Travels with The Rayman

On-line shopping is so convenient.  I’ve been doing it for years because we have few shopping possibilities here on the central coast.  Our only real department store closed years ago and it has fallen upon me to continue my buying habits by logging on instead of dropping in.

Really, the only problem I have had is once on ebay, a woman sent me something that did not remotely look like the article pictured on ebay.  A complaint was filed and resolved.  Neat and tidy.  A hassle?  of course, but there are always hassles along the road of life.

So, you can understand that went I needed some new bras, I turned again to the internet and found a retailer DBA HerRoom.com   They carried my brand.  They carried my size.  Fabulous.  So for the past year, I have been ordering a bra now and then as I threw an old one in the garbage.  Now, I don’t know about you ladies, but I buy expensive pedestrian bras.  They go with me to play golf.  They go with me to farmer’s market, to wine tasting, to the kitchen.  Sturdy, utilitarian are two words that come to mind.  So when I saw a picture on HerRoom of a bra of the brand I favor in a blue and white animal print, it grabbed my attention.  What a fun looking contraption.  I need one of those.  Just for fun.

Size was selected and the animal print bra was in the cart.  But wait, for a few dollars more I could save on shipping.  You know that game, right?  So, I ordered a pair of panties.  Size was selected and placed in the cart.  Presto magic.  My new garments were on their way.

A few days later, my unmentionables arrived.  Only the fit wasn’t so great.  Oh, well.  I know women who order shoes in a couple of sizes on the internets and then return those that don’t fit.  Perfect.  I ordered another bra in another size and another pair of panties.  After they arrived, I selected the size I wanted and waltzed down to the mailbox store to ship back the two items that were wrong in size.

A few days later a credit appeared for the panties on my paypal account.  No bra.  Well, that must be an oversight I decided.  So, I started up an on-line chat where I was told that the warehouse would need to be notified, bra found, credit given.  A few days went by but no credit appeared.  In the meantime, I was enjoying my blue and white animal bra.  Comfortable and stylish.  What’s next, I wondered?  The red hat society?

The credit was not forthcoming.  I called and spoke with Karen.  She listened to my story and surprise of surprises, she told me she would have to contact the warehouse so that they could locate the missing bra and credit my account.  She promised to do it right away.  I waited and called back again.  Spoke with Sandy.  Same thing happened.  She assured me the warehouse had been contacted and they would be getting back to me.

Now, most of you know me as reasonable most of the time.  Patient most of the time.  This was not going to be one of those times.  And it came down like this.

One ringy dingy.  Two ringy dingies.  “Hello, this is Vanessa, how may I help you today.” (Name is completely made up to protect the guilty).

Me:  this is where I explained again my situation ending with, “I’d like to get this resolved today.”

Vanessa:  “Well, ….(here is where she gives me the same baloney about the warehouse), and so we’ll have to wait for the warehouse.”

Me:  “I have been waiting for the warehouse for 10 days.  I need to speak to a supervisor.”

Vanessa:  “I can help you.”

Me:  “No, you can’t.  You just told me I must wait for the warehouse and I’ve been waiting for the warehouse for 10 days, SINCE 6/17.

VANESSA:  “Well, maaaaammmmm (deep Texas drawl as she is speaking from Texas.)

Me:  “I want to speak with a supervisor.”

Vanessa:  “I am the supervisor.”

Me:  “Really?”  (great incredulousness obvious in my tone of voice).

Vanessa:  “Yes, maaaaaammmmmmm.”

Me:  “Well, then I would like to get my money back.”

Vanessa:  “Well, maaaaammmmmmm.”  I need to contact the warehouse and they have to verify the weight of the package you returned to see if, in fact, you returned the bra.  I can’t just take your word for it and give you a credit.”

 

Me:  “ YOUR COMPANY HAS BEEN CHECKING WITH THE WAREHOUSE FOR 10 DAYS, GOD DAMN IT.  I WANT TO SPEAK WITH THE SUPERVISOR OF THE WAREHOUSE.”

 

Vanessa:  “There is no need to swear at me.  I’m not swearing at you.” (at this point I am under the impression that this line has been used a lot, it came out so easily).

Me:  “OKAY FINE.  I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE SUPERVISOR OF THE WAREHOUSE.”

Vanessa:  “You can’t.”

Me:  “WHY?”

Vanessa:  “He is unavailable.”

