Grumbling

A Remodeling Update: The Mess Continues & Ms. Bean Is Almost Beyond Caring

/ Ally Bean / 60 Comments

The mess continues, but there is progress.  

√  The bathroom is close to being finished.  We’re waiting on the rest of the decorative tile that the tile guy, when he’s available, will use to make a backsplash behind the sinks.

The tile, shipped from California, is apparently coming via pony express, whose riders like to spend a few nights vacation in Las Vegas before heading east with it.

Or maybe it arrives via passenger pigeon.  At this point I’ve lost track of how it gets here, and only know that I want it here because until that decorative tile makes me happy this project won’t be over.  So I wait.

√  The family room is in process.  We had a small set-back when the painters fessed up to painting it the wrong color.  They had used the bathroom wall color in the family room.  While the colors are similar, they aren’t interchangeable… so the painters graciously made things right and re-painted the family room.   

I’ll show you a pic of the finished room, with proper color on its walls when I do my final post about this remodeling wild ride.  Sometime this month? This year? During my lifetime? Who knows?

√  The laundry room is in good shape.  The washer and dryer are here, the counter and tile have been installed, and the walls have been painted the proper color. 🙄

The only difficulty with the laundry room now is that it’s on the way to the garage– that’s still a warehouse for things to come.  I look forward to parking my car where the bathtub is now, and walking from the garage into the laundry room unimpeded.  I dream big, don’t I? 

√  The kitchen remains in a holding pattern.  There’s no sign of the microwave.  It’s MIA.  And conversations about replacing the old caulk that’s between the granite countertop and the tile backsplash have taken a turn for the absurd.

Seems that our grout and our caulk don’t match– and they’re [were] supposed to.  While I’m the first to say the combo looked good to me [for the last 9 years], these particular colors, that I’ve dubbed Dragon Snot and Cat Barf, are no longer available.  Hence, there’s been much discussion about what currently available caulk color to use now;  Antique Dog Tooth seems to be in the lead.  Because, why not?    

• • •

August is a slow month in the blogosphere, and I don’t feel like writing & posting my usual 2 or 3 times per week.
So for this month I’ll be here once a week sharing my flapdoodle and twaddle with those who are around to read it.  See you next week, kids. 

• • •

A Remodeling Update: In Which Ms. Bean “Helps” & Other Important Things

/ Ally Bean / 52 Comments

It will come as no surprise to you, but it’s a mess around here.

Dining room with stuff from other rooms in it.

√  Nothing is where it’s supposed to be.  Rooms that aren’t being remodeled have been turned into storage spaces for the stuff from rooms that are being remodeled.

Then with no clothes dryer, we’re using portable wooden racks, wedged into bedroom corners, to dry our clothes and towels and unmentionables… that are getting covered in a layer of dust before they dry, courtesy of the construction all over the house.

√  Because the family room and the master suite are under construction, Zen-Den and I are living on the other side of the upstairs, each having taken up camp in a different guest bedroom.  At night we shout “good night” to each other like we’re the fricking Waltons: “Good night, Sue Mary Ellen… Good night, John-Boy.” 

Old microwave sitting on counter underneath spot where it fit, but new ones won’t.

√  I officially hate microwaves.  Did you know that the manufacturers change the sizes of microwaves fairly often?  This means that the one we had built into the kitchen cabinets 9 years ago is now a size that is no longer available.

So we have to redesign the cabinets to accommodate the newer deeper microwaves.  I cannot *mutter* enough about this development.

√  When the water is off for a few hours you immediately understand there’s one flush left in the toilet, right?  BUT what you might not remember is that there’ll be no water to wash your hands– and that you’ll need to have some hand wipes around.  IF you don’t have them around, then you’ll end up eating your lunch using a paper towel as you hold your sammie– then perhaps accidentally ingest some paper towel. 😖

Tools and such that are now on the floor hither and yon around the house.

√  And finally, how is that I helped?  Well, as if there’s not enough destruction around here, I added to it when I went to close the bathroom door and the handle fell off into my hand.

