surrounding majorly huge coloured stones. Then came headbands glittering with jewelled flowers. Then came two bracelets apiece, equally charming in their gaudiness. We also have sunglasses shaped like martini glasses. And  key chain fobs that say LAUGH in fashionable lime green.

This year started out with sparkly little bows on bobby pins and…when the last member of the troupe finally arrived…fascinators!   Yes. Fascinators!  The aforementioned tardy member and I were shopping in the quaint little village of Port Perry during the summer and decided that we all needed little feathered fascinators. Past history of shopping excursions with Ms Brockman have usually come up with unusual, quirky, and often downright pee-your-pants astoundingly grand ideas, but this one was well worth the wait for her to vacate the snowy Tundra and join us in the sunny south.

The response from the other ladies was picture perfect. Three of us were in on the nefarious plan, but all of us laughed so much we almost didn’t get to play cards. All we need now are the white lace gloves!!  LOL

We don’t just play cards, which brings me to the kumquat part of the blog. We had decided we should so some daytime excursions and first up on the list was the Kumquat Festival in Dade City. An annual event for some, (Some? Hah. There had to be a few hundred thousand crowding the streets!!!!!) but while we six sort of knew what kumquats were, none of us had really done anything with them. One of us had made a kumquat pie before, and I had dabbled with kumquat marmalade last year, but we thought we could expand our knowledge base by seeing what else could be done with the little peckers.

So we set off on our Griswald Adventure at 8am sharp, and good thing we did. Despite the grumbling from SOME over the early hour, we managed to scarf almost the last available parking spot within a quarter mile of the festivities. Others who were not so canny as to leave early had to park miles away, literally, and wait for big pink shuttle buses to shlepp them to the festivities.

And what did we discover on our knowledge-seeking quest? We discovered kumquat salad dressing and kumquat barbque sauce. Kumquat marmalades and jellies. Kumquat marinades, kumquat soda, kumquat salsa, kumquat chutney, kumquat fudge, kumquat ice cream, kumquat pies, and…ta da! Kumquat wine!  As we prowled the crowded streets, we planned the kumquat pot luck dinner that was to take place the next day. Everything had to be made with or contain kumquats, and it was a smashing success. We had kumquat appetizers, kumquat salad, kumquat meat balls, kumquat chicken, kumquat quinoa, all quaffed with several bottles of kumquat wine, and finished off with kumquat pie! Seriously good victuals from a seriously innocuous-looking little citrus bulb. And because the pie was so scrumptious, I’ll share the recipe here. Try it. You won’t be sorry.

1 graham cracker pie crust

8 oz  Cool Whip

2/3 cup kumquat puree (about a pint of kumquats seeded and whizzed up smooth, peel and all)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup lemon juice

Beat condensed milk and cool whip, add lemon juice and beat until thickened. Add kumquat puree, pour into pie shell and chill for several hours.

Piers Morgan and other pithy thoughts

Whilst the Card Cult was having a rousing game of Hand and Foot last night, we paused in our laughter to catch a few minutes of the Piers Morgan show. Most of us could only take a few minutes of watching the raving, foaming idiot who was the guest last night and whose name was so forgettable I don’t even feel like looking it up. But he was the bozo who has started the petition to have Piers deported for his stance against gun-toting idiots like the frothing fool who was there to represent and defend the 2nd Amendment last night. He did not answer one single question Piers asked…when he was able to squeeze in a question over the rantings of the Fool. Said Fool chose instead to shake his fist and point his finger and literally scream at Piers all the reasons why idiots like him have the right to carry automatic weapons. Gave all of us a warm, tingly feeling listening to him.

To his immense credit Piers Morgan remained calm. Totally calm. Amazingly calm. I’ve seen him go ballistic on the X Files for far less aggravation than the Fool was handing out last night, and frankly I was never a fan of his. I could, having become a rabid fan of Downton Abbey, see him as Lord of a Manor…cool, distant, arrogant, holding himself head and shoulders above the downstairs staff. However…last night he gained huge points in my opinion of him. Frankly, if I had been the host, I would have broken the Fool’s finger first time he shoved it in my face. I would have returned from a commercial break, hair askew, jacket torn, buttons missing, fists bruised, offering sweet apologies as to why the Fool suddenly had to leave the show. Any faint sounds of an ambulance in the background would have been blocked out by the cheers of the audience.

So what point was Piers Morgan trying to make? His stance is simple: why on earth does Mr. Jones next door need an automatic weapon like the one that did so much horrendous damage at Sandy Hook? It wasn’t a handgun, which could be justified as being needed for self defense, although handguns in the wrong hands can do just as much damage, albeit at a slower rate. It was an automatic rifle bought by the shooter’s MOTHER. Why? And she had three or four other guns in the house that her psycho son had free access to.  Why?

