Busy busy day today. I really wanted the living room to be habitable before leaving even though we never got the painting done there, so I ran around all of Arizona it seems picking up two last pieces from estate sales. Got a throw rug for dirt cheap at one place, and I picked up a table with footstools/seats for the living room.
As I was telling Joelle, we may not have chosen a paint yet, but were about 3-4 more sample containers away from having enough paint to paint the living room 11 colors. Picked up the pineapple pillows for 4 bucks a piece today because Joelle and her sorority sisters have a 30 year running joke about pineapples and no before anyone asks we are not swingers I don’t have the energy or patience for more than one woman in my life.
That is Curtis, the mostly blind and completely deaf shiba inu who is 15 years old, has the mannerisms and behavior traits of Felix Unger. And finally, we have Jack trying out the new carpet:
I just can not tell you how much I love Jack and will miss him, as he is just the best dog. He’s really very much like Lily in that it is as if his personality was completely custom built to be with me. He is by my side most of the day as I work at the computer or around the house, goes with me everywhere, and I would totally take him home if his owner was not in hospice and looking forward to seeing him on weekends (Joelle drives him to the home for visits).
So, to recap:
Laundry room organized and has a good storage space.
Kitchen is completely reorganized and functional.
Living room has most everything done except we need a lamp and to paint it, and I need to replace one of the deadbolts on the front door we never use.
Sunroom was completely gutted, painted.
Going through it all, we probably spent about 2500 bucks total on everything, which is just a fuckton of money, but since we bought everything used and I did all the labor, I really feel like we got a lot of bang for the buck. The living room was the major expense, with “new” credenza, cabinet, couch, rug, coffee table, tv, sort kind of a morris chair, and curtains. Of that 2500, a solid 800 was just on initial outlays of tools and expenses like paint, putty, etc. It’s not really my style, but everything works and the couch is comfortable and the important thing is she is happier.
Most everything works now with the exception of a couple things that an electrician needs to deal with and I have to do something long term about the fucking doorbell I ripped out of the wall because it would randomly just go off and made me mental and one day I just ripped the fucking thing off the wall and covered the leads electrical tapes and covers. Joelle looked at me a little scared when it happened but sometimes violence is the answer and she understood that the doorball had to be put down quickly and ethically. It was for the better.
I really did not want to leave without getting the hallway and living room painted, but we just couldn’t decide on a color and we didn’t have a free weekend to do the hallway painting, as that is a two person job- me painting, and Joelle keeping the menagerie away from me and more importantly the wet paint. On the other hand, I am glad that got most of the things that were not functional taken care of and all the safety hazards are gone. Got new smoke detectors installed. I still need to get a fire extinguisher and fire blanket for the kitchen, but Joelle does not cook much when she is alone so that can wait a little bit.
I’m just happy I will be able to sleep and not think about those things and everyone is not in danger. That’s it for me.
*** Update ***
I almost forgot about the pizza ordeal. Because it was March 14th today, aka pi day, some asshole running a local pizzeria decided that they FUCKING LOATHE their staff and was selling two cheese pizzas for $6.28. Joelle decided she wanted to bring two to work and asked me to pick them up. I voiced my objections and was ordered to the Eastern Front anyway, arrived 10 minutes after the pizzas were supposed to be ready, and waited in line behind the entire fucking population of Tempe before reaching the counter and having some poor young girl in tears say that she can’t even find their order and they are super behind and asked if I could come back later. So I fucked off a couple miles down the road to this Mexican place I had eyeballed a number of times but never made it in.
And it was banging. Just a delightful little outdoor garden with lots of shade, and the food was delicious and the staff was great. Maybe not the best Mexican I have had down here, but still amazing, and all of it was made better by the charm of the place, the kindness of the staff, and knowing it was a local mom and pop. So if you are ever in Tempe, make sure you check out Parilla Los Picos. For 9.95 on Thursdays you get a burrito and beverage and chips and salsa. Very good.
Went back an hour and fifteen minutes later, and the line was the same size but I just skipped it and went to the pizza warmer and told the guy my order and name and he handed it to me. The poor girl at the register was near a meltdown by that point and people were just being horrible. I’m never going to that place again (the name of the place is Sauce). Plus the pizza was garbage.
Old School
Looks nice!
teezyskeezy
*squish* (nah, you actually let the previous have a good run this time).
HeleninEire
The room is gorgeous!
