Advanced kitchenlessness has little to recommend it. Even less when small children are involved. It's been quite a run here, for the last month or so, a packed series of events and circumstances that have made even a short blog entry unattainable. Well issues, stomach flu, lost cat, kitchen packing and destruction, a trip to Minneapolis and back by car with the kids, ceiling problems, reading glasses, and a return home to lots and lots of DUST, NOISE and confusion. Yes. That about sums it up to the present moment.
The well: still total coliform positive… meaning still contaminated with harmless bacteria from the surface world. Probably just crud in the pipes and the new well is fine, but further testing and hassles are needed before we have that ever elusive goal of safe and potable water fit for human consumption. Arg.
The cat: the damn fool cat. How I worry for her and fear that she's really dead this time. She ran off about a month ago, one uncommonly summery night when I was, not surprisingly, running in and out to work on the dratted well. I then was felled by the stomach flu– indeed, it's never fun to be vomitted upon, I think you'll agree. But in the pitch dark? While asleep? On the night the pipes are being treated and so there's no running water? Surely this takes the cake! Elias was the culprit and I the victim. Soon I got it too, and thus was totally flat out incapacitated for a few days and did not even know the cat was gone. Then when I realized it, I assumed she would come back. Then I began to search in all the old places, especially the garage, where I think she hid much of her ten week sojourn before. I then thought perhaps she was hiding at a neighbor's house someplace and made and distributed flyers about it. How many cats are there out there with no tail? I'm at the library so I can't post a photo of her, but I assure you she looks quite silly. My friend Colin says that perhaps she'll get teased and then come home. He asks, "what have you done to make her hate you so much that she'd rather brave the Siberian landscape than be home and warm?" That's a good question. I don't know. In any case, although I really can't fathom how she could still be alive, we've been down that road before and so I don't rule it out. I can say that one nagging worry is that she will return 98% dead again, and again seem to demand $1,000 in veterinary treatment. And this time…?
Did I mention the kitchen? Agh!! It was ripped out completely before Thanksgiving. Then the real work began. The ceiling is of particular importance, because it was a big huge vaulted ceiling, with ugly texture on it, and cracks, and loomed over one in an unpleasant manner. I sought advice. I got it. Different advice. A) leave it and just live with it, said one guy; or B) dampen it and scrape it off, then repair the dings; or C) sand it and skim coat it, then sand it again; or D) drywall over the whole fricking thing and just start anew. (The one thing they could all agree on: it's going to make a huge mess.) I place these roughly in order of difficulty, although other than doing nothing they all cost $$$ the same about it. So, Ben was for doing nothing, but that was really his wallet talking, understandably enough!! But I looked it at long-term. What ceiling would I like to spend the next 40 years under? Hm. Well, I guess if you put it that way, the best idea would be to just drywall the bastard. That's what I pushed for. Ben I think didn't care all that much about the ceiling either way, but 40 years of hearing me complain about it… that deterred him enough. Anyway, although it was totally expensive and inconvenient, I kept eyes on the prize and lined up the drywall people. They got into it while we were out of town. But silly fools– they assumed there would be STUDS under there. But no, the old drywall had large areas of no studs under it, and the incompetent parties who hung it there had massive chunks just hanging on nothing! So… the poor drywallers had to actually tear open the whole mess and build in their own studs and move large angles so that corners would meet. Oh god. It went on and on, and still indeed is not done, only paused while the cabinet people are having a turn. And dusty? They sealed off all the doors as best they could and yet the whole house is covered in dust. Since all the contents of the kitchen have also been spewed all over the place, the house looks like a junk store– a long-abandoned one at that, thick with dust. You can write your name on the couch.
What else?
Oh, yes. The oil slick to the grave. For about a year, I've been having an internal conversation with myself. It's been along these lines. "My eyes are just great," I tell myself. "I have 20/20 vision. I have no problem with reading. I'm not middle aged. My body is not falling apart. It's not just an oil slick to the grave from here on out." (I get the term from my cousin Mischa's blog, where someone wrote, "Remember, once you hit 30 it's just an oil slick to the grave.") Then alternatively, I have to ask myself, "Why the fuck can't I see?!" So after complaining about this for ages, and getting some drug store reading glasses (the wrong ones? but which ones are right?) I finally decided I should get professional help on the matter. I went to an eye doctor the other day. He rendered the much-feared verdict: "Your near vision has gone to pot," he said. "Your distance vision will head out in about five years." Then… to twist the knife he prescribed bifocals!!! "This is the way to go," he said. "You'll be able to see near and see far. We can make them lineless." I said, "No, I can't deal with that." A true statement! He said, "Okay, get reading glasses. Your distance vision is fine for now. But you'll lose them. You'll lose them all the time. When you get infuriated enough with that, come on back."
So then I chose the reading glasses out of the thousands. All of them seemed wrong for me, my face, my lifestyle, and everything else. I ordered them and now await them. I have had plenty of days to regret my choice and to become ever more certain that I should have brought a stylist with me to pick them out. What do I know about picking glasses? Isn't there some sort of science to it? Meanwhile, I ordered this necklace thing from J. Jill. It's NOT a librarian chain thing, it's more like a single loop in the center and the glasses hang there. But irony of ironies it's too short and I CAN'T SEE the damn clasp when it's right under my chin! So I'm working on a plan to get a new chord for it (I really like the silver lobster claw part) and make it longer. But honestly… this is all taking up way too much of my time, at a time when I have none.
But at issue here seems to be "what sort of old lady will I be?" This is a question I've never grappled with before. In the midst of it I turned 42, a couple weeks ago, which has done nothing to improve matters. Indeed on my birthday I had this depressing moment, kneeling in front of the bathtub to wash the dishes, and then mentioning to Isaac, "Do you know it's my birthday?" And having Isaac reply, "Who cares about that?" (Sometimes he seems to be just bones, sinew, and a smart mouth.) Since the reading glasses situation last Thursday, SEVERAL people have made reference to the "bun and glasses on a chain, like a librarian." Hello, people, that's not helping! But the sad fact is that I bet this is the sort of old lady I'll be. I have had long or longish hair most of my life, and the pony tail is looking more ridiculous by the day. (I am a walking makeover waiting to happen.) An up-do of some sort would surely be better. And the reading glasses are being inflicted upon me. And how am I supposed to not lose them?
Wouldn't you all be shocked if I went another route– cut my hair short, started wearing track suits, and parked those glasses atop my head in a sporty manner. Who'd have the last laugh??? I have this vague vision of Meryl Streep in the French Lieutenant's Woman, the modern part. She was reading something on a bed, on her stomach, and she had this lovely bob and… reading glasses. She made it all seem gorgeous, classy, erudite. I've had a bob before. Maybe that's the angle.
One time I was sitting in an Eastern European deli with my mother. Some of the old ladies there had on babushkas. My mother said, "I wonder when I'll turn into an old lady wearing a babushka?" Like one day this would just happen. I said, "Mom, those ladies have been wearing babushkas since they were little girls in the old country. When you're old, you'll wear a beret, since you've always worn a beret." So too, Ben as an old man will wear a light blue shirt and khakis. We're creatures of habit, young and old.
Anyway. That's the update. I'll post cat/kitchen pictures when I can.