Everyday Stupidities

Greetings, all. For the record, nothing has transpired between there and here in the home improvement project... Paige is supposed to paint soon ("within 72 hours" she said shortly after midnight Monday) and once that's done we can start sticking the cove tiles around the perimeter of the room. I already ran the pieces through the tile cutter to make corners and shorter pieces to fit the walls, so I'm ready for that. It's the next step beyond that which we have to prepare for: the bucket of grout dried solid (and probably an hour after we'd finished the floor), so we need to get some more. Making lemonade out of rotting fruit, she suggests I drop that solid chunk of Portland cement into the hole left by pulling out the liner for the pond out back, which was another side project we'd been discussing for years. And did I mention that she now thinks the paint is too yellow, so wants to repaint what's already been done in a color yet to be chosen? This does not happen on the television shows, but then again they tend to go for more elegant designs and, truth be told, they have some very well designed ugly bathrooms on HGTV. [calling home] Paige has decided to do the entire bathroom in the lightest (yellowish-) green, the color we have two quarts of, and is painting that right now, plus has obtained a 10 pound bag of grout... so I should be able to put up the cove tiles come Thursday, and put the light and vanity top and medicine cabinet up (and grout the cove tiles) on Friday-or-so, with curing the tile happening on Saturday and installing the toilet on Sunday. That is, if she actually gets the room painted tonight. [get home] Which she hasn't started yet. Thhhhptt.
[Friday update: I painted the ceiling myself that night, and she painted the rest of the room on Thursday evening. Someday we'll complete this project.]

I've got the Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul update complete, and it will be uploaded in a couple hours so chances are by the time you read this it'll be available for viewing. I don't have anything blatently stupid to report because I've been sheltered recently ;) but I have an observation to offer about coming back to work after nine days of peace and "quiet" (tile saw, shop vac, rubber mallet, hammer): I've never been a fan per se of Bob Newhart [some regard his phone routines as being a ripoff of Shelley Berman], but I appreciate his subtle style -- his trademark is to be the bewildered meek man who tries to forge forward while crazy people and things happen around him. I didn't watch his TV shows, but that manner came through when he was the innkeeper with Tom Postin and Larry, Darryl and Darryl dropping by, and when he was the psychiatrist, the perfect situation for looking stunned as people say stunning things. This is how I've been this week. My supervisor says my customer service skills have shown a marked improvement because I'm so nice yet sort of surprised by the people I talk to and then I forge on politely. It kinda helps that I brought my kneepads and put them on shortly after I get to my desk for the day, but that's just symbolic.