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1. It is interestingly ironic how yoga-folks and other Eastern-influenced-spirituality people always say things like, “Listen to your body” and “Your body knows what it needs.” Because aren’t you right back in the thick of Cartesian dualism when you start thinking that way? Huh? Huh, yoga teachers? (Excuse me, I have to go start a rumble at the yoga studio.)
2. I liked the Homeric dual and missed it when we moved on to the classical stuff in college. I only remember it ever being used to refer to oxen, though.
3. Speaking of oxen: Nora has a ton of stuffed animals on her bed, and they all have names and genders. We realized the other day that all of her ungulates (an okapi, a llama, a horse, a mountain goat, a buffalo) except one (a camel) are female. Something about hooves must read feminine to Nora when it comes to naming a new friend.
4. Blackhawks win! They won the thing! The big silver vase thing! I watched it at home and not at a bar, and on my computer and not on my television, but I still jumped around and high-fived everyone. “Everyone” was just LT and the cats, though, since Nora was in bed. Turns out neither LT nor the cats are particularly enthusiastic about sports-related high-fives, so I really missed Nora in that moment. Two goals in 17 seconds! Fuckin’ A!
5. (This horrified her, by the way. Very strong sense of sportspersonship in that girl. She is still talking about it.)
6. Besides not being a stupid tantrummy baby, Nora would never treat a hockey stick like that. She was annoyed that I did not get her entire stick in this shot, but I didn’t have time to take another one before class started. Deal with it, kid.
7. My house is a wreck right now because we finally got serious about saving our money and then handing it over to a general contractor. Goodbye, pink-green-white kitchen! Your Izod-esque ‘80s-golf-outfit colors will soon be no more. Goodbye, disturbingly scalloped window-thing, most likely lovingly made on someone’s basement table saw but seriously quite ugly! Goodbye fake laminate (“Hi, I’m a picture of wood glued on top of wood”) everywhere!
We adore this house, but the kitchen was always a bit hard to deal with mentally. After cooking in it for two years, I can say that the layout is basically okay, just the colors and the materials are displeasing. I have all these friends who say, “It’s really not that bad” and yes it is that motherfucking bad! Look at that picture! Look at the pink! Come on, son.
You can barely see them, but over the stove are two tiles that are not just pink, but decorated. One is a picture of wax beans, and one is a picture of grapes. What should I make for dinner tonight? *stands at the stove until inspiration strikes* I know! Wax beans and grapes!
8. Does anyone actually eat wax beans? As far as I know they are only in three-bean salad. Three-bean salad is disgusting and should not exist. As a long-time vegetarian I have many bad memories of three-bean salad at various BBQs where it and chips were the only things to eat. Dark days, the 1980s! Pink kitchens! Three-bean salad!
9. I have one good memory of three-bean salad, though. Can I put you down for garbanzo?
10. Sorry! Wax bean digression! And now back to your disaster porn.
11. This is a built-in pantry thing, which we actually like. We would like it a lot more if it weren’t green, so it’s just getting torn out and replaced.
12. Guess what is under the built-in! MORE PINK TILE! You can almost feel the despair coming off Demolition Bald Guy.
13. (I feel bad about including Demolition Bald Guy and his coworker in some of these pics, but I could not resist. Please don’t stalk random Demolition Bald Guys from Chicago.)
14. Death to scalloped window thing!
15. Here are the rest of the decorated tiles that turned out to be lurking under the cabinets. Probably original to the house or nearly so, based on this eBay listing found by LT.
16. “Hello, Franklin Tile Company, how can I help you? Yeah, we got birds or fruits and vegetables. Wax beans okay? How do you feel about grapes?”
17. The cats were locked in the basement while world-ending noises came from upstairs. This is Rocko, in the very farthest corner, behind a folded-up card table. He is almost dead of fright in this picture. Then he was released, found an entire room of his house destroyed for no reason, and now is even crazier than usual.
18. Wait, I changed my mind! Can you guys put everything back?
19. No? Okay.
20. To sum up: dust, restaurant food, backyard grilling, making tea in the bathroom like a hobo. Looking at eight million stoves online, getting confused by countertops and tile, realizing I don’t care very much about kitchen faucets.
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