I had to go to the emerge dept in the local hospital the other night, and before I could get past the door, I had to go through a metal detector and have my purse searched by one of three armed guards. He was very polite and efficient, but really? Three armed guards in an emergency department? And now the NRA is wanting to put armed guards in every school down here? What message is that sending to the youth of this nation? To the world in general? Did I feel any safer lying in the exam room? Actually no. While I was waiting for my blood pressure to go down to a reasonable level, I kept wondering what would happen if there were actual gunshots out in the lobby. Was there any place to hide? Anywhere to run?

I’m not normally a paranoid person. But when I see fools like the frothing idiot who was on TV last night, and when I think:  he was the one representing the other gun-toting fools…over a hundred thousand of them!!!!!!…who signed the petition to have Piers deported…I *don’t* get a warm fuzzy feeling about where this fine country is headed. Granted, I’m Canadian, and while we have our share of gun-related problems, we certainly don’t have THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION weapons floating around out there amongst the citizens. And those are only the ones that are REGISTERED!!!!!

I recall a few years back, maybe 10 or so, when Stupid and I were down for our annual vacation in St. Petes Beach, there had been some sort of local state election and someone had not been on the ball when wording one of the propositions attached to the ballot. In essence it said anyone could carry a weapon anywhere, any time, as long as it was not concealed. Within a day of a few scathing editorials, there were tables set up in front of the local K-Mart manned by staff who were checking  handguns from shoppers before they went into the store.  Shop, exit, hand over your ticket and get your gun back.  Yeah, that gave us all a warm, tingly feeling too.

My personal opinion? No one needs to have an automatic weapon, be it a handgun or a rifle, for “personal protection”.  I grew up around guns, my dad was a cop for 35 years and had a collection locked safely away in cabinet in the basement. He taught me to shoot when I was young but the noise and the recoil scared me so much I never had more than one or two lessons. The scariest sight I EVER saw was my mother, after the Chief had passed away, walking down to her vegetable garden with a 45 in her apron pocket. She had never fired a gun in her life and would undoubtedly shoot off her own foot had she attempted it. I imagine most of the gun-toting Fools who scream about 2nd Amendment rights have spent many a Saturday afternoon at the gun ranges taking pot shots at beer bottles and empty tuna cans. But what about the other 300 million who haven’t? What about the kids who find a gun in the front closet and pull the trigger and end up shooting their brother or sister? Or the housewife who gets pissed off at a neighbour and fires an Uzi at her?  That would, of course, support the argument that it isn’t the gun that kills people, it’s the people firing them…but if the people didn’t have the guns in first place, they would have nothing to fire except spitballs!!!! Duh!!!!!!

Okay, rant over. On to pleasanter pithy perusings.

This was the first Christmas I spent away from my home and family. I managed to escape the cold and the snow without having to once put on a heavy winter jacket. Woo hoo for me! Arrived in sunny Florida to sunshine and 80 degree weather and instantly went to the local WallyMart to get decorations for the house. I’ve never had to light up a palm tree, but the grin was ear to ear as I did so. I brought a few things from home, including a small fake tree, which also went up the second day I was here. Put out all the Christmas dishes and hung the decorations and even won first prize on the street for my efforts! My son and DIL were worried a little about me being all alone Christmas, but as the day approached, I was too busy going house to house for happy hours to worry about it myself *g*.  Christmas Eve had a marvellous dinner at one neighbour’s house, Christmas Day had the turkey and all the fixings at another neighbour’s house. Great food, great company, and the next day…which is our Boxing Day and the day I usually have all of our friends and family over for the Big Dinner….my son and his family flew in for a 10 day stay. Would have been totally perfect if my knee hadn’t blown up Christmas Eve, severely limiting my mobility. I had wanted to go to Disney with the family, and I had wanted to take them to Discovery Cove, but I wouldn’t have lasted an hour at either place, so that goes on the agenda for next year.

NOT that I would have lasted at Disney much longer even if I wasn’t limping and hobbling around like Grammy Gump. The kids went mid-week just after Christmas and according to Jefferson, who has been to Disney a bazillion times, he’d never seen crowds like that before. Christmas Day, he was told, the Magic Kingdom had reached it’s capacity by 9am. Lines for the rides were 90 min long. The traffic for miles around the park was stopped. Not even stop and go. Just stopped.  We waited over an hour one night to get a table at Chilis, for heaven sakes.

Fast forward a week and the streets are empty. The holiday frenzy has faded completely away and stores and restaurants are back to normal. The next mad rush will be at March break, but by then we’ll all be swanned out by the pool and won’t care. LOL.