Ohio Mom
It’s all lovely and homey. I am already sad that Cole has to leave this cozy nest he helped create.
Trivia Man
When i go shopping i put the pineapple in the cart upside down. Ive heard thats a conversation starter but so far nobody seems to have noticed.
Trivia Man
I really like the color palette and retro style. Nice work.
TeezySkeezy
@Trivia Man: I feel like the blue light apocalypse is starting tonight in Phoenix though? (I’ve seen In the Mouth of Madness, so save it!)
CaseyL
Curtis goes through the house tidying up? Good boy!
I hope you’ll FaceTime or something when you’re back in WV. Joelle might not need it, but Jack will.
I have a doorbell story, too!
Many years ago, I lived in an apartment with a smoke detector in the ceiling in the entry hall and – this is important – a box holding the inside part of the doorbell mechanism by the front door in the entry hall.
One night a chirping kept waking me up from a very sound sleep. I would go out into the hall (still half asleep and thinking NOT at all clearly) and the chirping would stop; I would go back to bed and it would start up again. A few repetitions and I was ready to kill something.
I thought the chirping was coming from the doorbell. To this day, I don’t know why I thought that. I do not know why it never occurred to me that it was the smoke alarm letting the world know its battery was failing. I focused, vengefully, on that poor little doorbell.
Each time that damned chirping woke me up, I went out into the hall and dismantled another piece of the doorbell. First, I ripped off the outer cover of the control box. Then I pulled out the little chime thingies. I stuffed napkins into it. A rag. Nothing muffled the chirp because, well, it wasn’t the doorbell chirping.
The chirping stopped when the battery finally died; and I was able to go to sleep and stay that way.
The next morning, when I was considerably more in my right mind, I went into the entry hall, saw the remnants of the doorbell hanging pathetically from the hole in the wall…. and then, some dim light bulb went off in my head, and I slowly looked up at the ceiling. At the smoke alarm.
I have felt guilty about that poor doorbell ever since.
TeezySkeezy
@Trivia Man: Not my scene, but there are so many imaginary fucking swinger codes that they’ve become real to the people also not actually in the scene but who are curious and so I have to assume from this point forward that when I get a random neg it must be because I accidentally signaled some unreal swinger code to tourist self-imagined swingers.
Anne Laurie
@teezyskeezy: Last post got its fair top-of-page… so, hand to Murphy, I was *thisclose* to hitting publish on a long wonky post that I’ll save for tomorrow instead.
(Don’t worry, Cole, we all love you whenever you care to share with us!)
I gotta get out of this place
You should get a picture frame – place it around the painted test strips on the wall – and call it art. It’ll look deliberate… Yeah, we meant to do that.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
I had an offer for a great job but they just paused all hiring. I am long term optimistic, but disappointed about not being ‘set’ yet.
TeezySkeezy
@Anne Laurie: Two in a row is challenging the gods.
EDIT: also, making the 13th comment…
mrmoshpotato
Hahaha!
TeezySkeezy
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team: You know, that kind of messaging from corporate HR has zero informational content. You can go back and forth in your head about whether what they said to you reflects more on them or on you, but end of the day, it’s bullshit corporate speak that seriously you cannot extrapolate from it anything about *your* own worth as a human. The best you can say is they had some bullshit algorithm that probably isn’t helping them make excellent hiring decisions.
A sad thing is that many people think corporate HR is always about catching the baddies “doing the harassment” and protecting their precious resource, the “humans,” but that’s often (I won’t say mostly, because I don’t have stats, just anecdotes) untrue and their function is mostly to reject resumes based on bullshit while ignoring malfeasance and employee abuse because some rando personnel trainer fucked someone in HR and has bad stories to tell and so you can’t get any fucking justice because of that venal situation. Do I sound particularly bitter about a very real thing or just conjecturing about things I imagine could be happen? Your guess.
Anyway, it doesn’t reflect on you. It reflects on the depravity of the CYA corporate culture.
prostratedragon
Nice living room. The dog really ties it together.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: 😂 Nice!
eclare
@CaseyL:
Hahaha….
Kayla Rudbek
Mr. Rudbek and I had a good time tonight, although Google Maps sent us down a hiking trail that went into Rock Creek Park and we were dressed for listening to classical music at an embassy instead. I am very glad that I didn’t wear heels. And from what we could see as the metro passed Haynes Point, it looks like the cherry blossoms are coming out so we can go bike there this weekend (less crowded than the tidal basin).
eclare
@Trivia Man:
I am missing something. The only thing that I know about upside down pineapples is that they ripen faster that way. That is how I store them, it works. I am too scared to Google any other meanings.
