Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

January 12, 2002 - 10:00 p.m.

I�m a slow learner

This home improvement thing. I must be a junkie or something.

Spidey is trying to get her house in order. It�s a shithole. There are things beyond her control and so I offered to help her out. I fixed a door on her outside storage closet. Now I�m gluing a door back together for the kids room. That�s all her place and I�m glad to help.

But there�s still my house. Maybe you remember the roof repair I did? Well the bathroom below it suffered some serious water damage. I had a nice three-dimensional flaky thing happening from the ceiling. It was like an inverted house of cards. I got up there last night to scrape the flakes away and I kept uncovering loose stuff until I got into the scratch coat of plaster. For those of you unfamiliar with plastering technique, let�s just say that it�s fricking deep.

So I�m back to slopping mud over my head.

Meanwhile the dog pee smell in the living room is driving me nuts. It�s the last shred of carpet I have in the house. I never wanted to live in a kennel. I think the dogs hate the living room carpet as much as I do. But of course if you think like dogs do, it�s ALL theirs. They have marked two favorite spots and they�re near doorways� for maximum effect I suppose.

My living room carpet was probably stylish in 1978. It�s worn out it�s welcome in many ways but it�s good carpet so it doesn�t look all that worn. Son1 told me last weekend I should peel it up and put Pergo flooring down instead. He�s right. Maybe I could have a bake sale? At this point I�d rip it up and live with the plywood underfoot for awhile.

So in the interim I rented a carpet cleaner and made it all one color again. Quadruple duty on the dog pee areas.

I�m not sure what to do about the color in the bathroom. I�m thinking dark and strikingly different. Hunter green? Brick red? No faux finish this time, it�s gonna be a flat finish. Well, semi gloss probably.

Here I am behind a paint brush again. How am I doing so far, Dad?

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