Yet again I had great intentions for the day. Yet again, those plans were completely destroyed by 8am. I’m now considering refusing to make any sort of plan until at least noon of the day!
Today’s adventure was to taxi the full laundry bags over to the coin laundry in Miramar, washing and drying the entire mess and returning home to hang fresh curtains, make up the bed with non-paint splattered covers and having fresh clothes to wear once again. The sun is shining after last night’s 12 hour storm and before this afternoon’s regular 3pm showers and I wanted to get out for a walk on the beach while it was warm enough. That just isn’t going to happen today…..
Ken taught me the rule of thumb of only planning one adventure per day, with the caveat that the original plan would rarely be achieved, yet alone smoothly. I know I’ve been a little too enthusiastic about my intended activities but overall, I’ve been successful with getting chores completed, business dealt with and mundane realities of living (like cooking) accomplished. It’s time to return to the original adage of one plan per day, with the additional rider of not every day.
My original house painter returned this morning. I’ll politely refer to him as Mr. Paint Man, as I’m not feeling respectful enough to inquire his proper name. This is the same gentleman who waylaid my plan Christmas Eve day plans of cooking and visiting and generally having a very pleasant, companionable day and also resulted in my resorting to hard physical scrubbing of floors and furniture instead.
I made certain that I showed (yet again!) Dona Lucy the exploding paint in the bathroom and the paint chips gently sifting down upon my bed and repeated my request that this be redone and correctly, please. Well, he’s been out on the patio for 3 hours now, scrapping and painting merrily, complete with the cigarette hanging from his mouth as he crept along the patio railing painting over his head. Thus I’ve had to keep the window louvers shut tight to slow down the rate that it flies into the apartment and also preventing fresh air coming in as well.
I honestly believe that Mr. Paint Man is a respectful, genial individual but given the fact that I have been living in a renovation nightmare for a week now, complete with filthy paint-splattered floors and spackled screens that glow brightly in the evening dark, I am exacting my revenge.
First it was the fact that he suffered terrible confusion when he heard two very different voices speaking while knowing that I was the only person here. I was on video link with my husband in Canada at the time and explained we were talking through the computer. Then it was the fact that he has been listening to me talk out loud, with various levels of volume to the computer while I scribble this note, complete with bursts of laughter and giggling. Lastly, I doubt the gentleman has ever heard of, yet alone experienced, Janis Joplin blaring at high volume but this is my revenge!
He has just completed the patio so before he could leave I very gently apologized for having a problem and proceeded to show him areas that needed re-doing. He is a delightful man but given the water saturated roof area, all I can reasonably expect is that he scrape a slightly bigger area, repaint it and make his exit.
There’s always a way to make the best of a bad situation and my approach generally involves a fair amount of rather twisted humour though not at the other person’s expense. I may be living in interesting times, but Mr. Paint Man will not forget his little adventures of dealing with the “poco loco gringa”!
No comments:
Post a Comment