TeezySkeezy
@eclare: Supposed Swingers’ codes, but I’m skeptical.
eclare
Love that chair/footrest combo by the door. You two got a lot done for not much money or time!
mrmoshpotato
@Kayla Rudbek:
Hiking to the symphony. Oh yes.
Quinerly
@eclare:
I remember a Parade Magazine “expose” on swingers signaling each other in grocery stores with their pineapples. I don’t know what was funnier….the pineapples or Parade Magazine doing a piece on it.
FastEdD
Beeping things-I had a fire alarm that wouldn’t stop beeping. I took it down off the wall and took it outside to try to take the battery out, but you couldn’t because it was one of those newfangled designs that keep apartment dwellers from defeating the alarm. So I took a big rock and tried to smash it. Beeep. Threw it down from a ladder as hard as I could. Beeep. Smashed it with a hammer. Beeep. Finally took it out to the forest behind the house and threw it as far as I could. Faint beeping. At least I could sleep. It took a couple months for the damn thing to die. Annoyed the coyotes I suppose. Sometimes even violence doesn’t work.
eclare
@Quinerly:
That seems pretty risqué for Parade magazine!
eclare
Does anyone have a guess as to what the woven basket thing is in the first photo?
eclare
@FastEdD:
Wow! What a combo of annoying and impressive.
glc
All right then, Rupert Murdoch just got a Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leadership award.
I leave you to judge whether that is the oddest of this year’s laureates. Yes, this is unclear.
The list includes two convicted criminals (soon to be more, perhaps).
Trivia Man
@Quinerly: Thats probably where i heard it. I am not homeless, i do not have AIDS. But i am new in town and my California friend dared me to try it and see if i could make new friends. Im not in the Lifestyle but maybe i could get a DND game, or a poker night, or someone to play Dead tunes with.
Ive heard poly people like to play DND … if they have a 4 or 5 person relationship they are more likely to show up to play.
CaseyL
@glc:
Here is what I’ve heard about this: The organization that hands out the award is now run by the widow of the man who established the award. She is a wingnut; he was not.
glc
@CaseyL: I hear something similar happened to Christianity.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Nice digs and dogs! It’s probably better to have waited to paint as you now know the colors you are using in the room. So no to magenta, avocado or Harvest gold, right? ;)
It hit 82 degrees here at the home and it’s currently 66.6 degrees out here in the garage at almost 9:30 this eve. Devilishly warm for a winter day here on the Oregon coast. The sea lions are making all kinds of noise down at the harbor tonight, with one real noisy one lording it over the others. A USCG chopper is just outside the harbor but we think they’re practicing something since the weather is nice. That and the stupid people haven’t arrived yet (tourists) that they usually have to rescue/lift the body off of a cliff.
Ohio Mom
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team: That happened to me once. Phooey!
Glidwrith
@FastEdD: I have a similar story: chirping fire alarm at 3 in the morning. <chirp> Traipse down the stairs to get the ladder and haul it back up. <chirp> Unhook the alarm from its three point plug <chirp>.
Finally, pull the battery.
<chirp> You son of a bitch.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Get a cordless drill and a selection of bits. Solves most problems, one way or another.
Joelle
@eclare: It’s a vintage Franco Albini wicker poof! They have the exact same ones at Frank Loyd Wright’s Talisien West!
eclare
@Joelle:
Thank you! It’s very interesting. Off to google..
Wow! Those are spendy!
Anotherlurker
@FastEdD: I had a similar experience at 5am the other morning except instead of an annoying beeping it was a full throated, 85db screaming alarm. I swear I rose 3 feet above the bed! Poor Lucy, my Cocker Spaniel pup, jumped as high as I did. I took the smoke alarm down and pressed the test/silence button. It took a good 2 minutes for it to silence.
But wait, it gets better. After 10 minutes, just when we were both approaching normal heartbeats, the F@#K!n@ thing went off again. Same scenario of pressing the silence button and after another 2 minutes the screaming, nearly ear damaging cacophony, silence again regained .
But then, 10 minutes later, 85db. By then Lucy and I were wired and paranoid and sleep was not on the horizon. I dug out my framing hammer and hovered over the offending object but it stayed silent. Thankfully.
Super came today and replaced the smoke alarum.
