I haven't been helping, but then RDC can work on the house over his lunch, and we've been eating so provincially early, soon after I get home from work, that there's no before-dinner and after dinner there's no natural light. Excuses excuses.
Monday he hung his study closet door. I can't remember how long it has been on sawhorses in the furnace room. I didn't finish painting the storm windows until June--June?--and I don't remember fumbling the windows and screens out of the coal room past a door on sawhorses. Say six months. It improves the room immeasurably.
And I love our doors. They're two-paneled solid wood, the lower panel a square and the upper a rectangle, they have glass knobs, they're handsome. Only four are hung: the study closet, the bathroom, the kitchen closet and pantry. We removed the study and bedroom doors and someone before us removed all the other interior doors: the hinged ones between the dining room and hallway, the living room and front landing, the kitchen and back landing; the swinging one between the dining room and kitchen; the probably gorgeous glassed ones in the arch between the dining and living rooms. We know these existed because we're the first to repair the hinge and latch scars in the doorways, and there's a mark in the center of the arch where a floor latch once held one door. But they're nowhere to be found; the only other doors in the house or garage are two glassed ones RDC thinks used to be the exterior doors. I think not, because who would be so profligate with heat and privacy to have glass doors? I could be wrong.
Yesterday he painted the sunroom ceiling. Today he intends to paint its walls. Then there will be pictures. And then there will be the hair-pulling out designing of the breakfast nook: the shelves, the table, the bench. And the building of same.
Just think, it took us six months to paint a door and me a full year to paint 40 storm windows and screens. Just think how long the construction of a breakfast nook might take.
We have to consider what we want. One, we're going to paint it in oil so it can take some wear. RDC pointed out how sensible this would have been for the mantel and built-ins, which we have scuffed while shelving books, shunting a photograph aside, placing a vase. Oops. Also, oil will stand up to a cockatiel better than latex and I mean this to be a casual, cockatiel-approved environment (unlike the more formal dining and living rooms). Two, I had said its table doesn't need to be as long as the original one because it needs to fit only two. RDC just suggested that if we did make it long, space by the window could be for parrot-safe plants. I like that idea. Three, lots of shelves. The top ones, which will be hard to get to, will be for plants as well, the middle ones for books--cookery and reference, I reckon--and the lowest ones maybe pigeon-holed for bills and stationery. Four, a bench, with cushions for bottoms and backs.
We have this great woodworking book that gives the proportions for different pieces of furniture: for how much space there should be between bottom-of-table and top-of-chair for ease of skootching into place, for how long a table should be to fit two or four or six people along its length, and stuff like that. That will be useful.
Whole Foods, being in Cherry Creek North and as much of a watering hole as grocery store, has inadequate parking. A parking garage has just gone up next door. Humanity already frustrates me enough through the parking garage at the gym: I am sure I've never seen a collection of cars so ineptly parked. (If I were parking cars parallel to a curb, that would be a more inept collection.) A parking garage at Whole Foods is going to become even more of a clusterfuck than its parking lot, since people are averse to using stairs (even to go down) and even I would use an elevator to go up with a week's worth of groceries, and more after people start using it and it gets clogged with shopping carts.
We left the gym at 6:30. I don't have the grumpy-because-of-low-blood-sugar issue the spouseling has, but what happened made me plenty grumpy on my own.
We scampered up the stairs to Cassidy with our take-out (RDC, a salmon bento box; me, a kale and seaweed salad and a tuna-avocado sushi roll) and RDC zoomed out. At the gate, the driver of the car ahead of us exchanged words with the attendant, then shifted into reverse. So did we and both cars backed up. It turned out he had to back up because he was so obese he could not exit his car so close to the attendant booth. He backed up only so far as he needed to remove himself from his sedan, did so, and rooted through the bags in his trunk for his parking validation.
I hesitated before I called to him: don't rile a stranger in a road-rage world, don't be rude, maybe he won't take long. But then I did, because his behavior was rude and my request was not, and I need to assert myself appropriately. I called to him in a perfectly polite but matter-of-fact tone asking if he would please leave the gate entirely so others could exit. He returned that the clerk was giving him attitude (presumably for not letting him out without showing validation, the hussy) and continued his search.
If someone questions my behavior in public, I am generally mortified. Embarrassed to be remarked upon, mortified to have done badly, anxious to correct myself. I did expect that he would notice he was holding up parties in two cars and be shamed or conscienced into fixing the situation. (Another motivation for my attempt must be, admittedly, my assumption of its futility and my consequent feelings of superiority and martyrdom. Shh.)
RDC fumed as well, and his next step was to ask the attendant to raise the entry bar and exit through there with me watching for any oncoming car. This ended up not being necessary because Mr. Rude finally found his receipt, ambled slowly back to the driver seat, inserted himself into it, and went on his way.
I really don't understand deliberate rudeness.
Last Day with the trainer, that is. I didn't start blinking red.
Bicep curls with dumbbells, 3x12 @12 (up two pounds!)
Bicep curls with barbell, 3x10 @30
Cybex bicep curls, 3x12 @40?
Tricep pull-down with W-bar, 3x12 @somethingish. There is one pulley on the outside of a particular setup and two on the inside, and I have to remember that the same 20 pounds will seem lighter or heavier depending.
Some other stuff weight stuff.
Then core stuff on the ball, oblique twists and the prone hold-up on the ball instead of the floor.
Then the core class with yet a third instructor--neither obviously fakely breasted and tanned nor a drill sergeant. I liked her.