Failure in Kitchen Design Promotes Weight Loss!!!

We don't have a kitchen 'work triangle' per se.  It's more a kitchen 'assembly line.'  Our kitchen sink is 21 feet away from our freezer.  It goes like this:  Sink, drawer unit, stove, dishwasher, fridge, old kitchen island, new butler's pantry and then you get to the freezer in the closet of our foyer.

Why would we have an upright freezer in the closet of our foyer, you ask?  Because that's where it fit.  Why don't we have a traditional fridge with freezer, you ask?  Because in our very compact new kitchen, we were trying to scrape together every inch of usable space, and with my refurbished 40" wide HOT POINT stove having already stolen a good 6" (there's a joke in there somewhere),

I required a fridge that was only 24" wide, was counter-depth, didn't cost us thousands of dollars, and actually held more than 8 cubic feet of food, which is what most of the smaller fridge/freezer units end up giving you.  Plus, if I'd gotten a wider fridge, there wouldn't be room for our old island, which I refused to part with.  The domino effect of our appliance planning was far-reaching.

All this to say that the ergonomics of our kitchen are a bit... off.  It mightn't be so bad, but we actually need to go to the freezer. FREQUENTLY.  After decades of badly managing hypoglycemia - I've finally bitten the bullet and I'm avoiding gluten.  So I spend twice what a normal person would pay, for half the bread and I have to store the bread in the freezer so that it doesn't get all moldy if you leave it out for more than 5 minutes.  The toaster... is by the kitchen sink.  The kitchen sink is 21 feet away from the freezer.

This is my morning:

Tromp, tromp, tromp down the stairs.  Yawn and stretch at the bottom.  Turn right and walk to the freezer.  Grab bread from freezer and tromp over to the toaster.  Remove two slices of bread from the bag, pop them in the toaster and then tromp back over to the freezer and deposit the loaf back in the freezer. Yes, I could take the slices of bread out at the freezer and save myself one trip, but that never seems to occur to me until I've already walked over to the toaster. Plus I'm a slow waker-upper and I can guarantee that in my somnambulant state I'd have the freezer door open for longer than is prudent while I was trying to reseal the bag. We were thinking of throwing the toaster on the old kitchen island to get it closer to the freezer, but then the fridge is hinged the wrong way so you'd have to become a contortionist to get to the butter and condiments.  We can move the toaster to under the microwave - beside the fridge on the other side and save 7 feet.  David has a drill at the ready to bore its way through the microwave shelf. 

Making a martini is challenging.  The booze and cocktail shaker are in the butler's pantry, right next to the freezer.  The ice is in the freezer.  We're good so far.  The cut-crystal glasses that I prefer to drink my martinis in?  Are in the cupboard next to the sink.  Why aren't they, too, in the butler's pantry?  Because up until last weekend, we weren't loading any more glassware into the butler's pantry on account of fact that the floors in the new house are too bouncy and the shelves of the pantry aren't thick enough to really support the weight that's already on them, which means that even walking by the pantry created the potential for glasses doing their own rendition of Buffalo Jump.  Now that the pantry is securely shimmed and attached to the wall - I can move some of those swanky glasses over and save myself the travel time.

So that just leaves us with making juice with water from the sink, defrosting frozen meat in a sink full of cold water, cooking with frozen vegetables using... you've got it... sink water... Each activity still requires traversing the 21 foot span from sink to freezer.   There are no problems foks, only solutions.  I am determined that this will be a pro - not a con!  I will do deep lunges every time I make the trip.  My ass and thighs will be spectacularly toned in this poorly organized house. 

How David started the latest sex trend

"Quick!  We have to distract them!" David says.

"How?"

Suddenly it comes to him.

He lifts up his shirt, wets his finger, draws a cirle around his nipple, all the while singing Barnum's Circus March.  "Do-do-doodle-doodle-do-do-do-do...."

He whispers, "It's called 'CLOWNING.'  Depending on the patterning around your nipple - it will act as a code."

***

"And this was some sort of espionage dream?" I ask.  It's bright and early Saturday morning.  David has just demonstrated 'CLOWNING' to me.

David's eyebrows are low on his forehead.  "Yes... I think... Wait!  Wait!"  He fights for memories, as one does when attempting to share the surreality of a dreamscape to another person.  "We were also filming it!"

