Enchanting Juno

The state of the bed.

Well, the package arrived.  It has the corner support braces and the hardware, so that's something.

But not the feet.

Or the center support. 

Despite the fact that I went over the missing pieces yesterday with the customer service rep and she assured me that they were all sent, they're not even on the packing list.

People, you are killing me here.

At least I can put together the frame - make a center support out of something - so there is a place to put the mattress when it is delivered tomorrow. 

(That's confirmed for after 1 PM tomorrow.  Yay.).

They're going to try to overnight the feet. 

I could have driven to Mississippi to pick them up faster than this.

Oh well.  It'll be minimalist - dark wood platform 4 inches tall, mattress, essentially a futon, kind of Zen.

Home improvement.

Should I be worried that even after 5 days I keep opening the linen cabinet to admire the tidiness?  I have this feeling that deep down I am an organization freak, trapped in the body of an indifferent housekeeper. 

Open the door, see the beautiful neatness. 

Feel very happy.

Close the door.

Repeat as needed.

Last night I sanded the patched bits and got one coat of paint up on the walls and ceiling.  I started to paint the trim, until I realized I had chosen a bad color - not enough contrast so it looked kind of blurry against the wall - but it worked out OK because the new color of the walls makes the old trim look sharp and clean.

I am the messiest painter in the first world, no doubt, but fortunately I can clean up after myself.  By midnight I was covered with a light coat of paint - I thought for a bit I wasn't going to get a full coat out of one gallon, but I think it would have been OK - I could have just rubbed my arm on the wall to finish the job.

Have I ever mentioned that this was my father's house?  This room used to be a pale gray - not to everyone's taste, I grant you, but it looked nice with all white bedding and warm wood furniture - but when his girlfriend painted over it she chose this milky blue white - like skim milk at boarding school - that was just awful.  Being in there was terrible - the way light flinched off the color of the paint, made it hard to focus.  Everything looked a bit off and kind of dingy, even when sparkling clean. 

Her taste for white could be effective - her Christmas trees were always very pretty, all white and crystal.  But the white paint thing always confused me.  Take the bathroom for instance - it has almond colored fixtures and cabinets, taupe tile and, at the time, linens in earth tones.  I painted the walls for my dad a few years before he met this woman, a fabulous mocha chocolate marshmallow fluff color.  I mean, even if you don't like browns, the room looked wonderful - the wall color was delicious, edible.

She had the walls painted that same chalky white.  But the fixtures are still almond and earth tones.  It looks....odd.    And then with the bathroom that was added while she lived there - she picked out the fixtures - again all white, but she didn't match things - the the shower is modern, the sink and toilet Victorian-esque.  The floor is white marbled tile, but in a different shade than the fixtures.

I freely admit that I really didn't like her, but in this case, I don't think it is (just) my prejudice talking.

Anyway, it turns out the trim paint in the bedroom is fine - a nice white that only looked bad next to the walls, and with the new color - a warm, warm French Vanilla - looks very sharp.  Which is nice, because that means that tonight I only have to put a second coat on the walls and clean up the sanding dust. 

And hopefully assemble the bed frame, move in the dresser and begin shifting the closets.

I have tracking numbers for the feet and hardware. 

I'm not believing anything until I see what's in the box though.

Oh, yeah, and I did a pattern repeat on Blizzard and began the sleeve for Truffle Darling.  Never say I don't keep you in the loop.

Rhinebeck Red's getting ripped - another lesson learned about choosing the right weight yarn for something close fitting. 

So much to do.

This was a good weekend.  Thanksgiving was lovely - dinner with my four closest friends and all the good things that come with knowing each other a long time and all the good food to be expected when your host graduated from the Culinary Institute.

