Ways with cardboard and frosting

This week the Princess and a friend begin an exciting new adventure. Periodically the Princess takes classes on various subjects, which the Hero heartily encourages so she can improve her mind and skills, and also so she will not have as much free time in which to pester him with such requests as helping more with the laundry. 

This time the Princess has successfully recruited an accomplice to take a class with her. After considerable contemplation over which class would most contribute to their long-term growth and development and would stretch their complex analytical skills, they have chosen a class on cake decorating. 

This decision has met with enthusiastic reception by family and co-workers who have unselfishly given their support, as long as this support involves helping to consume our finished projects.

The Hero offered his opinion that I should bake, and then practice decorating on, his favorite gluten-free chocolate zucchini cake, which is actually much better than it sounds, as evidenced by the fact that even I will eat it. He was indignant at my suggestion that it is not the type of cake that gets decorated.

"Anything can be decorated," he said.

Which is probably what will happen in the class, as I told my friend when she wondered if we had to have any sort of baking skills to take this class.

"Probably not," I said. "They'll probably won't even trust us with an actual cake. We'll have to practice decorating on cardboard."

This does not make us dismayed, however, because even many cakes you see displayed in bakeries, or at wedding receptions, are not actually cakes. For year, wedding guests have suspected this. "What is this, cardboard?" is a frequently heard comment at receptions. This is because it is cardboard, the couple being able to afford only the frosting part after paying for more important parts of the wedding, such as the little guest favors wrapped up in pieces of old netting.

The stated goals of the cake decorating class are rather vague in the catalog, but given our combined level of knowledge about the subject, we are hoping that the goals are very basic, such as "Students will be able to identify the various elements involved in cake decorating, such as the cake."

Other people's ideas of basic, however, may vary slightly from my own, given the results I get when researching basic cake decorating techniques online (making a 3-d rock climber is apparently considered, in some circles, extremely basic). My idea of basic, and one technique that I sincerely hope this class will teach me, is to be able to hold the frosting bag in the correct position so as to encourage the frosting to come out the bottom, toward the cake, rather than out the top, toward me. I have quite a bit of experience with the latter technique should anyone in the class need some tips.

But I feel encouraged that I am quite good at creating circles with a frosting tip, although they might be more accurately termed "blobs." And who knows? We may surprise ourselves and find that we have a real talent for cake decorating. We may even move on to Cake Decorating II: Advanced Techniques with Cardboard.

Cleaning starts with a good water source

It is recommended -- though not necessarily by me -- that you engage in periodic cleaning of and around all major appliances in your home, such as refrigerators, washers and dryers, etc., and including any family members who may be permanently established on the couch in front of the TV.


This task can be difficult, especially if you have neglected it for some time and you have difficulty even finding your appliances, because they are encased in cobwebs or have been borne away by thousands of tiny spiders. Here are some tips we have found especially helpful in the quest for a cleaner kitchen, laundry room, family member, etc.

• First, if the appliance is in any way connected to water, have a major leak from the appliance. Conveniently, the appliance will often arrange this all on its own. It will generally occur when you are out of the house for an extended period, or you are asleep, in order to disturb your daily routine as little as possible. Until you return or wake up.
• Next, you must halt the leak and clean up the resulting soggy mess before you can attend to cleaning the actual appliance. A wet/dry vac is useful for this. However -- and I have no basis for this warning other than personal experience -- check the rear of the wet/dry vac to make sure it is not simultaneously spitting water out the back of the vacuum. If this does happen you will have another leak to mop up, which will delay your cleaning process and keep you from your real objective, which is to be able to delegate all these tasks to someone else.
• Once you have the leak under control, the water cleaned up, the carpet replaced, the smell gone -- again, I have no basis other than personal experience for saying this will take about 2 months -- you should move the appliance out from the walls and thoroughly clean in and around it. This may require advanced tools, such as a blowtorch, and in the case of the refrigerator, you may need some sort of permit for removing hazardous waste materials. You may also, in the course of your cleaning behind an appliance, find what look to be prehistoric objects. These will later turn out to be items that have gradually gone missing over the years, such as socks, Ping-Pong balls, appliance repair manuals, appliance repair persons, and so on.
• After thorough cleaning methods have been applied, move the appliance back to its original position. Ha ha ha! That was a little joke there, because of course appliances will never go back to their original position, and you may notice unusual moderate to heavy noises and shaking when you operate the appliance from now on. But really, this is a small price to pay for having a glistening, like-new appliance and a clean workspace.