Speaking of pools, the one here in the park is solar heated and very large, so that a cloudy day and a cool evening can affect the water temps by a few degrees either way. Payton was determined to go swimming, however, and even though the whole family had their suits on and took towels with them to sprawl out in the sun, she was the only one to hurl herself off the side of the pool and jump into 69 degree water.  Bravo!

The chaos of their visit was wonderful and I miss them already. I would lay in bed in the mornings and listen to the two munchkins coming awake and was reminded of my own youth when my sister and I shared a bed. “You touched me!”  “I did not, YOU touched me!” “Your foot was on my side of the bed!” “You took all the blankets!” “You took both of the best pillows!” “You’re on MY side…MOMMMMMMM!”  “Stop pushing me!” “Stop laughing at me, it isn’t funny!” “Ewww you farted!”

Yep, I just lay there and grinned, listening.

As for my knee, the swelling…which was impressive…has gone down enough that I can almost walk without limping. What did I do to it? Nothing. Nothing at all. I went shopping in the morning for groceries, came home and fussed around in the kitchen for a bit making the egg nog for Christmas Eve dinner, and by 4 o’clock it was up like grapefruit. I called one of the neighbours to drive me the block and a half for dinner because I didn’t think I could walk it. By 9pm I couldn’t bend it and it looked like a football. I couldn’t bend it enough to even get back into the car, despite all efforts of the three gentlemen attempting to heave me inside. We tried the front seat first but the leg wouldn’t make it off the pavement. Someone had the clever idea of lying down across the back seat, which I tried, but without any leverage, I couldn’t slide across enough to get all 5′ 9″ of me into the car. Someone else had the bright idea of riding in the trunk with the hatch up. Tried that. No go. Again, couldn’t get leg up without excruciating pain. Verdict? Walk home with the aide of a cane on one side and a helper on the other. Again, a week or so later and I can laugh about it. Took me about fifteen minutes to hobble home that night, aided by a friend who had had both his knees replaced so he knew the pain of what I was going through. Once home I was force- fed pain pills by another neighbour who came back an hour later to check on me…he even made me lift my tongue to make sure I had swallowed both pills. So…I’m guessing my knee will be bionic before too long. I’d been hoping to delay the inevitable for a few more years, but the grinding and crunching with each step is telling me different. Blah.

And now for the part of the blog you’ve all been waiting for: an update on the progress of Kitchen Guy and Bathroom Guy!

I don’t have any.

Jefferson checked the house before they came down and nothing else had been done. Gentle queries via email have gone unanswered. Electrician Guy will be heading south, hopefully, by the end of this week, so Kitchen Guy will be SOL if he doesn’t tell Electrician Guy what has to be done before he leaves. There is a clawfoot bathtub sitting in my family room at the moment. It better not be there when I return home. And no that doesn’t mean just shift it to another room *snort*

Piers Morgan and other pithy thoughts

Whilst the Card Cult was having a rousing game of Hand and Foot last night, we paused in our laughter to catch a few minutes of the Piers Morgan show. Most of us could only take a few minutes of watching the raving, foaming idiot who was the guest last night and whose name was so forgettable I don’t even feel like looking it up. But he was the bozo who has started the petition to have Piers deported for his stance against gun-toting idiots like the frothing fool who was there to represent and defend the 2nd Amendment last night. He did not answer one single question Piers asked…when he was able to squeeze in a question over the rantings of the Fool. Said Fool chose instead to shake his fist and point his finger and literally scream at Piers all the reasons why idiots like him have the right to carry automatic weapons. Gave all of us a warm, tingly feeling listening to him.

To his immense credit Piers Morgan remained calm. Totally calm. Amazingly calm. I’ve seen him go ballistic on the X Files for far less aggravation than the Fool was handing out last night, and frankly I was never a fan of his. I could, having become a rabid fan of Downton Abbey, see him as Lord of a Manor…cool, distant, arrogant, holding himself head and shoulders above the downstairs staff. However…last night he gained huge points in my opinion of him. Frankly, if I had been the host, I would have broken the Fool’s finger first time he shoved it in my face. I would have returned from a commercial break, hair askew, jacket torn, buttons missing, fists bruised, offering sweet apologies as to why the Fool suddenly had to leave the show. Any faint sounds of an ambulance in the background would have been blocked out by the cheers of the audience.

So what point was Piers Morgan trying to make? His stance is simple: why on earth does Mr. Jones next door need an automatic weapon like the one that did so much horrendous damage at Sandy Hook? It wasn’t a handgun, which could be justified as being needed for self defense, although handguns in the wrong hands can do just as much damage, albeit at a slower rate. It was an automatic rifle bought by the shooter’s MOTHER. Why? And she had three or four other guns in the house that her psycho son had free access to.  Why?