Did some pre-guest shopping - new shower curtain, pillows, The Absolutely Perfect Lamps for the new bedroom (Not for everyone, I know, but trust me, perfect.  It was the hand of the Goddess of Shopping that led me to them):

Went to see a house with a friend of mine - she and her husband are on the verge of buying a new place, and we drove out to see one possibilitiy.   It was a quirky place, owner built,  on 14 acres of wooded silence that I didn't know still existed in this area. 
I can tell you I'm in love with it.   It made me wish, fleetingly but intensely,  for a pocket full of cash so I could have that peace for myself. 
She took her husband out to see it today and he was so infatuated with it he forgot all his wheeling, dealing, MBA seriousness and just told the owner they loved it. 

Ah, well, at least if they buy it I can go sit in the woods when I need to.

I got a pedicure - must have nice feet for the guest. 

And I finally, finally, knocked down the bookcase.  As predicted, it only took an hour to to take down, and another hour to patch the walls and about 3 hours to pull out all the nails so the wood can be discarded.   See?

The guest room is empty, carpet removed and floor washed down with white vinegar (cat problems), walls patched and corners dusted. 

I have paint, lamps, sheets, bedside tables (wrong color, but I can exchange them when  the right ones come in and in the meantime, they'll hold up the lamps), wall decor...everything except the bed and the mattress.  Still no word on the expected delivery of same.  Having faith........

So between now (Sunday night) and Thursday morning I have to sand,  put two coats on the walls and trim, get rid of the rubbish shown above, change the closets around, do laundry....and refuse delivery of the cold I started to come down with last night. 
Good thing I like the echinacea tea, is all I'm saying.

And just for you, my faithful few, I have actual fiber stuff.  Behold! Parts of things!

The back of Truffle, Darling.  I love, love, love this yarn and pattern, and I just hope it doesn't look like crap on me, because I'm getting a little tired of knitting whole sweaters that don't work.  I'm getting closer.....but still haven't hit the jackpot.

And about half of  Leigh Radford's Blizzard.  I love this.  But I need another name for it.  Suggestions?

Thanks giving

Last night I took everything out of my linen cabinet, cleaned it, put shelf paper up (I've had this paper since Fall 2001, I think), sorted, discarded, folded and organized everything.  Somehow this made me feel better, even though I should have been pulling down a bookcase.  I kept opening the door to admire the clean and tidy beauty of it all.

Removing the bookcase is turning into one of those things that looms so large in my head that I put it of f and put it off.  You know that in the end it is only going to take an hour, right?

OK, enough with the self pity. If worse comes to worse, I can just go to Ikea for a temporary bed and I will have faith in the mattress people. 

I mean, does it really matter?  It's a bed, not the cure for cancer.

Today I give thanks  for the freedom to fret about this and not where my next meal is coming from. 
I give thanks for friends new and old  and family who love me.
For my new nephew (well, new since last thanksgiving)
For therapy.
For hard lessons about how I may effect other people.
For  even harder lessons about who I am.
For knitting and the gym, between the two of which I have begun to learn to live well.
And, even if it is strange, for blogs, which have begun to teach me a great deal about myself as well as about knitting.

I hope the next year brings us all satisfaction, greater happiness, greater understanding, good yarn and a better world.

Enjoy your day.

Self inflicted wounds.

So, the whole decision to redo the bedroom/guestroom was predicated on the fact that last week, when I called about the bed frame they said, “No sweat. We shall deliver it to you on Wednesday.”

Which you may note is today.

And Lo! the bed frame was delivered by the nicest UPS man in the world (he really is)…with the end of the box missing. He was very apologetic – it was that way when they loaded it on his truck this morning.

So I examine this thing, this affront to my schedule – and one of the side frames is badly dented……and it turns out that the open end of the box is in fact a missing foot of the box – a missing foot which  purported to have contained the feet of the bed, the triangular support brackets, the center support and the hardware. (And this missing foot of box sheared off because they packed several long heavy timbers in a fitted carton, and put all the smaller pieces in one end of the box, creating a structural weak point whose obvious flaws would have been apparent to a 5^th grade geometry student).

A call is placed to customer service, the representative of whom is very sorry to tell me that the bed was the last one in stock and there shall be no more until December 11. Which seems particularly cruel, as my guest will be departing on December 10.

