Kitchen Renovations - Day 7

And on the seventh day, there was no rest in squirreldom. Busy, busy squirrels, all revved up on Ritter Sport chocolate. Have discovered that if I eat too much chocolate, I get testy. How long has it taken me to figure this out?

Renovating is a fascinating opportunity to learn which words come out of your own mouth first when you swear involuntarily. I have discovered, by means of the regular smash-your-thumb sorts or renovations, that "rat bastard!" has entered my innate swearing vocabulary. Pardon my French, but this is the whole unedited version: "Rat bastard! Fuck! Sonofabitch! Ow!" And if it really, really hurts, then freeflowing repetition starts at this point.

At this mature age that I am, I can now appreciate my father's reticence. He always said only "Holy mackerel!", as far as I can remember, with maybe the occasional "Shit!" thrown in. (The Thailand tourist will of course poke holes in this as she does all my carefully crafted narratives.)(Aren't you supposed to be out eating a curried coconut, instead of hanging out in sweaty little Internet cafes?)

Today's renovations were drudgery, and so I had to blast my favourite tripe radio station. Jim cannot stand this station, but he knows that I need certain things to get into the zen mode of mudding and taping. I did a first run at all the mud and tape today, with the testy meltdown coming near the end.

You see, we foolishly decided to take out only part of one wall, instead of the whole thing. This meant that Jimbo had to fit in a few pieces of drywall here and there. It was a good idea at the time (less wall-gutting mess), but when it came to the plastering the hodgepodge, I lost my cool in a very short time. "Why didn't we take out this whole wall?" "What were we thinking?" "I'm NOT doing it!!" "I QUIT!!" [This is, of course, when Gwen impales a chunk of her thumb on the ladder, and swears a blue streak...] Jim is so great in these situations. I certainly couldn't deal with me at these moments. But he simply gives me a sandwich, tells me to sit down quietly, and does a bit of the plastering until I get my senses. Then he sits with me and tells me stories about crazy things until we're both laughing about the dangers of chocolate and how ridiculous the eighties were.

On Day 7, then, I must conclude that there will one day be a kitchen, there will be no renovation-induced heartbreak in the near future, and the chocolate that I have been eating is interfering with my zen essence.

After finishing the kinder and gentler plastering, Jimbo shopped for plumbing supplies (cha-ching), and I cleaned a blue streak (a la lead-free Bobo).

The kitchen is going to be glorious.