Now for that family member on the couch.

All good struggles must come to an end...maybe

Good news! In the valiant search for just the right shade of mustard-colored paint for our family room, it's possible, just possible, that we may have found a usable color. Of course, it is also possible that I have run out of shades of mustard to look at, and am getting tired of waiting for the paint people to come up with new ones. It had gotten to the point that I would go into a paint store and say, "Just give me a pint of every color you have that's remotely related to gold or mustard. Have a truck deliver it. Here's my address. Thanks."

I base my optimism about the new color, Marblehead Gold, on the fact that when I opened the tester can I did not say, as I had with the previous twenty-six colors, "Ewwww." This is a very strong indicator of acceptableness.

Of course I say this with guarded optimism, as the paint has not yet been through Phase 93 of testing, which is to carry the painted sample of foam board everywhere in the room to pose it in various spots, under various types of lighting, and then bring in strangers off the street to get their opinion of it, etc.

In prehistoric times people did not, of course, have so many paint colors to choose from, because Home Depot had not yet been invented, but they did use natural colorings to adorn their dwellings. They also apparently used these colorings to adorn themselves. This is because they did not have poster board or foam board or anything else on which to test the colors they were thinking about using in their homes, so they painted samples on family members' arms, legs, noses, etc. -- whatever was handy -- preferably while the family member was asleep. Little Jimmy would go to school and the kids would snicker, "Hey, look, Jimmy's mom's must be trying out paint colors again. She gonna go with Dead Salmon or Mouse's Back?"

You may be wondering what kind of substances these "natural paints" were made from. Let's just say that I would stay away from Tyrian Purple. According to Wikipedia, this was a color made from snail mucus. Other colors in the pre-Behr days were made from parasites, or from the urine of cattle who had feasted only on mango leaves. The thing that amazes me is that women, who are normally very particular about these things, allowed these substances to be smeared all over their walls, on purpose.  

Today our colors are produced in a lab, although paint recipes are still a highly guarded secret. I personally would prefer to keep it that way. If I am putting snail mucus on my walls, I would rather not know.

Once the final testing phases of Marblehead Gold are complete, the challenge will be to wait patiently until the contractor comes to paint, which won't be a for a few weeks, after the floor is in, which gives me plenty of time to change my mind about Marblehead Gold, and to keep looking for an even better color...did someone say Dijon?

To catch a monarch

In case you are not up on monarch butterfly habits, right now, from all over Canada and the U.S., monarchs are making a perilous journey down to Mexico, where they will spend the winter wearing little sombreros and sipping margaritas.

Of course the butterflies need pit stops during their long trip, and one of these stops is Cape May, New Jersey, where they hang out to fill themselves up with nectar. Nectar is a major factor in their decision to fly on their own rather than by commercial airliner, as airlines are notorious for either a) not serving nectar or b) serving something that is called nectar, but that looks suspiciously like smashed, roasted peanuts.

Cape May is also a favorite rest stop because of the local surfing sites, which are particularly attractive to the teenage male monarchs. But monarchs cannot let themselves get too distracted by such indulgences, because in order to conserve the energy they will need to get across the wide expanse of country, each monarch must vow to temporarily abstain from such typical butterfly behaviors as mating. Some have put forth a petition to abstain from other behaviors instead, such as breathing, but this has been voted down by the Council of Elder Monarchs. 

The annual monarch butterfly trek has long interested humans, who would like to know how in the world monarchs can fly thousands of miles, over inhospitable terrain such as Interstate 95 and Texas, without GPS. Male humans, especially, are hopeful that there is some gene responsible for the butterflies' amazing directional abilities, and that this gene could perhaps be inserted into their own DNA.

But in reality, there is no gene. The Council of Elder Monarchs puts out a large directional manual each season, with instructions on such things as preferred route, how to avoid getting lost, how to ask for directions in case one does get lost (for females: "Que manera a Mexico?" for males: Just pick a likely direction), how to impress females with one's flying ability, etc.

Many people are so interested in the monarch migration that they track the butterflies' progress as they make their way south. They do this by gathering in places such as Cape May, catching as many monarchs as possible, tagging them with a little sticker (which reads If you find this, please call 888-924-0001), and then releasing them. Then more curious humans at the other end search the kajillions of butterflies that have arrived for those that have tags on them, which is estimated to be about 3.


Through no fault of my own, I was part of one of these tagging groups last weekend, along with dozens of little persons under the age of 8. Armed with only a flimsy net, we battled the butterflies, who curiously were not interested in being caught and tagged, though we tried our best to make the tagging part attractive to them ("Think of it as a tattoo").


