What Colour is Estrogen?

I can tell you what colour mine isn't -- pussy power pink.

After staring at an entire wall of that colour, I decided that I had somehow failed a vital test in Grrlyness. Boy, was it pink. Really pink. Really bright pink. Really girly fun pink.

Wow. That is seriously ... seriously ... Pink. We're talking John Cougar "Pink Houses" - "Paint the mother piyunk!" pink.

Pink. Pink in ways that seriously threaten testosterone. Pink in ways that could make a little boy curl into a fetal ball and weep for his mother. "Usul, we have pink the likes of which God has never seen." "Houston, that's an affirmative, we have Pink!"

Pink. Nothing in nature comes in this shade. Well, there was that one spider, but it was his own fault for climbing back into an area I'd previously prepped, and that wasn't nature but Darwin at work.

Christ. I've been sucking down too many paint fumes.

A wall and a door are completed in Petunia Pink. A door is done in Cornflower. The side of the room that will be Cornflower hasn't been scrubbed and primed yet.

DG has pretended to scrub one wall, and moved some furniture. He sat around and watched me put the primer on one door and the wall earlier. I asked him why he was just sitting and watching.

"You didn't tell me I could do anything else."

Stare.

I suppose I asked for this. After all, I blindly decided to embark on a detailed home improvement project with a man whose entire idea of spring cleaning consists of shoveling all the piles on his desk onto the floor to be kicked around for the next year until it's time to relocate them again.

I consider standing over him with a paint stick and a scowl until he scrubs the wall right and primes it. I know this won't work. I have no idea what will work, but I do know that isn't it.

So I take a break, ponder why it seems like there's a big hairy pink caterpillar creeping its way across my face, and consider going back in there and finishing the work by myself.

Wow. Um, I didn't know caterpillars had that many eyes. Or feet. Or tentacles.

And every damn one of them is pink.

Alice, move over.

Painting With Cats

Using hot water to clean a metal-edged paintbrush means ... never having to feel the deep slices in your fingers until it's too late to realize you're being cut.

Ow.

I think I shall be writing a new list entitled: "How to Paint with the Assistance of Your Cats."


Get paint can ready. Find your work tray, and the can opener.

Steal can opener back from cat.

Open Can. Prepare to transfer paint.

Get cat out of paint can.

Get paint foot and nose prints off the furniture. Chase down and clean cat.

Pick up spilled gallon paint can. Find second cat.

And third cat.

Bathe. See instructions on how to bathe cat. Figure out how to get a gallon of paint out of a longhaired cat.

Shave cat.

Visit ER.

Tear out carpet that received the rest of the paint.

Get new paint, try again.

Have everything ready and in one place this time. Make sure opener is on a leash so cat can't steal it.

Open can, transfer paint.

Remove cat's paw from tray. Clean.

Get bandaids.

Finally get paint set up. Get chair.

Fight cats for chair.

Get new chair.

Start painting. Get cat out of paint tray.

Follow the trail of pawprints. Decide you didn't need carpet anyway, and the floor might as well be painted too.

Clean cat.

Return to painting. Pick three pounds of cat hair out of not-yet-dry paint.

Find cat. Clean. Get bandaids.

Decide to try a power system.

Shave cat, after scraping it off the ceiling.

Move.

Karma Chameleon

Parents left with the kids, DG and I started making plans.

We left the apartment to get food, then head out to pick up the paint and paint supplies for the Things bedroom. Give em a real surprise to come home to.

Only, when we got back to the car, it was Dead. Deceased. Not even a click.

Karma Point 1: I got AAA. We called for a tow truck that cost us nothing.

Karma Point 2: It wasn't HOT. The sun wasn't overhead, we were in shadow, and it was relatively comfortable.

Karma Point 3: We weren't in the middle of nowhere. In fact, we were on main street, right in front of an address and between two major cross-streets. Easy to find.

BIG Karma Point 4: No Things. The kids didn't have to wait in the heat or be bored or cranky.

So actually, DG and I didn't have a bad time at all while waiting.

Guy gets there, goes to try to jump the car and see if it's the battery. Well, it works. Briefly.

It was most definitely the battery. The heat had cracked the damn thing so that the terminal BROKE OFF.

Karma 5: We weren't moving when it snapped.

Well, what the heck. AAA tow drags us to WalMart. We get new battery, we go home.

Karma 6: We HAD the money to do it.

All right, so our battery blew up. This sounds like a bad point, right?

Newp. Surprisingly enough, neither that WalMart nor any in the area carried the right size and style. Had been out for a week or so. Apparently there's been a HUGE run on the things, and the factory can't keep up.

We weren't the only ones in there at that same exact time looking for the same battery, either.

So, they got one that worked with the car, did the work yadda yadda.

The only REAL problem with the entire thing was that the money used for the battery was the money intended to paint the kids' room. No idea what we're going to do now, but that's right out.

But we're all home, we're all safe, and the car works.

The battery was going to die anyway. We'd been having a few problems as it was. The moment that it chose to breathe its last was crucial.

Now, if I could just stop breaking my fingernails ....

Proof Pain is Mental

DG: (outside with Things) Heather? Why are you bleeding?

Thing 2: Bweeding? I not bweeding!

DG: Uh, yes you are.

Thing 2: I not bweeding. Hrmpfh.

DG: Look at your leg. You're bleeding. What did you do?

Thing 2: Bweeding? AAAAAHHHHHH!!! I'm bweeding! I'm dying! Daaaaadddddyyyyyy!