Me:  “UNAVAILABLE?  WHY IS HE UNAVAILABLE?

Vanessa:  “His shift ends at 4 p.m. and he has gone home to his family.  (at this point I am picturing HerRoom as a low slung older house in Houston in a middle class neighborhood with a garage filled with underwear.)

Me:  “THEN I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE OWNER BECAUSE I AM REALLY TIRED OF THE RUNAROUND HERE.”

An aside – Vanessa’s co-workers must hear me screaming because one of them says to her, “Why is she mad?”  Vanessa answers, “I don’t know why.”

Me:  “YOU DON’T KNOW WHY I’M MAD?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”

Vanessa:  “I don’t have to listen to you.”

Me:  “I WANT TO SPEAK WITH THE OWNER.”

Vanessa:  “You may not speak with the owner.”

Me:  “WHY?”

Vanessa:  “She doesn’t speak to people.”

Any woman who has had a facial or encountered a salesperson pushing skin products knows the word exfoliation.  Men, on the other hand, probably think of agent orange when the word exfoliation is mentioned.  My usage of the word applies to the ladies version of the word in this tome.

But I digress.

We are here in the desert of southern California affectionately known as Palm Desert.  It has a few palms and a little desert converted by water many years ago to a green, verdant land of golf courses, country clubs behind gates with associated homes together referred to as gated communities (to keep the riffraff out, I presume), strip malls galore, and miles and miles of roadways with lots and lots of stop lights used to stop traffic so all the old people don’t plow into each other.  Personally, this would be a great place for round-a-bouts.  Less idling BMWs, Audis, Mercs (Mercedes) and more moving BMWs, Audis, Mercs.  The roads are long and straight and would easily accommodate the usage of round-a-bouts but that is a story of missed opportunity at this point.  Guessing that Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage et al is filled to the gills with Republicans (remember, this is the home to Mary Bono, Sonny’s widow who served the district well for many years until she married Connie Mack and then somehow both of them lost the last election), I can only assume, a great hew and a cry would fill the desert with a collective NO if the subject was ever brought up for discussion.  Really, people, you have to admit that the Republicans have morphed into the party of NO.

But I digress.

When the weather isn’t busy being fabulous here, it can get downright disagreeable and so it did the past 48 hours or so.  Furious winds battered this part of CA and we were here to bare witness.  Lucky us.  You know the wind has blown when you receive a “guest message” on your phone announcing that the pool will be closed due to the pile of sand at it’s bottom.  That, folks, is some wind mixed with sand.  And that is also how I got exfoliated.  Playing golf, walking, being outdoors in any capacity was like an exfoliation.  My skin feels so smooth like I just spent an hour and a half getting a facial.  And our car.  I’m surprised there is any paint left on it.  What is on it is a thick layer of dust.  You know the kind where you can write “Wash Me”  on it so everyone can see the near depravity of the owner that refused to take water and soap to the machine.  And it was with this in mind that after golf yesterday, the Rayman and I set out to find a car wash.  With the aid of our iPhones, we googled ‘car wash’ and chose one near by.  Near by is really an oxymoron.  Many miles must be traversed to get any where.  This is not a land of walkers unless they do all their walking inside their gated communities.  Everyone is car-bound.  Including us as we zoom toward that carwash.  Of course, we get confused, make a wrong turn.  Snarling takes place.  Recriminations can be heard until I tell the Rayman he can read the damn phone and I’ll drive.  Silence ensues.  Perhaps a garruff is uttered.  We then arrive at the closed carwash.  Yes, the carwash was closed.  How can a carwash go out of business in the land of the sand?  Well, this would not stand.  Another wash is googled and off we traipse going farther south.  We arrive.  This carwash is closed.  WHAT?

The casual reader at this time may be wondering why we were so desperate to wash the car as wind was predicted again.  That’s because the night before, a back window of the car was left open a crack and the inside of the car was covered with the offending sand.  It felt gritty and needed attention.  Who knew that much sand could get inside with the window opened just a crack?  The law of physics have been debunked, it seems.  So, we returned to the resort and the Rayman took a cloth down and hand-wiped the car’s insides.   But really, people, what is it with the car washes in this town?