I had to go to the emerge dept in the local hospital the other night, and before I could get past the door, I had to go through a metal detector and have my purse searched by one of three armed guards. He was very polite and efficient, but really? Three armed guards in an emergency department? And now the NRA is wanting to put armed guards in every school down here? What message is that sending to the youth of this nation? To the world in general? Did I feel any safer lying in the exam room? Actually no. While I was waiting for my blood pressure to go down to a reasonable level, I kept wondering what would happen if there were actual gunshots out in the lobby. Was there any place to hide? Anywhere to run?

I’m not normally a paranoid person. But when I see fools like the frothing idiot who was on TV last night, and when I think:  he was the one representing the other gun-toting fools…over a hundred thousand of them!!!!!!…who signed the petition to have Piers deported…I *don’t* get a warm fuzzy feeling about where this fine country is headed. Granted, I’m Canadian, and while we have our share of gun-related problems, we certainly don’t have THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION weapons floating around out there amongst the citizens. And those are only the ones that are REGISTERED!!!!!

I recall a few years back, maybe 10 or so, when Stupid and I were down for our annual vacation in St. Petes Beach, there had been some sort of local state election and someone had not been on the ball when wording one of the propositions attached to the ballot. In essence it said anyone could carry a weapon anywhere, any time, as long as it was not concealed. Within a day of a few scathing editorials, there were tables set up in front of the local K-Mart manned by staff who were checking  handguns from shoppers before they went into the store.  Shop, exit, hand over your ticket and get your gun back.  Yeah, that gave us all a warm, tingly feeling too.

My personal opinion? No one needs to have an automatic weapon, be it a handgun or a rifle, for “personal protection”.  I grew up around guns, my dad was a cop for 35 years and had a collection locked safely away in cabinet in the basement. He taught me to shoot when I was young but the noise and the recoil scared me so much I never had more than one or two lessons. The scariest sight I EVER saw was my mother, after the Chief had passed away, walking down to her vegetable garden with a 45 in her apron pocket. She had never fired a gun in her life and would undoubtedly shoot off her own foot had she attempted it. I imagine most of the gun-toting Fools who scream about 2nd Amendment rights have spent many a Saturday afternoon at the gun ranges taking pot shots at beer bottles and empty tuna cans. But what about the other 300 million who haven’t? What about the kids who find a gun in the front closet and pull the trigger and end up shooting their brother or sister? Or the housewife who gets pissed off at a neighbour and fires an Uzi at her?  That would, of course, support the argument that it isn’t the gun that kills people, it’s the people firing them…but if the people didn’t have the guns in first place, they would have nothing to fire except spitballs!!!! Duh!!!!!!

Okay, rant over. On to pleasanter pithy perusings.

This was the first Christmas I spent away from my home and family. I managed to escape the cold and the snow without having to once put on a heavy winter jacket. Woo hoo for me! Arrived in sunny Florida to sunshine and 80 degree weather and instantly went to the local WallyMart to get decorations for the house. I’ve never had to light up a palm tree, but the grin was ear to ear as I did so. I brought a few things from home, including a small fake tree, which also went up the second day I was here. Put out all the Christmas dishes and hung the decorations and even won first prize on the street for my efforts! My son and DIL were worried a little about me being all alone Christmas, but as the day approached, I was too busy going house to house for happy hours to worry about it myself *g*.  Christmas Eve had a marvellous dinner at one neighbour’s house, Christmas Day had the turkey and all the fixings at another neighbour’s house. Great food, great company, and the next day…which is our Boxing Day and the day I usually have all of our friends and family over for the Big Dinner….my son and his family flew in for a 10 day stay. Would have been totally perfect if my knee hadn’t blown up Christmas Eve, severely limiting my mobility. I had wanted to go to Disney with the family, and I had wanted to take them to Discovery Cove, but I wouldn’t have lasted an hour at either place, so that goes on the agenda for next year.

NOT that I would have lasted at Disney much longer even if I wasn’t limping and hobbling around like Grammy Gump. The kids went mid-week just after Christmas and according to Jefferson, who has been to Disney a bazillion times, he’d never seen crowds like that before. Christmas Day, he was told, the Magic Kingdom had reached it’s capacity by 9am. Lines for the rides were 90 min long. The traffic for miles around the park was stopped. Not even stop and go. Just stopped.  We waited over an hour one night to get a table at Chilis, for heaven sakes.

Fast forward a week and the streets are empty. The holiday frenzy has faded completely away and stores and restaurants are back to normal. The next mad rush will be at March break, but by then we’ll all be swanned out by the pool and won’t care. LOL.