But wait! She tells me I can use the bed until then and they will take away the damaged one (used) when they deliver the new one on December 11. Which would be great except for the whole feet/mounting hardware problem.

We go back and forth – I can cancel the order and they will take it back, but that leaves me in need of another king sized platform type bed, obtainable before Wednesday next. Plus they can’t even check the warehouse for extra hardware for the next 48 hours, which they won’t have because this bed is out of stock.

Eventually it occurs to me that this model also comes in a white finish, not just the espresso.

I enquire and Lo! It is available. The customer service lady is astonished at my cleverness. I suppress smoldering rage at her lack of same.

I do not want a white bed, but I expect I can live with white feet on my espresso bed for three weeks if the alternative is a mattress on the floor. Can they harvest the necessary organs from the warehouse and overnight them to me?

Well, she thinks so, but they won’t be able to tell for a while – probably not until Friday, but if I want I can call back at 6 tonight and see if the system has been updated.

I call UPS to see if anyone can find the box end containing all the stuff. They are looking.

Chilled with fear about the house of cards that might be about to fall at my feet, I call the mattress people. I am obsessed with comfortable sleeping arrangements, so this mattress will be the same one currently in use on my bed, a premium latex mattress. It is divine. They make these for some of the Philadelphia 76ers.

When I called them last week they gently dismissed my concerns about the timeframe. It was to them a mere bagatelle, laughably simple, a snap.

But today: Am I sure I need it by December 2? They are awaiting a late shipment of latex. \No, I don’t need it by December 2, I need it by December 1, as we have discussed these several times.

I am banging my head on my desk.  Getting a rhythm going. Feels pretty good.

I did this to myself.
Did I not know that L was coming this fall as of August?
Have I not always intended to make these changes? 
Did I not pick out the bed frame in July?

The new sheets are nice.

Also.

Ok, I keep seeing commericals for the new Alexander the Great movie.  I don't think it bodes well that they don't let the camera linger passionately on the planes of Colin Farrell, but the real question is this:

What the hell accent is Angelina Jolie sporting in this thing?   
Doll, please, if you can't fake it, forget it.

I'll be your psycho today.

I had a whole story for you about the worst thing I've ever heard from a man.
But when I tried to write it out is just made me tired and a little sad.  So I'll leave it at this:

"I may have told you I'm a submissive and my wife can't meet those needs, so...."

I. May. Have. Told. You.

Yeah, you slipped those two right by me.

Anyway.  We don't really care, except to add it to the list of weird things we have heard out there in the land of being single, because Far Away L is coming to see us in 10 days and this makes us very, very, very happy.

Why am I speaking in the third person?

I haven't made the kind of progress on the guest room I had hoped for, partly because Sunday was a dead loss, because Saturday night we partied like our metabolisms were still 21, except they're not.  And partly because my wrist was not really up to much.

Think I'm going to make it?

The green tape is where the bed will be.  I'll keep you posted.

Knitting tonight.  The Knit Goddess is totally brilliant and explained things in such a way that crochet did not, for one brief moment, make me feel stupid.  Plus it is a great group of women and we were noisy and laughed a lot.  The Husband of the Knit Goddess came home and well, I think we scared him a little, but he is a good man and didn't run.  Progres was made, but I'm afraid you can't see it yet, because I am too lazy to get it out to photograph.

In closing - This was hanging out in my back yard - well, just behind my back yard -  last weekend.   Sometime life just gives you a gift, you know?

Commitment.

Let’s talk about gay marriage.

I am a lifelong…I’ll call it instinctive liberal.  That is to say, my natural inclination has always been toward the more liberal viewpoint, and rarely have I found that educating myself in the specifics of a situation has done anything other than move me further to the left.  It is just the way I’m made, I think.  I’m curious, and my mind is elastic.

