Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-06-12 - 5:35 p.m.

Spinning Plates

I miss your muses. I hope you are on some kind of wonderful all expense paid vacation! (kindness from my guestbook.)

Nope. Actually, I am doing a Berlitz Total Immersion Course in Mental Juggling. Okay - okay - okay - okay - whoops! Oh, shit. Like that.

The house is coming along. I am the Alva Winchester of kitchens; I can never stop painting. Has it been thirty years yet?

I thank Alice for telling me that one smoothes caulk with a WET finger. The things you can get to be forty-five without knowing. Yes! I am one caulking fool now! Another back-up career to tuck into my resume.

The house project is a string of Christmas lights. I know there is an end, a key piece, and if I can find it I can straighten the whole thing out; but I can't find it. The caulking must be done before I can install the cove base, and the cove base must go in before the furniture can move back, but the pan rack must be built before the cove base goes on, and...

Whoops! Oh, shit.

School is ending. One would think - oh, never mind. But why do we have all these pain-in-the-ass half days? What's with THAT? I paid my taxes on the WHOLE school year. Wait, did I pay my taxes? Whoops!

End of school. Return that book Mrs. D loaned to me; where the f...oh, you want to get a gift for teacher? Great. I was going to write that thank-you for...cookies for the last day? Okay, but...what sort of an English teacher would plan a Greek Feast in the last week of school? Yes, figs are Greek, shut up and take them. You need WHAT? By WHEN? No, we will not unpack all these boxes to find your math book, fifty buck fine, whoops. Oh, shit.

As I begin to cook again, a little bit - breads to take to work - I discover the things I had to toss after the fire, unreplaced. Okay, baking soda - oh, damn, it was on the counter that night, wasn't it. Well, you can substitute baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar for baking powder; let us see if you can substitute baking powder for baking soda. Oh, you can't. Whoops. Oh, shit.

I'm still painting.

Some of the cabinets still have halon-covered dishes, waiting to be scoured. It dropped low on the list. But then I have clean dishes that want to go in those cabinets too, and they can't. So they're on the counter, covered with drop cloths, right in the way of where I need to caulk. If I....no, maybe I should...

I am the Queen of Used Appliances. Yes. The garage is full of them, including the Refrigerator of Destruction, which I am told by an attorney I should keep; perhaps I will bronze it. Or perhaps I will find a mattress with holes and throw it in the front yard. Decorating should have a clear theme.

The condo board - hi, Marge - cites me for parking in an inside space instead of in my garage. The garage which they know is full of furniture and appliances at the moment. But one must be punished for willfully endangering one's neighbors by playing with incendiary refrigerators.

I got my fire extinguisher refilled. Yes! I am ready! Bring it on, world!

What I haven't got at the moment is a computer. I have a laptop, connected to the only functional phone jack currently in the house. Lil tiny munchkin keyboard. Can only use small words. Many typos. No mouse. Smearfinger move cursor. Wipe out text. Whoops! Oh, shit.

Write more later.

�

previous - next

