Just Leave It Alone!

This week has been a frustrating one at work, to say the least. It's bad enough when people do something, shall we say, less than wise that causes me more work and frustration. It's even worse when that person is a one of your bosses.

I got a call while I was on my way to work Monday morning. His computer wouldn't boot up. 

No big deal, right? I'll get in there and figure it out and get him on his way.

Well, that's how it is supposed to work.

I was presented with some strange options when I sat down in front of his computer. He proceeded to tell me that he had, "clicked on some things I thought would help," while he was awaiting my arrival. I'm not really sure what all he clicked on, but whatever it was, my only recourse was to completely restore the system to its factory state.

That means I basically "got to" reformat his hard drive and start all over with reloading his operating system, programs, drivers, files, etc. etc. etc.

No fun at all! It's not like I don't have anything else to do this week.

Well, to make a very long story as short as possible, I still have not finished his computer. I keep getting sidetracked with other things that require my time. I put his old computer back onto his desk so he could at least keep working while I tackle this task.

Sometimes I think only geeks should be allowed to touch computers...

It's Not "Plain"

My favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla.

Vanilla is used in many recipes and, as many people have discovered to their horror, forgetting to add it ruins the recipe.

I'm surprised, then, when so many people (including a very special person in my life who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are Diane Brader) refer to anything vanilla as "plain." The term "plain vanilla" is used - often in a derogatory fashion - to describe something that is boring.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Vanilla is aromatic and delicious. It is one of the few substances that enhances virtually everything.

It is far from "plain."

Diane will offer ice cream as dessert in the evening. She rattles off a laundry list of flavors she has accumulated in the freezer. I usually, but not always, choose vanilla. This often starts an interrogation where Diane asks me about specific other flavors she has offered, but I stay with vanilla. I am then, of course, mocked for wanting "plain" ice cream.

Diane and I visited our nephew Brad's Orange Leaf frozen yogurt store when we were in Missouri last month. He has sixteen flavors available every day.

I chose vanilla.

"Don't you want something with flavor," Diane asks?

Vanilla is a flavor; and a remarkably deep and delicious one at that.

There is nothing "plain" about my favorite ice cream flavor.

Lola's Table

Diane's mom has lived with us since March of 2000. For those of you bad at math, that means she has lived with us for just over fourteen years.

Trust me - fourteen years is a very long time to have your mother-in-law living under your roof. I call her Lola. Her real name is Loretta, but she made the mistake of telling us one time that she had dreamed of being a showgirl when she was young. She had already chosen her stage name.

You guessed it - Lola.

So while she's Loretta, or Lo, to most people; she's Lola to me.

The Old Table

Lola uses a flimsy, cheap bed table as a primary piece of furniture in her living room. She eats most of her meals while watching television in her living room, so the table serves as her dinner table. It also serves as her solitaire table, side table, library table, etc. In short; she uses the table constantly.

We bought the table for Diane's dad while he was largely confined to a chair; or, later, a hospital bed in their living room during the final months of his life. It was really flimsy and cheap when we bought it and it certainly hasn't gotten any sturdier in the last thirteen-plus years.

The table is quite unstable. Lola tips it over at least once a week; sending her juice, books, snacks, etc. to the floor. She made several attempts at rigging up some sort of lip around the table's edges to help keep her from pushing things off the edge to the floor.

The table, though, is well beyond its expected lifespan. (Of course, so is Lola...) Last week, Diane asked me to take a look at it to see if there was anything I could do to make it a bit sturdier. I tightened down all of the screws and bolts, and added a brace on the suspended end, but the table is simply beyond repair.

Diane started looking for a replacement online. It's amazing how expensive cheap tables are!

I mentioned to Diane that it would probably be no more expensive to just build her a new table instead of buying another cheap, flimsy table. Plus, building one would allow us to size it to her needs and install quality casters.

Great idea, right?

Diane decided that a new table would make a wonderful gift for her 91st birthday. The problem is that this idea came about in the middle of last week. Lola's 91st birthday is this coming Friday. That left a very short time to do a lot of work.

Actually building the table wouldn't be the hardest part. Finishing it would be. For anyone not familiar with woodworking, the sanding, staining, topcoating, letting it cure, sanding again, putting on a second topcoat, letting it cure, sanding again and then putting on a third topcoat and letting it cure is not something that can be rushed. Building the table and finishing it traditionally simply can't be finished by Friday.

Diane is undeterred.

We bought the wood last Wednesday and I put it into the basement shop to acclimate for a couple of days to prevent warping and twisting. We cut the pieces Friday and prepared for the initial sanding and assembly when a problem reared its ugly head. We had picked a mix of oak and maple for the various components. Diane decided, though, that she didn't like the wood we had chosen for the table top.