All this was a cause to drink.  We met our long suffering friends, Tom and Ruth, at the bar of the Nick Faldo restaurant, on campus, as it were to drink and eat.  In that order.  They beat us to the bar and when we arrives, Tom was mentioning, just mentioning that “this is the worst martini I have ever had.  This bartender is a joke.”  So, the Rayman ordered a martini, expecting perhaps a different experience?  He ordered call liquor and a twist with his drink and he seems satisfied.  I ordered a glass of red wine.  Meridian was the house wine.  Forget that.  I ordered an Australian wine so that I could drink to that darling Adam Scott, victorious at last at the Masters on Sunday.  He is so good looking and did you see his double victory celebration?  It was enough to make one blush with all that thrusting about.

But I digress.

Well, the bartender, Denny, could not find the Windmount Shiraz (perfect name for the moment, though I maybe really forgot the name of the winery but this is a close guess as is the bartender’s name) so off he went to the bowels of the building only to return empty handed.  No Windmount Shiraz in the back.  So I settled for a Greg Norman Shiraz which he had only a 1/4 glassful left in the opened bottle.  This necessitated a wine bottle opener.  Yes, that’s right.  You guessed it.  He could not find the bottle opener.  No I am not making this up, people.  So off he went looking for a bottle opener.  Apparently, this bar/restaurant only has one opener and the waiter had it.  Who knew?  The thing Denny did right was he threw the old wine away and gave me a glass of the newly opened Shiraz.  Tom was not so lucky.  His martini that he hated was ordered as a martini on the rocks with two olives.  He was delivered a martini on the rocks with a twist of lime.  After the bottle opening escapade, I can understand Tom’s harsh assessment.  But it was a hoot.

Really, the only other thing that happened is when I intimated killing the Rayman with a fork at the table over dinner.  He was in a “mood” today and murder by fork, while not seriously contemplated, indicated that some sort of retribution might have been nice.  Twit.  Grouch.  These are terms that come to mind.  Of perhaps the old tried and true, ‘got up on the wrong side of the bed’ could be referenced here.  He was just out of sorts and we all noticed.  But rather than spend any more space on his mental condition, may I say that it lead to a conversation over dinner about some crazy woman stabbing her husband/boyfriend (I forget) 27 times and slitting his throat.  Apparently a trial is on-going on this grizzly event and apparently the prosecutor asked her if she remembered stabbing him once.  No she didn’t.  Did she remember stabbing him twice.  No, she didn’t remember.  And this line of questioning continued for all 27 stabs.  Quite a ploy if you ask me.  No, she did not remember any of the stabs.  Tom would remember this because he is a retired LAPD officer and, well, he finds trials funny.  Like when Mark Furhmann swore under other at the O.J. trial that he had never used the ‘N’ word.  Tom said every guy in the station said, “What the f..k?  Did he really just say that…under oath.”  Yes, Tom is quite enamored with trials in a very funny way.  He can really tell a funny story based on facts.  We all howled.

Then we braved the wind the returned to our respective rooms, taking shelter from the wind and the sand, because, quite frankly, I don’t need to be exfoliated any more today.

And where does the ocotillo come in?  The ocotillos are in the bloom right now and they have lost a great many of their orange/red flowers to the sand.  Plus, I feel like an ocotillo as I expressed in my Facebook page a few days removed.  Prickly and spindly or something like that.  But things are looking up.  Less wind is forecasted and I’m hoping for a hole in one.  Missed one by 6 inches yesterday!!  Perhaps my only good shot, but oh, what a shot!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

At what point in time does the bathroom become the story?  We have been in the throws of not one, but two remodels since we moved in last August.  The thing is, these bathrooms needed help.  Oh, I know.  I suppose that we could have tried to bolster up the 60’s look by keeping what we had and repairing it, painting it, yada, yada, yada.  But hey, there aren’t that many years left so in addition to our baths changing, our relationship with money is also changing.  This is due in part to the observations that

1.) we can’t take it with us  2.) we are really getting old, the “I can’t remember shit”  kind of old   3.) We’ve got to take our meds old.  4.)  what are we saving it for anyway old   6.)  OMG, I have chicken neck old.  7.)  The two advil remedy after golf old.  5.)  The OMG, I left out the number 5 old.

But, I digress.

