Around the House

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

This morning, as devoted partner removed the screen from our bathroom window in order that he might have a clear shot at the family of feral cats cavorting in our yard with his air pistol, it occurred to me that I hadn't updated much about the domestic suburbification. Perhaps it's that, while I think shooting at cats is perfectly normal for a Monday morning, I worry my former citymates would not. Perhaps it's that, should my gardening projects end in tears, I will be embarrassed at my total inability to thrive in grassy cultures. Perhaps it's simply that because the quotidian is so easily taken for granted.

So let's get right to it: my blue table still needs some help. I'm hoping the "Coming of Amy" will help with this. I just kinda need some guidance and some motivation. The laundry room could stand to be emptied of, well, laundry. Apparently it is true that the more space you have, the more space you fill. I feel distinctly cluttered until I remember that we have an attic for "emergencies."

But I guess there are two big changes, one of which I'm sure you can guess at based on the photograph: I am gardening. I dug little holes and lovingly put plants in them and sprayed them with water when they looked thirsty. Sadly, for my mother at least, these are not the pretty kinds of plants. These plants are utilitarian. 8 varieties of herbs and 9 heirloom tomatoes. I envision a long summer of endless fruitings (in reality, I know I'll be lucky to get one salad's worth). I even paid the neighbors' kids to water my pretty little plants while we were in Miami. Yes, I fear for them when it gets hot and they look wilty, but a cursory evaluation of their health while I was gone yields some positivity: they seem spry.

Now there are some problems. For one, I have not consulted the great Internet for information on, let's just use this example, what it means when the leaves are yellow. Does that mean too much water or too little? (Oh, and by the way, now that I have searched, there are more new questions and too many answers.) Also, at the same time as plants were going in the ground, another outdoor toy landed by the front porch. My new bird feeder, a small gift from devoted partner. It is now exciting to see birds eat things out of my feeder (though I need to create a blind from the kitchen window so I can try to take pictures of them feeding). But, of course, the bird feeder has also brought squirrels who, I am not certain of this, might enjoy eating my garden. (The nice man at the garden store assured me to the contrary, but I am skeptical.)

So we sit back, relax, shoot some animal intruders, and await our homemade mojitos and tomato/basil salads. Kids, this, it seems, is what it's all about in the suburbs.

P.S. Many Miami postings coming once I edit and upload the photos.

My Secret Obsession

Bamboo Camisole
Originally uploaded by reallyct

I may have hinted at it. If you've seen me recently it might even be hard to ignore. I'm not embarrassed qua embarrassment about it, and yet I haven't mentioned it. Which is strange. Because I do it all the time. All. The. Time. So, I'll just come out and say it: I'm a knitter.

There. That felt better.

I've known how to knit for years, but I had a lot of anxiety about actually completing projects. There was the ridiculous misshapen hat I made in eighth grade which I insisted on wearing; the two tone mohair v-neck; some shiny scarves. But anytime I attempted something really big, I left it in pieces, afraid that when I sewed them together, the result would look like a Frankensweater.

All this changed when we moved. I got rid of somewhere between 200 and 400 books because I was tired of going from place to place with titles like James Joyce and Pudding: A Critical Study. That left me with just enough bookshelf space for the books I already owned and not enough room, comfortably, for another bookshelf. Something had to give. I knew that having the commute every day filled with new books would quickly result in a massive storage crisis and something about storing extras in the attic still doesn't sit well with me. So I needed a new, absorbing hobby and fast. I honestly can't tell you how I chose knitting, but choose it I did. I walked into a store asking for a cool sweater dress pattern and walked out of the store with a book that had an even cooler riding jacket. Which I made. And which I wear.

That was in September. Since then, I have also made the following: a camel colored handkerchief hemmed jacket, a midnight blue tweed shawl collared sweater (a total winner - I'll be making more next winter), hats for my mother, father, sister-in-law, and Chaters and a scarf for the boy, a red daisy stitched jacket, a forest green cabled cropped turtleneck (deeded to my mother after it was apparent I could be more flattered by a garment), a sea green cropped bamboo cardigan, a fuchsia ruffle sleeved sweater. I am in the midst of three projects as we speak: the bamboo cardigan in the picture (mother's day gift), a dark green jacket for next winter, and (if the yarn ever comes off backorder) a hooded lightweight sweater for me. There. I have both bored you and looked like an insane person at the same time.

