stalling

2006-07-21 - 6:11 p.m.

Well, what do I really have to talk about?

Not much, I suppose. What I am really doing here is shirking ... packing, and I should also go pick up M. She's been hanging out at her friend MT's house, and she doesn't want to come home, but probably eventually I should go get her. It's so nice, though, that she's actually wanting to be out at someone else's house, since often she does not want to go anywhere.

So, that's probably okay.

MT's family is great -- she's got a grandma living up the street from her, and an uncle with a coffee shop where he invents all kinds of drinks like iced chocolate. Her dad is a fireman, and her grandmother used to be a city councilwoman. They are pretty connected.

Today was supposed to be the day I got up at 3 and started packing packing packing, but -- we had a meeting at the house with S that took about 40 hours, and then I went to buy some boxes, andthen I had to meet the paint/color lady, which was quite productive. We picked out the countertop (it's this) and the tiles for the back splash from here (this is an amazing place, by the way). If you download all the colors, which takes a million years, it's azie green and pebble -- g9 and g 14. And we agreed that the handles we'd picked out look nice -- they're just bin handles in oil rubbed bronze -- and then the color (a sort of soft green) and a color for the bathroom ( a bluer green) and then -- outside -- a color for the trim! The door is a lovely red, so for the outside trim, Narragansett Green! I really almost had to pick it for the name alone, since I went to school in Rhode Island, and I go to Narragansett Beach every summer with my best friend L. But it really was the nicest color, so -- so that's all decided!

And -- the upstairs bathroom is pretty much in, and the downstairs bathroom is all tiled, and ready to have the shower doors and the toilet installed.

It really is beginning to seem like a place one could live in.

Anyway. So I was there with the paint lady, and S was still there hanging around harassing the painters and he wanted me to tell him how high to put the shower curtain rod. Really, how the hell should I know? I am not a contractor. Can't he just put it at the right height?

And now Lucy the cat is sleeping at the end of N's bed -- partly I know I dont want to pack because it will mean dismantlng our whole life here for the past 12 years, which I rally don't want to do. But -- I suppose I'd better get started.

This room, though, N's room, is really the nicest room in the house. I've been looking forward to making it my room when she left -- which I guess I have done, for the last three weeks.

Okay -- off I go.

Poor lucy -- little does she know the horrors in store for her.

And now I must go --

Bye.

Harriet, I read with interest your thoughts about stay-at-home vs. working mothers. I thnk you've hit the nail on the head that its a class issue, and that its a very different one than it was for our parents. But you are also right that parenthood is a great leveller, and it continues to be so all the way through all the organized activities of childhood -- sports, school, camps. In exactly the same way that schools (especially public schools) are -- you sort of learn how to deal with all social classes in school, but then as an adult you don't really have to, until your kid goes to school. But then the PTA is going to be made up primarily of educated parents.

Funny.

Okay -- bye.

out of print - new releases

find me! - 2008-02-12
where I've gone - 2008-02-07
Where I've gone - 2008-02-05
where I've gone - 2008-02-01
New - 2008-02-01

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