What Goes Up, Must Come Down

Good Morning, Reader! Unless you're reading this at some other time, and then Good Afternoon or Good Evening. As you will.

Since we planned our housewarmer and invited folks over, there's no more fooling around at Chez Bang Bang. We have to Get Stuff Done, stat. 

So I started to get the upstairs bathroom ready to be cute-ed up, and oye, what a chore. It was just a simple border, Reader, pasted on around the top of the wall.

A horribly unattractive simple border, in some sort of dark colors & patterns, and it had to go as that does not fit with my design dreams for the Cape Cod. I'm going for a more cottage-y feel, not dark Aztec prints. 

So it had to go. 

And then I wanted to cry a little, as it did not peel off nicely, but rather came off in little triangular shards. 

It was holding onto that wall for dear life. 

"No problem," I told myself. "I'll just get one of those Tiger things that you use and it'll come right off." Tricked myself into thinking I just needed the right tools, and the job would be a cinch.

So I bought the Tiger scorer, the Paper scraper, the Dif soaking solution - all of it. And went to work on that border.

First, let me tell you, the Tiger isn't completely honest in it's claim, "WON'T DAMAGE WALLS." Because it harmed my wall in one area, when I accidentally ran it off of the paper. You could call that a user error, but really, they should account for the novice and claim, "MAY harm your walls if you're sort of an idiot-user who gets really aggressive making the circles and runs the tool off of the paper and onto your wall."     

This claim right here in the corner? It's a lie. 

That would have been nice to know, and I may have been more inclined to be a little more gentle. So now I have an area of my wall that looks like this. 

And then there's the claims of the Paper Scraper in bold, blue block letters "PREVENTS DAMAGE TO WALLS." 

Oh, you jokster, you. 

A simple little "May" in front of the "PREVENTS DAMAGE blah blah" may have provided a little bit of warning. Maybe. 

At least I wouldn't have been so surprised when parts of the wall chipped off.

Oh, Previous Homeowner, why ya gotta did me this way?  First the contact paper in the kitchen cabinets that eventually won the war and gets to continue to live there, and then this simple little border. 

It did make me reconcile to keeping the pale roses border in the basement bathroom. It can stay. It's a tonal white and pale colors, it's not worth the battle. 

The thing with home projects is, once you start - even the simplest little start - you're pretty much committed to completing the project in some manner. It's not like I could have stopped with the wallpaper border after the first initial rip and decided it's not that ugly after all. Nope. In for a penny, in for a pound.  Because believe you me, Reader, I thought of a lot of ways I could spin the half-torn-down wallpaper into a "this is our design vision" story, and I couldn't think of a way to pull it off. So I continued to pull it off. 

Once I finish removing the rest of the tacky residue, it's going to be painted a nice gentle color.  A color that somewhere down the line, in oh, say 20 or 30 years, when another new homeowner buys Chez Bang Bang, they say to each other, "What was she thinking with this hideous color?!" And I'll leave a little note on the wall with a "Hey, at least it's not wallpaper. You're welcome." 

Weekend Roundup

Wrapping up the weekend, Reader. Just watched the 2nd to last episode of Breaking Bad. I'm too hopped up to just go to sleep, so I'll tell you a few snippets.

1/ We finally bit the bullet and scheduled our Housewarmer. We had hoped for September, that was a dream. We pushed to October, but realized that 6 weeks out might still be too soon, because hey, one whole weekend before has to be devoted to buying groceries. And yesterday we just bought some furniture so we look like Adults here, with some grown up stuff in the house, and that might not arrive for 4 weeks. So we picked a date and then we worked like hell on the basement today. Tossing, throwing, sorting and storing stuff. We might get there.

I may have a housewarming party where the joke's on everyone who shows up, and they're actually here to paint and put stuff away, otherwise known as Best. Party. Ever. For me, not necessarily for the guests. 

2/ My friendie stopped over Saturday night for an impromptu visit and we drank Ice Wine and said, "Oh, that's good!" and then we talked about a lot of stuff. I heart her, and am happy that I have an Entertaining House. It's nice to have company. Now we just need to figure out how to light the pilot for the gas fireplace, and I could really have a cozy home. 

3/ Thursday night I decided to scrub scrub scrub the upstairs bathroom, and get it ready to host guests who may come from out of town and spend the night. We had thought of keeping a litter box up in that bathroom, but the cats were assholes and were pooping outside of the boxes and onto the floor, so they lost their upstairs bathroom priviledges. 

