You (don't) light up my life
In today's episode of This Old House, I finished taping off what I could of the kitchen cabinets. Dad did have me tape the sides of the kitchen window, as best I could, to try not to get the base wall color onto the woodwork if possible. He knew the top of the window, with minimal clearance (under a centimeter), wasn't worth taping aside from the front part of the woodwork. I did what I could of the cabinets above the little counter, but he has to redo the wood trim on the part over the fridge, where the huge gap was (and the trim was already pulled off a bit, so it's wiggly), so I left that alone. After that, I taped off the wood for the stairs; I did this while the Queen of England gave her special speech to her commoners. I didn't realize how rare this was, that aside from her Christmas speeches she's only addressed the people half a dozen times in this fashion. Interesting.
It's spring, meaning ant season, and we'd already had ants in the past month or so. They popped into my head earlier today, or perhaps yesterday, and so I'm blaming myself--I saw three of them walking around. Great. Dad has a jar of homemade ant killer, comprised of borax, sugar, and water, so he had me warm the concoction, stir it up to combine, then apply some near the front door; he got the back. I also ended up sweeping a bit, because not only have we dropped a bunch of junk, the floor had needed it for some time. Also, dad was gone, because...
I had gone upstairs for something, after lunch and our weekly grandma phone call, and heard...noises from my dad. Unhappy noises. Sweary noises. If he was a cartoon character, there would have been a bunch of symbols in the air. We've been using this lamp, technically my mother's, as a work lamp. I think it's meant for SAD, something like that, a type of light therapy. Because the arm is adjustable, it's been great to be able to turn it the way you need it so you can see what you're doing. We had two of them, one downstairs, one actually up here in the computer room because it stopped working for some reason. Well, the good lamp crapped out in an unusual way: The bottom gave out. It's so top-heavy that there was concrete in the base, as per dad, with a plastic bottom. The plastic broke and the concrete fell out, leading to the grumbling. This led to a whole thing, which I think started earlier in the day, of trying to see if the lamp from upstairs could work, and it looked like it could, but it needed a lightbulb. And then there was an issue, after the base busted, where the lightbulb from the one wouldn't work in the other lamp, and ultimately dad ran to Menards to get a lightbulb because he really needed to see what he was doing and was too frustrated to keep working. To wit, he'd just put a big scrape of spackle on the wall and didn't wipe it off, so that a half-hour later, there it was, still on the wall by the hall closet. It was comically thick, too. Poor dad. He also ended up duct-taping the base of the busted lamp together to see if that would work, so we'd both have lamps if needed. Mom, of course, wasn't thrilled, though she kept insisting one of the lamps must have been her dad's, despite us telling her, no, we've had it for years, long before he died.
Then again, grandma and I had this conversation with her:
Grandma: Have you seen any daffodils?
Me: Not from the house.
(Nobody in the immediate vicinity grows them.)
Mom: Do you mean dandelions?
Me: No...daffodils.
Grandma: They're bulbs.
Mom: Are they annuals? Perennials?
Grandma: No...they're bulbs.
(We then had to explain a bit about what daffodils are. I mentioned they pop up in the spring, like tulips.)
Mom: I'm really kind of dumb, aren't I?
Me: Yes.
(Mom did not appreciate that somehow.)
Finally, with my father going to Menards about every three days now, it feels like we're doing 25% of our grocery shopping there currently. Today, he bought two things, the bulb, and a jar of salsa; among other things, another recent trip garnered us beef jerky and two packages of sliced colby jack cheese. We had tacos tonight that...didn't have very much to them. That's okay, really. We're making do with what we have. Dad and I will probably go to the grocery store in the next couple days, in part so I can pay, and I am hoping to stock up as best possible. If the next two weeks are supposed to be the worst two weeks of this situation, I don't want us going to the store if at all possible. I think one of the experts had mentioned to shop for two weeks' worth of groceries anyway, and I'm perfectly happy to do that to minimize us going out. Now if only dad would quit going to Menards...
It's spring, meaning ant season, and we'd already had ants in the past month or so. They popped into my head earlier today, or perhaps yesterday, and so I'm blaming myself--I saw three of them walking around. Great. Dad has a jar of homemade ant killer, comprised of borax, sugar, and water, so he had me warm the concoction, stir it up to combine, then apply some near the front door; he got the back. I also ended up sweeping a bit, because not only have we dropped a bunch of junk, the floor had needed it for some time. Also, dad was gone, because...
I had gone upstairs for something, after lunch and our weekly grandma phone call, and heard...noises from my dad. Unhappy noises. Sweary noises. If he was a cartoon character, there would have been a bunch of symbols in the air. We've been using this lamp, technically my mother's, as a work lamp. I think it's meant for SAD, something like that, a type of light therapy. Because the arm is adjustable, it's been great to be able to turn it the way you need it so you can see what you're doing. We had two of them, one downstairs, one actually up here in the computer room because it stopped working for some reason. Well, the good lamp crapped out in an unusual way: The bottom gave out. It's so top-heavy that there was concrete in the base, as per dad, with a plastic bottom. The plastic broke and the concrete fell out, leading to the grumbling. This led to a whole thing, which I think started earlier in the day, of trying to see if the lamp from upstairs could work, and it looked like it could, but it needed a lightbulb. And then there was an issue, after the base busted, where the lightbulb from the one wouldn't work in the other lamp, and ultimately dad ran to Menards to get a lightbulb because he really needed to see what he was doing and was too frustrated to keep working. To wit, he'd just put a big scrape of spackle on the wall and didn't wipe it off, so that a half-hour later, there it was, still on the wall by the hall closet. It was comically thick, too. Poor dad. He also ended up duct-taping the base of the busted lamp together to see if that would work, so we'd both have lamps if needed. Mom, of course, wasn't thrilled, though she kept insisting one of the lamps must have been her dad's, despite us telling her, no, we've had it for years, long before he died.
Then again, grandma and I had this conversation with her:
Grandma: Have you seen any daffodils?
Me: Not from the house.
(Nobody in the immediate vicinity grows them.)
Mom: Do you mean dandelions?
Me: No...daffodils.
Grandma: They're bulbs.
Mom: Are they annuals? Perennials?
Grandma: No...they're bulbs.
(We then had to explain a bit about what daffodils are. I mentioned they pop up in the spring, like tulips.)
Mom: I'm really kind of dumb, aren't I?
Me: Yes.
(Mom did not appreciate that somehow.)
Finally, with my father going to Menards about every three days now, it feels like we're doing 25% of our grocery shopping there currently. Today, he bought two things, the bulb, and a jar of salsa; among other things, another recent trip garnered us beef jerky and two packages of sliced colby jack cheese. We had tacos tonight that...didn't have very much to them. That's okay, really. We're making do with what we have. Dad and I will probably go to the grocery store in the next couple days, in part so I can pay, and I am hoping to stock up as best possible. If the next two weeks are supposed to be the worst two weeks of this situation, I don't want us going to the store if at all possible. I think one of the experts had mentioned to shop for two weeks' worth of groceries anyway, and I'm perfectly happy to do that to minimize us going out. Now if only dad would quit going to Menards...