A long long hiatus, unfortunately, but I've been inspired by the number of people updating around the holidays, so here goes...
First of all, we have no kitchen. It's gone, down to the studs. Last Wed. we shopped for appliances. I came to the conclusion that I should be in the oven business--some of the ovens we looked at cost 50% more than my first car. And fridges. I didn't know you could be filled with lust over a fridge, but some of those did it. I can hardly wait...
I'm ahead of myself. Just before thanksgiving, we moved everything out of the old kitchen. We moved the fridge downstairs, and prayed that it hangs together long enough to get the new one installed. We boxed a lot of dishes and all our good stuff. Before long, huge holes appeared in our yard. Followed by 18 inches of snow. Quite a scene. We bought a hot plate and a toaster oven and a new electric frypan (Diana's looked like it had been built in 1930...).
We went to six stores and couldn't find a hot plate. "Oh, yeah, we used to carry those...". Finally, our local Ace Hardware guy spent 15 minutes with his computer, and turned one up. It turns out that they are now called "buffet ranges"! That sounds like a term only a PR person could love, and nobody could find.
Needless to say, Eson was more than unhappy when we moved down into his turf. He absolutely refused to let us move his foosball table, with the result that it is not 18 inches deep in foodstuff.
Have I mentioned that Diana is not very organized? Well, it's true, and a bit of a touchy subject with her. She would love to think that the kids' ADD is all from her ex husband, but I think there is a bit of contribution from her. She's just rather impulsive--she comes into the house and sticks her car keys -- who knows where? If something needs to go into the fridge, she picks a likely area and just shoves it in. I tried to have some conversations early on about this ("wouldn't it make sense to put the condiments on the door...") but it just didn't register when her hands were full, the door was open, and she had to be somewhere five minutes ago.
Actually, it bothers me less than it might. I enjoy organization, but don't always achieve the level of organization to which I aspire. The biggest problem is that, like Gresham's Law, disorder crowds out order. It's become hard for me to help her in the kitchen--after I got over my guilt about it, I realized that it suits us pretty well.
I'm going to make a big organization push when we move into our new kitchen. But I'm not sure it will really amount to anything. And, all in all, I'm rarely able to work up enough energy over the issue to even do some gentle kidding, much less get irritated. I didn't marry her for her organization. And she has many wonderful qualities.
Pson is slowly settling in here--he seems more relaxed, and actually initiates conversations. It's looking like he may move back with his parents in April. It would be good to have a cap on this, but Diana and I feel good that we could be of some help.
We are off to CA for Christmas. Several days with family, and four days with just the two of us. I'm looking forward to it. It's not quite a honeymoon, but it will be a close second until we can come up for air long enough to really get away.
I suspect I'll continue on semi-hiatus until things settle down a bit. Pson is sleeping in the room where I write this, so it has cramped my style somewhat. And it takes an amazing amount of energy to deal with this disruption, not to mention being sitting ducks for the snow and other delights of a New England winter. Have a good holiday...
Thank you for reading.
Copyright © 2001-2003 Pete Stevens. All rights reserved.
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