Since I have worked, mostly nights thru my career and only turned out the lights at 2am, my day was pretty much lost.
Sister Golden Bear
@glc: Opperman Foundation was taken over by his widow, who’s apparently a right wingnut. So yeah….
JWR
@glc: Just saw that over at Digby’s place:
Digby comments:
Roberto el oso
The use of a pineapple as a signaling device leaves me wondering: do some people end up with many many pineapples once they get home? Or, if they’ve received no return signals, do they slip the poor pineapple from their cart and leave it languishing by the tabloids and chewing gum? I wonder if there are other signals, for instance a family size bottle of Cream Soda with a pair of melons positioned at the base? Not that I will be looking for any of these next time I hit Kroger’s, I swear.
prostratedragon
@FastEdD:
Alright, already, you got ne!😆😆😆
no comment
Too bad you didn’t get a chance to paint. I like the orange-yellow shade underneath the flower painting. It goes with the tiger painting, rug, & orange chair.
cain
Cole I just really love your sense of empathy. It really is your super power.
The room looks great! I am sure Joelle is super pleased and I am sure I the days ahead the room is going to miss your presence.
AlaskaReader
I can’t hardly believe only 145,000 people, across a nation of more than 300 million people, took the simple step to ask the Biden Administration to maintain protections for 28 million acres of D-1 lands across Alaska.
But if you were one of those 145,000 people who did take the time, …thank you.
https://trustees.org/why-you-should-care-about-d1-lands-in-alaska/
Hoppie
@Kayla Rudbek: Google “maps” is crap, for example our neighborhood is misidentified (Hillcrest, not “Marston Hills”). I subscribe to the theory that there is a nationwide frat contest to see which school can score the most Google map bloopers.
2liberal
@Trivia Man: A podcast has revealed there are different fruits to use while grocery shopping that can tell others what your relationship status is. If you place a pineapple upside down in your trolley it means you are opening to swinging, which has been around for a while.
NotMax
You already know this so a friendly reminder to check the tire pressure (including the spare) before setting off back east.
NotMax
Unexpected grin during the opening credits of a movie from the early 1930s put on to run mostly in the background while reading through this thread as one of the cast is the character actress Tempe Pigott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I see what you did there. Beast.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Remarkable.
Quaker in a Basement
That rug really ties the room together.
JoyceH
This week I started the beginner dog class with Whimsy and was amused to see that the basic class that used to be called “obedience” is now “manners and life skills”.
eclare
@JoyceH:
That is hilarious! Is an SAT prep course next?
How is Jazzy doing?
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
:-)
Tony Jay
@Trivia Man:
I’ve checked out pineapple etiquette on the dark web and all I’ll say is that as long as you’re careful not to twin upside-down pineapples with pushing your trolley one handed while wearing a Maxi Priest tour cap you should be safe in the car park.
Unless you’re in St Louis. It’s code for ‘Surprise Me’ there.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
Maxi Priest? Wow, takin’ us back!
Chris T.
@TeezySkeezy:
Actually, the designed function of HR is to protect the company. That’s it: nothing more or less. They are supposed to keep the company safe from being sued by employees, while keeping employees who are useful to the company at the company at salaries that are acceptable to the company.
Everything else they actually do is either in service of this function, or because they’re human (which can be positive, negative, or both…).
sab
@JoyceH: Well, that is definitely a more realistic title. It took three obedience courses for my gsd to learn much obedience and earn her canine good citizen certificate, but she had learned manners after the first one
ETA I love Whimsy’s name.
satby
@no comment: I love orange-y colors, my dining room is a darker orange with the original dark stained woodwork and dark wood furniture. So to tie it together while balancing it, the accent colors are shades of blue, opposite orange on the color wheel and complementary. Since Joelle also likes green, I would do a lighter version on Valspar’s color of the year Renew Blue on the walls.
Denali5
You are in Arizona, right? The only color possible is a light shade of adobe.
Kayla Rudbek
@Hoppie: The only thing worse than Google maps is Apple Maps
Paul in KY
@Trivia Man: Hope you are able to find some friends there.
Tony Jay
@eclare:
I’m a way back kind of guy. 8-)
kindness
You need one Grateful Dead poster on the walls John. Even if it’s inside the garage.
aaron
I went to7-11 for pi day and bought a spicey deluxe pizza, uncooked and was in and out in 5 minutes.
it was good.
so I went back and got a pepperoni pizza, too.
same deal. I havent cooked it yet.