Amazing how time, cats, and the Spirit of Christmases Past can upset the apple cart that you call home. Not that I actually live in an apple cart. But right now my home does look like the aftermath of a truly horrific apple cart disaster, minus the apples. Perhaps this is a bad analogy. I'm sticking to it anyway.
Below is what I see when I peer through the French doors between my current hideout in the family room and the original part of our home, which was built in 1978. Notice my husband Jim propped up against the couch that this morning was a deep garnet red. Notice his head of completely white hair, that, just this morning, could still claim to have a decent portion of pepper mixed in with the salt. Notice the layer of ash that might make the reader think that the aforementioned apple cart was in the path of a destructive volcanic eruption.
I found myself entertaining a guest this fine April morning, relegated to one corner in the family room, serving tea and pastries on Christmas dishes, unable to access my kitchen. Luckily there is an attached apartment on the other side of the family room, complete with a fine kitchen that was once well stocked. Luckily, I was able to serve up my tea party fare using the melon baller, butcher knife, plastic cocktail forks, and poinsettia-bordered plates that I still had access to. How did it all come to this, anyway?
Tea and Crumpets, Anyone?
Now serving in the back corner of the room! Luckily crumpets are small!
Well, much in the manner that the war was lost due to the loss of a horse, the horse lost for the loss of a shoe, the horseshoe lost for the loss of a nail, etc. I have to reach back a ways to explain the current state of my home. Let's see now...where to begin?
Christmas 2011--almost four years ago. We had replaced our aging pellet stove with a lovely new and much more efficient one. I always put lots of effort into decorating for the holidays, removing pictures, sconces, wreaths, and plaques and replacing them with jolly Christmas art and doo-dads. I was quite horrified to see dozens of soot frames decorating said walls when seen in their pristine (read empty) glory. Luckily, my festive holiday decor somewhat camouflaged the sad and smudged walls. After Christmas( ok-mid-January!), when I traditionally un-decorate the house for my yearly observation of Martin Luther King Day, I was too worn out from year-end celebrations to tackle a major project, so I just re-hung all the stuff that had sat in storage boxes in the shed since Thanksgiving. Remember, I said that I enjoy having a nicely decorated house. Actual down and dirty house cleaning and maintenance, I do not enjoy not so much. And the concept of "in a timely manner" is completely foreign to me. Out of sight, out of mind. All in its own good time. Those are my mottos!
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Three more Christmas seasons passed, and by 2015, I knew that something would definitely need to be done to freshen up the place. Luckily, Jim doesn't mind painting too much, so I figured this spring or summer, we'd deal with soot and smudges.
I kind of rushed ahead through those winter holiday seasons in this telling, but verily, other seasons had passed in the interim. Three full springs and summers. Plus several other seasons, maybe ten. At any rate, Jim and I were experiencing problems in the bedroom. No, not that kind. The kind related to cats and curtains. I think Jim must be a saint for putting up with my decorating motifs. Our bedroom is very feminine, a vision of tiny pink roses on blue latticed wall paper, very outdated, and I love it. It matches a handmade pink teddy bear I was given from a student well over thirty years ago that sits atop the bed. That's how I decorate, baby--start with one accessory and build a whole room that will remain largely unchanged for decades.
We don't have much in the way of curtains in our house, because we like light, we have a lot of privacy, and at this point in time, I figure if some random stranger is stricken blind from viewing me charging through the house in my underwear or less, well, that's his problem for being too close to my windows with his eyes open. But the morning sun shines bright into our bedroom so I had hung white sheer panels with a lovely blue valance (note: same adjectives apply to window treatment as to previously mentioned general bedroom style). This blocked enough sunlight to allow us to sleep at least until the alarm clock woke us. Or until my cat would screech and hiss as she clawed her way from the floor up to the curtain rod. This was a fairly regular occurrence.My cat does not play with laser toys, catnip mice, spring-loaded fish, or any of the many other amusements I have bought for her. No, she really only thrills to the opportunity to shred the one pair of curtains I have in the whole house! Also, Miss Butterfly McQueen seemed to particularly relish opportunities to hide behind the panels and cough up fur balls onto the white window sills. Now, lest you think that I would allow my bedroom to be festooned with tattered and puke-stained rags, please be assured that I removed them while they still only evidenced enough snags in the fabric to have given the once opaque sheers the texture of a tapestry. And I always cleaned up the fur balls. But the curtains had to go!
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Butterfly McQueen, Resting Up for Next Assault on Bedroom Curtains
& Growing Fur for Hair Balls
So, about a year and a half ago, I took them down. Then the sun began to awaken us too early. We solved the problem as best we could, by mashing pillows over our eyes or burrowing under the covers, neither of which was too comfortable in the summer. Plus you woke up with hard-to-get-rid-of pillow case and sheet wrinkles smooshed into your morning flabby face. Not attractive.
I was rummaging through the linen closet one day when I came upon four panels of white dotted Swiss curtains that had formerly been in the Cherry Bedroom (so called because the wall paper border in Melanie's room had gorgeous cherries emblazoned on it. I know, out-of-date!). Hot damn! Re-purposed curtains would allow more shut-eye for the puffed and creased Jim and Marilyn. Ever on the lookout for time-saving tricks when it comes to household drudgery, I decided that I wouldn't bother to iron the curtains until I first hung them to see how they looked on the window. Clever, no? Even though ironing is the one chore I enjoy. I believe that is called irony. Working somewhat feverishly, as I was quite taken with both my thrift and efficiency, it wasn't until I had single-handedly wrestled with and hung the curtain panels that I noticed the panels were from two different completely sets of curtains. One was floor length; one fell six or eight inches below the window sill. In other words, both sets were all wrong. At least I managed to hang them in an artful short-long short-long pattern. One thing I can always say for myself, I can never be accused of succumbing to hubris, as I am constantly reminded that I am an idiot.
Well, at least I can sew. I figured that when the spirit moved me (I seriously think that I was a Quaker in a former life), I would shorten all the panels to a right-to-the-windowsill length. Weeks passed. The spirit felt a slight rustling. So I got out my very nice, but infrequently used Bernina sewing machine, thread, pins, measuring tape, and set to work. Only problem was that the machine would not stitch. I checked the bobbin, took everything apart and cleaned all the casings, gears, and whatever else inhabits a sewing machine body. No luck. I'd exhausted my bag of tricks. I determined that it had been awhile since I'd taken the machine into the dealer for regular maintenance and cleaning. so I knew what my next course of action must be. Several weeks later I actually put the sewing machine in the trunk of the car so that if I actually drove down to Folsom and passed the sewing center, I would have the ailing machine with me.
Two months later, I did drive past the sewing center, on a day when it was open, and lugged the machine inside. It would be worth the hundred or hundred and fifty bucks to have my machine back in good working order. Well, apparently, it required a bit more than just routine maintenance, including a completely new bobbin mechanism. Oh, and from rattling around in my car's trunk for two months on bumpy country roads, it looked like I'd also cracked the actual body of the sewing machine. Just a hairline crack, but still! Long story short, a mere month and a half later, and four hundred twenty dollars lighter, I had a beautifully working sewing machine again. I think. I haven't actually used it yet. But that will have to wait for Part Two of the Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss.
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