I Think I Might Be an Interior Designer When I Grow Up ... Or Not

When my parents asked me to gather some information for having hardwood floors put in the living room and hall, I didnt' realize how much you actually had to know about hardwood floors to make a good choice.  They don't just want hardwood floors, they want engineered hardwood floors, because engineered floors are more stable.  Engineered floors are made by cross layering wood with a hardwood 'wear' layer on top. They won't buckle and cup and  get gaps between the boards from shrinking and swelling.  You can also install them as a floating floor (doesn't require gluing or nailing) that snaps together. I learned that from the DIY network.  


Two weeks ago, I went online, found some places to get samples, brought them home and a decision was made.  It's not easy to find a color that bridges the gap between what was installed in the bedrooms fifty years ago, and the 50 yr. old paneling my dad refuses to remove from the fireplace wall in the living room. Something kept nagging at me, it was all too easy.  So, silly me, went online and researched the company I had gotten samples from, and when I googled their customer complaints decided that, umm, no, that wasn't the company for us.  


I read and read and read information on engineered floors.  How they are made, what widths they come in, what the thickness of the wear layer should be, etc., etc. and etc.  I talked to a home re-modeler I know in Texas (he installs a lot of floors) who told me which brands to stay away from if I didn't want a box of 'chicklets' (shorter pieces of wood that are good for saving trees, but make for a really inconsistent looking floor.  My brother-in-law was kind enough to send me information from the Consumer Reports website, because even though we have a subscription to their magazine you actually have to pay EXTRA to look the stuff up on the website.  There is something seriously fucking wrong with that, Consumer Reports! 


With my new found knowledge I figured it would be a piece of cake to find the right floor.  WRONG!  If I found the right color, it didn't come in the right width, the wear layer wasn't think enough or it wasn't suitable for a floating floor.  Though my Dad-the-retired-carpenter didn't know what a floating floor was until I explained it, but now he has to have one as it will make replacing any damaged boards easier.  I went to the place that carries the floor I want to show them for a sample, but they were closed.  Evidently, people don't buy floors on Sundays.


Of course, while new floors are going in the walls might as well get painted at the same time.  My mom is stuck at home in a wheelchair for now, so that means bringing home a million (I am not exaggerating) color cards so she can choose colors for the living room and hallway, kitchen and dining room, the main bathroom and my dad's room.  Next in line is finding a replacement for the dishwasher that quit working last week, an electrician to upgrade the wiring, and possibly a gas fireplace to replace the fire burning one and a gas stove to replace the electric.  Since Dad doesn't know about the last two, I might be saved from doing those.


If people actually get paid to do this for a living, I hope they get paid an awful lot of money for it.  If they do, I might be joining them assuming they haven't slipped me in to a crisp white, straight jacket and thrown me in a padded room by the time its all done.

The Art of Silence

A few years ago someone recommended I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  I have to admit that reading a book about a nine year old boy who lost his father in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, was not all that appealing to me.  I said I would read it, but it sounded incredibly depressing.  After months of asking me if I had read the book, I finally broke down and did it.  The author, Jonathan Safran Foer, had placed the first chapter online on The Project Museum site. so I started there.  If I was going to want to slit my wrist after chapter one, chapter one was all I was going to read.  I read the first chapter and was hooked, so I got the book.  Its one of the top three, best books I have ever read.  


The main part of the story of this nine year old boy who finds a key hidden in in his father's closet,, and the extremes he will go to in order to find the lock to which it belongs.  You would swear you were actually inside the head of a nine year old boy, and it wasn't nearly as depressing as I thought it would be.  The critics say it is more like a 28 yr old in the mind of a nine year old, but if you have ever known any kids who love to learn, you will know otherwise.


While the story of Oskar is amazing, there is the quietly profound story of Oskar's grandparents.  Two people who survived the Holocaust in different places and ways, and came together afterward.  A wife made hard and stubborn by her own fear of everything, and a man who feels powerless to help her.  A man who slowly loses his ability to speak and finds comfort in that silence, no matter how much he is misunderstood.


Suffice it to say that it is a great book.  The kind that makes you think about your own life, and who you are; who you want to be.  It makes you consider what you are willing to say or not say, and why.  Whether you are willing to say the things you could or should say when needed, or if you are willing to accumulate forty years of notebooks with the things you wish you had said when you should have said them.


