Today, I got to see what living in this neighborhood will be like when we reproduce. It is going to ROCK.

Amy had to bring her oldest son to meet her dad who was taking him to NB for a swim meet. (His first international competition, heh). Amy brought the two younger boys with her, and they came here after dropping off the (allegedly pissed off he wasn’t coming too) older kid. I gave them the tour of the house and yard, we played with our one ‘toy,’ a not fully inflated basketball, and then we went to the playgrounds. We started with the 14th street school, the K-3 that our offspring will walk to, Ramona Quimby style. There are some ball fields that separate the K-3 school from the 4-5 school, but we tested out both playgrounds. They were awesome, swings that hold adults, seesaw, the zoomy-handle-racing things, swirly slides — it was great. After lots of playing at the playgrounds, we packed up and went to the new pool complex that is at Hayford Park, just across the street from the 4-5 school. It was packed, but great. I played with Liam in the zero-entry area, where there are dumping buckets, a wall of water, a raining mushroom, and ground level sprinkler things. Amy stayed with Rowan, apparently her shorts and tank top didn’t pass muster as poolwear, (she’d forgotten her suit) even though there were obese women in t-shirts and shorts in the pool, and after all the excitement at the parks (“This is a HARD DAY! I’m ZAUSTED” — Liam, before the pool) we didn’t stay very long at the pool. But, for six bucks for all of us (I lied and said we were all Bangor residents, whatever, I pay taxes, and Liam was born here) it was pretty fun. When Daed (the oldest) comes back from his swim meet, hopefully he will be able to stay here for a night, and we can use the waterslides and big-kid things.

Seeing that my neighborhood IS as good as we predicted, kid-fun wise, though, was great. Hanging out with Amy (who got a little wistful and talked about wanting to move back, take THAT Portland!) was great, too. Now if I could just get that kid-ness for myself!

In other news, we went to dinner with the whole inlaw-family last night, in honor of my MIL’s 70th birthday. HAving been so pleased with our wedding, the SIL made reservations at the Lucerne. Great.

Dave and I got there first. We waited in the car until we saw someone else we knew. The second family member to arrive was my 17 year old niece. With her baby. And her 16 year old slack-jawed, drug-dealer boyfriend. Wearing a sideways baseball cap, ‘gold’ chains, a basketball jersey over a tshirt and most of his pants, which were jeans. My nephew (he of the jeans/tshirt/bulls cap ensemble at my wedding) came dressed in, yes, jeans, tshirt (this one had printing on it, so less ‘formal’ than the grey one he wore at our nuptials) and baseball cap. His Like-A-Wife is pregnant, so she was wearing wrinkled-to-shit khakis and a tatty maternity shirt. My BIL was wearing jeans. WHAT THE FUCK?

It’s not like this was a surprise, that the Lucerne is formal. These people were at the wedding. That’s where my nephew learned that eating with your bulls cap on is not polite. (He had to be told again last night.)
(Dave and I were wearing a linen skirt and top, and khakis and a button-down, FWIW).

Now, I’m not a super-formal person. I know the rules of etiquette, but I’m not going to harp on you if you butter your bread from the communal butter-dish. But you should know how to dress, and know when to dress. I mean, Dave’s getup wasn’t that expensive — the pants came form TJMaxx, less than 20 bucks a few years ago, but Eddie Bauer, so they’ve held up well. The shirt is a basic brown oxford from Old Navy, that I got for 3 bucks on the clearance rack. You don’t need money to have class. Period.

And I hate that it bugs me so much! Maybe I AM a snob, but I was EMBARRASSED walking in with these people. Not all of them, the estranged brother (who, more and more, we realize we have more in common with him than the others, and the estrangement makes sense, kind of) was wearing a suitcoat, even, and his wife was dressed well. (She’d make a freight train take a dirt road, to look at her, but she knew to dress up) One of SIL’s family was well dressed. My MIL was. But the other SIL, every friggin one of them looked like they thought the Lucerne was classy like Applebee’s or something. I mean, come on. Take off the goddamn hats already. (Dave loves hats! My dad loves hats! But they know when to leave ’em home.)

Also, put your napkin in your lap. And your water glass is to your right, thank you.

One more thing: I ordered new glases! And now I have to WAIT for a WEEK to get them! NOOOOOOO!!!!

I am definitely, totally, not a patient person in some regards. In others, I’m told I have the ‘patience of a saint.” However, I would like my glasses to arrive, my room to be done, and to be pregnant and done teaching sometime last week. ARGH.

You know, I’m beginning to draw parallels between painting the back rooms and parenthood. Yes, I know they are VERY different tasks, but think about it.