With my superior adult brain and quickness of movements, I soon outstripped the kids in trapping everything but monarchs, while they gleefully caught one monarch after another. The end count was something like me: 1, kids: 872,000.


After a while I gave up. Other adults would see me empty-handed and ask if I wanted a net. "Oh, that's okay," I would say generously. "Let the kids have it."

I wasn't the only adult pretending to be generous to the kids. "Oh, look, here's a monarch," I would hear another adult say who had been laboriously trying to catch a particularly elusive one, and some kid would nab it in a flash.

I commiserated with a five-year-old, who sulked at also not catching anything. While she was busy sulking, her sympathetic seven-year-old brother snuck a butterfly into her net, then pronounced excitedly that she had indeed caught something. The five-year-old gave him a disdainful look.

"You put it there," she said. "I saw you."

When I got home, Joe put it all in perspective for me. "Why would you want to catch them anyway? They're still bugs."


Bugs that will, in a few weeks, be wearing little sombreros and sipping margaritas. And trying to pull those darn stickers off.

Color your world mustard

It is possible, if you have been paying close attention to the blog lately, that you noticed the Princess and Hero are renovating. It's grueling, constant work as we schlep materials in and out of the house, move things around, consult experts.

And that's just picking out the paint colors.

Okay, so our contractor has the really hard jobs. But I have been through every sample of yellow, gold, and mustard paint ever conceived of -- although I admit I have not extensively researched any original paint in ancient cave paintings -- and can come to only one conclusion: They are all the wrong color. There is one color strip missing in the yellow family, and that is the one we need.

Experts advise looking to your surroundings to find inspiration for color. Perhaps there is a certain object from your childhood that brings back pleasant memories, such as the old, beat-up stuffed bear that continues to live with us despite making no useful contribution to the household. It, however, being done in Early Ugly Brown with Cottage Cheese Innards, is not exactly inspirational.

Inspiration for color may even be found in your workplace, such as the refrigerator, which may hold just the right shade of yellow in someone's months-old jar of brown mustard. Whenever you find a color that calls out to you, you should take the object straight to the paint store to show the paint store person. If you were to take in the months-old jar of brown mustard, your conversation might go like this:

You: Can you match the color of this?

Paint store person: (looks inside and shudders)

You (apologetically): Well, without the mold. Green sort of clashes with everything else in the room.

Driving presents a perfect opportunity to observe one's surroundings for color inspiration -- the sky at a certain time of day, the bright gold leaves of autumn, the gray concrete barriers on the highway, the bright yellow Stanley Steemer truck. If you do see such a truck, and it contains the perfect shade of yellow that has eluded you to this point, waste no time in getting the driver's attention: "Hey, would you mind following me to the nearest paint store? I just wanna get a color analysis on your truck. It won't take very long, although we might have to take a panel or two off the side, you know, to do the analysis, but we should be done in like, oh, five, six hours."

The Hero has a simple philosophy about paint, particularly where I am concerned. Whatever color I choose, he believes I will, in the end, find fault with. This is unfortunately more than somewhat true. And yet I am determined to prove him wrong, at least once. After all, if the months-old jar of brown mustard and the Stanley Steemer truck don't work out, the stuffed bear does have a bit of yellow on its tummy...

Would you like mustard with that?

We apologize for the erratic appearance of blog posts this week, as the Princess has taken up residence in the local paint store, where she is pursuing full-time the researching of yellow paint strips. She has taken a vow that she will not rest, day nor night, until she finds the perfect shade of mustard for the family room trim, which will match a Shaker cupboard she once saw in a magazine. Or maybe it was a decorating book. Or maybe it was actually a rocking chair. But it was mustard.

She has made occasional trips home for eating and slapping paint samples on the walls, where, according to the Hero, the room is beginning to resemble a color wheel, only without purple.

The Princess believes that her diligence will pay off in the end, although there may also be large paint purchases to pay off, given those tempting tester jars that are quite reasonably priced when you buy one or two. The Princess has made several "one or two" purchases of these testers, all in the name of research, of course. This has resulted in a very important discovery: She does not like any of them, and has in fact gone so far as to suggest to the Hero that they consider some other color besides yellow, perhaps blue, which could not POSSIBLY be as difficult to find. This alarmed the Hero, whose work space is drowning in color chips and who would be content with Bumblebee Yellow.

And so the Princess soldiers on. Stay tuned.

