Stuffed

Where you been? What you at?

Busy. Even today - up wi'the craws, runnin' aroond like a blue-ersed flea, digging through boxes, piles of boxes, digging for kitchenwares - pots, pans, utensils, knives, cutlery holders - all the stuff and crap we've had boxed since the summer, waiting for that damned kitchen to be rebuilt. "Tidy" has never been our family's middle name, but this summer we have excelled even ourselves, have managed, one way or another, to block every conceivable clearline path to anwhere. I've been throughout like some poor gimpy Ridinghood, muttering obscenities, forced into the forest at every turn.

Almost there now: almost; ba-hair close. Just a wee bit marble tiling to finish; and a backsplash around the counter and behind the new cooker. And baseboards - skirting we call it in britain - around our new-tiled living room. We can't put the books back yet, not until then, else we'd have to shift the fully-laden cases to fit the boards. Waiting, still, for a tiny brass part we need to finish installing the bath-tub: our reason for not having finished in there a month ago.

Piles of boxes, piles of delay - one delay after another, one part begetting another, buggering-up the order of things. Bath-tub weighs a ton - well, 240lb - and me with my bad back. Didn't want to put the toilet back, install the new sink or cabinetry, not 'till the tub was squared away. Damned thing is too heavy and too tightly-packed into that narrow room, and awkward and difficult to get at and get intae with a wrench. Didn't want to finish the room 'till the tub was squared away, and couldn't do that without that stupid brass part that still isnae here. Did it anyway - had to - finished the restroom crampit-be-damned: Guests. Who could not climb our stairs to the other.

But the kitchen? It's been waiting for three weeks. Couldn't tile it until the cabinets went in, but the cabinets went in at the end of September, the tile on the floor at the end of October. All we wanted, really, was our cooker back - eating take-out every night is draining when there's five hungry, angry teens to keep stuffed. But before the cooker, the dishwasher - all our plates and silverware and pots and pans and crap, all that boxed but steeped in plasterdust still. All of that needed cleaning before anyone could use it. No cooker without dishwasher. No dishwasher without sink, and plumbing. Shiny new stainless steel sink and faucetry, all set to go in you'd think? No cooker without dishwasher; no dishwasher without sink; no sink without the marble worktop. Sheesh - worktops add around two inches height - or heighth, as Pops calls it - two inches all to the floor-standing cabinets. Plywood, wonderboard, cement, tile: all to be cut and shaped and cursed to oblivion before it can be laid. Tedious work, and time-consuming. So: no cooker.

Until last week: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! - cut and shape and fit the tile; cement and grout has to dry; sink goes in the next two days, holes cut-out but no clamps long enough to hold it in place. More delay. Sink goes in, then washer - yaaaaay! - and lastly in a flourish, our cooker.

Couple of days to play with the new toy - toys, really, for everything is new - discover the wonders of "convection" ovens. I had so wanted the first thing I cooked to be a slap-up breakfast in the old style - ham, eggs over runny, fried tamataes, mushrooms son-of-a-biyutch haven't had a chance of breakfast for weeks with mad-rush and mad panic work rearing it's self-absorbed ugly. So it was my Wonderful, not me, who used it first and conjored-up a marvellous Sunday roast. I had to wait another day, and all I could manage was Hamburger Helper after a longlonglonglong day for a gang of ungrateful smart-mouthed whining sprogs.

So today - Thanksgiving Day - we finally, pair of us, cooked us a feast and had the family round to enjoy it.

Lots to be thankful for - lots - and I am. No desire to list them for you, no need to sound like some flouncy teary-eyed wishwash because, you know, I'm not even drunk and that would be too embarassing. Not even sure who to be thankful to, but that doesn't matter: what matters is that I am. Though times be very trying, though the weight of melancholia presses hard, it's always good to sit a little back, rip off my dark-eyed shades and wear my regulars once in a while, the ones with the rose-colored tint.