Settle

Empty-fridge quickfire challenge: what can you make with eggs, milk, a packet of veggie dip mix, sour cream, and frozen pie crust? Quiche! Or, you know, an eggy dip souffle thing. Close enough.

Good thing we had a Christmas cookie mix to round it out.

Nailed it.

The old oven was a wreck of layered filth, rusted-out burners, and weird blue greasy bits. While replacing parts and cleaning it, I realized that the blue film was actual blue film - the kind that comes on new appliances to protect the finish. We peeled the oven like picking skin off a sunburn. It was horrible and wonderful.

It is kitcheny! Don't look at the floor. I hung General Kale on the wall there, and declared the house officially decorated.

The neighbors have been very quiet and subdued. The marine base helped out by holding artillery drills all week. After tucking the kids into bed, I sat on the couch with my knitting and watched the Shipping News while the house trembled gently with the explosions. It was oddly soothing, in the manner of distant thunder, and I got all shmoopy about Newfoundland, sitting there with no chips & gravy in my little house on an island in the wrong ocean.

 

If you like your ocean foot-traversable, that is.

So there's nothing to eat, and boxes all over, but order is gaining a foothold.

 

Gross finger-printed-mirror picture of my kids failing to pose with me for a group shot, in favor of playing pigs-in-a-blanket.

And I still kept the best part of my commute. The part with mountains and pineapple fields and sweeping curtains of rain.

The outlets work. The internet is up. Next: floors in the bathroom and kitchen OH BOY YOU ARE SO EXCITED.

update on garbage disposal car

"Good news! I made an appointment with a mechanic for tomorrow morning."
Ten minutes later, there was rummaging and banging and ratcheting. The man came in, covered in grease. "There. I changed the brake pads. It works again!"

And that is how you fix a car in 3 weeks or less.

Although I could still do with working outlets

Moving during Super Bowl is a terrific, terrible, and expedient measure of your neighbors' character. The folks on Side 1 are quiet and elderly and fine, with a fluffy little old dog who totters after them on walks. The folks on Side 2 are the stuff to inspire sitcom neighbor-revenge strategies. At around 7pm, the driveway filled up with giant vehicles, and the increasingly drunk sports fans made their team of choice known at top volume: loyal supporters of team FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. They re-played the brawl about eight times, with escalating chants and frenetic screams. Then, as a weaving herd, they drove drunkenly off into the neighborhood, the remaining neighbors passed out, and quietude reasserted itself by 10pm. I was not in a mood to appreciate it, though, because my idiot cat had peed on the bed and I was shivering on a sheet in inadequate pajamas while the clean bedding dried on the line outside. I had the baby wrapped in the Sherlock couch blanket and was using her as a bed warmer, staring hollow-eyed at the window and wondering what I had done. A cabin in the Adirondacks with the equity, I promised myself. Which I will neglect until squatters claim it, because 55 degrees is already too fucking cold.

But in the morning there was my little pour-over coffee maker, and my little dining room, and a rooster crowing in the early light, and everything was ok.

It's going to be. From here out.

I should be watching Super Bowl

Instead I am eating cheddar brats alone with the infink in the new house, with no cable or wifi. Using data to complain here - am that committed.

The neighbors were watching the game in the garage and I was spying, but someone claimed to have more food and the party moved elsewhere. Damn it.

I don't watch football, but I enjoy sportsing as a holiday, with cheering and foodstuffs and high spirits. 

Sad face.

the noodle incident

(names changed)

Child appeared at my desk.
"Shawn left his noodle outside."
"His... noodle?"
"Yeah. And he ran away."
He led me outside. On the sidewalk was a sad pile of instant noodles. Kids gathered around it with wide, scandalized eyes.
"Oh, you meant actual noodles."
"Yeah. He got them from the store and then they were hot and he was throwing them and John smacked them and they burned him and they fell and then they were like, auuuugh, and both ran over the hill that way." The kids all pointed.
I got a wad of paper towels and scooped up the soggy mass of ramen. "Wait, was he throwing the noodles, or did someone throw them at him?"
"He was throwing noodles at John and going HWUP HWUP with the cup and then John went PAP and they flew up and burned Shawn's arm and he dropped them and John ate some of them off the ground and said, 'see? Still good,' and then they ran away real fast, laughing."
"Oh my." I poured water on the bits of broth and freeze-dried carrots.
"What will happen if they come back?" The kids looked keen, hoping for blood.
"Well, then they will be hungry."
"Yeah, 'cause John might want to finish them." Someone high-fived the kid.

At just about this time, Officer Library Frequenter detected that my co-worker had a rotisserie chicken in the fridge. His chicken senses are uncanny. I came back to wash noodles off my hands and found him carving legs and thighs onto a paper plate. "Hey!" He jumped, but didn't stop sawing. "When you pass those kids outside, make sure you mutter something about noodles. They'll think I called the cops."

And he did. There were shrieks, and the sound of sneakers running.

I was still grinning about this noodle business when I went to stamp a patron's book. She tilted her head at my cardigan.
"Is that the new style?"
I looked down and realized it was buttoned crookedly. "That is the cold and hasty style."
"Honey, that's what happens when you hit 65."
Recently, I had mentioned my creaky knees, and a patron patted me in commiseration, "That's how it is after 40, sweetie."
I need to trowel on more makeup, I think.

woecakes

The car has been making a sound like a garbage disposal jammed with spoons. This is no good. And I'm driving it anyway, because I am a terrible car owner, and because every time we have jacked it up and peered underneath there has been nothing obviously wrong with the brakes or wheels or shafty bits.

