martinimade

The kitchen project has entered its last phase. The easy phase, given that the tedious priming, wallpaper stripping, re-priming, painting, taking off cabinet fronts and drawers, painting and touch up have now been accomplished. My last project was to get decades-old vinyl floor clean.

Let me cut to the chase -- five hours, four of those magic eraser thingies, several buckets of clean water, a big sponge and my aching knees and wrists. I also appear to have sanded my fingerprints off.

Admittedly, I can get a little compulsive about these sorts of projects. In my defense, my anal retentiveness about problems that require soap and elbow grease is nowhere near the level of those on my father's side of the family. You could eat of the floor in my grandmother's garage. And if you spilled sauce on the rug, you probably would find yourself dining there.

Still, it's done. My grandmother still would think it's filthy -- but if it's any indication of how bad it was, the Featureless Saint saw it half-cleaned and made some crack about how it might save more time to redirty the clean parts rather than make the filthy parts clean. He had a point.

Two things, unrelated to my stupid kitchen:

1) Is it news really that gifted kids are being left behind in our government's misguided quest to accommodate every child? And is anyone else thinking of that Vonnegut short story? Maybe all of those lead toys are a way to level the playing field.

2) Must make Fried Coke. Might be even better with root beer, no? Why am I not surprised that this originated in Texas? I know -- deep fried Shiner!