This post is a shout to everyone who read my post earlier in the day and mentally thought to themselves “there’s no fucking way they are getting all that done” because you are tonight’s big winner. And a hearty fuck you to all of you, btw.
At any rate, to elaborate on what is going on, Joelle’s living room has the front door (that we do not use) and is connected to the galley kitchen with a door to the carport (that we do use) and on the other side connects to the hallway to the two bedrooms at the end, the bathroom in the middle, and a sun room that we call the dog room that connects to the patio and the backyard. We had a bunch of indoor outdoor 50’s tiki furniture that was gifted to her in that room that I picked up in Flagstaff a couple weeks ago.
So what we did is we threw out her aged couch and end table that she wanted to get rid of (that she put on FB marketplace and was GONE in an hour) deep-cleaned the living room, chose our paint colors from the samples we put up, and cleaned the tiki furniture and moved it into the living room temporarily. Tomorrow we are deep cleaning the sun room/dog room, and then while she is at work next week I am going to pain the sun room and the hallway. Once those are done, we will move the tiki stuff back into the sun room/dog room, and then we will paint the living room. Exhausted? Me too.
I was a spaz all day long and could not figure out what Joelle wanted me to do and she is quite frustrated with me right now, but what can I say, it’s a fucking package deal. I was unwittingly working against her because I thought we were painting the living room first- the list never got made, btw.
Another thing I keep forgetting is that I am an ogre. I would have no problem living for a week with the living room completely torn up and there being no other “space” to live. I mean I can get to the kitchen, the shower and shitter, the office, and the bed. What else do I need? Not all people ‘live’ like that or can just completely blot things out.
The other thing is that she is also very sentimental so this is all a big deal for her. I’m not so much. I look at something and scan for threats and utility, and in that order. Aesthetics follow, to varying degrees. She doesn’t think that way. She just has a different worldview that I will never fully understand but can respect and need to learn to get better at being sensitive to or in a couple years you might hear Josh Mankiwiecz on Dateline talking about a woman who slowly poisoned her husband to death by putting thallium in his topo chico. At any rate, the temporary living room with sunroom furniture while we do the other room and hallway. From the front door angling across the room to the galley kitchen:
A side view from one of the tiki seats against the wall.
And from the galley kitchen door:
If you look at the first picture, yoiu will see a picture of Marilyn Monroe, except it is not! It’s Joelle back in her youth when she worked in Wheeling and someone asked her to be a hair model. I think she looks like Ana de Armas in the picture:
At any rate, that was today. Currently I am researching textured walls to figure out what the fuck they are made of and what I can do to hang a picture or shit in them without destroying them.
War for Ukraine Day 710: The House Majority GOP Caucus Announce’s the Abandonment of Ukraine To the World
zhena gogolia
Wow, what a picture!
rikyrah
Noelle was a stunner back in the day🤗🤗
The room looks comfy and liveable.
Joelle is good for you, Cole😊
satby
Wow is right! I thought it was Monroe too.
And Thurston!
Yutsano
THURSTONPUPPEH!!!!
About damn time you showed us SOME proof of life of your pets!
I kind of like the tiki furniture too.
hells littlest angel
Dean Phillips couldn’t even beat Marianne Williamson! Go away dumb rich guy.
Scout211
I am totally confused about all the furniture shifting and all the doors and sun rooms and tiki furniture. My head is spinning.
But it sounds like it will all work out in the end and Joelle’s house will be all new and shiny again. Nice.
I’m getting used to these evening fireside chats, John. I hope they continue.
Layer8Problem
First, Wheeling! My uncle and aunt are there.
Second, Joelle, that is an excellent picture.
Alison Rose
Joelle was hot to death.
I won’t mention that two of those photos appear to be the same photo.
Barbara
The hardest thing about painting is having your living space in complete disarray. Totally in sympathy with Joelle on that score.
What a great photo! Yowza!
Kristine
Stunning photo, Joelle!
I’m enjoying the nightly recaps, too. Good to catch sight of Thurston, who’s usually bitched about but not seen.
Sure Lurkalot
That tiki is boss and I hope there will be pictures of the sunroom, freshly painted with that happy furniture.