Speaking of pools, the one here in the park is solar heated and very large, so that a cloudy day and a cool evening can affect the water temps by a few degrees either way. Payton was determined to go swimming, however, and even though the whole family had their suits on and took towels with them to sprawl out in the sun, she was the only one to hurl herself off the side of the pool and jump into 69 degree water.  Bravo!

The chaos of their visit was wonderful and I miss them already. I would lay in bed in the mornings and listen to the two munchkins coming awake and was reminded of my own youth when my sister and I shared a bed. “You touched me!”  “I did not, YOU touched me!” “Your foot was on my side of the bed!” “You took all the blankets!” “You took both of the best pillows!” “You’re on MY side…MOMMMMMMM!”  “Stop pushing me!” “Stop laughing at me, it isn’t funny!” “Ewww you farted!”

Yep, I just lay there and grinned, listening.

As for my knee, the swelling…which was impressive…has gone down enough that I can almost walk without limping. What did I do to it? Nothing. Nothing at all. I went shopping in the morning for groceries, came home and fussed around in the kitchen for a bit making the egg nog for Christmas Eve dinner, and by 4 o’clock it was up like grapefruit. I called one of the neighbours to drive me the block and a half for dinner because I didn’t think I could walk it. By 9pm I couldn’t bend it and it looked like a football. I couldn’t bend it enough to even get back into the car, despite all efforts of the three gentlemen attempting to heave me inside. We tried the front seat first but the leg wouldn’t make it off the pavement. Someone had the clever idea of lying down across the back seat, which I tried, but without any leverage, I couldn’t slide across enough to get all 5′ 9″ of me into the car. Someone else had the bright idea of riding in the trunk with the hatch up. Tried that. No go. Again, couldn’t get leg up without excruciating pain. Verdict? Walk home with the aide of a cane on one side and a helper on the other. Again, a week or so later and I can laugh about it. Took me about fifteen minutes to hobble home that night, aided by a friend who had had both his knees replaced so he knew the pain of what I was going through. Once home I was force- fed pain pills by another neighbour who came back an hour later to check on me…he even made me lift my tongue to make sure I had swallowed both pills. So…I’m guessing my knee will be bionic before too long. I’d been hoping to delay the inevitable for a few more years, but the grinding and crunching with each step is telling me different. Blah.

And now for the part of the blog you’ve all been waiting for: an update on the progress of Kitchen Guy and Bathroom Guy!

I don’t have any.

Jefferson checked the house before they came down and nothing else had been done. Gentle queries via email have gone unanswered. Electrician Guy will be heading south, hopefully, by the end of this week, so Kitchen Guy will be SOL if he doesn’t tell Electrician Guy what has to be done before he leaves. There is a clawfoot bathtub sitting in my family room at the moment. It better not be there when I return home. And no that doesn’t mean just shift it to another room *snort*

Piers Morgan and other pithy thoughts.

Whilst the Card Cult was having a rousing game of Hand and Foot last night, we paused in our laughter to catch a few minutes of the Piers Morgan show. Most of us could only take a few minutes of watching the raving, foaming idiot who was the guest last night and whose name was so forgettable I don’t even feel like looking it up. But he was the bozo who has started the petition to have Piers deported for his stance against gun-toting idiots like the frothing fool who was there to represent and defend the 2nd Amendment last night. He did not answer one single question Piers asked…when he was able to squeeze in a question over the rantings of the Fool. Said Fool chose instead to shake his fist and point his finger and literally scream at Piers all the reasons why idiots like him have the right to carry automatic weapons. Gave all of us a warm, tingly feeling listening to him.

To his immense credit Piers Morgan remained calm. Totally calm. Amazingly calm. I’ve seen him go ballistic on the X Files for far less aggravation than the Fool was handing out last night, and frankly I was never a fan of his. I could, having become a rabid fan of Downton Abbey, see him as Lord of a Manor…cool, distant, arrogant, holding himself head and shoulders above the downstairs staff. However…last night he gained huge points in my opinion of him. Frankly, if I had been the host, I would have broken the Fool’s finger first time he shoved it in my face. I would have returned from a commercial break, hair askew, jacket torn, buttons missing, fists bruised, offering sweet apologies as to why the Fool suddenly had to leave the show. Any faint sounds of an ambulance in the background would have been blocked out by the cheers of the audience.

So what point was Piers Morgan trying to make? His stance is simple: why on earth does Mr. Jones next door need an automatic weapon like the one that did so much horrendous damage at Sandy Hook? It wasn’t a handgun, which could be justified as being needed for self defense, although handguns in the wrong hands can do just as much damage, albeit at a slower rate. It was an automatic rifle bought by the shooter’s MOTHER. Why? And she had three or four other guns in the house that her psycho son had free access to.  Why?