But some things I supported more as abstractions than as specific passions.  Maybe it is a function of aging, when the small miracles of human life, like love, begin to have so much more poignancy, more immediacy.  You’ve aged, you’ve experienced, you’ve lost – jobs, people you love.   And one day your intellectual belief becomes something more.  All along I'd thought, well sure, gays should have access to the same legal benefits and burdens as straights, that makes sense.  I read something in a fantasy novel when I was a kid, where any two people – whether romantically linked or not - could register themselves as a family unit, and that seemed calm and logical, maybe we could do something like that.

I supported it.  But I didn’t feel it.

I live in a funky little urban neighborhood, one of those run down areas initially reclaimed from decay by urban pioneers, many of them gay, one that is stable enough now that more traditional families have moved in.  It is a pretty cool place, the best neighborhood I’ve lived in.  A few years ago I had a Christmas party and invited, well, everyone I knew.  There are large parts of the evening I don’t remember all that specifically (I’m told it was a raging success) but I have one memory that is crystal clear.  As the night wound down most of the remaining guests were local (that is to say, in a position to walk home and therefore still partying) and somehow we ended up watching School House Rock on dvd. 

I think another neighbor was contemplating applying for citizenship and we decided to educate him for the exam.

And I looked over to the chaise and saw a couple I’ve known for a long time sitting together, curled close and relaxed in each other's arms.  I don’t think I’d ever seen them touch before.  Maybe they’re not demonstrative, I don’t know. 

(Yes I do.  And that’s not it.)

I had to excuse myself because I thought I was going to cry, I was so moved by the fact that they were comfortable enough in my house to relax their guard.

Because homosexuals in our society do have to be on guard, or make a conscious decision to accept the risks of not being on guard.  Real risks.

I don’t know if this couple wants to be married, but if they don’t, well that should bloody well be their decision.

It is just wrong.  Dammit. 

I feel it.

I know it.

Just a quick little project.

Posting is likely to be light, as knitting will be light and reading, thinking, self-educating also.

I’ve decided that, since I’m having a houseguest in two weeks, now is a good time to finish the remodeling of my bedroom/guest room that I’ve been working on on-and-off for six months.  Mostly off.

That makes sense, right?

Nothing like a tight deadline with a long holiday weekend in the middle. 

The guestroom is where I want the master to be, and the master will become the guestroom, because the back of the house has more privacy, the lot across from the house is being built on (hello large and noisy trucks and hey, workman, yes, please look in my window), and the back also has a really lovely view looking down onto the stream behind the house from the deck that I never use.

Because the putative guest room has been, in the three years I’ve lived here, something I like to call the Room of Shame, full of junk, things I never unpacked, etc, etc, etc.  I started this project in June, but shut the door when it got to be too much for me.

Yesterday I organized, sorted for charity, packed away and threw away a wide variety of things.  I also ordered a new bed.  The frame will be here in a week, but the headboard not for a month. 

This morning I ordered a new mattress and at lunch I will be at Lowe’s seeing if they can replace the small window and opaque door with double French doors out onto the deck.  By the end of the month.

Then all I need to do is knock down an old bookcase, repair, patch, sand, prime and paint the walls, buy new sheets, bedside tables and lamps, frame the large piece of fabric that is providing the decorating inspiration, and decide whether a new rug is worth what my cat will likely do to it.  And switch all my stuff from the old room to the new. 

Installing new closet shelves etc will have to wait until after the company has gone.  That’s my nod to sanity.  I can't get too nervous if I'm too busy to think, right?

Yeah. I'm crazy.

I'm still going to knitting tonight though.  And therapy tomorrow. 

I think I'm going to need both of them.

A tinsmith's scoop.

I just can’t be serious today.

I truly and sincerely thank everyone who stopped by over this weekend and especially everyone who wrote such lovely, thoughtful things.  I’ll be responding to each as I can.   I expected at least one nasty remark – just the law of averages – and I was (very happily) disappointed.

Someday I’d like to write something about why it can be hard to speak your mind.  But not today, because, as I may have mentioned, I just can’t be serious.

Someone is coming to see me.  From Far Away.  In fewer than three weeks.   

And I have a slow sneaky smile tucked into one corner of my mouth, a smile that just won’t leave me.