Parfigliano
About the poison….Joelle seems to smart to get caught.
Steeplejack
Pictures 1 and 3 are the same. Are we missing one?
ETA: Maybe picture 1, since I’m not seeing the Marilyn Monroe photograph in this one.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: I think it’s in the upper right corner of 1 and 3. There’s a glare on it that makes it look different but you can see the fabric pattern.
Joelle
It was the summer after I graduated from Bethany. I was living in Wheeling, WV above a pizza shop, across the street from the TV/Radio Station where I worked. I used to browse in a really cute vintage store with this girl that looked like Natalie Merchant at the register. Eventually we chatted and she asked if I would model some of the stuff in the shop while her husband took professional photos. It turns out her husband is Kirk of Kirk’s Photo Art of Wheeling, WV. Anyone in the area went to Kirk to get their Senior portraits done or a photo transfer to oil painting texture on canvas of the family dressed in matching sweaters at Christmas.
Anyway, I gathered up a teasing comb, my fishnets, rhinestone and boas and a 1960’s leopard Jantzen swimsuit I just picked up at Eons in Shadyside in Pittsburgh and went to meet Kirk at his studio. He let me do my own hair and make up and styling and I just dressed up and adjusted my hair to each vintage clothing era from his wife’s shop. Oh I just realized I forgot to mention that his wife who looked like Natalie Merchant… turns out she was Natalie merchant’s BFF. No shit! Anyway back to the photo shoot. It was the last roll and I put together the “Marilyn outfit.” I remember I came out and Kirk was like Wow this outfits s going to photograph so well. I’m going to just start shooting.” And do he did. And I remember I placed both my velvet gloved hands on to the tops of my thighs and I breathed in and I saw the flash and I knew it was “the shot.” Kirk did too. He kindly printed out a bunch for me. AND… made one 24×38 gold framed placed on an easel in the front window of Kirk’s Photo Art pastel color washed black and white oil printed on canvas of me… inhaling it all.
jame
Is that a chocolate-colored rotary dial phone sitting on the bar table?
West of the Rockies
Why is Topo Chico so damn refreshing anyway? It’s largely flavorless yet festive.
glc
I put the last pic into Google lens and it came back quite enthusiastically Marilyn Monroe (eventually a little Barbara Lang and Jayne Mansfield, farther down). And a few others. No cats though, not even tigers.
Joelle
@Parfigliano: I keep telling him… it’s gonna look like an accident.
like a metaphor
but wait- what colors did yall choose? How are we expected to bitch about your choices if we don’t know what they are?
ps, love that silly phone! And the 50s lamp!
Joelle
@jame: Why yes it is. I think it’s called a Sculptura model. The oblong circular shape. M&M shit brown too. That was a good rando neighborhood tag sale pick-in day.
Kristine
@Joelle:
Cole’s posted so many tales of mishaps over the years that no one will dispute.
Omnes Omnibus
@Joelle: He is famously clumsy and prone to spectacular feats of self-harm that he has publicized for years in this very blog. IOW you won’t have to try too hard.
West of the Rockies
@Kristine:
Autopsy Reveals Former West Virginia Man Accidentally Confuses Windex for Blue Blast… Over a Span of Weeks.
Origuy
There was a discussion a few threads back about Girl Scout cookies. I see that Target’s Native brand of soaps, etc., has a line of products scented like the cookies. I shouldn’t be eating cookies, and I think I really can’t go around smelling like Thin Mints. And is peanut butter deodorant really a good idea?
like a metaphor
@Origuy: soap has negative calories. Eat enough of it, and you will actually lose weight.
Joelle
@Omnes Omnibus: seriously. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Doc Sardonic
Not unless you want to be wearing a suit of live squirrels 10 feet after you walk out of the house
Steeplejack
@Alison Rose:
I dunno. If you embiggen 1 or 3, there is a furniture edge (or something) on the left side of the wall photograph that doesn’t appear in the Marilyn Monroe shot.
Ohio Mom
@Scout211: I agree, I can not make any sense of that description of the floor plan but the photos convince me it’s a cute and cozy house.