The bathroom (and when I say bathroom, I mean both but I don’t want to use it because the word ‘bathroom’ it sounds better than ‘bathrooms’.  Agreed?  The bathroom was history.  It was time to take matter into our own hands by hiring Stevie Wonder to re-do the bath.  Which tells you all you need to know about our new relationship with money.  (I’m sure that it was perfectly obvious to you, but I’m not taking any chances).  It just occurred to me that what I just wrote would make a great greeting card (the comment in the parentheses above).  Really?  I actually spelled that right?   A miracle occurs because since I studied french on Rosetta Stone, I can’t spell at all anymore.  Just an aside.

Back to Stevie Wonder.  Little did we know that he would be as entertaining as he is…when we first met him although all the signs were there.  But we were sober.  So…he has been interesting to be around for what seems like an eternity but only because we are sleeping on a guest room bed in a guest room, hell…our only other bedroom) and because there is so much darn dust (read the Dust Bowl blog), and because sometimes you just want to be alone together if you get my drift…drifting as I do to the next segue which is that Stevie is nothing short of amazing.  He arrives early most days with more than 20 peoples’ energy clumped together…I will not speculate.  I report, you decide.  Anyway, I get jacked up just being around him as the nervous energy in the room is ratcheted up to the point where I feel a distinct need to jump up and do something…it’s infectious.  Which can be good or bad.  I report.  You decide.

But, well, where the heck am I? I’ve pursued so many rabbit trails, and twisted and turned so much, I distracted myself.  Have you ever done that?  (That was a tongue-in-cheek question).  On the chance that has never happened to you, though, may I say that the bathroom and Stevie Wonder were to collide and keep things in a state of semi-upheaval for months.

Just a bathroom.  Only a bathroom.  Well, the bathroom is probably the first or second most important room in the house because you can do things in there that you can’t do in the rest of the house.  So, the bathroom has established it’s supremacy in our life.  Consider that you can chop a radish in a bathroom.  I rest my case.  Anyway, with it’s necessary status, a bath cannot, on my view, be trifled with.  So, we embarked upon the remodeling project.

But I digress.

Stevie Wonder found us.  We did not find him.  The first morning we were moving in he flew up our cul-de-sac, stopping to introduce himself and explain that he had done a lot of work for the previous owners, and he knew the house in and out, and he could do 80% of the trades because he was a general with vast experience, and because he was working next door to completely remodel the vacant house (lost in the housing bubble and subsequently bought by a spec guy for a quick fix-up and turnaround sale)…and he’d be happy to show us his work so that if ever there is anything that you need to be done…”well, I can do it.”  It was like a given, then.  That was it.  Stevie was our guy.  So much for competitive bidding, shopping around.  No.  Stevie was a gut instinct call with absolutely no researching, no bids.  No nothing.

Actually, we tried out Stevie Wonder.  We need to have some electrical work done.  A local business gave us a bid for 8 hours@$80 an hour.  Stevie said he could do it less time and at $40.  Stevie said he’d do it for $250.  We paid him $300.  Quick and efficient and clean/tidy.  I guess that was our research.

Contractors get a bad wrap.  All kinds of horror stories accompany many house remodels.  It is ripe for the taking…all the “bad” stories.  This is unfortunate because many of these people are really good.  My thinking is that perhaps our expectations are out of whack.   First of all, many of them never went to college.  They are in my mind, akin to a seagull.  If they don’t work, they don’t get paid.  If the seagull doesn’t eat, oh, never rmind.    You get my drift.  Contractors are from the school of hard knocks, the learn-by-doing people.  They are extremely knowledgeable  Some, like all other professions, are untrustworthy, some slow (the perfectionist?), some too-too.  The list goes on.  However, I think they still get a bad wrap.  We, the people that need this service bear some responsibility too.  Knowing what we want (eek, what do I want?).  It all boils down to knowing what we require in a bathroom.  Not want, but require.  My “want” bath looks a whole lot different than my “require” bath.  My want would have heated floors.  My want bath would include a bathtub.  What I require along with the Rayman is a shower, a toilet, two sinks and a medicine cabinet.  Oh, and a towel warmer.  These were requirements (oops, for the master bath).  The guest bath is without a towel warmer and one sink and a medicine cabinet.

Once the requirements are determined further headache producing decisions must be made.  OMG.  Cabinet tops, lights, light switches, tile, floor plan, flooring, cabinets, shower door, hinges, towel racks, lights of many different kinds, an exhaust fan.  Exhausting list.  Really.