When you decide to paint the room, it’s a blank canvas. You have long conversations debating the merits of a bluish-green vs a greenish-blue. You look at the spectrum, you decide, and you bring the paint home. You can envision that greenish-blue room with the windows open on a summer day, the guest bed made with fresh sheets, a nightstand with a neat lamp on top. You can see the office area set up, the shelves stocked with the technical manuals and reference books, the bill paying area clean and neat, with a cup of pens on the corner. It’s all right there, in your head. And now you have the paint, so it’s almost done.

But it isn’t.

First, you have to move all the crap in the guest room to the sewing room, and you have to move the stuff that won’t move into the center of the room. You then have to strip the paper, well, the three layers of paper, before you can paint. You do this because you’ve read the books, you’ve seen the shows. You are going to do it The Right Way, and you will be proud of the finished product.

Doing it the Right Way is a bitch. You start getting big sheets, but then there’s the little bits around the woodwork that are stubborn. You end up spending two days scraping, wearing the same clothes, dirty and sweaty and smelly, and you wonder why you hated the flowered wallpaper so much? Why did we need the greenish-blue room, when it’s really only a lighter and bluer version of the wallpaper that was there? You’ve already started, though. The paint can is in this house, somewhere, waiting to be used and loved. The room is torn up. There is no going back.

SO you keep on plugging. You get paint flakes (probably lead-filled, the house IS 5o years old, you know) in your eyes and mouth and nose. And you’re wearing glasses and a facemask. When you rip back the facemask,gagging, to spit paintchips on the floor, you do it out of instinct, and then apologize to your husband. You remind each other, this is worth it. This is what we wanted, remember?

At some point, you get to tape off the woodwork. You get to prime. When you haven’t gotten that point yet, you hope that you get there soon, because you just bought a bed and it is being delivered in ten days. You have ten days to get everything done, which sounds feasible, but then you remember that at least 6 of those days are being used up for work. Four nights are gone because the conference isn’t local this time.

But then you peek in the sewing room, which is now filled with all the crap you felt you needed to move with you. It’s a mess, waiting for the office to be done. One wall is still chewed up, hanging beadboard won’t happen until a person can actually GET to that wall. But the other three? Are beautiful. That green makes you smile every single time. It was worth it.

It sucked getting there, it was hard, and dirty, and a pain in the ass. You had headaches and sore arms and your fingers were pruny and sliced up under the nails. But it was worth it.

So, we are at the spackle stage of one wall, and almost there for the other four. I am PRAYING that I will be able to prime and paint tomorrow. Because I know, I KNOW, it will be worth it in the end,

And the furniture guys have to put the bed SOMEWHERE next Saturday.

Ahhh, room number two. The office/guest room. For real, no hidden meaning in that one, as in ‘the sewing room.’ Dave cleaned out the room, save for our computer/network equipment, and I started stripping paper. Sweet beauty, it is going so. much. easier than in the sewing room. I’ve used not one drop of water/Dif/vinegar/blood/sweat/tears. AND, I’m getting down to the drywall!!

It appears they, gasp! used sizing in this room. (I really, really doubt they did in my bedroom, which will be a huge undertaking, I digress) It’s just peeling off. Not in sheets so much, but in big chunks. I slide the scraper underneath, and strips of 8 inches or more just lift off. It is amazing.

Interesting, too, that the paper on top (that I hate) is almost exactly as the original paper two layers down, only darker. And, the original base color of the original paper is almost exactly the color we picked out for that room. (God, that’s probably only exciting to me. Sorry.)

We also, yay, got stuff hung up! I framed my topo maps last week, and Dave hung those when I got back from Portland. I searched EVERYWHERE for 16×20 mats with 10×13 openings and found none. I went to artist supply stores, ferfucksake! I looked online! I looked EVERYWHERE. After searching in vain, I decided it was time to buy myself a mat cutter. I ended up buying the Alto 4501 from Joann.com, after finding a 50% off online coupon. Yay! I decided I would look for matboard this week, but I figured I was covered.

So, today I went to Target and saw that the frames I wanted for my Bangor photos were on sale, yay. And when I grabbed 3 and headed for the register, holy moly! They had 10×13 openings in their mats!! So, I framed those and Dave hung them this afternoon. I figure the mat cutter is still a good investment, as I will be taking pictures forever, and I already have some stuff I’d like to frame that is of an odd size.

So, our living room is only now waiting for the curtains to be made (once the back rooms are finished, I’ll haul out my machine) and for our wedding portrait to be hung (which is done, but just not HERE, yet.) Oh, and for our boomerang coffee table to be built, which is something Dave has been saying he might do this week since he is on vacation. Yay!!