Sometimes, I get stuck on weird mental tangents. Like, I go off on a style of architecture or lose my shit over the footage of the live giant squid and then do a bunch of research on whatever it is, sifting through dry as toast medical journals or historical primary sources until I lose interest and move onto something else equally fascinating. I go through phases with human variability and can lose myself in gender studies. Oh my god, the little boys who are raised as girls and vice versa? Twin studies? Genetically homogenous third world tribes? How AIDS is sort of like the Bubonic plague!? Esteban has threatened divorce if I didn’t stop leaving the white papers for such topics in the john.
Right now, I’m stuck on space. Did you know that they’ve launched a space suit into orbit, stuffing it with satellite guts? It’s called suitsat and you can pick up its broadcast on police scanners when it’s passing overhead. Excuse me, but an empty space suit in orbit around the planet? That sort of rocks. You want to bet that idea came up at the NASA Christmas Party. I really want to credit a Gen Xer scientist for that one. I want to believe that MTV or maybe Stanley Kubrick is somehow at the root cause.
Right now, we’re at a period of time called solar minimum. I sort of love that phrase. Solor Minimum. Apparently, the sun has a cycle of 11 years, with periods of lots of solar storms or absolutely zero sunspots marking the absolutes. It was originally discovered by Galileo, who used sunspots to prove that the sun was rotating. Which is something I didn’t know either, but that’s the kind of thing you learn when you start looking for information about auroras.
Now if I could only figure out why my right eye keeps watering, I would be a very smart girl indeed.
After several excruciatingly busy weekends, Esteban and I had a very normal Saturday this weekend. It was comforting and sort of startling to realize how long it’s been since we’ve had a nothing to do day. It started when I woke up early. Esteban had Dorkathalon the night before and while I had made plans to go out to the Bad Bar with Jason, Eric and Pie, I ended up falling asleep sometime after 7 pm. My sleep deficit finally is in the black. However, since I had gotten to sleep so early and was pretty bright’eyed at 7 am, there was no reason to wait around for Esteban, who had only gotten home a handful of hours earlier. I grabbed coffee at Sbux, got the car washed, then went to St. Vincent de Paul to check out the book section. I’ve been having great luck finding old foreign language books recently, and was in the mood to walk around in other people’s detritus. Things are always changing at that place, so it’s always kind of fun, plus the furniture section is a million best laid intentions waiting to happen. I found a bunch of children’s classics (Pippi, Ramona, Breezus and all their friends) to keep at my house for Abby, who is starting to read chapter books, and then wandered into the furniture section. It was a prime score day. Apparently spring cleaning is hitting early. I was puzzling over a pair of Eames end tables in really exceptional condition ($5 each) when I noticed the coolest old metal wash basin. I’m a sucker for old metal stuff with artful rust, and the first thing I thought when looking at it was that the fancy greenhouse where they play Mozart would fill it with trailing plants and charge $300 for it. And I’d see it in said greenhouse and think it was quite the deal and wish I had a ton of money so that I wouldn’t feel bad about buying a rusty washtub full of plants. And while $15 seemed a little high for St. Vinnie’s, in the Mozart greenhouse context, it seems like quite the deal. And really, I think I have a serious weakness for old metal domestic items. It wasn’t even enamelware, but somehow it sang to me. I went home to get the truck and found Esteban was awake, so we went to St. V’s together, where Esteban declared that while I normally have a very good eye for kitschy vintage stuff, this thing was junk. I defended my purchase, because I think it will look really nice, sanded and repainted with high gloss, and besides, I was pretty sure it was from the thirties or maybe early forties, but might have been even earlier. Esteban scoffed, but then did some research on the insignia stamp and found that the newest it could possibly be is 1953, but more likely it’s between 1890 and 1930. HA! Although I do agree, it is in pretty rough shape and I don’t want to turn into one of those Kuntry Kute kind of people, so I don’t know that I will end up doing anything with it at all. I may toss it at my mother and see if she wants a spring project, and then tell her she can keep it if it ends up looking too country-ish.
After a lunch at the local pseudo-Mexican pub, we discussed plans for Saturday night, still not entirely sure how to handle the novelty of an entirely open weekend. Esteban declared that he’d rather just curl up on the couch with a DVD. I suggested that we buy the new Harry Potter, since he hadn’t seen it yet, so off we went to Target. After he parked the car, I suggested that he should go in alone. He was confused. “Why?”
“Because’Because I have, um, a problem in Target.”
He pshawed and assured me that he could make sure that we were in and out within a reasonable amount of time. And true to his word, we were indeed out the door in less than fifteen minutes. In our possession, a new Harry Potter DVD, a cork mat to go under one of my orchids, some double sided tape and a 60 Gig video iPod. Apparently Esteban has a problem in Target as well. Or rather, I can’t look longingly at shiny gadgetry and expect him to be made of stone.