And I must report that minds were changed, ideas were changed, solutions were changed.  Everything was open to change and change did occur.  It’s the nature of the beast.  You cannot foresee something, like who’s the next Pope?  And why would I think of that right now because the Pope and the church he “rules” is one of the institutions/organizations in existence on the plant that are NOT open to change?  Why is that?  Why do religions not evolve with the times like most other things?  Just saying.

But I digress.

So, whether you agree or not, I hope you at least see my point(s).  Here’s a picture of the old master bath.

 

 

And here it is under construction.  One of the things we decided to do in the middle of the project was to raise the ceiling.  Who knew there was that much room up there?  We also decided to order an extra bank of drawers thinking our vanities only had 1 drawer each.  Wrong.  They each have 4.  Oh, well, how stupid can you get?  Then we selected tile and then deselected tile.  There were many trips to the tile store…which is in the south end of Paso Robles.

 

 

Then there was the day that there was so much refuse out in the yard, we broke down and the Rayman and the Wonder loaded as much garbage in as few as garbage bags as possible (big heavy duty black bags) so that when I drove over to the landfill, I was unable to hoist them into the garbage bins.  Heck, I could hardly get them out of the car.  So, I had to take out pieces of plywood, hardwood floor (lots of that), sheet rock that had gotten wet, tape, lumber of various shapes and sides, yards of visquene. (how do you spell that?)  Boxes were smashed and wet.  So, there I am at the landfill heaving building materials over the side of the dumpster until the bags were light enough that I could lift them to shoulder height to throw them away.  It took a long time.  And it was messy.  And it was hot in Atascadero.  And I think I can identify three bruises on my legs that I managed to secure while dumping the trash.  What were those guys thinking?

 

 

In the middle of all this, consider that our contractor was having relationship problems with his lady friend.  So, this meant that before work started, sharing commenced.  Mostly we listened.  And we heard a lot.  Then there was the lawyer that he had hired for some legal work that called him one day after Stevie had paid him thousands to say that his (the lawyer’s) license had just been suspended.  Off he went in a cloud of dust to the local bar association where he found a new, reputable firm that could help him, maybe.  Additionally, he stopped or tried to stop smoking.  All this made our job extremely interesting…not the run of the mill kind of job you might expect.  It was like true confessions, Payton Place, and some sit-com wrapped all up altogether.   “But, when are you going to install the toilet?” , I’d inquire.  “Well, Duncan (a previous client) called and the water heater broke, and I have to go help him fix it today.”  Or how about this.  “What are you going to work on today?”, Rayman would say.  “Oh, I’ll do the tile but I have to chase the grout line and three tiles broke and there’s a problem with the …yada yada yada.”  Whereas the fellow that installed the hardwood for us when we moved in barely spoke, Stevie Wonder has been extremely verbal.  And he talks really fast and half the time I’m left wondering what the heck was his point anyway.  It is a hoot.  Some days when he arrives, usually around 8 a.m., he is so wired that it is best to just get out of the way.  He apparently partakes of some drink like Jolt that infuses him with all that enthusiasm.  And here is where I get to say that Stevie Wonder is nothing if not enthusiastic most of the time.  Eager to please always easy to reach are two of his more enduring qualities.  And he works 6 days a week usually from 8 to 2 with time out for lunch which I make him when I’m home.  Oh, and did I mention that he goes to church religiously?  So we banter quite a bit…especially when I say, “God damn it.”  He takes offense.

Which leads me back to the Pope.  What do you all think about this new Pope?  It’s only been a few days.  I’d like to see him admit women to the priesthood, allow priests to marry, quietly disengage all the pedaphiles  such as Cardinal Law from Boston who turned the other cheek to what was going on and is now enscounsed in the Vatican to live his life in luxury.  What’s wrong with that picture?  This is a perfect opportunity to made some radical changes.  So, go for it Pope Francis.

And things do go wrong.  In the guest bath, the vent/heater/fan was installed and worked about a week and then the fan stopped working.  We called.  They sent us a new fan.  Not a new unit, just the fan.  Stevie installed the fan and the heater stopped working.  We called.  They sent out a whole new unit this time.  Problem solved after almost three weeks.  Then the lights we ordered were too big for the area so we took them back and ordered some others.  They still aren’t here.  It’s been 4 weeks probably.  We also ordered the towel warmer.  It’s still not here because it was on backorder so we chose a different style by the same company and have been assured that it will arrive next week.  Seeing is believing.  The new one is bit more modern looking but at this point, we’re just not that choosey.  We just want it.