The end of the day is pretty scary

If you read yesterday's blog post, you know that at the end of the day with a certain wood flooring individual we were pretty much in a comatose state of mind. Yet as he took us through 3500 feet of showroom -- a log house in which every conceivable surface, including the stove, bathtub, and light fixtures, seemed to be made of wood -- we gradually became aware of how isolated we were. We had followed the man from his office through gazillions of miles of hills and woods further into the countryside, and we had no idea where we were. We thought we might still be in Pennsylvania, but it could also have been Tennessee. The GPS, our only link to civilization, signed off and wished us well.

The fact that there were other houses nearby did not give us much comfort, as they looked to be perfect settings for a horror movie. As we moved from room to room in the showroom, it got darker and darker outside. We realized how entirely dependent on the man we were. If he chose to leave us behind, there was nothing we could do about it. We would wither away right there, surrounded by all that pine and oak and chestnut, until we would surely fade away and become one with the wood.

It was some comfort that if we were indeed left there, at least we would have heat, as the entire building was outfitted with radiant heating. The man, apparently forgetting that we had come to look at flooring, took great pains to explain the heating system and show us all the little pipes through which the water flowed. Although this was an interesting feature, it did cross our minds that we had yet to see any samples of floors. Where are the floor samples? Does he have any? Maybe it's all a ruse to kidnap us and -- what his plans for us might be were unclear, until finally when we were ready to go he suddenly urged us to look in the little shed next door.

At this point we were sure that the man had nefarious designs on us. He just hadn't wanted to carry them out in his beautiful showroom and get it all messy. But the dusty shed, with its inventory of newly built tables and cupboards, was the perfect place to carry out his crime. This is the part where it ends, we thought.We're not getting out of here alive! All those cupboards...maybe there are bodies in them.

This line of thinking prevented us from fully attending to the man's story about his trip to the Bahamas. We hoped we weren't being rude. We looked around at the furniture he had brought us in to see, feigning interest in pine cabinets and cupboards that all looked alike and, given our train of thought, sinister. The Bahamas story finally at an end, we stumbled outside in the dark to take our leave, feeling lucky to escape, unlike those other poor souls that might be in the cupboards inside. Or under the floors.

But the danger was not past yet. The man's car headlights had conveniently gone out, and we were afraid he might use it as an excuse to ride with us, take us further into the remote woods -- if that were possible -- and do us in with no witnesses around. But the headlights miraculously came back on, as did our GPS, which we hugged profusely and made fervent promises to never treat badly again.

Once safely back in civilization, of course we laughed at our overactive imagination. But if we hear that any flooring customers have gone missing in Pennsylvania, or perhaps Tennessee...

At the end of the day, the floor guy is just getting started

If you are looking for old, reclaimed wood flooring, the kind that has been sitting around in someone's attic or barn for 135 years just waiting to be discovered and sold for $1,769.00 a square inch, it takes a great deal of patience and skill to find just the right person from which to buy your wood. Joe and I seem to have what it takes to find this sort of person. The sort of person who knows floors better than anyone else. The sort of person who talks about floors more than anyone else. The sort of person who talks about every other topic completely unrelated to flooring more than anyone else.

We had to drive into the wilds of Pennsylvania to find this sort of person. Roughly half of his conversation -- which, had we stuck around long enough, looked to continue into January -- consisted of certain key phrases, critical to the explanation of antique flooring, as shown here in a sample conversation:

Him: At the end of the day, we want you to be happy with your floor. D'ya know what I mean?

Us: (nodding happily)

Him: And at the end of the day, if you go somewhere else for your floor, you just won't be happy. D'ya know what I mean?

Us: (nodding)

Him: Some customers, at the beginning of the day, they're all excited 'cuz they find some other guy out there who'll give 'em a floor for $2.00 a square foot. But when it gets in the house, and they see what junk it is, at the end of the day they're real disappointed, not like they were at the beginning of the day. D'ya know what I mean?

Us: (nodding gravely)

Him: Now here, we do things different [alternative meaning: expensive] from other guys, d'ya know what I mean? I mean, at the end of the day we've handled a piece of wood eight, nine times.

Us: (nodding dully)

Him: So you won't be gettin' a floor from us that's gonna splinter at the end of the day, d'ya know what I mean?

Us: (nodding off and mumbling) Is it the end of the day, yet?

Of course I am exaggerating somewhat. He did not say, "D'ya know what I mean?" all the time. Sometimes he said, "D'ya know what I'm sayin' to ya?"