The new iPod combines the chills and thrills of the previous two. The first was a 3G that Esteban got for free from a vendor. Its paltry 15 gigs doesn’t hold my entire collection therefore I have to micromanage it all the time, and it has now decided that the battery is fictional and therefore it is functionally useless. And then there’s the Nano. I believe that I either lost the iFetus or left it in the car when I took it to the detailers (of course, the devil always lurks there, so I should have known better), and after a month, I think it’s safe to say that the iFetus is AWOL. In truth, the Nano was an impulse purchase because Apple played to my maternal instincts by making it impossibly cute. So wee that it would get lost in my purse, sliding between the pages of my check book. Of course, it may still turn up, behind my ear or maybe I accidentally swallowed it (it could fit inside my mouth). But regardless, I have a new Pod. Specifically, the Bean. Not as clever as the iFetus, but just as cute. And hopefully this one won’t get blown away by a light breeze.
After the new Pod and subsequent poddery, with Esteban backseat driving from the leather recliner in my office, I announced that I was going to get a start on dinner. Esteban pouted and mentioned that he had hoped we’d get Pad Thai. Honestly, we had Pad Thai earlier this week when Pie came over (fueling the American Idol nonsense, since we weren’t bandying about making dinner), and again the week before that, so I wasn’t in the mood, but since Esteban’s had a marginal appetite for the last few months, I hate to quash a craving. Besides, who am I to stand above him and say “Pad Thai? You buy me a new iPod and think you can just make unreasonable demands? Fie on take out! You must eat the beef stroganoff that I will spend an hour making and you will like it!”
No.
We sat on the couch, watched the Potter and ate Thai followed by Japanese sweet snack foods, like strange ice cream cones that are not filled with ice cream but rather a strange thing that was reminiscent of ice cream and also strangely compelling. Hi! Feel sorry for me because I can’t lose weight. Thanks!
Speaking of Idol, we’ll be live blogging it again during the shows on Tuesday and Wednesday night! Is Ace gay? Does Kevin have pubic hair? What exactly is an artificial carpet? These are the questions that must have answers!
While Esteban was hanging out in the office, he pointed out that it might be the only room in the house containing furniture that we purchased from stores. Then he pointed out that my chair is the exception to the rule, since he bought it second-hand from a previous employer, and then I pointed out that the chair he was sitting in was from Penny (yet matches the room so perfectly that it almost seems as though it were intentional).
Esteban sighed. “Maybe by the time we’re forty, we’ll have picked out everything in our house.”
“Well, since that’s only five years away, I’d better start shopping.” Ah, the old “by the time we’re forty” thing. We’ve been using it so long that we hardly listen to ourselves anymore. We’re going to have to start amending that. It’s making me feel old.
This morning, after we stopped at Sbux, we were driving around aimlessly, thinking about where we wanted to go to breakfast. While driving, we were talking about what we wanted to do to the house next. We’re pretty certain that the dining room will be the next fix, because I really hate the carpet in there and also because it should be a really easy and quick job. Rip up the carpet and baseboards, prime and paint it, new baseboards and fixtures, and then new carpet. I want to put in crown moldings and have decided upon the theme of the room. We’ve decided to turn it into a den, since it’s really dark and since it’s also the room through which you must walk to get to our bedroom and my office, there’s no real place to put a table. In truth, I’ve wanted to install a set of French doors leading to the backyard there, but Esteban is very much against it. While I can see his point, in that our backyard is practically nonexistent with the potting shed back there, and it’s dark in the afternoon, I think it would really make the tiny dining room/den seem airy as well as add value to the house. Esteban doubts that we could recoup our investment, especially since we won’t magically gain an inviting back yard by doing this. I can see is point, but also really want French doors.
“I’ve been thinking of putting a row of hostas along the potting shed.”
“What are hostas?”
“There are two in front of the shed already. They’re perennials, and I think they look nice. Plus, no maintenance.”
“Oh the big green leafy things? Sure. Go nuts.”
“Also, I want to build a deck.”
“Where?”
“In the backyard. In the corner of the L.”
“Wait a second… is this a round about way to get me to agree to cut a hole in the house again?”
Drat. There is never any wool to possibly pull over his eyes. It was a good plan though. Once there’s a deck there, it just is really obvious that you need a way to access the deck. And what better way than… French doors?
We decided upon (Big City) Bread Company, and between the time it took to pull into a parking spot and walk up to the doors, we had decided that instead we would just stop improving the house, stop pouring money into high end fixtures and custom whats-its, just fix what’s still wrong with it and sell it.
We’ll probably change our minds. And Esteban thinks that it will take two to three years, whereas I am more of a six to eight months kind of girl. Regardless, it will be so.
Maybe. If not, I’ll blame it on solar minimum.
