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Archive for the ‘kitchen’ Category

LJ IOU (OMGWTFROFLBBQ)

August 10th, 2004

Can’t believe it’s already Tuesday (and soon Wednesday), but I suppose that’s what happens when one takes Monday off from work. I have bunches to write about, but never the time, energy, or motivation.

I owe you (and myself) some posts:

  • Stratford (almost two months overdue)
  • San Francisco/Monterery (now more than one month overdue)
  • Curiosa miscellany
  • The kitchen
  • License plates
  • Fingerlakes wine country and the Corning Museum of Glass

These will probably appear in no particular order and on no particular schedule.

Enh. Whatever.

kitchen, music, travel, wine

I Love This Woman!!!

July 11th, 2004

For the record, let me make it perfectly clear…

[info]aquamindy, you are the coolest, most wonderful woman in the universe, and I love you so much that it’s almost stupid. Whether we’re off on some adventure in bizarre and distant time zones, combatting kitchen entropy, or just going to the movies, or even splitting a pizza and a bottle of wine, you make the whole world worthwhile.

I’m happiest when I’m with you. I wouldn’t trade my time with you for anything.

Welcome home. :-)

food, kitchen, liz, lovenotes, marriage, movies, wine

Disappointment Redux, Drama From Afar

July 9th, 2004

First, it’s time to vent about the kitchen.

The electrician did show up at some point today, but certainly not “first thing” or even “second thing” in the morning. And he apparently left part-way through what he was doing, despite three days of promises that he would “finish it all tomorrow”. Open items include:

  • Door bell (still) doesn’t work
  • Under-cabinet light installation stopped literally half-way, with little screws sitting out for the cat to eat
  • Boxes of miscellaneous crap left on floor
  • Miscellaneous parts (light switches, an outlet, and assorted friends) sitting out on the counter by the range
  • Sawdust & bits of wires left IN THE SINK
  • Downstairs: Bag o’ insulation, wires, and crap sitting on the bar
  • Downstairs: Miscellaneous lumber & debris in piles on the bar, behind the bar
  • Downstairs: Hey, look, more fiberglass insulation on the floor, in the sink, etc.!

The tune-up and clean-up people were here, and mostly did a good job, but– Wouldn’t you just know it– What horrible luck they have– I have an eye for details! You know, little things, like paint on my countertop, or a layer of funky schmutz on the countertop, or the magic marker mark on a cabinet door, or the fact that they never cleaned the range at all… They did align all of the cabinet doors and drawers, so that is an improvement, but major remaining irritants are the sliding door (which is in dire need of adjustment ever since it was stained–the wheels are out of whack and now the damn thing is a major fight to open), the screen for the sliding door (which was never installed, grumble!), and the dishwasher (which is not actually flush with the cabinets but instead at a slight angle, just enough to really drive me up the wall).

Oh, and did I mention that the flooring guys have to come out again to fix their previous two rounds of fuck-ups with the sealing? I’ll be damned if I am going to let them off the hook with a room full of tiny bubbles and crap embedded in my beautiful wood floor.

I mean, I know it was a gorgeous day today, but come on… I worked late because I had things to get done, I can’t be the only person on the planet with a work ethic!

And now for musings on Liz’s airport adventures… It’s been quite bizarre to follow them remotely, as her story of frustration slowly unfolds through shifting arrangements of tiny pixels on various computer screens.

About 20 minutes before I left work, I pulled up her flight details from United’s website. At that time, she hadn’t landed yet, and had a scant two minutes between the estimated arrival time and the departure of her connecting flight. Just 120 seconds (estimated) to deplane, change concourses through United’s scary glowing tunnel of tinkly-muzak doom, and rush out to her gate on the crowded B concourse.

Right before I left for home, I refreshed again, and now she had seven minutes.

When I got home, her 5:50 flight had been bumped to 6:35 due to “crew,” which I presume means that there wasn’t one. And the gate had changed.

At 6:35 (7:35 Eastern), when she should have already departed, another refresh… And more changes: an 8:04 departure, “due to late arriving aircraft,” and a gate change.

While writing my rant about the kitchen above, another refresh saw the time bump to 8:10, and another gate change. A phone call a few minutes later found her out at B20, deep in the heart of “Ted” country, United’s pitiful attempt to be like Southwest.

(Goes to hit refresh…)

OMFG! They’ve moved her plane again (now to B9).

At least she’s getting some exercise. Damn. I bet the 6-bottle carry-pack of wine is starting to get pretty heavy…

[Edit @ 20:51 EDT]: Now it’s at 8:17… [/Edit]

So yeah… um… United sucks! Don’t fly them! Even if they might be the cheapest fare! Vote with your almighty dollars (or analogous local currency)!

And, while we’re here, big middle-finger shout-outs to all who deserve them, from talking-head TV news droids to dumbass politicians of all stripes… from Enron executives to people who could afford the BMW but not the turn signal… from those who promise but do not deliver to those who require the dumbest, wrongest solutions… Asshats of the world, this one’s for you!

house, kitchen, liz, naughty-words, rants, travel

Disbelief + Disappointment = Drama

July 9th, 2004

Disbelief: I don’t think that I really believe that the kitchen will be “done” today; despite promises that the electrician would be at our place “first thing in the morning,” he wasn’t there yet when I left around nine. They’re supposed to be cleaning everything (including their messes in the basement) too. Yeah, right.