That took us back to the lumberyard Saturday morning to get more oak to replace several pieces that were originally going to be maple. Once there, I found a finish I've never used before that will allow me to sand and recoat in as few as six hours.

Maybe Friday isn't completely out of the question after all.

The New Table Awaiting Finish

Lola doesn't know we're building her a new table. She thinks I'm working up some scheme to build a new lip around her current table. (My blog entry doesn't really risk spoiling the surprise since Lola, like most 90 year olds, doesn't go on the Internet.)

Come Friday afternoon, we'll head into Lola's living room and tell her I need to take her table downstairs to put the new lip on it. After a delay to make it seem like I'm actually doing something, we'll bring in her new table.

She said we are not supposed to give her gifts since she's over 90. I suppose I could tell her that the gift is really for Diane so she doesn't have to come in and clean up the spills caused by her unstable table.

Tick, Tick, Tick

As we sit here waiting for some future manifestation of Spring in Wisconsin, I am reminded that "tick season" will soon be upon us. There are few things that elicit as violent of a reaction from Diane as even the thought of a tick. I'm sure that even the mention of a tick in my blog has sent shivers down her spine and caused her to verbalize some form of, "Eewwwww!"

I don't believe I have ever met anyone as grossed out by - and afraid of - ticks as my lovely bride.

Now, I'm not saying that I like ticks; they just don't really bother me. I can't begin to count the number of them that I have pulled off of dogs, kids, myself, etc. I like to do things that require me to go into places where ticks thrive. I figure ticks just go with the territory and that I'm going to have to check for ticks if I want to continue fishing, hunting, wandering in the fields and woods, walking the dog or working in the backyard.

Okay, I suppose I'm willing to stop working in the backyard to eliminate that risk, but the other activities are here to stay.

Ticks were a bigger deal when I was a kid. Today, they're just a nuisance. A potential disease-carrying nuisance, perhaps, but just a nuisance nonetheless. I don't freak out if I find one crawling up my leg or embedded somewhere on my body; I just flick it off or pull it out. Done and done.

Not Diane, though. No, Diane freaks. One would think that all of nature had unleashed its fury on my lovely bride if she sees a tick. You can just imagine what happens if she finds one that has embedded.

That happened a few years ago and, the circumstances surrounding it, caused me more stress than a man should have to endure.

It was Easter morning and Diane and I had headed to church very early so I could set up an overflow area at church. I was working to get the sound and projection working when Diane came into the room with a stricken look on her face and said, "Scott, I need you to check something."

My heart nearly stopped, because the look and words were identical to the situation just a few years earlier when she asked me to check the lump she felt in her breast. That one moment was the precursor to six months of torture for her.

That's the only thing I could think of as she led me into the women's restroom (there was no one else in the building, yet). My panic was quickly alleviated, though, when she pulled her skirt up a bit, pointed to a black dot on her thigh and asked, "Is that a tick?"

I was SO relieved!!! It wasn't a lump! It was just a stupid little tick!

I checked and, yes, it was a tick.

Diane's response was immediate and violent.

"Get it out of me!!!!"

I struggled to keep myself from laughing at what was, to me, an extreme overreaction to a simple tick. To her, though, this was a huge deal.

I pulled the tick, flushed it down the toilet and instructed her to wash the area off well and forget about it. Diane was certain that she would soon come down with every tick-borne disease known to man; including those only carried by African species of ticks.

She didn't, of course, but that did nothing to lessen her future responses to the humble little arachnid. So now I am preparing myself for yet another season of Diane's tick-paranoia as the clock ticks ever so slowly toward Tick Season.

Little Sisters

Little sisters have a way of getting on your nerves sometimes. I don't know if they do it on purpose or if it just comes naturally to them. I'm guessing the latter.

I sat near the back of the room in seventh grade homeroom. The room normally served as the science classroom, so it was equipped with two-person tables instead of the standard desks. The class wasn't overly large, but I was pretty far away from the chalkboard. My table-mate wore glasses. We were goofing off one day, as seventh grade boys were wont to do, when he gave me his glasses to "throw Mrs. Buck off a bit." Much to my surprise, I  could see the chalkboard clearly while wearing his glasses.

I reported the vision issue to Mom when I got home and she immediately scheduled an appointment for me to see the eye doctor. She scheduled Beth for the appointment slot after mine; and thus created the situation for Beth to get on my nerves.

The nurse called my name and Mom, Beth and I made our way to the examination room where the nurse went through all of the initial screening before the doctor would come in. I went first.

Mom and Beth sat in chairs beside me.