On the flip side, the woman we worked with at the kitchen and bath store got a manufacturer to make us a special drain cover for our one piece porcelain-covered cast iron floor for our shower (no grout).  And Stevie Wonder sold us two skylights that he removed from the house that he lost in the housing debacle.  One is in the bath.  The other will be installed in the hall.  And these are not ordinary skylights.  They open.  They close.  The have a screen.  They have a shade that covers it if you don’t want any light.  They close automatically if it starts to rain.  They are used but in great shape.  And it makes a huge difference in the bath.  We consider this a good thing.

Now, your confidence starts to wan when one of your friends enters the bathroom and exclaims, “What did you put this wall here for?”.  The thing about the wall is that there are two pony walls that come up to about chest high and the form a semi-private space for the toilette.  We all thought it was a good idea.  Did we screw up?  Quite possibly there is not another bathroom that has anything like this so it does make it unique.  But is it so unique that it is odd?  Remains to be seen.  Depends, I think, on the art we hang on the wall as it does keep the still rather small bathroom open while still providing some privacy for the new fangled toilet seat we bought.

What, you say?  Yes.  Last year when we traveled to Turkey, our apartment came with a toilet that had a squirter directly under the toilet seat.  As you sat, you could turn on the water by turning a valve and “get clean”.  It was really nifty.  So, my blog has now taken a turn toward the vulgarities of bathroom matters.  This toilet seat is very sophisticated and because it is, it comes with a 33 page book on the care and usage of the seat.  About the first 10 pages are warnings.  This seat could possibly electrocute us if not used properly.  It could burn us if we sat on it too long.  You must not crimp any lines, you must check the plug into the wall monthly (really).  Children must be supervised.  Older people may require a bit of supervision too and that includes me.  And it has a remote control for easy usability.  It also can be programmed for water temperature.  You see, it has a wand that comes out and cleans you.  You have choices too.  It can do Rear Cleansing, Soft Rear Cleansing, Front Cleansing.  You can adjust the wand position.  How about the water temperature?  Yep.  That can been selected to be between 86 to 104 degrees.  It also has an oscillating wash and a pulsating wash.  My, oh, my.  Once you have finished your “session”, you can then then dry your wet areas with warm air.  Another amenity is the deodorizer.  It removes odor from the toilet bowel.  The seat gently lowers the seat and the lid and the seat has a sensor that detects when someone sits on the toilet seat and once it knows you are there, it activates all the functions that you then direct with the remote control   And this special seat is self cleaning to a point.  What more could a person want?  I love this seat.  Of course, it has been the butt (pardon the pun) of many jokes this past week…but I don’t care.  I love this seat.  It’s better than a bidet.  I report, you decide.

Once you get past all the warnings, the first thing it tells you to do is to “Sit on the toilet seat.”  2.  Wash.  This section includes two tips for better results.  3. Drying  4.  Standing up from the toilet.  Really.  The next section has a few pages about conserving energy.  You can program the seat to only be on during certain hours.  You can turn it off for vacation.  There is an Auto Energy Saver.  The seat is called a Toto Washlet.  The washlet will store the time periods when the toilet is used, find low use times and automatically lower the toilet seat temperature to save energy.  These Japanese really are all over it, aren’t they.  They seem to have thought of everything on my wishlist.  Yes, they did.  Why it even has a button to push for Want Cleaning whereby the wand comes out but doesn’t squirt water so you can clean it.  OMG.  Have I gone on and on too long?

At dinner with our gourmet dinner club, the subject came up (after we ate).  Rayman thinks reservations may be needed at our next party for the loo.  I don’t know.  I report, you decide.

Our life is full of dust.  White dust.  Dust is everywhere because Stevie Wonder, an alias for our contractor so named because he works fast and can do just about everything.  Oh, I could have called the White Tornado but that is trademarked, I think.

But I digress.

His work has resulted in dust galore and this spurred me to action and that action resulted in searching for a vacuum cleaner hose for our Electrolux Renaissance vintage vacuum cleaner which was given to me by my mom back in the 70s.  It took an hour or more but I finally found a website that sells new stuff for old shit.  So, for $74, we now have a brand new hose which we are now putting to almost daily use picking up  that dreaded dust.