So I was driving it to work in this disgraceful state when the vehicle finally lost integrity and chewed off one of its own tires. I pulled over, crunching and dragging, onto an exit ramp shoulder. But what luck! I thought, Mike is only 3 miles behind me and this is his exit. I am saved! Because I can change a tire myself, but on the edge of a whizzing highway it seems better to have someone standing guard so your legs don't become meaty road bumps.

I stood for a few minutes, looking busily at my phone so onlookers would think I was doing something useful. And then there he was - sailing along on his motorcycle, in clear line of view of the busted-down car and my brilliant yellow blouse. I bobbed and waved. NYOOOOM. He blew right by, roared off the exit ramp, and disappeared around the corner. I looked at the car. "This is your fault," I told it. It is the most unremarkable car ever made. Shapeless, colorless, in no obvious state of gleaming upkeep or superficial disrepair - it has been dubbed the Invisimobile.

my car

He eventually noticed the angry buzzing from the phone in his pocket and swooped around, so the tire was changed (not by me, for all my posturing as probably-an-expert-tire-changer), and I arrived at work in the usual squeal of grinding metal. All was well, except for the fact that I was driving on a donut in an unsafe car with a 2-hour commute.

So instead of working on the new house, I irritably dragged the screeching carcass of my car into the tire shop. My mother recommended a shady warehouse near the airport. "They are cheap, and super fast, and there is a gourmet donut shop next door," she said. "The kind with bacon on top." SOLD. But then those burly men slapped my car up onto a lift, bobbed me around in circles with their eyebrows and tattoos (and a quiet side-mouthed, "You get an old car you like sell?"), the office lady plucked me out and rang me up for $119, and they sent me away with no time to sneak off to the donut shop to kill myself with sugared bacon. And the men stood in the lot waving like loons as I clunked away, so I couldn't even park in the street and double back on the sly. Not sure if this was excellent service or terrible, terrible service. The tire looks pretty good, though.

Move update: 4 days to go. Floors are done. Furniture is moved. Boxes are being packed and transported. Electricians are almost finished, and only stepped through the ceiling once. This thing may happen after all.

now somewhat less pleased

"Oh, the floors are pretty good!" I said. "You can just get the tile off that one room, finish the wood underneath, and we can do the rest later," I said.

And then the man rented a sander. And mowed up all the floors in the house.

"You ruined the house," I said.
"I had a sander!" he said.
"You took a wall out of the bathroom."
"I also had a crowbar."
"It was notched into the ceiling."
"Yeah, kinda."
"Now there is a hole in the ceiling."
"I can fix it."
"If you don't, I will have the electricians seal your body into the attic."
"Well, then the hole would never get fixed."
Damn.

So yesterday I painted the kitchen. "Lipstick on a pig," I told the grody old oven. I pulled all the drawers out to clean, and found 30 years worth of cockroach shit in a black crust splashed down the back of the cabinetry, leading to an inch-thick pile of mystery crumble. Sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at it, grimly drinking a beer with rubber gloves on. It took a bucket of bleach water and an hour of profanity, but I won. Either the swearing or the paint-smeared bottom sticking out of the cupboards endeared me to the electricians, and they changed the radio to heavy rock and started being cheerfully abusive to each other.

So the floors are unfinished. The bathroom is demolished. There is a pile of torn carpet and broken wood taller than me in the back yard. There are holes cut in the walls for outlets, and wires hanging out of the ceiling. But now the kitchen is painted. It can only start stitching itself all back together from here on out.

 

There. It is white.

 

White white white. Except the awning outside. Don't look at that.

And it all has to be done in a week. *flail*

Pretty dang pleased with myself

I did not really paint the place pink. That is just the reflection of the amazing wood floor, which has been hidden under the most foul of carpets since the 1960s. 

Back to work now, to let my blisters and spine heal until the weekend. 

No further music was blasted by the neighbors this week. Am satisfied that they may not be too horrible.

Blue and silver

I thought everyone was taking off of work to get the house ready, but NOPE. I am all by myself up here, scrubbing and taping and sanding and painting. 

But that's fine with me. And I don't even need to worry about not having a stereo until the electricians rip out the 80 year-old wires, because the neighbor kid blasts Snoop Dogg from his truck. So charming. I'll have to invite Officer Library Frequenter over for a beer some time. 

Things that are not DIY

DIY implies something which takes some skill, but which you can learn to do competently on your own through study and instruction, and thus save yourself time/money dealing with a contracted professional. Tutorials for things on Pinterest which are not DIY include:

DIY wrapped gifts

DIY air clay glued to a 99 cent vase to make it "Anthropologie"

DIY coffee creamer made from milk and sweetened condensed milk

DIY bubble solution 

DIY ornaments made out of used K-cups

Similar problem with Pinterest "hacks". Painting a dresser is not a hack. Relieving sinuses by pinching the bridge of your nose is not a hack. Drawing on a light bulb with a sharpie is NOT A HACK.

So. I used Pinterest to find a tutorial to fix old hardware. And now I PRESENT TO YOU:

 DIY HACK

removing paint from vintage hardware

at lunch break

in the staff room

with a coffee stirrer and paperclip

The original tutorial tells you to carefully simmer the hardware in a crock pot or big vessel which you will never use again (because of lead in the old paint) with a hearty dollop of dish soap for 8-12 hours, then carefully peel up the soft paint with a razor blade. Easy enough.

But even easier if you just microwave some hot water in an empty soup container, stir in dish soap, dunk your hardware, let it sit for 4 hours, and then come back on lunch break to scrape the softened paint off with a wooden coffee stirrer and a bent paperclip.

A little Barkeeper's Friend to polish that up, and it'll be like new. 

Next: DIY floor refinishing, and DIY paramedic assessment.