Before ... and After

Fascinating title, huh?

For the past several weeks, I've been holding in a secret. And now that it's out, it doesn't seem quite so interesting: I painted Lizz's bathroom. It only took about 16 months from the time she first began removing the old wallpaper.

Here's some before (actually, during) photos:

I have come to the conclusion that wallpaper is evil. There is still lots of interesting wallpaper in my house, but I am making slow but steady progress at eradicating it.

This bathroom not only had really ugly, peeling wallpaper, but it seemed the shower vent didn't work very well. So every time someone (ahem) took a hot, steamy shower, the paper and paint peeled just a bit more. It created a very attractive crater in the ceiling, which you can partially appreciate in the lower photo. The good news was that the plaster below a century's worth of paint and paper (at least three layers) was still intact. A little application of skim coat ... and the crater is barely noticeable now.

Part of the project was going to involve replacing the motor in the vent because I didn't want to invest all that time in scraping, sanding and painting just to have the walls/ceiling get all peely and yucky again. I have a really great handyman, and I asked him to please replace the motor in the shower vent for me. So when he checked it out he discovered a humongous quantity of nesting material was blocking the vent. And the motor is just fine - in fact, it's a stupendous motor. So that was good news. We just have to keep the birdies out. (Isn't this a gripping story?)

Ah, but the project was not without drama. One evening, while I was sanding all the places that had been patched, I set off the smoke detector with all that nice, fine dust that my joint compound/patching plaster/paintable caulk cocktails made. The detector is hooked into the alarm system, so the alarm company called before I had a chance to call them. We had a friendly chat (this was the second time I set off the alarm with my sanding in a week).

And then a little bit later I had some visitors. Can you guess who?

(No, I didn't steal a helmet from one of the nice fireman. Ashton loaned it to me. Hey - you can see a tiny piece of Claudette in the upper left corner of the photo!) Luckily, there were no real emergencies right then in Saginaw, and I felt really bad that the guys had to get all suited up just for me. Although I did look especially fetching with my googly goggles and dust mask.

So is the bathroom done yet, you ask? Well, not quite. The light fixtures aren't back together (still looking for globes to fit) and the door needs to be finished (I can't decide on paint color) and there's a bit of plumbing work to be done (new faucets and drain thingie), but the bathroom is functional again and the progress to date was met with great enthusiasm when the college girl came home last weekend.

Here she is appreciating her pretty wall:

I did not paint the flowers, I confess. My neighbor is the talented artist. He's also painting a giant mural with enormous irises in the bedroom as part of the wallpaper eradication effort. I'll post photos of that when it's complete.

Hmmm. Maybe I should move up here. It's much nicer than my room.

An Open Invitation

After my last post, Galliganians told me that if I really wanted comment from my readers perhaps I needed a more exciting topic. Like the octomom or AIG bailouts or the economy in general. I've been dabbling and dunking my toes in the deep and dangerous cyber waters with this blog thing. While those other topics are fascinating, they're not where my heart or head is today.

So I'm inviting those who are interested to visit blogonthestreet and post your comments there ... or come back and share your thoughts with me.

Have a great day.

Solutionators, Unite!

I just spent a fabulous weekend visiting my lifelong friend, Ardeth Funicello Frangipani. (Not her real name, but I ran it past her and she loved it.) This is my oldest friend - as in the friend I've known the longest, not the one who has celebrated the most birthdays. Ardeth moved to Holland, Mich., about 17 years ago. I hadn't made the trek across the state for at least five years, and we had a lot of catching up to do.

So while Ardeth's hunky husband was whipping up some scrumptious curried something or other Friday night, the two of us ran to the store to get necessary items like Ben & Jerry's and guacamole fixings for us. And Orange Crush for the chef.

The last six-pack of Orange Crush was one short, so after scanning the shelves, Ardeth popped a bottle of Grape Crush into the vacant spot, the most expedient solution. While we were in the checkout line, I was engrossed in reading about Jen's pregnancy and other important world events until I heard the super-serious voice of the checker-out guy, "Ma'am, I'm afraid I can't sell that to you." Well, that caught my attention. What sort of contraband had Ardeth slipped into our cart? I peered over the pile of groceries and saw that the 5+1 Crush pack was the object of controversy.

The picture of calm and serenity, Ardeth stated her case, but checkout boy held his ground, citing store policy and possibly homeland security. You can only purchase full 6-packs. No mixy-matchy allowed. In her nicest, sweetest, most patient, experienced customer service professional voice, Ardeth suggested options: ask someone to find a full 6-pack; sell the defective package at a discount; ring it up under miscellaneous. From the look on our Eagle Scout candidate's face, you would've thought she'd asked him to burn the flag while dancing naked.