I don't recall ever having been to an eye doctor before that fateful day, so I'd never been subjected to the torture of the dot test. The nurse handed me a small book as I sat in the examination chair; opened it and asked me what number I saw on the first page.

What was wrong with this woman?

Was she nuts?

What number do I see...

Really?????

There was no number on the page; there was just a jumbled mess of dots that made up a larger dot!

That's when it started.

I heard Beth start to quietly giggle.

The nurse turned the page and asked me what I saw on the next page.

More dots.

Beth's giggles became more pronounced. Apparently she and the nurse were in cahoots and "saw" things in the dots. (They have special doctors for people who "see" things; and both Beth and the nurse apparently needed to pay the doctor a visit.)

The nurse pointed to the jumbled dots on the next page and asked me again what I saw.

Dots! Just dots!

At this point Beth's giggles turned to laughs and she asked Mom, "What's wrong with him? Doesn't he know his numbers?"

The nurse had pity on me and ended the torture session early by putting the book away while there were still many pages that had, what I can only presume to be, more pictures of dots. Beth was quite entertained by my failure and proceeded to tell me what "numbers" were supposedly hidden in the jumbled dots.

Right...

Well I got a prescription for glasses that day that allowed me to see the board clearly, but while I have visited the eye doctor many times since that fateful day, I have yet to see any of the imaginary numbers they have supposedly hidden in the jumbled dots. Still; they hand me the little book every time and ask me what numbers I see on several pages before they give up.

I think it's a trick question.

Changing Colors

If there's one spruce up project that I absolutely detest, it would be painting. There's nothing fun about it! The prep and the cleanup invariably take longer than the project itself, and the task almost always leads to an argument. We repainted virtually our entire interior about a decade ago. I informed Diane that either she would be solely responsible for future painting projects or we would hire someone to do it because I was finished. I would never paint again.

Diane and I rarely argue.

When we do, there's a good chance we've been painting together.

I suppose I don't understand the desire to repaint walls. I am, after all, a color blind guy who - Diane is convinced - has no fashion sense whatsoever.

None.

I still think purple and brown make a wonderful shirt and pants combination and all of the walls in our home should be painted Aztec Gold.

Diane doesn't let me wear purple and brown together and none of our walls are painted Aztec Gold. What does she know??? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and my eyes - flawed as they may be - behold those to be beautiful colors.

But I digress...

Some time ago Diane decided that "we" needed to repaint our kitchen, dining and living rooms. She picked Crisp Linen - which is really just a fancy name for some variety of off-white - for all of the walls except the west wall of living room. For that wall, she picked some brownish color that she says is burgundy, or some such thing.

Diane and Matthew wanted to make sure the kitchen and dining room walls were painted before Shelley came to visit at Christmas. Matthew was Diane's helper, but - as often seems to be the case - he managed to find some very important things that forced him to abandon his post after a very short stint. So, the guy who swore he would never paint again was once again forced to take up a roller.

It took two coats of Crisp Linen to cover whatever the grayish color previously covered the walls. I "got to" roll virtually all of both coats.

What fun!

Diane decided she was no longer so sure of the colors she had picked for the living room after seeing the paint on the walls in the kitchen and dining room. Mind you, we had already purchased enough paint to do all three rooms, but that is not important.

We - well to be honest, she - decided to charge on and paint the brownish/burgundy wall last Saturday. I got everything prepped. I'll spare you all of the details, but it turned into a typical painting project. After two coats (with a third still needed due to a, shall we say, "difference" in painting technique) the wall is temporarily finished. The living room's other walls have not yet been repainted because Diane is not so sure she likes the Crisp Linen paint against whatever color the brownish/burgundy wall is.

I'm not in a big rush for her to decide to paint the rest of the walls because I know I will, in all likelihood, be enlisted to take up a roller again. I would, though, like for it to be finished because I can't finish the trim and box beams on the ceiling until after the walls have been painted.

So I sit idly by while Diane peruses paint chips and decorating websites looking for the "perfect" color. (I'm pretty sure Aztec Gold would look awesome beside the brownish/burgundy wall, but Diane has not, to date, asked for my opinion.)

In the meantime, I have nearly two gallons of Crisp Linen in the basement if anyone is looking to paint their walls with some version of off-white with a really fancy name.

Play Ball!

There is still snow in my yard, yet they are playing baseball.

Yep, that's opening day in Wisconsin!

I remember having to wear a winter coat to games over Memorial Day weekend before Miller Park opened. While I still think the roof should be opened for every game unless it is raining; I must admit that it is very nice to have the roof so we never have to worry about a rain out.

I'm ready to cheer my Redbirds on as they defend their National League Championship. I only hope that we take that final step this year and win the World Series again.

It's nice to hear the announcers say that it's time for baseball again.