June 11, 2009
Dear Everyone:
I took two days off last week because “Jeannie” and
I had tickets to see
Wicked,
the Broadway musical based on the
novel by
Gregory Maguire.
For some reason, I thought I would relax on Thursday, prior to
going into
“Jeannie” and her friend, the
plumber, have been
very busy. They had already
tiled the upstairs bathroom, with the inspired idea to replace the
baseboard with half-cut tiles.
And replaced the 38-year-old
toilet with a new one.
“Jeannie” also put in a new vanity, although it currently is
lacking a countertop and sink.
The kitchen counter has been replaced with a
granite countertop and a new stainless steel sink.
The microwave oven, which had been sitting on top of the drier in
the laundry closet, had found its way back to the counter because the
plumber wanted to heat something up for his dinner.
The stove is currently standing in the dining area, holding up
tools and painting supplies.
I was actually allowed to paint something.
Granted, it was only the inside of the
medicine cabinet from the
upstairs bathroom, but I did get to use a paintbrush and real paint.
We made several attempts to fix the bottom of one
of the kitchen drawers. This
kitchen is very old and the way the builders set up the drawers was to
simply nail a piece of wood from the front of the cabinet to the back.
This is what holds up the drawer.
To keep the drawer from sliding from side to side as you pull it
out, or push it back in, the builders put drawer guides on the bottoms
of the drawers that parallel the wood.
For two of the drawers, these guides have given up the ghost.
Trouble is, the big hardware warehouse store only has modern
guides, intended for more sophisticated cabinetry.
Ultimately, we will figure something out.
In the meantime, the plumber has been working on
installing the new toilet in the downstairs bathroom.
“Jeannie” had also purchased new
doorknobs for all
the internal doors. I had
very little difficulty replacing the doorknob in the coat closet.
It was a tight fit, but I was able to use the plumber's metal
file to enlarge the original hole to get the latch part into the door.
Then, with “Jeannie's” help, I got the two sides of the doorknob
into place and screwed them together.
All of the other original doorknobs proved more difficult.
They all had an outer shell that covered the place where the
screws go through the door to the knob on the other side.
To remove them would require some type of "around-the-corner"
screwdriver kind of tool.
Nevertheless, by yesterday afternoon, “Jeannie” had
removed all of the doorknobs and replaced the one in the upstairs
bathroom. She had also found
a way to change the bedroom closet door "handles" from the dreaded
"brass" to the more acceptable "nickel".
Replacing the rest of the doorknobs will require some chisel
work, so that will probably wait until this weekend.
“Jeannie” is actually working on a
deposition today
and (hopefully) tomorrow. In
a way, the townhouse has been a blessing.
Deposition work has been scarce and having nothing to do would
drive her insane. Did I
mention she has replaced almost all of the electrical outlets and light
switches with shiny new ones?
Only electrocuted herself a few times and got the time for a
single outlet down to a mere 45 minutes.
The new floors are (tentatively) scheduled for next
Monday and Tuesday. This
weekend, we hope to go shopping for a new stove.
Now, about
Wicked. This was my
birthday present to me last March, but going in June allowed us to get
really good seats. The
musical is based on the novel, which tells the story of Elphaba, who
will grow up to become the Wicked Witch of the West in
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by
L. Frank Baum (the name, Elphaba, is derived from Baum’s own name.)
It is sort of a “prequel” to Baum’s story,
explaining how Elphaba and her sister become the witches of West and
East and
Glinda becomes the Good Witch of the North.
It also shows the origins of the Cowardly Lion, the brainless
Scarecrow and why the Tin Man has no heart.
All this and dancing, too.
And winged monkeys.
The musical was great and I would recommend it to
anyone. And I didn’t even
know that Patty Duke would be playing
Madame Morrible.
I liked it enough that I’m going to go out and buy the book to
take up to
Programming Note:
I’ll be out of town the latter half of next week, so once again,
no Letter. Sorry.
Love, as always,
Pete
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