Just. Like. That. I’m stuck outside the bathroom, holding the formerly useful handle in my hand, looking forlornly at the screws now at my feet.  Screws that happen to be about the same color as the carpeting, allowing them to blend perfectly with the carpet fibers, causing Ms. Bean to become FRAZZLED.

And on that cheery note, I’ll wish y’all a happy weekend.  Catch up with you later, kids. 

The Tale Of Getting Our Held Mail Upon Return From Vacay

/ Ally Bean / 51 Comments

I DID NOT START THIS.  I want to be clear on this point.

I inherited this feud from some women who used to live on this street when all the houses were new, and the street wasn’t finished yet.  Women who moved to the midwest from big sophisticated cities.

Women who had never dealt with a small town misogynistic resentful male postal clerk who grumbled loudly about doing his job, poorly.

For reasons never fully explained to me they hated him, and being who they were, they launched a letter-writing + email-sending campaign to get him fired.  They found the names of everyone in the U.S. Postal Service who might be influential enough to get this resentful male postal clerk axed from his job– and set about trying to make it so.

Their campaign, organized and relentless as it was, did not work.

THEN they moved away leaving me the only woman on this street who knows what they did– and still suffers for it because he remembers which part of our street was out to get him.

The block I live on.

# # #

# # #

SO KNOWING WHAT I KNOW, I went over to our local post office branch to get our mail that had been held while we were on vacation.

As usual he was the only clerk working behind the counter and I had to stand in a long line.  No big deal.  Totally expected.

What I did not expect, however, was our resentful male postal clerk getting into a prolonged shouting match with a male customer who was trying to decide which box to use to send something somewhere.

Our resentful male postal clerk had strong opinions on what this customer guy should be doing– and the customer guy was. not. buying. it. at. all.

I found this tense conversation fascinating because this is my first experience with our resentful male postal clerk turning vicious on a man.

He’s branched out.  [pun intended]

# # #

# # #

EVENTUALLY I GET TO THE COUNTER.  With a sense of foreboding I hand my driver’s license to our resentful male postal clerk, and I wait for the inevitable hateful glare.

The snarl.

The shout.

“Greenwood Street, huh?”

But this time, my gentle readers, I was ready.  I put on what might be my best dramatic performance ever, playing the part of a contrite suburbanite.  When he squinted his eyes and glared at me, I slouched, I looked down at the floor, and I hung my head in shame for living on the street that I do.

Oddly, this performance seemed to light a fire under his heretofore slow-moving butt and he went into the back of the post office branch to retrieve my mail.  Lickety-split-like.  Without whining.

# # #

# # #

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.  As if this story could get more exciting and amazing, when our resentful male postal clerk returned from the back with our mail, that included 31 catalogues + many letters, he had it in an official U.S. Post Office rectangular white plastic toter that he handed to me.

This is unprecedented.

Never before has this resentful male postal clerk NOT dumped all of our mail on the counter for me to grasp, as best I can, in my arms.  He has previously enjoyed making me look like a klutz as I scramble to not drop anything while skedaddling out of his post office branch.

But this time, he was, for him, in his own way, almost kind to me.

And I gotta tell ‘ya, I find this a bit disturbing.  It’s just not normal– like he’s playing some new game with me that I have yet to figure out.

Phooey, Piffle, and Pshaw: Gray Days Return & I Am Tired

/ Ally Bean / 75 Comments

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”

~ Cicero

~ • ~

Phooey!  I’m working on being grateful now, but after last week’s unexpected clear blue skies, this week’s return to dreary gray skies with snow has been difficult.

Piffle!  Then add the lost hour of sleep [I’m looking at you, Daylight Savings Time] and I’m not feeling my usual writing mojo OR joie de vivre OR any other flapdoodle-y & twaddle-ish way of using words to indicate joy and productivity.

Pshaw!  So instead of stressing myself to find something to write about that is actually interesting and fresh, I’ll just share some photos– and attempt to remember that I am grateful for this change in weather because the more the wet now, the prettier the flowers then.

~ • ~ 

In case you care, I looked up the meanings of the exclamatory words I used above.  They are defined as follows:

phooey = disbelief

piffle = nonsense

pshaw = contempt

~ • ~