Notes from Maine - 2024/02/04

We made it! It’s the darkest, coldest, shortest month of the year. Only the last statement is empirically true, of course. The dark days are behind us and this week is supposed to be in the upper 30s and 40s (5º C), which is really nice for this time of year. 

I said this many times before, but I’ve established a really nice groove in terms of living without a kitchen. Each day I eat exactly the same things at roughly the same times. Shopping is easy, cooking is almost non-existent, and I don’t spend any time debating what to eat. The best part is that I feel great compared to last year. I suspect that some of the things that I was eating were causing inflammation that affected my joints. 

My only recent health issue (bruised toes) was fixed in two short weeks by simply buying larger boots. Makes me feel a little dumb for living with bruised toes for several months, but what are you going to do? I always bought precisely the same boots for years and years so I figured that they couldn’t be the problem. Either my feet changed or I got a bad pair. Doesn’t matter—my toes feel great now.

I’m attributing my recent run of good health to my destroyed kitchen. In my current narrative, I was forced to simplify my options because of inconvenience. That’s not really true though. There were several months in there where I ate poorly despite not having a real kitchen. 

I got Mom a plane ticket—she arrives next weekend and will be here for the rest of the month. She has the idea that when she’s here I’ll be forced to make better progress towards remodeling. That notion is ridiculously true. Another set of hands will help, but I’ll also be much more focused on finishing tasks while she’s here. 

A lot of people say, “I couldn’t stand eating the same thing every day. I need variety.”

For variety, I do go out to dinner once a week. Last week we went to an Indian place and I had the Vegetable Vindaloo.

“How spicy?”

“Very spicy?”

“Seven?” the waiter asked. Their scale goes up to ten. I don’t bother to order a ten anymore. The last time I asked for a ten, they sent out the proprietor, who pulled up a chair and looked into my eyes. He studied me while he asked if I was sure that I wanted a ten. With a solemn nod, I assured him that I wanted a ten. The food they brought me that night was some of the mildest Indian food I’ve ever had. They only offer “ten” as an option to weed out the posers, I guess, and I was deemed to be one of those.

“Eight,” I said. I wanted to impress upon the waiter that I was asking for more than the typical level of hot, but I was also trying to not appear to be a poser. 

My friend noticed that the waiter wrote a “7” on the pad, despite my request.

The food was fine. It wasn’t spicy, but it was fine.

Mom’s sense of smell has been in decline for several years. She has trouble tasting things, so she enjoys really spicy food too. I suspect that the spice is one of the few things that cuts through her dulled senses. When she’s here I’ll see if I can get them to make something that is actually spicy. 

I’ll go get some drywall this week so I can patch up all the holes I’ve made. For all the pipes and wires that needed moving, there are holes. When I moved the doors around and installed a pocket door on one side, I have big missing patches. This house was originally constructed with plaster and lathe, I’m sure, but thankfully that was all replaced by the previous owners. I’ll be covering most of the walls with cabinets and tile anyway. Very few places will show. Still, I’ll ask my brother to come down and help with taping and mudding the joints. He’s very good at that, and seems to enjoy being good at it. 

I’ve been working so long on structure, pipes, and wires—it will seem strange to start putting things in order. After the walls are done and I’ve installed the floor tiles, I will be building back on a blank slate. At the moment, every tasks makes the kitchen look worse and worse, but soon I’ll turn the corner where it starts to look better each day. Weird.

Mom wants to replace one of the exterior walls of the living room. 

“ONE PROJECT AT A TIME,” I will state emphatically. 

I’ll never forget the time that I had one bathroom reduced to studs and joists. She arrived and immediately began to dismantle one of the other, perfectly functional, bathrooms when I wasn’t looking. On a different visit, I was right in the middle of remodeling a closet. To help with that, she began to take apart the front porch.

I’m not complaining—those were all endeavors that needed to be started.

Well, I suppose I am complaining, but only mildly. Without her assistance, none of those projects would have been completed as quickly as they were. Together and separately, we’ve tackled a ton of rooms of this house. I’ve lived nearly half of my life in this house and a large portions of my memories live here with me. In another decade or so, when the kitchen is finally done, I can finally set my sights on that pesky living room wall. That’s assuming that Mom doesn’t tear it out week after next of course.