2001-03-08

First, I should thank Al for adding me to his Lives online project. I’m flattered to be there. I sent him the entries, but I’ve never done anything like that before.

Second, I wanted to be slightly entertaining. The thought was that if I could be entertaining, I would be entertained and then I wouldn’t be so sad today. Zoe was born a month ago today. I don’t know if I can manage the entertaining part but here are some entertaining events from the last few weeks.

First the kitchen. The kitchen is only entertaining because of the remodeling project. This is actually a four-year project because we are not rich. We were going to make it a five year plan when the adoption came up, I still want it to be a five year plan just so I can feel all communist. Year 2 was to replace the cupboards above and around the refrigerator. After Zoe left, husband got out the graph paper and re-did his plan for the kitchen. The old plan had a huge pantry cupboard next to the fridge and a cupboard above. The new plan is cheaper and has more cupboards. It also has a countertop. So after explaining the plan to me, husband suggested we hike on over to Lowe’s and order the cabinets. We did. This weekend husband started ripping out the old ugly cabinets, this left 1950’s linoleum and several holes in the wall. Tuesday we got the call that all the cabinets were in. When we had ordered them, two were listed as cathedral instead of square and we had them corrected. When we picked them up, all the boxes said “square.” When we got them open, one of them was cathedral. Then our handyman guy got listed on the disabled list with a torn rotator cuff. Husband planned on a day trying to get an estimate from Lowe’s on the installation and trying to get the error fixed. Amazingly the guys that came for the estimate thought they were to install, so after giving husband an estimate, he made them install it. It looks good… except that the cabinets are not as deep as the old ones. So the old holes still show, and the refrigerator looks huge. All in all though the kitchen is slowly going from something I am ashamed to show into something that looks nice but I don’t dare tell people we designed.

Second the turkeys. Yep, turkeys. Two weeks ago I was at home reading and sewing and such when I decided to come up to the good couch and take a nap. I looked out the huge windows that look into the backyard and my brain said—there is a Turkey in your yard. My eyes did a double take thinking my brain was wrong. It was. There were actually 17 turkeys in the backyard. Now, I don’t live in a huge city or anything, but I do live on a fairly busy road in a medium sized city, a good hike from anything you would call wilderness. But indeed there were turkeys in the yard. I counted them. My mom wanted to know if they were wild turkeys. I think she thought I was drinking wild turkey when I told her that they had no shepherd and were not on leashes. So, in answer to the question that everyone asks—what were they doing? They were going from birdfeeder to birdfeeder and they stopped to attack the house across the backyard from mine and to scare the crows. It was very entertaining and I never got my nap. I haven’t seen them again either.

The last entertainment. I cornered A-, the young adult librarian and asked about something I had noticed yesterday. EEO, who regularly has gazillions of overtime, (yes, my office keeps track and posts it) had less than 3 hours for the entire 2001 (last year she had almost 200 for the year). I asked why. A- seems to think that EO is quitting soon. Of course about a year ago I thought this might be the case, but that never materialized (EO said “last time I felt this bad I quit my job” and got my hopes up). A- thinks that while EO hasn’t been around much lately, when she has she’s been sunnier. Who knows what will happen.

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