Severely Punished

So, I am going with Beloved to his family reunion, held locally, in a few weeks. We received two envelopes: one for him to vote for something-or-other in the family organization, and one with the registration paperwork. I mailed off both envelopes from my office.

The relative [presumably a cousin] who is in charge of the registration paperwork has an unusual given name. Sufficiently unusual that were I to spell it out, it would identify her as one of a handful of individuals in the United States with that name. [Yes, I consulted the Google and Thummim.] So I will simply say that in number of syllables, and in how they are stressed, it brought to mind a certain song, which led to a brief but sidesplitting ~ at least to me ~ parody that I then PM’d to Beloved.

“[Cousin’s Name] is not my cousin,
She’s just the one
To whom we send in the forms,
But the clan won’t stay in dorms.”

Kept me grinning, and awake, for the rest of the afternoon. Not an easy task, since I had nothing more to do, and another hour and a half in which to not-do it. I hope it brightened Beloved’s day while he was sitting in the chemo chair yesterday. [I take my job as class clown quite seriously!]

We got to leave an hour early today, and to wear tennis shoes to work. I am immensely thankful, as I was running out of knee high hose to wear with my skirts and didn’t want to shell out for more before payday. When I got home, there was a quick catch-breath and then we hopped in Lorelai for a quick trip to Home Depot.

We have paint stirring sticks, an attachment that will fit into his drill for some power-stirring, a fresh roll of blue painters tape, and an assortment of medium-quality brushes. After dinner we will slap some color onto the walls so that I can figure out which one I want to live with for the next fifteen years. And then he will first repaint the ceiling, after which we will tackle the walls.

I found some mosaic tiles I like, for eventually redoing the tub surround (not critical; there are a couple of tiles that have broken and been properly patched, so we are talking aesthetics rather than function. And I found ceramic flooring tiles that we both liked, that are inexpensive but not cheap.

We will have to call in the kids at that point. Beloved has the expertise and the strength, but I think the neuropathy in his hands will play hob with his using a tile cutter. And I barely had the strength to wrangle one 25 years ago, when we redid the bathroom in the house in Irving. We will get enough tile to do both bathrooms, and maybe the entryway as well. There was a rich neutral marble tile I liked, but to him it just looked dirty, so no.

Right now he is pan-frying hamburgers and baking sweet potato fries for dinner. After which I will put on my painting clothes and prepare to put swathes of color on the wall, for pondering over the next couple of days. We are hoping to do the actual repainting on Monday before feeding the elders. The smell of fresh paint does not bother me.

They carry a stain that might work well for refinishing the cabinet under the sink. We definitely need a new sink (but the bathtub looks fine to me), and he has a box with a new faucet and handles (which I have yet to inspect for aesthetics; as Ms. Scarlett was wont to say, tomorrow is another day).

We will take before and after pictures.

And Beloved has an appointment with a new oncologist (in the system) three weeks from today.