And I also like these daily missives because I am getting burned out on politics and current events.
NotMax
Headline I never once thought I’d see.
Baseball Team Renames Itself After Salad Dressing
Redshift
@hells littlest angel:
I just saw that. Well deserved, and so hilarious!
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
Everyone dismisses Williamson, but her energy crystal tariff policy is very well thought out.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Deep dive reveals she covered every facet.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: I opened both in separate tabs and clicked back and forth and it’s the exact same photo.
NotMax
No clue what a topo chico might be, but it’s gotta be preferable to a Topo Gigio.
“Keese me goodnight, Eddie.”
//
John Cole
@West of the Rockies: this is the greatest description ever
glc
@NotMax: Full service blog I see.
It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Why do you persist in telling me things I don’t already know? (I heard that remark made once, as I passed by a couple.)
Jackie
@Redshift: Did Biden walk away with all 55 delegate votes or did Williamson get a percentage?
Alison Rose
@Jackie: Biden made like a Pokemon hunter and caught ’em all.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@NotMax:
Mmm hmm.
Jackie
@NotMax: As a child, I adored Topo Gigio! When he was on, mom and dad let us get up from bed to watch him.
CaseyL
I adore the tiki furniture! And the photo is Wowsa! And the Sculptura phone – does it still work?? I see something on the shelf below it that might be a router. Or a book.
It is incredibly hard to get rid of stuff you’ve had for ages – but also (I gotta say, after taking a pile of dust-collecting mementos to Goodwill this week) very liberating. The trick is not acquiring more stuff to replace it with :)
Can’t wait to see pictures of when the redo is done.
Jackie
@Alison Rose: 👍🏻
Steeplejack
@Alison Rose:
Sorry, when you originally said “upper right corner” I thought you meant the picture above the funky phone, but apparently you meant the barely visible picture around the corner and further along the wall.
NotMax
@glc
Most memorable thing overheard from a couple passed by at a zoo:
“George, how long do we have to stand here watching the gorilla throw up?”
Anoniminous
@Jackie:
All of ’em. Neither the Fruitcake or the Other Fruitcake got above the minimum.
prostratedragon
“See My Vest”
glc
@NotMax: Takes me back to this bit:
“If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.”
Madeleine
@Joelle:
Probably a dead thread, but —Eons in Shadyside? I remember a secondhand store near where we lived (late 80s), so that was maybe it. Unfortunately can’t remember the street name. Near a Greek restaurant? I’m just curious.
Alison Rose
@glc: Oh man, I haven’t thought about that bit for a long time.
Sister Golden Bear
@Parfigliano:
She’s spent the last few years building up immunity to iocaine powder.
Joelle
@CaseyL: yes but I did just cut my landline. Better cable internet package without it
Joelle
@Madeleine: are you thinking of Hey Betty in Shadyside? Same street as Eons. Did you ever meet Richard from Eonz? He was such (and I understand still is) quite the character. Very fabulous and full of disparaging remarks that are so fire that you forget to be pissed at him for saying it to your face.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: I thought of Topo Giogio too, Mouse George. I googled the translation and it’s Little Mole, after a hill near the source of the water.
Rockstar
Love the Dinosaur JR poster!!! Good luck with the refresh, it’s going to look fabulous.
Joelle
@Madeleine: and Greek restaurant was “The Harris Grill.” The store probably was Eons which is closer to Harris Grill.
Madeleine
@Joelle: Thanks. Yes, Harris Grill. My husband just told me Ellsworth Av. Often went past Eons, but never went in. I’d think about it as I went past, but was on the way somewhere—to Harris Grill?— and then I’d forget. I lived there mostly in summer, my now husband was full time.
Mel
@Joelle: Lovely then, lovely now! What a wonderful photo and great story.
Joelle
@Joelle:
@Mr. Bemused Senior: unique aspect of Akron?. Ohio native shudders.
Joelle
@glc: I thought I should mention that the platinum do is my own hair. No wig. No clip ins. Just pure inspiration and Lady Blue Bleach kit fortified hair, an oversized can of Shaper hair spray, a rat tail comb and a dream.