11th January 2019
Kelli dropped me at Menards on her way to Aldi. I had some paint supplies to get, and the thought of food shopping was not high on my priority list. The arrangement was that I get my stuff and go to the Starbucks next door to wait. Walking into Menards is a little daunting, it is huge, a Cathedral to the handyman where everyone looks upwards for heavenly guidance, or just to read the signs which is what is needed to find things. I wondered around, with my neck locked in skyward facing position trying to get my bearings and miraculously found what I exactly what I needed.
Then came the interesting part, getting to Starbucks. It didn’t look far away, but as I walked it didn’t appear to get any closer. The roads went in all directions and appeared to be modelled on the theme-park system of everlasting queues.
I decided to take the scenic route across the snow covered grass. There were footprints leading across the snow so I thought I was safe. As I got to the middle of the grassy knoll, I heard a cracking sound underfoot. I slowed my progress convinced I was walking on ice. The cracking continued with every step. I kept following the footprints until they stopped at a large patch of ice, and I mean stopped, no footprints on it, or on the other side. I was a little scared, I didn’t know if there was a lake or a small pond here. So I remembered my “Boys own book of everything” I walked around the ice on tip-toes because the book suggested that I would be putting less weight on the ice. As this book was written in the forties when they knew nothing, I carried on. I must have looked like a ballerina prancing about. Fortunately I did not die, get sucked into a vortex or get a staring role in Swan Lake, but I made it to Starbucks.
Post script, when I read the book again, I should have laid flat on the ice to increase my surface area, but then I would have frozen to death, as the book suggested.
Progress on the side table top went much better. I attacked the problem with the most toxic materials known to man. It took many coats, and a lot of scraping until, through the haze of my contamination suit visor I could see the improvement in the finish.
As always there was the pressure to get them finished so they could be delivered to Hudsonville tomorrow.
Kelli Painted the hutch top in between me moving side tables about and getting into her way.
Another Lifetime to go 