"You were filming yourself, playing with your nipples, while singing Entry of the Gladiators?"

"Yeeeeeeesss.... but," he's rubbing his forehead now.  "I can't remember why it was so important now... It was some sort of Rickrolling thing...."

"But this was somehow part of a secret code?"

"Yes."  He is definite now.  "Yes, it was.  And when you watched the video the code became clear to you."

"I'm going to get mileage out of this."

"Yeah, yeah."

***

ps.  

Since Saturday morning (when I first heard about this new trend), I have personally 'clowned' over a dozen times.  I have clowned David another dozen.  When I am 102 I will still be doing this.

Panic-struck spackling...

It seems like such a good idea when I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling. I look up at the outline of where the closet had been.  I see the damage of the torn-asunder drywall plugs - the drilled screw holes, the decimated drywall.  Why had it been bothering me so much?  Yes, there were 43 holes in the wall of various sizes, but I had spackle - it could be fixed!  I had this!  I leap from the bed with vigor.

"I've figured out what I'm going to do today!" I share with David.

"Excellent!"

"I am going to spackle our bedroom ceiling and wall!"   I can barely contain myself - this was going to be great.

"Fantastic idea!!  I think I know where the drop sheets are.  I'll go grab them for you."

I don't know why, but my vigor wanes a titch at the word 'drop sheets.'  I shake it off.  No worries!  I am set to go!  I grab the spackling tools in one hand and bend down to lift up the spackling tub...

You know when you expect something of a certain size to weigh a certain weight?  My shoulder isn't dislocated, per se, but my old shoulder separation does sing out an operatic "WHAT THE FUCK!?!?"  I look down at the container.  16 kgs... I do some quick math in my head... double it plus a bit - so that sucker weighs in at a whopping 36 lbs - ish.  I just tried to pick up a toddler with one hand.  My other hand is still full of spackling tools.  "David!!!  Would you mind grabbing the spackle for me?"

"Not a problem."  He shoves three drop sheets into my waiting arm,  (why would I need three drop sheets?) and hefts the spackling into the bedroom.  "You okay?  Do you want me to....?"

"Nope!  I'm good!  I've got this!!  You go ahead."

David heads downstairs to hook up the sink in the 1/2 bath.  We are the King and Queen of dividing and conquering - we are going to get so much done!

So one drop sheet goes over the headboard and the bedside tables and then the other one goes on top of the bed...  I look around at the outline of the old closet which buts up to the temporary curtains that close off the new closet...  I guess that the other drop sheet should cover the clothing rail to protect the clothes from drywall dust...

That's when the panic hits.  Sure, now, for the next hour or so I would be scraping old nasty bits off the wall, and then I would be layering the spackling over the damaged areas... but after that... after that... the spackle would have to be sanded. I lie down on the bed.  We were going to make drywall dust.  Lots and lots of drywall dust.  In the bedroom.  I was going to have to move all the furniture out and all the clothing... but the carpet would still be on the floor!  Could I carefully rip out the carpet so that it could be relaid?

"How you doing?" David asks from the doorway.

I look over, the whites of my eyes gleaming in panic - I'm hyperventillating a bit.

"Whoa!  Whoa!!  It's okay!"

"NO!  No, it's not!!!  There is going to be dust all over this room!!  Everything's going to have to come out!!!  Where are we going to put it?!?  Maybe we could lay all the clothes over the  bookcase in Rissa's room..."

"Heather!  WHOA!!  We're not going to sand today!"

"We're not?" I sniffle.

"No.  No sanding.  We're just filling holes today and then later, in the summer, we'll smooth out everything..."

I lose focus, because I'm looking at the 43 holes in the wall and ceiling.  Smooth everything out??  SMOOTH EVERYTHING OUT?!?  We were going to have to use an entire tub of spackling to fill those areas, how in God's name were we going to smooth it out?

"Heather!"  In the 1940's drama version of this scenario - David gives me a sharp slap across the face.

"It's okay," I say.  "It's good.  It's all good."  I take a deep breath.  "I've got this."

"You sure?"

"Oh yeah, no problem."

2 hours later, I have done a rough plaster coat over the entire bedroom wall.  Sure, there was only damage to an 8 foot by 8 foot area, but by rough plastering the entire wall - I have ensured that the wall NEVER has to be sanded.  The ceiling, yes, but we can put sheets down and can tape plastic around the closet to protect the clothing and it is, after all, low-dust drywall compound.  Panic folks, it's the mother of invention.

