When Dale and David visited last March I had a punch list of about five projects I wanted to finish the week before they arrived. As we approach the year anniversary I’m still working on them. My new motto is “everything takes forever.” Which I believe was a 1940’s B movie starring Linda Darnell.
Case in point is the kitchen table cum island (not to be confused with other cum islands in the apartment.) Readers will remember how proud I was when I figured out how to build a table two years ago. Equally as memorable was the mediocre result. So the first of October I went to Ikea to purchase a cabinet base to begin a rebuild of my fantasy island.
The project was intended to take a week. We’re now at six and counting. This week alone I’ve spent three days trying to affix grosgrain ribbon onto half-round molding. Will it ever end, Linda?
I think it will, the finish line is in sight. With every project I complete another pile disappears and the place becomes more navigable. After three years I’m ready for this to be over. And maybe finally have friends here to see it. It’s been so isolating. I am a rock, I am an island.
Consumed with home decor lately I’ve let other facets of life slide. Like blogging. But when I read this morning about the President condemning Nancy Pelosi’s district as a dangerous and disgusting slum, I felt I must lay down the three-in-one trowel and dust off the keyboard. You just don’t talk about my Congresswoman that way, Agent Orange.
Forgive me if I’m repeating myself but I live in a senior community where that is considered a prized characteristic. Ms. Pelosi has always been good to me.
The first time I contacted her office was regarding the abominable postal service on Jones Street. Things like the postman returning a flat rate envelope I was sending for more postage. When I asked why it would cost more if it’s flat rate, he motioned his hand over the tyvek envelope that, admittedly was bulging at the seams with a sweater inside, and said “it’s not flat.”
Pelosi’s Office put me in touch with a specialist at my local station and I had a private line to USPS innards. I contacted her a couple of more times and then there was nothing for a few years. What sealed the deal was that during that lapse I received an email from her office stating “we haven’t heard from you in awhile, remember we’re here to help.” Someone proactively interested in my problems? She’s got my vote.
Although the President’s slum smack is intended to conjure up images of hallway rat traps and stray gun shots, we must update the stereotype for the Trumpian Era. I am on the lowest rung of income when you consider a liveable salary in the City is considered to be $150K. And by virtue of lottery luck I do live in subsidized housing whose architectural heritage protected 15 foot wide halls are kept pristine and sparkling. But in a City where there’s something in the air keeping the birth rate down (men’s legs), I never have and probably never will feel threatened.
Slum life is not without its hardships, however. No one will ever know the sacrifices I made to scrimp and save for a $50 piece of fabric to line the $10 lamp hood fixture I found at the junkyard. (The fabric, by the way, is a baby blue shot with silver Italian bubble wrap organza.)
Finally, I must admire how the Speaker remained patient throughout the impeachment frenzy. She waited until she got her smoking you-know-what. When it comes to politics, anything he can do she can do better.