Disappointment: Just got a call from lovely wife [info]aquamindy, who is stuck in an airplane on the tarmac in Oakland, due to weather issues in Chicago. This has already caused her to miss her connecting flight that would have had her in Cleveland around 8:30 tonight.

Drama: What will the kitchen look like when I get home? Will [info]aquamindy make the only remaining return flight? Will I be secretly bothered by the lameness of this post?

Stay tuned!

house, kitchen, liz, travel

Done or Done-Done?

July 9th, 2004

I am promised that by the end of the day tomorrow (Friday), I will be able to start moving stuff back into the kitchen!

I am hopeful, but at the same time skeptical. The electrician was supposed to be here yesterday (Wednesday) and wasn’t. He was supposed to be here today (Thursday, in case “Friday” and “Wednesday” weren’t big enough hints) and wasn’t. He is supposed to be here first thing in the morning (will he?) to install under-cabinet lights, an in-cabinet light, a phone jack, and make sure all the outlets are energized. Yes, I know I could probably do most of that myself with only my rudimentary skills, but I’m paying for other people to do all of the kitchen work, and that bloody well includes the electrical. My job is to bug people about screw-ups and cut checks. End of story.

Anyway, the electrician (who does good work, but does it slowly) is supposed to be done and gone by noon so that the cleaning folks can come and make everything look pretty. I’d like to think that’ll happen, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

There is a bunch of crap for them to clean up in the basement too… debris from replacing the electrical box and doing crazy stuff to the plumbing from upstairs. It’s been there for weeks. I want it gone.

And there is a final treatment of sanding and sealing of the floor that probably won’t happen until sometime in the next week or so (as the floor guys keep managing to leave a galaxy of tiny bubbles in the polyurethane–yuck)… So even though it’ll be “done,” it won’t be “done-done.”

Urr!! So close to putting things back to normal… But it feels like it’s still so far away!

house, kitchen

Backsplash, The Wrong Colour, Auto-Wash

June 28th, 2004

Almost done with kitchen updates (thank goodness!)…

The backsplash was installed today; we like it.

While we were out last week, they did a first coat of the paint that we chose; this, however, was not so good. What had seemed a nice, quiet sort of light green ended up looking like nothing so much as my toothpaste. Ick. So, back to the drawing board on that one…

Oh, and we can wash dishes now! It’s been so long since the kitchen has made those sorts of noises, that I think Pixel had completely forgotten them. She was quite confused when we started it up.

The backsplash is in (yay!) but we’re not in love with the paint color (as usual with our first choice, it’s completely and totally wrong)…

For fans of The Fifth Element

Distrust of new noises…

I suppose at some point I’ll post about Stratford (excellent), the shows we saw (excellent), and some of the meals we had (super-duper excellent). But not tonight. (You’ll just have to learn to live with disappointment, poppet.)

house, kitchen, photos

f1r5t p45t4, 5uX0rZ!!!1!!

June 21st, 2004

LOLOMFGBBQ!!!1!

Much electrical progress today… among other things, we now have FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!

W3 g0t m4d m1cr0w4v3z:

+h3 m1X3r lift gets its own h1dd3n 0utl3t:

4 gl455 0f w1n3 && +h0u…

T3h c0uNt3rT0p g3t5 5upP0rt:

4 w4tCh3d p0t:

Wh4t’Z c00k1nG?

m4d 5k1llZ:

fr15t p45t4!!

Mmmm, d3553rt:

5h3 ph34r5 t3h ph1r3Z!

cats, food, house, kitchen, liz, photos, wine

No Joy in Mudville

June 18th, 2004

The electrician left today to “go get supplies and come back”… and never returned.

So, this means that while all of the plumbing and gas hookup is done, there is still:

  • No power to the dishwasher
  • No power to the cooktop
  • No power to the doorbell
  • No power to the majority of the basement lights

Called the general. He’s pissed. He can’t get ahold of the electrician, which makes him even more pissed.

It will eventually get sorted out, but in the mean time, there is noy joy, for alas, our dreams of boiling water have been crushed.

Meh.

house, kitchen

Counter Attack

June 18th, 2004

This week’s progress runs counter to my original expectations…


cats, house, kitchen, photos

Let There Be LIGHT!!

June 10th, 2004

There is once more some visible progress to report on our kitchen project!

First I’ll tease you with this photo of an unfiltered red wine that had a LOT of sediment in it… So much that it wouldn’t pour.
trick wine?


Last week our ovens were installed:
ovens

This just amused me… Our ovens have a “Sabbath Mode!” I wasn’t aware that ovens had any concept of such a thing.
Sabbath Mode

Last Thursday the new electrical box was installed (thus leading to the misadventures with the hot water)…
electrical box

The electrician finally got back to us today… and now…

Let there be LIGHTSWITCHES!!
Let there be lightswitches!

And there was LIGHT!!
And there was light!

And Pixel saw that it was Good.
And pixel saw that it was Good.

And Pixel saw that it was Still Good.

cats, house, kitchen, liz, photos, wine