I had to go to the emerge dept in the local hospital the other night, and before I could get past the door, I had to go through a metal detector and have my purse searched by one of three armed guards. He was very polite and efficient, but really? Three armed guards in an emergency department? And now the NRA is wanting to put armed guards in every school down here? What message is that sending to the youth of this nation? To the world in general? Did I feel any safer lying in the exam room? Actually no. While I was waiting for my blood pressure to go down to a reasonable level, I kept wondering what would happen if there were actual gunshots out in the lobby. Was there any place to hide? Anywhere to run?

I’m not normally a paranoid person. But when I see fools like the frothing idiot who was on TV last night, and when I think:  he was the one representing the other gun-toting fools…over a hundred thousand of them!!!!!!…who signed the petition to have Piers deported…I *don’t* get a warm fuzzy feeling about where this fine country is headed. Granted, I’m Canadian, and while we have our share of gun-related problems, we certainly don’t have THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION weapons floating around out there amongst the citizens. And those are only the ones that are REGISTERED!!!!!

I recall a few years back, maybe 10 or so, when Stupid and I were down for our annual vacation in St. Petes Beach, there had been some sort of local state election and someone had not been on the ball when wording one of the propositions attached to the ballot. In essence it said anyone could carry a weapon anywhere, any time, as long as it was not concealed. Within a day of a few scathing editorials, there were tables set up in front of the local K-Mart manned by staff who were checking  handguns from shoppers before they went into the store.  Shop, exit, hand over your ticket and get your gun back.  Yeah, that gave us all a warm, tingly feeling too.

My personal opinion? No one needs to have an automatic weapon, be it a handgun or a rifle, for “personal protection”.  I grew up around guns, my dad was a cop for 35 years and had a collection locked safely away in cabinet in the basement. He taught me to shoot when I was young but the noise and the recoil scared me so much I never had more than one or two lessons. The scariest sight I EVER saw was my mother, after the Chief had passed away, walking down to her vegetable garden with a 45 in her apron pocket. She had never fired a gun in her life and would undoubtedly shoot off her own foot had she attempted it. I imagine most of the gun-toting Fools who scream about 2nd Amendment rights have spent many a Saturday afternoon at the gun ranges taking pot shots at beer bottles and empty tuna cans. But what about the other 300 million who haven’t? What about the kids who find a gun in the front closet and pull the trigger and end up shooting their brother or sister? Or the housewife who gets pissed off at a neighbour and fires an Uzi at her?  That would, of course, support the argument that it isn’t the gun that kills people, it’s the people firing them…but if the people didn’t have the guns in first place, they would have nothing to fire except spitballs!!!! Duh!!!!!!

Okay, rant over. On to pleasanter pithy perusings.

This was the first Christmas I spent away from my home and family. I managed to escape the cold and the snow without having to once put on a heavy winter jacket. Woo hoo for me! Arrived in sunny Florida to sunshine and 80 degree weather and instantly went to the local WallyMart to get decorations for the house. I’ve never had to light up a palm tree, but the grin was ear to ear as I did so. I brought a few things from home, including a small fake tree, which also went up the second day I was here. Put out all the Christmas dishes and hung the decorations and even won first prize on the street for my efforts! My son and DIL were worried a little about me being all alone Christmas, but as the day approached, I was too busy going house to house for happy hours to worry about it myself *g*.  Christmas Eve had a marvellous dinner at one neighbour’s house, Christmas Day had the turkey and all the fixings at another neighbour’s house. Great food, great company, and the next day…which is our Boxing Day and the day I usually have all of our friends and family over for the Big Dinner….my son and his family flew in for a 10 day stay. Would have been totally perfect if my knee hadn’t blown up Christmas Eve, severely limiting my mobility. I had wanted to go to Disney with the family, and I had wanted to take them to Discovery Cove, but I wouldn’t have lasted an hour at either place, so that goes on the agenda for next year.

NOT that I would have lasted at Disney much longer even if I wasn’t limping and hobbling around like Grammy Gump. The kids went mid-week just after Christmas and according to Jefferson, who has been to Disney a bazillion times, he’d never seen crowds like that before. Christmas Day, he was told, the Magic Kingdom had reached it’s capacity by 9am. Lines for the rides were 90 min long. The traffic for miles around the park was stopped. Not even stop and go. Just stopped.  We waited over an hour one night to get a table at Chilis, for heaven sakes.

Fast forward a week and the streets are empty. The holiday frenzy has faded completely away and stores and restaurants are back to normal. The next mad rush will be at March break, but by then we’ll all be swanned out by the pool and won’t care. LOL.