By this time, even I could see it was a lost cause. I was especially concerned about our melting Imagine Whirled Peace ice cream. But I could see the steam streaming out of Ardeth's ears. A little out of her nose, too. "It's the principle of the thing," she muttered through tightly clenched teeth before demanding someone search harder for a full 6-pack. We waited for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only about 3 minutes and 37 seconds. She asked for the store manager's name ... and then we left.

On the way to the car, I tried to lighten the mood with talk of garlicky guacamole, bottles of fermented nectar of the vine and oodles of girl talk in our very near future. But then we began to share other examples of representatives of the "service industry" failing to find a solution to a minor challenge. Like the time my daughter just wanted a roll and a slice of cheese at a well-known coffee, donut and sandwich joint, thoroughly perplexing the counter helper. There's no button on the register for that. And it wasn't covered in the corporate training program. How to ring up such a thing? "Perhaps just ring it as a bagel with cream cheese," I offered. "I can't do that! It will mess up inventory! Here - just take it!" Hey, now that was a great solution.

If I didn't know so many highly intelligent, out-of-the-box-thinking young people, I'd be seriously frightened about the future of our planet. (D'you think this "my-head-is-so-far-in-the-box-it's-now-cube-shaped" way of thinking is where the term "blockhead" came from?) I refuse to believe our collective destiny is in the hands of the blockheads of the world, but this behavior still fascinates me a little teeny bit.

So, solutionators out there ... Care to share an example of blockheadedness you've confronted and either successfully thwarted or that still has you shaking your head in disbelief? C'mon, it'll be like group therapy.

Pity Pater

This brilliant headline woke me up out of a sound sleep one night last week. I was all fired up to write the associated story (the blog post, the novel, the screenplay) IMMEDIATELY. But we had just begun the Lenten season and I was trying sooo hard to behave. Really. I do try. I also had some processing ... and praying to do.

Apparently, I'd already misbehaved, though, as I broke some unwritten rule of etiquette and was de-friended on a well-known social networking site. And to add insult to injury, nobody responded to my posts about feeling Amish or having just been shunned.

Perhaps the slightly random-seeming posts just weren't newsworthy enough to invite comment. Then I suppose anyone who saw them (and knew I hadn't been sleeping) probably thought the sleepless nights had really caught up with me. Others are just accustomed to my non sequiturs.

I've been enjoying re-connecting with friends whom I haven't seen in nearly 25 years. With the re-connecting I discovered there was one particular formerly very significant someone who was also dipping his toes in the social media pond. Someone who has been, shall we say, living off the grid for close to two decades. Perhaps a little bit outside of the law. Well, I sent a couple of "private" messages about this astounding discovery to the now former common friend ... and then posted one teeny-tiny (what I thought was somewhat obscure, yet clever) message on her "wall."

The next thing I knew ... I'd been de-friended. No warning, just all evidence of communication wiped out. And my friend list was a tad smaller. I also got a notice that my account was being checked or "optimized." Good gravy - had I been "reported??!"

Now I thought "Pater Prolific" (the cleverly alliterative part of my teeny-tiny message) wasn't so bad. What would you call someone who produced (at least) four children with (at least) four different women? Is he to be praised ... or pitied?

I suppose one might also ask something about those women. What would they have seen in such a man? And where are they now? And more important: What has happened to the children?

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm one of those four women. And I don't live on a commune in Texas. My middle-class Midwestern life plodded along quietly and devoid of drama for a good long time. A full life, to be sure, with work, family, friends, church, community ... raising a beautiful, brilliant daughter with the help of "the village." There have been times when I have experienced great guilt for not giving E a better life, a "normal" life. (Although she made me feel great last fall when she called upon returning from a weekend trip to tell me how well I prepared her for the real world.)

This is not a tale of woe or bitterness. It's about survival. And hope. And experiencing incredible joy - even through ridiculously difficult times. E is my incredible joy. I consider myself privileged to have spent 18 years with my greatest blessing before sharing her with the world.

I've re-connected with another of the four mothers. (I don't know the other two.) While we're both scratching our heads over the reappearance of PP in such a public forum, we enjoyed catching up on each others' lives and learning of the attributes and interests the two sisters share. Our biggest concern and most fervent prayer is that the foundations we built for them are strong enough.

Still, I can't help but wonder if there is an underlying reason, such as serious illness, for him to reach out without worry of retribution. Is the one who missed the pitter patter of our daughters' footsteps really the Pity Pater now?