Read the book before the movie comes out next year.  The written word is far richer than any good movie.  If you want to check out the first chapter you can catch it here.

Race In America

This one has been on my mind all day, so I figured I better get it out of my system


I remember when I was about 10 yrs old and my Dad's mom died.  She lived in Hammond and we went there on weekends for my dad to fix up the house to sell.  Me and my brother would play outside but we weren't aloud to leave the yard.  There was a little black girl that lived next door and we were talking through the fence when my dad came out and told me I wasn't aloud to play with her.  That was the first time I remember anyone drawing attention to the color of someone's skin to me.  


Funny thing about kids is, they just don't care about such things until someone decides they have to teach them differently.  Just because they are kids, doesn't make them wrong. To this day I still cannot understand why people have to make such a big deal about the color of someone's skin.  No one gets to choose it, it is simply given to you.  You don't get to choose the country you are born into, you don't get to choose the family you are born into, and you don't get to chose the color of your hair, eyes or skin.  So why do people discriminate based on such things?  I would say it was really juvenile, but kids don't care. 


I learned about a lot of black people in our country's history, when they still actually taught you the truth of your country's history.  People who risked their lives just to be treated like everyone else.  A lot of people lost their lives unnecessarily so that black people could be treated the same as everyone else.  Its not something they should have had to fight for, it should have been common sense to anybody who read the Bible.  But it wasn't.  It still isn't.


I thought our country had made great strides in the years following the Civil Rights movement. but I was terribly disillusioned.  In 2008, I was bored, out of a job and chose to work as a volunteer for a Presidential campaign.  For once I was going to stand up for something I believed in.  What I learned was racism is alive and well in America, people are just a little more conscious of hiding it, or at least they were then.  Never in a hundred years would I have ever thought that a black union worker would walk up to a house in my hometown, and have a gun put in his face for knocking on someone's door.  These were some of the nicest, non-threatening guys I had ever met and I was embarrassed by the way they were treated.  Cussed out and threatened because someone didn't like the color of their skin.


Seems the longer we have a black President the more people decide it is no longer necessary to hide the way they feel about that.  The office he holds is supposed to afford him a certain amount of respect from Congressmen, Senators and the people of this country.  Yes, we will always point out their faults and we will always argue the politics of the decisions that are made. What gets done and what doesn't, and how it affects the country. Yes, some people will use unflattering names.  But for some silly reason, I expected better from people in public office.  Oh, they don't come out and say it, because that would just be stupid, but its not real hard to read between the lines of some of them.


I am not perfect, nor do I expect anyone else to be.  I do however expect my fellow Americans to treat ALL Americans the same, not just the ones who have skin color they can live with.  No one gets to claim to be better than anyone else by virtue of the color of their skin.


What I know now, is that we can't be proud that we elected a black man as President.  Even if Hillary had been elected, would could have been proud we elected a woman.  I don't think Hillary would have been treated this way, and if she were, I would be saying something about that as well.  We could have been proud that we had caught up with the rest of the world where these issues are concerned.  But alas, we have allowed those people who are so impressed with the color of their skin to throw us right back into the 60's.  Thanks America for making me proud.

Something to Think About

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

Maya Angelou

10 Things I Learned Today

1. Even though the internet told me Staples had 12 sheets of magnetic paper for $15.99, it lied.  They only had 4 sheets for $9.99.
2. 4 sheets of magnetic paper was not worth the 2 1/2 hrs it took to go to 5 different places to find it.  People, carry what I need!
3. When putting a dry wall anchor in the wall, I will find the stud every time.
4. Some people will complain no matter how much you do for them.
5. My mother's guilt trips do not work on me any more  :)
6. You can have a remarkable amount of energy on 2 hrs of sleep.
7. An imaging technician can love to tell you 25 reasons her female co-workers are "fucking lazy bitches" while she is doing a procedure.  Norma, thanks for cracking me up while you crammed that ultrasound looking into my blocked vein.  She took the time to show me the screen and explain as she went along.  This was sure to piss off the "fucking lazy bitches since they kept calling her on the phone she never answered while she was doing a procedure.
8. There are still some places where you can fill out paperwork for one doctor, have blood drawn and get a doppler, and still be out of there in less than an hour.
9. You son spilling your Aragan oil can make for a really slippery floor.
10. 11 yr olds can still have really bad aim

And , yes, I am still fucking awsome  :)