I now understand my husband...

He'd suddenly gone all grumpy.  We were installing the chrome cup pulls in the kitchen and by 'we,' I mean him - 'cause he was hogging all the tools.  He had two drills, two screwdrivers and was hoarding all the bolts.  I had a cardboard template of the new cup pull and a pencil.  I took off the old pull, lined up the template to conceal the old holes, drew my little circles and then David went to town.  Or he was going to go to town before he realized that he had to use three different drill bits and he'd already fucked up one hole.

He was also probably sucking up my nearly apoplectic mood on account of the fact that when we went downstairs to find the right sized drill bits, we'd discovered that the spring rain of the last few days had left about 3 inches of water in our basement - which should have been sucked away by the sump pump, but said sump pump had apparently committed hari kari.  We found this out because our neighbours who own the other half of our semi-detached home - witnessed its demise as it ripped itself out of the wall on their half of the basement.  Bright side?  The cats hadn't been in the basement to cover themselves in mud since we moved the kitty litter upstairs before the weekend, and our neighbour's dad knows enough about sump pumps to install a new one.  Nevertheless, I had that wild look in my eye and David put the bottle of scotch in front of me as soon as we got upstairs.

David began prepping once more to drill the new holes for the cup pulls, so I decided to put on the chrome knobs on the upper cabinets.  It became immediately clear that the template we had used originally to drill the holes for the upper knobs was... inaccurate.  Two knobs up and my OCD nearly gave me a stroke.  Almost every hole on the upper cabinets was mismatched.  Off just enough to make me wince and bang my head on the island.

"FUCK IT!!!"  I sang out.  "We will not worry about this now.  No knobs tonight!"

David looked a titch frustrated with me.  He was going to try to use job-finishing logic, I just knew it.  I headed him off at the pass.  "NO!  No knobs!  Because if we put these knobs up, then we'll have to adjust all the cupboard doors and that will take forever, and if I come downstairs to an entire wall of uneven knobs I WILL FREAKING LOSE IT!  So NO KNOBS!!!"

He was well on his way to grumpy after that.  It just got worse when he started installing the cup pulls.  I didn't understand why he looked like he was going to throw each of those drills and screwdrivers through the wall, until (after I hemmed the closet curtains in our bedroom during my cooling off period) I finished the last four cup pulls myself.

Because our kitchen drawers are a mish-mash of new drawer fronts on old uneven drawers - they are a little finicky.  The old cup pulls were not the same size, nor the same mounting centre dimensions as the new ones.  We had to hide the old holes, which meant that we had to drill the new holes slightly higher and slightly closer together.  The cup pulls themselves had to have one size hole for the attaching channel, but the bolts had to have another smaller sized hole drilled, and where the old drawer front was coverd by a new drawer front, the bolts themselves had to be ever-so-slightly countersunk.
 

Old Pull

Old Pull's holes

New Pull with smaller mounting centres

New Pull's Template

Drill Bit to fit bolt size

Large Hole, Small Hole

Change to bigger drill bit to fit cup pull channel,
but don't use too much pressure or...
oh for FUCK'S SAKE!!!

Large hole, larger hole

After much cursing - the finished product

Only six tries it took me to get the first cup pull done. I am recuperating with scotch.  I now understand my husband. 

Mor Mor goes on an adventure...

Where does your 68 year old mother like to shop?  My Mom's a pretty typical grandmotherly/motherly type.  She bakes cookies, knits sweaters, sends cheques for Rissa's RESP.  Rissa has a cute pet name for her.  She calls her Mor Mor,which means 'mother's mother,' in Danish.  My Mom has a grey pixie cut and shops at Sears.

"Ooooh," says my Mom.  "I went on a shopping excursion!!!"  (Since she has beeen retired, Mom has allowed herself to shop. After decades of frugality and with the house finally paid off, her paltry Canada Pension Plan has given her new-found spending freedom.  She goes to shoe outlets and housewares stores.  She putters on the main streets of summer getaway towns, she'll take a gander at an art gallery and stop and get a plain black coffee at a cafe.)

"Really?" I ask expectantly.  "To where?"

"To Wicked Wanda's."