Remodeling, refurbishing, redoing a bathroom includes the opportunity to make so many decisions it will make a head spin.  It’s a bit frightening, really, because if you mess up, you get to live with it forever unless you have unlimited funds to start over, rip out, or demolish which in our case is to live with it forever.  There are cabinets, tile, flooring, towel racks, skylights, higher ceiling, special toilet seat, niches in the shower, niches outside the shower, make-up mirror (lighted), ceiling fans, bank of drawers to choose.  Lighting must be planned.  Where to put the electricity?  The old bath had one electrical plug.  Now we have one for the toilette, one for the lighted mirror, one for the toothbrush and waterpic, one for heated towel rack, one for skylight that opens and closes and has a shade that blocks out the sun and I’m probably forgetting some outlets.  Then there are the overhead lights and it is all fairly amazing.  Our PG&E bill will soar.

We’re getting to the place where color of paint is required, a new door must be ordered, shutters for the window, glass for the shower.  The list just goes on and on.   And what kind of art work must grace the walls of the new bath that has no bath.  That’s right.  We eliminated the tub.  We’re thinking we’ll just get a 2 person hot tub for outside our bedroom door.  And because of that and the doggie, we added a hot water spigot while things were torn up and a new light for the backyard.

All of this results in dust.  If you come over to visit, please don’t mention the dust which we know you will notice.  It’s everywhere, even in my pantry which I keep closed.

None of this has improved anyones’ mood around here.   Exclamations of “look at the dust” pierce the air on a regular basis.  There are more emphatic exclamations but this is a family blog so I’ll refrain repeating Rayman’s exultations.

We have big plans at the end of this process.  It involves hiring dusterbusters.  Some cleaners to do nothing but dust.  We plan to send our bed spreads and drapes to the cleaners.  Rayman envisions an air filter.  With our new hose, we will vacuum the carpets and furniture.  Never thought dusting would be such a “waiting with baited breath” kind of moment.  But it has come to this.

But I digress.

We will have two new bathrooms.

Then we turn our sights on the yard with a definite plan to keep all the doors and windows closed…to keep out the dust.

 

 

 

 

 

The Rayman is in the closet.  Literally.  He is painting and this is evidenced by the fact that Beau doggie has a green side of hair after inspecting the Rayman’s work.  And I have green paint on my levis.

Saturday, we played in a fun golf tournament for which I donned my black golf capris and it was not until I actually arrived at the course that I looked down and noticed a big fat iron print on front of the right leg( the scorched black pants were gray and withered in that particular area of my leg).  And the reason I didn’t notice before that is because there is no full length mirror to gaze in to because the bathroom door is off the hinges (that’s one mirror) and is leaning up against the wall (on which hangs the other mirror).  Ah, life is but a dream.

For hours and hours I googled and searched the internet for the just the right medicine cabinet for our new master bathroom while right outside under a blanket lay my old medicine cabinet which is a relic but I grew to love it.  So functional and convenient and 4 feet wide.  So after much cajoling, I talked the Rayman and Stevie “Wonder” (our contractor) to letting me have my mirror back.  It’s old, slightly used looking but, hey, recycling is so chic.

 

Living without my bedroom, my bedroom closet, and the master bath is not easy as you can well imagine.  The toilet sits outside in the freezing weather along with that previously mentioned medicine cabinet, rolls of insulation, tools of all descriptions.  The only thing in the bathroom right now is the pan for the shower, the new plumbing and the new electrical.  Oh, and the used skylight that Stevie Wonder is selling us.  It’s pretty bare bones.

As I mentioned earlier, the closet is also under renovation as we stole 18 inches from it and added it to the bath.  So, double hanging is now required.  Our clothes are spread all over the house, all over the master bed.  It’s a mess.  So, selecting the wrong pants was made easier by the fact that I cannot find a darn thing anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong though.  When Stevie was slinking around underneath the house to replace old pipes, he discovered that one of the heater vents was laying on the ground.  OMG.  This is why daily dusting has been necessary and why the living room wasn’t warming up quickly and why it cooled down quickly.  Really, people.  You would have thought someone would have noticed this.  We were clueless.  So there is a silver lining to remodeling.