I even joined a knitting social networking site that allows you to track your own projects and see other people's. It is actually invaluable for tips, tricks, and best of all, buying other people's excess yarn at a discount. I now buy a lot of yarn. Like I used to buy a lot of books. So the net expenditure is similar, but the storage issue is different. The yarn eventually becomes a piece of clothing and we have ample closet space. I mean I have a closet I only sort of use and I mostly use it as a place to chuck things that don't have a good place to live and so live on the floor until we have guests when they go in the closet. It also saves me from having to buy clothing!

So, I admit my obsession and now I can feel like I'm not hiding things from you any more. Add knitting to my list of nerdy things.

Ye (plural) of Little Faith

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

Though devoted partner just called me on the phone and proceeded to recite the definition of sloth to me (for which there will be just punishment) I did, in a fit of not wanting to do my taxes, start work on the table this past weekend. Ever since I attempted to paint my own bedroom in 2000 resulting in paint on hardwood floors (suck it, illegal sublet) I have been afraid of paint. I just might be a trifle too messy for paint as could be amply attested to by any of the lovely patissiers at DB Bistro who know my propensity for "getting in the confectioner's sugar." But I had been to the dreaded Home Depot, had purchased enough drop cloth to blanket Port Chester, and thought the time had come to man up and get over my fear of destroying everything within my radius.

Guided by the wise and offensively talented Amy (who makes these kinds of home improvement projects seem like no big deal), I had purchased the proper brushes, sandpaper, and paint, and knew how I was to proceed. Step 1: sand off laminate gloss; Step 2: paint. At least those were the steps I remembered. There was a polyurethane step in there as well but Home Depot didn't have that kind of polyurethane so we'll be temporarily avoiding that step. I sanded until the table no longer looked glossy, but, as you can see from this first picture, I may have stopped sanding too soon. No matter, like nail polish, I assumed this could be the base coat.

I should now mention that I sort of forgot to buy that plastic receptacle for the paint and a stirrer. Now someone in another home would have been at wit's end over this sort of oversight, but my house is different. Simply take one's food service grade (and length) plastic wrap and double wrap a mixing bowl and, voila, paint receptacle. Similarly, 3 wood skewers stand in quite well for a paint stirrer in a pinch. As for cleanup, well, what home would be complete without approximately 12 spare rolls of bounty towels. And goodness knows, if this project should require sugar at some point, we've got that well covered with the 50 gallon drum in the basement.

So I felt pretty good about my domestic prowess and MacGyver-like substitutions. True, coat one was not smooth, but coat two was definitely smoother. I remembered Amy's admonishment to attempt to paint in very broad strokes, which I attempted. Yet the space where the first and second swaths intersected was, by necessity thicker, and I felt I had to smooth it out. This in turn made neither swath especially smooth, but I felt certain that subsequent coats would even this out.

Thus far, two coats in, and I'm reevaluating my earlier logic. Even dry, it still isn't as smooth as I would like. Enter devoted partner, himself a professed knower of things. He has suggested a very fine grit sanding might prep the table well for coat three. I shudder at the inevitable return to Home Depot (though perhaps someone there could advise me on my polyurethane problem...) but still have hope that this table might be good in the end. Some things I've noted, though: the color is a little more Go Tigers! than I would have liked - something neither the paint chip nor the daub on the top of the paint can would have suggested and something I am attributing to the fact that the table was woodsy colored to begin with thus, perhaps lending a yellower cast to the whole project; though, come to think of it, once I had the base coats of blue wouldn't this have gone away? Never mind, once completed and accessorized (oh I have accessory plans, fear not), I think this will be a kind of cool table. And, depending on the overall success the first of many such painting projects because, as Amy foresaw, it's kind of addictively fun!

More Projects To Unfinish

I see a pattern developing. The table I've been meaning to paint blue...still not blue. Even though I have all the equipment downstairs in a bag. The iron lawn furniture we bought last summer...still not finished being spray painted. The only reason the Amy Guest Bed has sheets and pillows is that I bought them the same day the bed was set up. I have some difficulty with these domestic projects even as I presume that a life spent Martha Stewart style is what I crave. Martha would have finished spray painting the lawn furniture and, what's more, would have painted little birds on it or something.