Kitty Purry showed me just exactly what she thought of that decision and jumped on the bed Friday night and peed on me. For reals. One minute I was nodding off through some stupid Adam Sandler movie that My Mister was watching, the next minute I said, "I smell cat pee!" and the next minute I rolled over and my leg hit wet.  Sonofabitch. All the way down to the mattress pad, which is a good thing we have a mattress pad, I guess. So we put in another upstairs bathroom with a much bigger box that has deeper sides for the little assholes, and so far I haven't been peed on again. 

I felt the worst when I picked her up and looked her directly in the eye and told her she was a bad kitty and I didn't love her any more. 

I think she understood me, because she got a hurt look on her face. Later I told her I was sorry and of course I loved her, and we kissed and made up. 

So basically, you can take a piss on me, and I'll end up apologizing. Because I'm obviously not meeting your needs. 

Recipe for Disaster

That old adage, Use It or Lose It, turns out to be true, Reader. My S.E.X. tricks aren't the only things that have gotten quite rusty.  Since we have a usable kitchen, and I've been actually using the kitchen, and cooking meals so we could eat at home just like Normal Folk, I've realized that my cooking skills are also in need of a major tune-up.

Eight years of a sucky kitchen, which encouraged us to just go out to eat and let other people do the cooking for us, has resulted in me not really being good at making meals anymore.

Last weekend I made some stew. First mistake was thinking that I could re-purpose leftover steaks into stew. Stew needs to be made with stew meat, and properly floured and browned and seasoned, to help the broth situation.

Steak stew, while it may sound like it could be a winner, really was not.

It wasn't helped by the fact that the broth was lame, so I added in some chipotle pepper paste, which made it not only NOT tasty, but burny as it went down.

And I also don't know how to cook for just two people. I think I'm cooking for an orphanage, because we had about 50 gallons of it, and it all had to be pitched out.

My Mister tried to muscle through it, and he gamely ate two bowls the first night. But considering it as leftovers for Monday night's dinner, enough was enough and we pitched it out. But not over the Ravine (I'm starving the Zombies out), we responsibly disposed of the burny steak stew.

It was a damn-shame waste of precious Yukon Gold potatoes.

And I could feel my grandmother turning over in her grave at the Waste.

That wasn't the only Kitchen Fail, sadly to say.

I was on my own for supper a couple of nights last week as My Mister had to work, and decided I'd have my old standby, eggs and toast. I love cooking simple suppers for myself. I would live on breakfast for dinner if I lived alone. Alone, I am so cheap and easy.

But anyway, I decided to get all fancy and fry up some of the Yukon Gold potatoes, to have a fried potato-and-egg dinner while I watched reruns of Big Bang Theory. I'm exciting like that. 

I used to make great fried potatoes. Crispy and brown.

These? I don't know exactly what went wrong, but they were limp and greasy. I want to lay the blame at the potato's feet - maybe Yukon Gold's are too fancy for hillbilly grease frying? - but maybe it is just something else that has lost it's mojo.

The latest not-quite-right kitchen experience was last night, when I made from-scratch guacamole.  I had a recipe to follow, the one really good thing I took out of my marriage - my ex-husband's mother's guac recipe.  I followed it! Sort of. I was about an avacado short, and could have maybe used an extra tomato, and added just a tich too much lemon juice.

We ate it - it didn't need to become Zombie Food - but we were very aware of the lemon juice. I will try this once again, though, because I do think I can perfect it. Maybe.

Today, I'm try-try-trying-again in the kitchen, making a chicken-n-dumplin's crockpot recipe. If this fails, that's it - no more trying out new things.  We will live on bad sex and fried eggs. 

My Mister has more at stake than he realizes with that crockpot full of chicken and carrots. 

Yada'd Over the Bad Parts

This post is about S.E.X., Reader. So if you don't want to know some dirty details, stop now. Remember, once you know, you can't unknow.

Okay? Okay.

You've been given your parental warning.

The other night My Mister was rubbing lotion on my itchy back. Thanks to my good friend Vera, I learned that my itchy back was due to dry skin. I just thought it itched for no reason. Vera knows everything. After she left our house, she went and fixed another friend's leaky toilet. She can skin a buck and run a trout line, too, all without chipping one of her well-manicured nails. She's my hero. 

But because of her, My Mister now has the added job of keeping my back moist.