Wicked Wanda's is a sex shop in Ottawa. She'd been thinking about going  for a while.  Probably for an entire moth.  She'd recently learned of its existence and had decided that it was a 'mustn't be missed' shopping destination.  My Mom is my hero.

"Annnnnnnd....?" I queried.

"It was veeeery interesting.  Everything is very shiny now."

"I'm sure it is."  The last time my Mom had gone to a sex shop was probably three decades ago.  She and my Dad had gone together and he'd turned on a vibrator that rested on one of the glass shelves and couldn't get it turned off.

"Anything, uh... catch your attention?"

"Well there were lots of very colourful things, to be sure," she said.  "And the staff was very helpful.  There was a lovely young girl who was very informative."

"Did you come out with anything?"

"I did! Have you ever heard of Kegel Balls?"

My eyebrows raise.  "I have."

"Well, in the 70s they would have been Ben Wa Balls, but now they are Kegel Balls."  She gives her tradmark guffaw of laughter.  "I now have Kegel Balls!"

"Annnnnd....?"

"They certainly make you feel interesting down there."

"That they do."

p.s. After my failed trampoline excursion, a friend gave me the exact same brand of  Kegel Balls for my birthday.  "Look  what Narda got me Mom !"  "Oooooh!  They're just like mine!!!"

Would the real Dance Moms please stand up?

I know... I know... I just ranted about this.  However.... What I saw over the past weekend warranted an update.

So... picture something similar to this,  but with 6-10 year old girls wearing special-ordered versions of this inflatable costume and dancing to....

BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY

I'll give you a moment and let that sink in folks...

There were probably 12-15 little girls in this dance number.  Which means that their dance teacher, AND all of their parents signed off on these costumes AND the theme of the routine.  Almost 24 hours later, and I'm still gobsmacked.  In bad taste on so many levels. Thank God the judges gave it the lowest mark of the morning - if they hadn't, I would have had to stand up and incite a riot.

In Dance of the Sugar Plum Sluts, I voiced my concern about 15 year old girls wearing fishnet seamed stockings as part of their costume.  Imagine if you will, 10 year old girls wearing fishnet seamed stockings... shaking their asses for the audience...  to the applause of their parents, 'cause that's what happened yesterday morning.

I recently was in a show where I wore seamed fishnet stockings.  TO BE SEXY ONSTAGE.  I had several men tell me that they were giving me a standing ovation, while still sitting.  Men and women alike become aroused by the appearance of seamed stockings.  You know why?  Because seamed stockings basically draw the eye right up to a gal's ass - which, when you want someone to be salivating at the sight of your ass and imagining what it would be like to become intimate with it, is great, but when the wearer of the seamed stocking doesn't even have pubic hair yet - should cause horror.

I'm not saying that all these dancers should be going the Shirley Temple route - not that their parents would know Shirley Temple if they fell over her, but a little less Tits  & Ass would be awesome.  I was thrilled when one of the judges gave a special award to a number and specifically mentioned 'age-appropriate' choreography.    More than a handful of routines over the weekend had choreography that was not age-appropriate.  There was a group of  competitive 16 year olds dancing to Fever who were so freaking hot they had me wanting to have sex with them.  All these kids are under 18.  Can we please agree that no audience member should want to have sex with any of them?

I don't think I've really lived until now.

Says Rissa.

This morning, Rissa experiences our friend Leslie's homemade jam for the first time.  She has two pieces of toast - each sporting Leslie's gourmet jam.  Strawberry balsamic on one, peach bourbon vanilla bean on the other.

She sits for a moment in front of her plate of toast.  "I am about to have a jam moment Mummy."

"Excellent.  You won't be disappointed."

She takes a bite, and then another, and another...

"This... this..."  Rissa's eyes are wide with pleasure.  "I have never experienced anything like this in my life.  This is the best jam ever.  This jam gave me an epiphany - you know what it was?  To eat more jam.  It was a jampiphany!!  You know when the end of the world will be?  When we run out of these jams.  I am now a jam connoisseur!  Eating these jams has opened a whole new world of opportunities!  Jamportunities!!!  What am I going to do when the jam runs out?!?"

She hyperventilates for a moment.

"What if you make the jam Rissa?"

"...Maybe... But I think maybe I would prefer to receive the jam, rather than make it myself."

"What if you became one of those judges at the county fair and only judged the jam?"

She gasps with excitement.  "That would be THE BEST JOB EVER!!"

It's the little things.