Little Miss Do-It-All

Tough getting up today, especially if you're like me and you overworked all weekend – if you can call it work bringing seven male teens to see some Shakespeare, then having supper with them before going to play laser tag until 10 at night. That was all fun, as was going to see the most amazing troupe of young actors perform an original version of The Pied Piper. It was also fun to write my 1000^th post; fun to take notes in a deli for this week’s column, fun to do it all –

If only I had stopped before I began refinishing the furniture.

I notice people kind of hate you if you seem to be organized and 'productive' and have it all together. I know I've drawn some fire in the past from people for being neat and having spices that were alphabetized and all but if they get even a little closer they see: You don’t live this way because you choose to. You live this way because even after all these years you are still pursued by these nameless Hounds of Hell who make you think that it’s not enough to just BE your own little self, you also have to also DO, and serve all the time. So they will love you I suppose. So they maybe won’t leave.

I knew I had crossed the line when I saw myself pulling those two dusty and wrecked old bedsteads out of the attic and starting in on the job of refinishing them, just because one of my kids spotted them in there a few weeks ago and indicated they were maybe pretty nice beds under all those scratchmarks.

Now, on this Monday March 12th, besides working a full day and taking a 91-year-old man to the cardiologist and buying the food and cooking, I also have to finish staining two foot boards, and getting the whole mess out of the kitchen where I was working on the project - which feels like a pretty tall order to me right now.

I bet all our Monday chores feel like pretty tall orders to all of us playing the Daylight Savings game, which is everyone in the U.S. anyway especially when we woke at 6:00 or 7:00 and already felt like we were an hour behind and low on sleep besides.

Ah well. I guess today I’ll just start in again with those mantras I learned in those 12-step Al-Anon meetings, like One Day at a Time, and Easy Does It, and Don’t Just Do Something Stand There.

But gosh the old wood sure looks great. Here's the "Before" with the old finish off but no stain:

And here's the wood with just one coat:

You liberate the living tree when you strip and refinish a piece of wood. If only it were as easy to liberate yourself.

We Do Our Best

We all make mistakes. I've been refinishing a coffee table that has endured some punishing treatment. The task is about a six–part process with the stripping, the sanding, the pre-staining, the staining, the wiping down with mineral spirits and finally finally finally: the finish coat. I got all he way to that last step but left the windows open as I worked on that balmy Indian summer day and some kind of 'particulate matter' dust? pollen? settled out of the air and made my new finish, once it had dried, feel like stubble on an unshaven cheek.And this picture at the left? This is  what I routinely do with our foods. Our new microwave is a mighty all right! This lava spill is really oatmeal, made the “quick” way (if you don’t count how long it took to clean up the mess.)We apologize as we go for our mistakes.My column last week was about this subject and in response to it a new friend from Tennessee wrote me.  I had written him to say I knew I was late offering my greetings on the High Holidays but that  had been thinking of him on Yom Kippur, especially, which was the day I wrote this piece on contrition and forgiveness.He wrote right back. “Thank you.," he wrote. " May God bless you and keep you and make His countenance known to you. Thinking of and praying for you as well. Shanah Tovah and Chag Sameach Sukkot."And that reference to Numbers 6:24reminded me of one of the I used to get to sing over the 320 year period when I was part of our awesome church choir. Do you know John Rutter? This is one of his as he sets to music this lovely verse:

The LORD bless you  and keep you;  the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious unto you; the LORD turn his face toward you  and give you peace."

Here it is now by the Cambridge singers. See if this doesn’t just give you shivers.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO17DIeI7Ec]