My Day OR the Secret Life of a Writer OR How It's Still HIM's Fault

The secret life of a writer.  (The glamour, the jet-setting, the amazing events that occur!)

First I put the garbage out.  I made the mistake of putting old freezer food in the open can and maddened squirrels attacked the can followed by voracious ants.  (There might have been a tiger or a bear out there, too.  At least, that's what it looked like after they were done with it and I was picking up five year old, semi-squooshy bits of what I suspect was some kind of home-made bread.)  Then it rained and filled up half the bottom of the open can.  I hid from the garbage men because I'm pretty sure they would have said something nasty to me.

Seriously, I have a secret fear of garbage men.
I'm not sure what I think they'll do.
Refusing to take MY garbage is
at the top of the list, though.

I returned to painting my daughter's room.  Previously it was purple.  No, **PURPLE**!  Really, really **PURPLE**!! and it needed several coats of paint to cover the **PURPLE**! up.  But before I painted I decided to put new curtains in that room after the painting was completed, which was a mistake.  (The decision to put new curtains up was the mistake, not the painting.)  I went to Target and found that they don't like to sell the kind of valances that the old curtain rods have, and no, I am not a person who sews.  In fact, I have problems putting a thread through a needle.  I even have problems putting a thread through a needle using the special-for-idiots tool that those little sewing kits provide.  I'd rather throw the clothes out than sew on them.  ("Perfectly good pair of jeans that needs a button.  Too bad!  In the trash!  Maybe the garbage men will like that better than the old freezer food.")

ANYHOO, no valances at Target.  Presto, I decided to take the old curtain rods down, fix the holes in the walls, and put new curtain rods up that were spiffier.  (If spiffier isn't a word, then it is now.)  I bought everything.  Previous to painting I attempted to take the old curtain rods down.  Hahaha.  No.  The little bolts had been painted on several times.  I pounded, scraped, went and got the correctly sized bolt doohickey tool.  (That's a socket wrench to those of you who have to have details.)  Finally I got all but one bolt off.  My hands hurt.  My back hurt.  I think my butt hurt, too.  (But I don't know why.)  Losing all patience I ripped the thing out of the wall and...left a big fat hole.  And that was only the first window.  There are two windows in her bedroom with all of the **PURPLE** paint.  I took a break before the second one.  That time I managed to get away with a smaller hole.

Out to the garage to find the mega can of Spackle and the little spatula thing that you use to smear it on with.  Also somewhere I lost the sanding blocks I bought from the last round of fixing holes in the walls.  So I dug and found some sanding paper that will work but killed my fingers.  I finally fixed the holes.  (Did you know you can put pounds of Spackle in the walls?  I did not know this.  POUNDS!  And pounds of Spackle take a really long time to dry.)  Then I painted.  I painted some more.  I started singing sea shanties about painting.  (Not really but it sounds funny, right?  *What do you do with a drunken sailor?  Make him paint my waa-allls.*)

The moron cat, Megaroy, came in and decided that he would help paint.  (After putting his paws up on the wet wall, he ran like hell down the hallway because something icky was on his paws.  It did not help that I was chasing him like a loon.  I would have stopped to take a picture of the paw prints down the wooden hallway floor but I was afraid if I waited the paint would dry and I would have to scrape it up with my fingernails.)  I had to de-paint the cat's paws.  (Now I have bandages all over my arms because the cat was not happy with the de-painting of the paws process.  In fact, you might saw he was highly aggravated.)

I locked the cat in the other bedroom and painted some more.

Finally, done with the painting.  I took all the old curtain rods out to the garbage, along with the old freezer food, and scared off the squirrels.  The ants were not impressed and did not leave.  Someone came along an hour later and took all the old curtain rods.  (Maybe they have old valances that those curtain rods fit or possibly they were smart enough not to try to take the old hardware off the walls.)

I collapsed in a chair, certain that the painting will never be over.  (There are four more rooms that need spot-painting.)  Or even better is that I will have to return to Home Depot to get another can of the same color paint because I forgot to paint something.  (That Home Depot guy still wants to talk to me about the "special" program I can be in so they will always know what color paint I need.  Them and the NSA.)

The garbage men glared at me as they drove past.  (They might have put a hit out on me.)  The squirrels gave me the stinky eye.  (It's possible they're in collusion with the garbage men.)  I stomped on a couple of ants because I didn't really want to be on the bottom of the heap.  (No, I didn't really stomp on ants.)  I wrote HIM a nasty email but then I deleted it.

Now I'm waiting on the line for Verizon to help with the telephone bills that we're not getting.  We're supposed to be getting them but we're not and I can't access the account online either.  So far I've talked to a nice lady in Tampa, Florida, another lady in Virginia, and now I'm on hold for a "special department that helps with that thing specifically," which is a direct quote because I couldn't not quote that wondrous statement.  What joy and fun I'm having today.  (Sarcasm.)

But on the bright side, I'm about half way done with Brownie and the Dame.  If I'm really lucky it'll be done by the time the movers show up on our doorstep.