So nothing makes more sense than the new spring projects I wish to embark on. Our lawn guy mushed up some soil in front of the house for my heirloom tomato transplants which should arrive today. I'll now need to go back to Home Depot to get some fencing stuff to keep out our menagerie of coyotes, foxes, opossums, and feral cats. Much hilarity, I feel certain, will ensue. Also, I'm not really a talented gardener. I kill plants. All plants. With alarming frequency. But I like the idea of having a dizzying array of tomatoes at the ready this summer. I'll also plant some herbs I think.

With that project firmly destined for failure, I envisioned another. We have, in addition to a profusion of land mammals, some avian visitors to the manse. I don't know much about birds, but I'm pretty sure the blue one is a blue jay, the really red one is a cardinal, and the one with the orangey chest and brown back is a robin. I never gave much thought to birds and their relative attractiveness because for most of my life I lived in a place with only one variety of bird: the pigeon. Which doesn't invite much thought save for the most expedient ways to destroy it. I'm also aware of gulls which are on the beach and also worthy of extermination.

But as the weather has warmed and the ground has yielded bird yummies, there seem to be more of them around and, dare I say it, they are attractive. And kind of peaceful. I'd like to get them to sit still long enough for me to photograph them. Clearly what I need is a bird feeder. Now I know of the pitfalls of the bird feeder: most notably bird crap and an open invitation to squirrels; also there's a good chance they'll eat my tomatoes. Still, I feel as though were the tomatoes and the birds on opposite sides of the house, both could live unmolested.

I too am frightened by these mental developments and what they imply.

A Project, Part 2

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

Once upon a time, in our old apartment, we decided we would spruce things up a bit by painting some accent walls. I took the fun trip to Home Depot and loaded up on paint chips that I then pasted to the wall. Devoted partner might claim this was a pretense as I already knew what colors I wanted, and in point of fact the two walls did end up those colors, but had a convincing counter-argument been made, I may well have given it its due. The colors I was looking to match were bordello red and tropical paradise blue. Both were easy to narrow down and find and I would use both colors again (though in all honesty, I forget the name of the blue we used).

So now that I have a project, I skipped to the Home Depot to pick out my navy-ish color.

There were way more choices than I expected, and frankly than I think are strictly necessary. Yeah, I brought them all home because maybe devoted partner could see something I didn't. Yes, well, devoted partner took one look at this hot decorating mess and asked if I was joking. He may have a point: there certainly are a number of virtually indistinguishable choices.

So, I guess, dear Amy and others who like to weigh in, should we be looking at the slate dark blues, the royal dark blues, or the violet dark blues? I feel a bit or vertigo even staring at this picture for too long. I'm ready to get my hands (and clothing, and hair) dirty, I just need a little more direction!

A Project, Part 1

The lovely Amy came over on Sunday and cast her expert eye over our belongings, decor, and domicile - a surprising number of things passed muster, but there were those that didn't. Singled out for a home makeover was our dining room table. Which was my parent's dining room table. Which was selected in the 1980s. And looks it.

The table top is a faux bois laminate and the table is supported by a gigantic silver apparatus that looks like a reconfiguration of department store clothing racks. Add to this that the chairs around the table are folding wood chairs from IKEA, and you get the idea. Yet, until two months ago, we had never had a dining room table and only used this one when we were having more than two people over for dinner (which was once a year). Also, we like free things. Free things, strangely enough, cost significantly less than non-free things.

But where we merely saw a temporary monstrosity, Amy saw potential. Calling forth from her mind a series of "easily" undertaken tasks, she recited the list of things we would need to do to transform the table from acid-washed to couture, and I'm going to do it.

Obviously, though, this will be humorous. I have no special talent for things like painting inside the lines, and there will doubtless be many a misstep (I'm thinking the orbital sander will be a good starting place for disaster). I have already visualized the chairs that I will create to go with the table so, there's that funniness to come.

I will post the 'before' picture of the table when I get home, but in the meantime, however dated the image in your head is, rest assured, the reality is far worse!