My last weekend with the stuff was August 5th and 6th of 2005. Mary and I went to our lakehouse to paint the main rooms - the family room and connecting kitchen, the hallway, and the kids' bedroom. I'd had a plan for colors in all 4 areas, and was excited to try separating the kid's bedroom wall into 3 equal horizontal stripes of nautical red, blue and yellow. I'd also brought along a rub-on wall mural that was a stone window looking out onto a water view. I saw no reason that we wouldn't finish all these projects in a day and an afternoon, returning the next night.
Mistake one. Forgot the ladder. Or at least thought we'd had one there.
We went next door to borrow one from the neighbor. Dear Mr. Rheins. He'd talk you into a stupor if you'd let him. Not sure if he couldn't stand his wife or he was just plain lonely, but I hated asking anything from him because I just knew I'd spend an hour more than I'd intended. And of course, when he came over, his wife needed to come to. Neither of them had seen the house since we'd moved in. We'd finished the basement - and I'd done a lot of the design and faux painting, so they wanted to come in and see.
She and her husband run a framing shop in town, so not only is she an expert in color choice for framing, but she became an expert for color on walls too....whether I was interested or not. She proceeded to tell me that the color we'd already painted in the kitchen was all wrong. That in the dusk, it'd look pink. That I should choose, rather, a lovely rust or adobe to match the random stone in the fireplace.
The gall. I never asked her. Yet, wouldn't you know, after she left that I couldn't get her opinion out of my mind. And as the sun was lowering on the horizon, it very much looked freakin' pink in the sunset.
Crap.
Out came the color wheel, and I flipped and switched through that thing, determined I'd find a better color than rust. Or adobe, for God's sake. She wouldn't be coming into OUR place later and find I'd switched to HER opinion. No way.
But there I was, an hour later, lugging back a beautiful shade of adobe to slap on the freakin' wall. She was, damn it, right. I vowed right then and there, she would never be invited back to our place.
Mistake two. Several hours lost.
Next, we tackled my kids' room. Measured it off all evenly so that the stripes didn't appear to converge into a faux distance. And taped. Then painted. And talked. And kept refreshing with a bump. I remember thinking that I'd never done that much of the stuff with Mary - had not spent that much time with her for so many consecutive hours. Not since Chicago.
We'd brought our two puppies with us. The new pup, Duchess (ironically, Duchess was a later litter from Kirby's mom - she happened to be expecting when Kirby was hit by a car) and my friend's pup, Boo, were playful siblings of the same litter. Being the good friend that I was, I sent monthly checks to pay off her puppy to the breeder - a full $650 bucks - as she worked hours cleaning in my home. Can you spell messed up?! She killed my dog, and I paid for hers.
But that's another fucked up story. I digress.
The dogs were playing and we'd fogotten to shut the door to the kids' room behind us. A big tray of yellow paint on the cream carpetted floors. And later, two sets of darling yellow footprints all over it. Lots of them. Like playful groupings of yellow daisies popping up out of the floor.
I could have cried. I tried scrubbing an area out. Then just decided to let it dry....and cut them out with scissors. To this day, it looks more like the two of them got hungry and tackled the carpet with their new sharp little teeth taking chunks of wool out and leaving divets all over their beautiful nautical room.
Mistake three.
Better do another bump.
And forget everything. Watch a movie. See if we could sleep later. And hope for better in the morning.
Oh yea, and call Jim, my husband, and beg for another day!
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