Speaking of pools, the one here in the park is solar heated and very large, so that a cloudy day and a cool evening can affect the water temps by a few degrees either way. Payton was determined to go swimming, however, and even though the whole family had their suits on and took towels with them to sprawl out in the sun, she was the only one to hurl herself off the side of the pool and jump into 69 degree water.  Bravo!

The chaos of their visit was wonderful and I miss them already. I would lay in bed in the mornings and listen to the two munchkins coming awake and was reminded of my own youth when my sister and I shared a bed. “You touched me!”  “I did not, YOU touched me!” “Your foot was on my side of the bed!” “You took all the blankets!” “You took both of the best pillows!” “You’re on MY side…MOMMMMMMM!”  “Stop pushing me!” “Stop laughing at me, it isn’t funny!” “Ewww you farted!”

Yep, I just lay there and grinned, listening.

As for my knee, the swelling…which was impressive…has gone down enough that I can almost walk without limping. What did I do to it? Nothing. Nothing at all. I went shopping in the morning for groceries, came home and fussed around in the kitchen for a bit making the egg nog for Christmas Eve dinner, and by 4 o’clock it was up like grapefruit. I called one of the neighbours to drive me the block and a half for dinner because I didn’t think I could walk it. By 9pm I couldn’t bend it and it looked like a football. I couldn’t bend it enough to even get back into the car, despite all efforts of the three gentlemen attempting to heave me inside. We tried the front seat first but the leg wouldn’t make it off the pavement. Someone had the clever idea of lying down across the back seat, which I tried, but without any leverage, I couldn’t slide across enough to get all 5′ 9″ of me into the car. Someone else had the bright idea of riding in the trunk with the hatch up. Tried that. No go. Again, couldn’t get leg up without excruciating pain. Verdict? Walk home with the aide of a cane on one side and a helper on the other. Again, a week or so later and I can laugh about it. Took me about fifteen minutes to hobble home that night, aided by a friend who had had both his knees replaced so he knew the pain of what I was going through. Once home I was force- fed pain pills by another neighbour who came back an hour later to check on me…he even made me lift my tongue to make sure I had swallowed both pills. So…I’m guessing my knee will be bionic before too long. I’d been hoping to delay the inevitable for a few more years, but the grinding and crunching with each step is telling me different. Blah.

And now for the part of the blog you’ve all been waiting for: an update on the progress of Kitchen Guy and Bathroom Guy!

I don’t have any.

Jefferson checked the house before they came down and nothing else had been done. Gentle queries via email have gone unanswered. Electrician Guy will be heading south, hopefully, by the end of this week, so Kitchen Guy will be SOL if he doesn’t tell Electrician Guy what has to be done before he leaves. There is a clawfoot bathtub sitting in my family room at the moment. It better not be there when I return home. And no that doesn’t mean just shift it to another room *snort*

I warned Bathroom Guy I was going to blog…

After he redid the tiled backsplash for the THIRD time today, I warned him that I would be blogging tonight. He just laughed and said I was funny and that whatever I said, he would just add his two cents later.

Hah.

It started yesterday. Although, as you will read in a few, it started three weeks ago when the DIL and I found a nifty tile place in the town just south of Newmarket. A huge place, we wandered up and down the isles looking for something that would leap out and catch my eye. I wanted a tiled backsplash with a hint of green to pick up the color of the island, and a hint of beige to pick up the cupboards. I found a few that would work and brought one back to test it against the counters and island and cupboards. Eureka. It worked.

Bathroom Guy took *ahem* precise measurements and told me how much  tile to get. I said *ahem* because so far, Kitchen Guy has batted far less than a thousand with his measurings, and even Tile Guy sent me back for more shower tiles (though, as I recall, it was Bathroom Guy who measured that too. Hmmmm.) There is also the small matter of 6 extra sheets of shower floor tiles which were shlepped by yours truly after receiving *precise* measurements from Bathroom Guy as to how much was needed.

People who have measured things during this reno never seem to get it right the first, second, or sometimes even the third time. But with faith in Bathroom Guy still riding slightly higher than the expiration date on the chocolate toffee squares I bought last year, I went back to the tile place and got the square footage he told me to get. Two and  a half boxes. Heavy little peckers too. Shlepped them back home, where they sat by the back door for a week or so.

Remember when I said this was like dominoes. One thing gets done then other things can follow. So when Kitchen Guy showed up on Friday and swapped out two of the three banks of cupboards that needed swapping, he gave Bathroom Guy the go-ahead to do the backsplash, with the intention, undoubtedly, to avoid more hysteria on my part.  Just the notion of having the splotchy torn up drywall covered after six weeks took some of the glowing red sparks out of my eyes. The thought of being able to wipe the counter without having a sprinkle of plaster dust fall right back down over it almost made me sorry for Kitchen Guy’s limp. Won’t even mention the dust that floats down over the dark hardwood floor every farking day, or how many times I’ve swept, wiped, or washed everything in that kitchen. No. He said I could have my backsplash! The crud would be covered, including the gaping black hole where the old fan vent used to be and from whence I imagine bats, mice, and plate-sized spiders crawling through every night when the lights go out.