Oh, and did I mention my new car.  The Rayman let me choose the car and so I chose a Prius V.  The V is for versatile.  It’s sort of like a station wagon.  Lots of room but the car is not mounted on a truck frame.  They estimate it will get 42 miles to the gallon which is why I wanted it.  Plus I needed a new car with a USB port.  I mean, people, both our cars were bought in the olden days.  No USB, no built-in bluetooth (a registered trademark as noted in the car manual about ever other sentence).  It came with Sirius for 3 months too.  Boy, I sure am thoroughly modern now.  How did I ever make it before?  Certainly a mystery.  Color me thrilled.  It’s a very cool piece of machinery.  A rolling computer of sorts.  More than 50 computers on board.  Imagine that?

Many funny things have been happening but if I don’t write them down I forget what they were.  So, I’ll close this blog for now.

Oh, wait.  My new car…I named her Priscilla the Prius.  And I’ll call her Miss Priss for short or when I’m mad.  And I just ordered a personalized license plate that says Priscilla the Prius on the top and Traveling Princess on the bottom which fits right in with my blog handle.  So clever.  So fun.  So depressing to write that check.  I had the lady who sold us the car thru the Costco program take a picture of me and the car because the car will never be worth it’s sale price again… ever.

Rayman is still in the closet and it’s after 6 p.m.  After we bought the car, we took our contractor to the tile store and ordered the tile (expensive).  We went to lunch at McPhee’s in Templeton and Rayman and I split the kobe burger gilded with blue cheese and caramelized onions.  And sweet potato fries.  Yummy.

Oh, I just remember what I forgot.   Our house has several different colors of green and wouldn’t you know it but Rayman painted the closet the wrong green color and that necessitated a trip to Home Depot to buy more the right color since, of course, there was hardly any left.  So, theoretically, the closet would have been done two days ago if he wasn’t color blind.  We had the same problem with the guest bedroom (another color of green) when we moved the curtain rods and needed to repair the wall.  Geeze.

It’s  time to drink and drown my sorrows over Downton Abbey.  What a season.  Anyone else watching it but me?  I had my theories but every single one of them was wrong.  And that poor middle sister.  My god.  I predict that she will become a successful entrepeneur (how to spell that word?)  And the chaffeur (can’t spell that one either) will be wildly successful.  All this will happen if none of the actors want to be written out of the script.  The driver, now upperclass by marriage, will fall for Daisy who will move out and turn the farm of her late husband’s father into a conglomerate the size of Archer Daniel Midlands.  She will become unbearable because of her success.  The dowinger (what? another word that escapes me) will be killed by the young niece (actually trampled to death by the young filly fleeing for a date with another married man) and Mary’s mother will persuade her mother, Shirley MacLaine, to move to England to spice things up a bit since Maggie and all her witticisms will be gone.  Actually Maggie Smith gets all the best lines, doesn’t she?  And she brilliantly delivers them too.  Shirley is up to the task because she once ate in the same room that I did in Santa Fe.  My aura fell ‘ore her.

Well.  I digress beyond all hope with that one.  Good night every body.

 

My I please preface my remarks by saying that I love my uncle.  And this is what happened just now.

Ring  ring.  The Rayman answers as he is very close to the phone.  “Hello.”  “Oh, hello.”

“ I’m not sure.  Let me ask Dianna.”

“Dianna.  Do you know the number for the groomer in Los Osos?

“Yes.”, I reply.

Rayman proceeds, “Uncle needs the number.”

I respond by saying that I will call him back.  (an aside:  at this point in the interaction, I have just taken the monkey off my Uncle’s back and safely put it on to my own back)

Click goes the phone.

So, I rummage around to find the number.  IT IS NOT IN MY IPHONE.  Drats.  So, I google the number and dial up Uncle to give him the info.  Incidentally, it’s dinner time.  Okay.  So it’s continues thus.

Uncle says, “Hello.”

I reply, “Hi, the number is xxx-xxxx.”  In unison he repeats  “xxxx.”

I say, “Oh, you have the number.”

He replies, “Of course I have the number.  Where is she?”

I answer, “In Los Osos.”

“OF COURSE SHE’S IN LOS OSOS.  WHAT’S HER ADDRESS?”

I stammer, “50”, and then I stop and say, “You are really funny.”

“JUST GIVE ME THE ADDRESS.”, he shouts with a tone implying that I knew what he wanted all along. (Of course, I didn’t which made it funnier and continued the laugh.)

“WHAT’S THE ADDRESS?”, he shouted.

“5000 Main Street.”, I inform.

“Well, okay, that’s all I wanted to know”, in a tone announcing that his exasperation is waning.

Click.