All in all, he did a good job of explaining why his wood costs three times as much as the customary $1,769.00 per square inch. But at the end of the day, we just weren't persuaded. I'm sure ya know what I mean.

D'ya?

Old world discomfort

Today we are pleased to present a short Guide to Reproduction Sofas, inspired by the Princess and Hero's ongoing search for the perfect sofa for their period family room, which at this point in the renovation process more resembles a period barn, but without a floor.

Why is such a guide needed? If you are on a quest for a new, yet old-looking sofa, you will no doubt encounter confusing product descriptions that may lead you to believe you are getting an old look with modern comfort. Ha ha! That's what we thought, too. Here is what these terms really mean:

generous proportions = don't eat too much dessert

restful seating = if you are unconscious

no overstuffing = like the feel of sitting on springs?

superb old look = and superb old feel

very straight back = prepare to be catapulted out of the seat

more primitive leg = may hold you up, may not

And here is our rating of comfort levels:

quaint = uncomfortable

authentic = mighty uncomfortable

very, very primitive = mighty, mighty uncomfortable

"hired hand's couch" = a wood floor would be more comfortable

visually stunning = no one wants to sit in it

We hope this short guide to reproduction furniture is beneficial. As the Princess and Hero continue their search for a sofa, stay tuned to find out whether they go for the quaint or visually stunning.

What would the insects do?

The holiday weekend is upon us, with its promise of time with family and friends, barbecues, perhaps a last chance to go to the beach, a trek through lumber yards.

That last option is how our weekend is shaping up, anyway.

In the midst of home renovations, our contractor informs us that the wood floor we were planning to paint must be torn up and replaced. He tells this to two people who cannot make decisions, who have lived with beat-up wood stairs for four years because they cannot agree on paint colors. Now these two people are expected, in a matter of a few days, to research, decide upon, and procure several hundred square feet of finished, antique reclaimed flooring.

Finding an entire new house would not be as difficult. In fact, it would probably be easier.

With a busy schedule, Joe sent me out to visit Flooring Warehouse #1 by myself. The man in charge, a very pleasant personage with the unfortunate name of Cletus, spent a great deal of time trying to explain complicated wood flooring concepts to me, such as "maple," "oak," "pine," "walnut," "expensive," etc.

Finally, after the store's closing hour had come and gone, he suggested I take home a couple of samples, and after a painful process of elimination, I chose two. One for Joe, and one for me. His was polished, very attractive maple. Mine was old barn wood on which, if one squinted hard enough, could be seen the imprint of cows' hooves.

The man very eagerly carried them out to my car, it now being way past closing time, and assured me that we could keep them for a few days.

A few days. It had taken an hour to decide which samples to take home, and he thinks we can make a decision on them, a decision that will impact an entire lifetime, in a few days?

But Joe actually made that decision very easy for us.

"You brought walnut?" he said.

"I thought you liked walnut," I said.

"Sure I like walnut. It's like the most gorgeous wood there is. But how much is it?"

"Uh, we sort of skipped that part," I said.

"What about the other sample?"

"Uh, we skipped that part too."

Joe sighed and touched the walnut sample reverently. "If I were an insect," he said decisively, "I'd eat only walnut."

It looks like the insects will have to be disappointed. It's possible they might like barn wood, but they shouldn't get excited just yet. We have about 400 more warehouses to go.

Back to school, or not? That is the question

It's back-to-school time! But if you are a student in our county, you really don't have much to worry about in terms of attending school. After all, school was barely back in session this year before letting students out two hours early for heat. This prompted parents to scramble for child care and mutter, "When I was a student, we didn't get any 'heat days.' We went to school in all kinds of weather. Heat! Cold! Hurricanes! Volcanoes! Apocalypses!"

This is the same school system that, along with most other schools in the state, had a record number of snow days last winter. Kids made up some days, and then schools were granted clemency from the remaining ones, as the state figured that otherwise students would not get out of school for the year until they were well into their 60s. And teachers would be well into Guinness-record ages, although this would seem perfectly normal to students, who already think their teachers were around to witness creation firsthand.

But I am sure that the school year will settle down into a serious routine, as befits an atmosphere for learning, as soon as the heat lets up, hurricanes stop being forecast, falling leaves are cleared away from sidewalks, Halloween is finally over, Christmas parties end, snow stops clogging our roads, etc. And then it will be summer again!

We apologize for today's brief blog post. The Princess and Hero are in the midst of further home renovations, and are feverishly researching wood floors that are old and neat and have character but are not too icky.