Take a Little, Add a Little

I live in my garden these days with the squirrels, the ravens, the bees, and the occasional butterfly. The butterfly bush is exploding with flowers, ready for a butterfly invasion, but none have arrived. Maybe they’re staying away and quarantining on eucalyptus trees in Pacific Grove. Or maybe they got smart and flew to Mexico instead. So I turned my attention to the house.

I’m cleaning out clutter and distributing it to friends who want more. There are people who always want another book or music CD. I’m happy to oblige. The vision for the house is to give it a minimalist look, with only the essentials in their place. Of course I’ll have to do something about the dog’s seasonal food dishes, multi-colored leashes, and hypo-allergenic beds. He has as many possessions as we do. With all these, he still prefers to eat at our table and sleep in our bed.

Then there’s the garage. It’s filled with camping gear we no longer use, old shoes for when it rains and gets muddy, hiking jackets and hats, and a bowlful of golf balls Alf brings home from his hikes. What golf balls are doing scattered on the mountain defies the imagination. And why Alf picks them up and brings them home is a mystery. He’s not a golfer.

“I’ll give them to someone who plays the game,” he says.

“We don’t know any golfers,” I remind him.

“There’s always the future.”

And so it goes. I clear, Alf fills it up. The story of our lives.

Calvin says, “Hey, what about the ice skates you never use? Maybe there’s an Olympian in the neighborhood.”

It’s Not All Bad

After 30 years in the same house, Alf and I finally decided to take the plunge.

We’re remodeling our kitchen.

We’ve heard horror stories from many people, but what are you going to do? Believe everything you hear?

We began by asking several friends who they recommended and we called them. One was too busy. Another didn’t want the job because we were too far away. A third came by, looked at the kitchen, grunted and left.

Alf and I wondered if it was us.

Were we wearing a sign that said, “Perfectionists” across our chests?

Not really. There’s a remodeling boom going on in our neighborhood and all the good contractors are tied up.

So we asked our real estate agent, the one we would use if we were to sell, who she liked and she immediately came back with a name.

We called him and John came over.

“Piece of cake, I can have this done in a week,” he said.

Oh wow, how wonderful. Alf and I sighed with relief.

John gave us a contract and we noticed it said two months from start to completion.

We asked him why. “Oh that’s just a standard contract. In your case, a week,” he repeated.

Relieved we signed the paper.

A day later John showed up in his truck, a trailer and two workers, Fernando and Gustavo. By the end of the morning, Fernando and Gustavo had demolished the kitchen, thrown the debris in the trailer, and were dispatched to the dump.

Alf and I now stood looking at each other in a large, empty, dusty room. The only thing still alive was the refrigerator.

The next day John went to the cabinet maker to order the cabinets. Since they were pre-fab and in stock, he expected to come back to our house with them.

Nope.

There was a three week wait list for assembly.

Three weeks?

“Everybody’s updating their kitchens,” was the cabinet maker’s response.

So now Alf and I have three weeks of waiting with a ticking refrigerator in a gutted kitchen. And that’s just week #1.

Calvin says, “It’s not all bad, at least you can eat ice cream.”

The Culture of the Lure

Alf and I went to a Home Show last weekend.

I knew it was going to be trouble before we left the neighborhood.

I can say no to candy, doughnuts, and ice cream, but I have no willpower when it comes to things for the house.

I managed to not sign any work orders with the floor guys and the kitchen granite guys, although I did make a couple of appointments for them to come out to the house later on.

What got me this time was a chef with a winsome personality demonstrating a line of amazing pots and pans that let you to cook without water and oil. He lured me into his area by tossing a freebie gadget in my direction. One of those plastic thingies that when inserted into a lemon it lets the juice out without the pits. It was hypnotic. Next thing I knew I was sitting in the front row hanging on to his every word. He made a raw salad, cooked fresh veggies in one of those gleaming pots, and baked a chicken breast that looked like it had been grilled on a barbecue. Then he passed the platter around for all of us to sample the food. It was crunchy, savory delicious.

I bought the line.

He threw in three extra pieces of equipment for free, which by themselves would have cost enough for a down payment on a condo.

It’s impressive the choices of products you can find for your home these days – from flooring to cabinets, to windows, roofs, pools, fireplaces, interior and exterior surfaces – everything to turn your house into that Hollywood mansion look.

It just shows how much the celebrity influence has spilled over to our clothes, our homes, our cars, how we travel, the kids we have, the dogs we own, and the food we eat. It’s all fair game, including those pots and pans for your kitchen.

Calvin says, “Sucker! You should have stayed home and taken me on a rabbit walk. But now that you have them, toss the kibble, I want crunchy delicious.”

Darn Me a Yarn

“Can you show me how you do this because I don’t remember,” my grandmother said as she pointed to the knitting needles and yarn in the basket.

I had never knitted in my life. I hated everything domestic. “You’ve got the wrong grand-daughter,” I said.

“I only have one,” she said.

“Grandma, what about Ruth?”

“Who’s Ruth?”

Oh oh. Was my grandmother showing signs of dementia?

“Ruth is your other grand-daughter. You know, the one who cooks and bakes and sews and knits and cleans the house and takes care of the garden all in one day,” I said.

“That woman doesn’t exist,” my grandmother said. “You must be reading about the super woman in Proverbs 31. She doesn’t exist either.”

“So I’m not so strange after all if I don’t do all this homemaker stuff?” I said.

“No, honey. I hated it myself. That’s why I hired Ruth,” my grandmother said.

Calvin says, “Oy vey. And to think I’m part of this family. Somebody watch what I say.”