C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 9

I got my copies a couple of days ago. Amazon is shipping.

So I just went through ‘approving’ for ‘restore’ anything that didn’t look like a duplicate.

This may stuff the pages with ton ‘o deleted things and maybe even some you don’t want back, but I didn’t see anything that looked like the secret plans to FTL or plots to rob a bank, so I hope it is ok. If not, tell me which one and I will deep-six it again. This goes way back so it is page archaeology.

Click on pic to enlarge. The foreground clutter is a spare rollabout holding baking stuff. No, Jane is not finished. But we have countertops, and our new sink.

This, mind you, is Schuler, not Lowes.

Lowes called us to say there were 3 more packages for us.

So we gathered up the mystery drawer and traded it for the 3 mystery packages…

And indeed it was our two missing doors and the front drawer panel, but—no hinges.

So we call Lowes back—our poor designer/person is pulling her hair out. She will call them the day after Christmas and get our missing hinges.

That should finally do it.

The replacement cabinet is here, the doors for the other one are here, and probably the drawer front. We got the Lowes guys to take the old one out and bring the new one in, and it’s 1/16 inch larger than the other, but we don’t think this (being a body measure, not frontage) is not going to be significant. We’re not strong enough to tip it safely to get the shipping restraints off the bottom: that has to wait for Scott. And getting it in place means we can keep our slot for countertop installation. Yay!

Jane had a weird call from new health insurance wanting a credit card and it took us some scrambling to find out it actually was legitimate. During which time we had a kerfluffle with account numbers and needing a verification via phone, as I recall, which needed my phone, which, it turns out, I carried yesterday to the supermarket and didn’t come back with, nor does the supermarket know where it is. This is the supermarket frequented by the economically desperate, and yes, the phone has vanished. No, I don’t have the Google phone finder app. I have searched everywhere. I NEVER carry my phone in my coat pocket, I did once, and gone.

So I’m off to spend more money at T-Mobile, who sold me a replica of the last one and now I am signed up to the phone app. This required my sign-in, which Jane had created, so it’s a call to Jane, but I am home safe and sound with a new (low end) phone and the old one dead, wherever it is, so damage is limited.

But I’m already tired and so is Jane.

Gah!

A half foot of snow on the ground and more sifting down…and we’re missing ingredients. Well, she rules the kitchen during Christmas baking, but I *could* go after the needful stuff, and I rather enjoy winter driving (a novelty where I grew up)…so off I went. The Safeway was predictably screwball—of the three stores I frequent, this one was on a clear plowed road, and oh, my, it is a bit less upscale than the one I usually use. As in—they don’t restock. They’re the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to their parent company sending them food, and the quality of stuff is often, well, I don’t buy meat in this particular store—the other one yes, but well, this one…could I find baking chocolate? The baking aisle was decimated. I finally found some that would do. And the kitchen smells of peanut butter and cereal Nuts n’ Bolts, it’s called, a chex mix delicacy. Tomorrow, chocolate crinkles and Russian tea cakes, my own all-too-favorite. Our neighbor, bless him, came over to offer to bring our garbage cans up from the street, and I was glad of that.

The pond ice is melting, sign of warmer weather. It has until tomorrow morning to melt off the roof so we can get the vent installed. But our drawer pulls came, so there is something for Scott to do.

We need to put the roof vent in on Monday. They’re forecasting 40 degrees right now. Our weather is nothing if not indecisive.

We made a brief foray to Costco, and decided to come on home—it was very slippery, and there were the usual crazy drivers who hadn’t planned to have to go slower.

We’re also going to mulch the roses Monday. We hope.

We’re not going to get this kitchen finished before January. But we have enough cleared for Christmas trees. We don’t go for stylish: we just have collected so many ‘favorite’ or meaningful ornaments over our lifetimes that we have to have 2 trees. We don’t have room for a really big one, but we can fit two smaller ones in—in the same room.

We’re now mostly in a cleanup stage, getting the drywall dust cleaned up, and so on.

I’ve promised Jane Mandarin Chicken for Christmas, which mostly consists of chicken, salt pepper, clove and cinnamon, plus mandarin oranges, stirfried; and sauced with a reduction of mandarin oranges and cinnamon. Goes well with baked sweet potatoes, and also with cranberry sauce.

Our family recipe for cranberry sauce is: cranberries, raw, sent through a hand grinder (coarse) with seedless orange slices and either walnuts or pecans: it’s not jellied, but kind of a real sauce, and if the oranges don’t supply enough sugar, you do need to add a bit, to taste. Real easy to do and quite good on its own: as a kid, I always used to have a whole bowlful of it just for itself.

We wait for the cabinet tops.

We are also going to shed some things—going to sell off the Lenox princesses, all but one, and sell off the Russian fairy tale plates, we think. We’ll sell them at Ebay prices, so if perchance any of you are longing for a plate or a princess, let us know.

I’m meanwhile in quest of a small rice pot. TFal can’t make rice: it has a hole in the lid. Calphalon apparently has a hole in the lid of its smaller pots. Sheesh! I think I’m going to go to Walmart (shudder: it’s the holidays) and see if I can find a simple oldfashioned enamel-ware small lidded pan.

Weather’s held cold, but the air quality is crap. SO bad I couldn’t work yesterday, so we put away things in the kitchen. Jane’s trying to put up the plates that we are keeping…and it’s the usual story—where are the small black screws that secure the plate frames? So we go off to Ace looking for small black screws and this morning—did you bring in the bag with the (8-10) small black screws for the plates? Uhhh. I think. Well, I unpacked what was with them. Then we go on a trash search.

OTOH, it’s looking good. But last night I dreamed for some reason that we had moved to Wasp 12b (a real exoplanet) and that we were reconstituting the kitchen but I could’t get the flooring to join properly because the floor was curved. Try THAT one for sanity, eh?

And most everything is in except the microwave installation and the vent work.

It’s looking great. Lowes is going to fix everything that’s wrong without charging us anything extra, even taking back the largest cabinet (with no drawers) and giving us one with drawers.

We have done all the trim painting, or Jane has, and we are headed for the finish line. We’re getting cabinet tops somewhere around the 27th of December, and we hope the amended cabinet pieces will get here before the 27th, or that could slip a bit. We are looking at finishing the tile work somewhere before the 15th January, and we only started in September…

It’s looking really good. We’re still missing one drawer front, one kneehole (desk) veneer, the right cabinet with drawers, two doors for the cabinet across the aisle, and we haven’t yet installed the microwave or the toekick plates (baseboard), plus 2 filler strips for places the gap is a fraction of an inch—instead of flush—but we are in good shape. Countertops, sink and faucet install (we have both) and the backsplash tiles, and then a little fix on the food-pantry door frame (which is like an inch out of true) and we wil be DONE!