So yesterday, I left the house around eleven, confident Bathroom Guy would remember how to get in without written instructions. I was gone for four hours and when I returned, Sparky was there, all cheerful and pointing out the marvellous job he’d done putting the backsplash up and how great it looked against the counters and cupboards.

Yeah. From a distance it looked marvellous. Up close I had to blink a few times. One wall was fine. He had started the tiles at the door jamb and worked his way across the counter to the corner, leaving artful little spaces between the tiles so the grouting would show off the rustic, rough edges of the rustic, rough tiles.

But then he had a brain fart.

Instead of starting at the window trim and working his way back to the corner, he continued on from the corner and worked his way over to the window, at which point  he had to squeeze in an inch-wide strip of tiles to make them fit.

When I asked why he hadn’t started at the window and worked his way into the corner, thereby having a row of full tiles at each end, he gave me a Forest Gump look and said yeah, that probably would look better.

Hmmm.

Splook splook splook…off came the tiles which were still removable from the wet tile goo. Now keep in mind, his first effort at tiling had taken him four hours to do both walls. In the time it took me to go into the bedroom and change from jeans to joggers and return to the kitchen, he had taken the tiles down from the sink wall, reversed them, and stuck them back up.  In about the same amount of time, he had his jacket on and was out the door, flying home to pick up his daughter from daycare, yelling back as he flew “See, I told you I could fix it for you!”

It was late afternoon, the light was fading, I was tired and slightly cranky.

It wasn’t until 7am the next morning, as I was waiting for the coffee to drip through, that I had a good look at the way he had stuck the tiles back up.

Ever see the movie Harvey with James Stewart? He takes his girl out for dinner and while I forget the exact reason why he feels the need to shout, he teases her by saying oh, oh, I feel it starting in my feet….and climbing up my ankles into my legs…oh! it’s in my belly and climbing up my chest….it’s in my THROAT…it’s…..it’s trying to come out…it’s almost there…   And at that point, the girlfriend screams NOOOOOO!

So there I was, feeling this scream starting to climb up from my toes to my ankles to my legs to my belly….

It looked like someone who had been sniffing tile glue for too long had put the farking tiles up. Most of them were touching, leaving no room for grout. Others had a quarter inch of space between them. Some were crooked, not even in a straight line. Two uber-rustic tiles with eroded corners were put side by side so that there was a gaping huge space that would stick out like a eyepatch when and if they were ever grouted.

The scream never came out, but emails sure did. I fired one off to Bathroom Guy telling him I WAS NOT HAPPY (actually, I think I said I was PISSED and dropped the f-bomb half a dozen times) and would NOT advise him to show his face today. I fired off a copy to Kitchen Guy as well so he’d know he wasn’t the only one tiptoeing dangerously close to that precipice known as YOU’RE FIRED.

To his credit, Bathroom Guy bravely made my phone ring. To *my* credit, I can assume my mood had been properly conveyed via email as the first words out of his mouth were:  Don’t hang up on me!

Hmphf.  He talked, I listened. He would fix it. He promised he would fix it and he would be there soon to do it.

Hmphf. When he showed up, I pointed out the reason for my hysteria and he agreed. Sloppy. Did not match the wall behind the stove, where he had taken care with his spacing and levels and matching up the lines. But he would fix it. Don’t worry.

I knew, if I heard those words again, I really would scream, so I prudently left the house to do some shopping.  When I came back two hours later, he was just finishing up. Yes, Sparky, it took two hours to fix it properly, not ten farking minutes with your coat half on.

I’ll be curious…as will all of you, I’m sure…to see his comments when he comes to read the blog.

Oh…and remember when I said he had given me the measurements and told me how much tile to get?  As I was taking the dog out for a walk, I happened to notice two boxes of tiles still by the back door. The top one was open and had a row of about 20 loose tiles in it…tiles that have to wait for Kitchen Guy to finish installing the cupboard *light valences* now before the backsplash can get finished and grouted.  (Dominoes. Always the dominoes.) But sitting beneath that  box was another box….FULL OF TILES.  I’m curious to know where he plans to use them. I suspect there is enough there to do a double layer on the entire backsplash!!!!!!! Or perhaps he could use them to artfully tile the front of his truck. Or the back of his truck. Or he could combine them with the 6 sq feet of excess tile he over-measured from the shower floor and start tiling my basement floor. Or the wine room. Or that natty little space where the sun doesn’t shine.

*snort*