I’m staying home. And I love you guys. hugs and many snogs
Breakfast, shower, and then off to work on Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice…
Good Monday morning. Weird weather here–it snowed on Saturday (okay, scattered flakes in a cold, grey sky), poured on Sunday (that’s more like it) and now there’s a wild, warm wind out there that’s making the tall trees sway and shriek. I wondered what that odd sound was coming through the newly-restored bathroom fan this morning as I stepped into the shower. Wind in the trees, baby.
I probably scared some people at Home Depot yesterday. Being as it started raining and I couldn’t play outside with the rocks and dirt and my little saw (I am clearing what was once a back yard, then an overgrown West Coast jungle) I went to work on my never-ending bathroom project. We bought a 1974 doublewide mobile home two years ago when the rental condo that we lived in (right across from my workplace, sob, so convenient). Anyway, being from 1974, and being that the previous owners had been both long-time dwellers and elderly, nothing had been updated. And the last little old lady who lived here didn’t touch the yard, so it was really, really overgrown. And there was loads of brown veneer wood panelling everywhere, plus the most grotesque patterned thin 1970s cheapo carpet in various shades of brown and mustard. Uuuuugly. So we’ve been updating it as we go along, with painting everything inside, new carpet, new lino, dishwasher, blinds. But somewhere along the line, we lost our ambition, and the project’s been stagnant for a while. But I got so tired of my bathroom being the world’s ugliest (TLC doesn’t know about the ugliness of my bathroom, I tells ya, otherwise I’da been on TV). There were two layers of wallpaper on the walls, which got damaged when we had a drywall ceiling installed, so I started to remove it. Fine. Then I hit an obnoxious layer of textured yellow stuff, which I thought was another layer of wallpaper. Really, really hard to get off.
Turns out that I don’t think that final layer was ever supposed to come off. It comes off with extreme difficulty, and leaves bare plywood beneath. And it takes some of the plywood with it. But once I’d started removing it (to eventually paint) I had to keep going. I’ve been pulling this stuff away for months, no, a year now, and what it leaves the bathroom looking like with the walls half-exposed is akin to some grotesque wall disease.
So I am at 90% of the stuff off and really have to make the push to finish it so I can prime the last bit and paint it (and because I’ve bought new towels and bathroom accessories as a reward for de-uglifying), and since it’s raining and I can’t play, I mean, garden, outside, I went to pull and curse some more at the bathroom.
So my husband wanders in to help me, and discovers a) how damned difficult it is to pull that yellow layer off (which I am sure was meant to be simply painted or papered over) and b) how much of the cheapo, ancient plywood it pulls off, too. So he suggests we go buy some panelling and cut it to fit, and simply add a layer of that for the two remaining wall portions. Since one of the walls I hadn’t finished yet was behind the toilet, and would be very, very difficult to pull the stuff off the wall and then paint, I concurred.
So we ended up at Home Depot. I’m wearing: black running shoes (my ‘good’ ones—the ones that don’t have the paint on them from stepping backwards into my paint tray on more than one occasion during the initial big painting of the dark faux wood panelling that was everywhere), bright blue socks, once-black, now paint-spattered and too-short jeans, a pink and paint-stained teeshirt, my step outside to garden blue sweatshirt-type-jacket, sporting several twigs and thorns from my sojourns into the bush, and, of course, extremely bad hair and no makeup.
Thank goodness we saw no one we know.
My husband cut the new panels to fit and because he is anal-retentive and a perfectionist, they fit perfectly over the light fixture and from side-to-side. So I will prime and paint those, and the one for behind the toilet… I will paint first! Then we will put it in place. That challenge is solved.
While there, we picked up some fan covers for the bathroom fans that have been coverless and covered up and not used for two years, extra mesh, crack fill, and whee! I am going to have a bathroom that doesn’t look like it has a dreadful skin disease soon.
That was Sunday.