The other night he was rubbing the lotions on the skin, or else he gets the hose again...except while he was rubbing the lotions, he decided that I was just too enticing lying on the bed in my undiewears.

Because I'm so seductive.

And so we started making out, yada yada yada, and before too long, we both realized that I have become super bad in bed. 

I mean, really really bad. 

Let me just say, I could really benefit from some yoga. Or at a barest minimum, some considerate stretching.  And strength training. 

Switching positions, I knocked the wind out of him as I slammed my arms full-force into his chest, taking all his breath away. And not in the sexy, "You take my breath away!" way. 

Today he told me that I may need to take a girl trip to Mexico. Where I have some sex with a Latino lover for a week solid, so I can get some practice in, and get used to being twisted and bended around. I mean, technically, My Mister could do the work to get me back into shape, but I think he's pretty intimidated by the amount of work needed. And of getting knocked unconscious or having his heart ruptured. 

I mean, I'll do it. For the good of our relationship, if I have to go and take on a foreign lover, I will. 

He just might want to wear a Kevlar vest. 

I'm still not sure when my skillz waned to such a degree, but it was apparent that I have not been up to any gymnastic tricks in a very long time. 

I'd better get better, or I'll have to take at least one "bang" off my name, if I can't prove myself worthy of the double Bang. 

I'm going to stretch now. And maybe find a lover. For the good of my relationship, Reader. Not because I want to. 

Oceanfront Property In Arizona

Oh, Walgreens, why do you have to entice me with all your But Wait, There's More! innovations As Seen on TV?  Because I can't seem to resist trying them all, and it usually ends up with someone disappointed. Usually me, but sometimes My Mister, because he has to deal with the #1/ inevitable returns or #2/ stuff all over the counters.  

Recent purchases include the Instabulb, which is Insta-mazing in my closet (after 1 day, it didn't fall down yet), HD Vision Fold-Away sunglasses, which now that I've read the reviews I don't have high hopes for them at all, and this thing:

This looks like a something that would be used on a vagina, either before, after, or in conjunction with one of those old-fashioned water-bottle style douches. Which, by the way, I remember seeing hanging in the bathtub when I was an innocent yute, questioned why a hot water bottle would need such a long hose, never did get an answer. I apologize for that, as I made you think about my mother's vagina just now. Sorry. Er. Back to the item at hand. 

This just looks so... wrong. It's so pink and plastic-y and rubber-ended-y. 

It makes me feel ashamed and a little dirty. 

But what is it, you ask?? Well, Reader, you'll either be relieved or disappointed to find out it's some crazy hair twirler for lazy people who don't want to bother with the arduous task of using a curling iron on their hairs.  It dries AND curls in one step. 

So I guess it could be something you use on your vagina if you were so inclined. And had really long hairs.

I've been whipping my hairs back & forth in this thing (did you catch that pop-culture reference I threw in there for you just now? you're welcome.) for the past few days, and this is as good as it got:

Now, that amount of "curl" is at the end of the day, so it did as it claimed and held the twirls for the entire day. But I'm not sold on that being a curl, or is it really just a batch of messy hair? 

No one told me my hair looked nice today. So maybe it leaned towards "just messy" more than beachy waves. 

I'm on the fence about this. But may have to take it back regardless. It's just a little too.... too.... pornographic, sitting next to my toothbrush, first thing in the morning. A Lady ~ahem~ has her standards. 

Table Manners

Chez Bang Bang hosted it's first official dinner party last night, where we actually served more than salsa and chips. It was still just a burgers-n-corn kind of event, but it counts as a dinner party because we all sat proper around the table in my mis-matched and questionably-sturdy chairs in the dinette area of the house. 

Kitty Purry helped herself to a decorative bowl of chip dip. And later she licked the melted ice cream out of the bowls. 

We need to work on setting boundaries for them. 

Toby, however was a perfect gentleman-cat, keeping elbows off the table during supper. 

It was after everyone else had finished, and found the behavior charming instead of grossly annoying.  

In other cat-related antics, the kitten's are sort of fed up with the lack of rugs around the house. DJ pulled this down (it was drying), and wrapped himself up like a cat burrito. I'm not sure how he achieved this without thumbs, but there you have it. 

The end. 

Conversation at a Baby Shower

This one-sided conversation occurred at a baby shower I attended yesterday:

My mom's friend: "If I'm thin when I die, I want to be laid out naked." 

I don't know why/how we were on the subject of funerals at a baby shower, but it made me laugh, and have another red velvet cupcake.