Picunurse, I’m so sorry. My brother died before I was born, and my parents still grieve - 32 years after he died - every year on his birthday and the day he died. Losing a child has to be one of the worst things a person can go through. I’m so sorry.
We bought a 1974 doublewide mobile home two years ago when the rental condo that we lived in (right across from my workplace, sob, so convenient) was sold, and we had to move SOMEwhere. .
With all the snot reported so far today, you better refrain from the snoggin’…
Well, I am feeling peachy right now…
I never catch the MMP until it’s already several pages long and I would feel awkward and intrusive jumping in, like that nerdy new kid in high school who goes up to the cool kids and says, “Hi, how’s it going? Whatcha doing?” in a hopeless attempt to have someone to hang out with. I have vowed never to be that kid again! So I figured I’d better jump into this MMP before it gets too long.
picunurse, here’s a big hug for you: {picunurse}.
And here’s some chicken soup for all you sick Dopers.
My boyfriend asked me to take out my lip ring Friday evening, because we were going to see Othello with some of his coworkers and his boss, and he wants them to think he’s very normal and boring so they’ll give him the promotion he’s gunning for. He wanted me to leave my big black feathered hat and black fur muff at home, too, even though I think they’re perfect for wearing to the theater. I made him agree to take me to Schwarma King in exchange for having to be normal for an evening. The play was terrific, and we went to Schwarma King for lunch on Saturday. They have the best falafel in Boston there. He got chicken schwarma, but I don’t think he enjoyed it so much; that’s okay, I didn’t enjoy being normal, either. He mostly only likes boring food, anyway. Blech.
Good thoughts your way, picnurse.
Everyone stop being sick! Here is chocolate milk and tea and cream of potato soup and lemonade. Now flake out on the couch and watch movies. Good sick people.
(((((picnurse))))) I’ll be praying for you and thinking about you today. Tupug’s right- hang out here a lot today.
I didn’t fall asleep until after 4 last night. I feel surprisingly okay, but I may crash later.
{{{Picu}}} Of course this gets you down. Just know you got a whole lot of folks here who love and care about you.
{{{{{Picu}}}}}
{{{{{{{{picunurse}}}}}}}}
{{{Picunurse}}} I’m sorry.
Everybody stay home, rest and eat the soup and stuff. Take care of yourselves!
I just finished Cell this weekend, Puggy. It was ok - but a little weak in character development, which is a big let-down from King.
What exactly are you gonna do to her? Bitch slap her or take up piano?
Off to store to buy drugs of any kind.
Oh, really? 
Both, if possible. And then go for a walk in the fields with Matthew MacFayden coming up out of the mist…
I forgot to add because I’m an ass:
(((((((((((((((((((((picunurse))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
There’ll be a nice steaming bowl of tea/chicken soup/mashed potatoes waitin’ on ya when you get back rigs 
I still want cookies.
Drae the dress is tres chic. I especially like the what looks to be beaded wrought iron on the bodice. I like the big swoopy train. To me it ain’t a wedding dress without a big swoopy train.
picunurse, all my best wishes and love.
Just a quick thank you. I feel truly blessed. The hugs and support mean so much. I love you guys 
I’ll be back to my old silly self soon enough.
Now its off to do the errands I planned for today.
I’ll thinking of you too today, picunurse, and offering a prayer. I’ve been there. It’s been 13 years. ((big hugs))
I spent Saturday chasing lil Cherry Baby all around a gynastics place. It was my niece’s birthday. You’d think a place full of pads and ground-level trampolines would be the perfect place to let a 17-month-old run wild, right? Well–not if there’s 10 other kids, most of 'em big ole kids, running amok AND a 6-foot deep pit filled with foam blocks about two feet from the top, :eek: So it was exciting for baby and mind-numbing for me … roaming about after him. But the bigger kids had a great time!
I would argue vehemently that this should be Colin Firth, but if you go for Matthew, that leaves Colin for me…num. Who needs chicken soup?