Sounds like a deep, meaningful title, right?
Nah, I just got a new door. Really.
Once apon a time, who knows when, someone who lived in this house decided that they needed a door here to go outside. So they cut a hole in the wall, and they used the door they had, which was, of course, an interior door.
So it was cold, and it could only be locked or unlocked from the inside.
I have had this new door since before Christmas, but it has just been too cold to have it put in.
Yesterday it was warmer, comparatively speaking, so it was time.
Isn't it nice???
My goal is eventually to have an old fashioned porch across the back of this house, and then you can walk right out this door, and be on the porch.
A porch with a glider, and rocking chairs, a place to sit and watch fireflies from.
So after the door was installed, the kitchen was a disaster. Sawdust, a little plaster from the lathe and plaster, and general disarray. So today, I cleaned. That was the only goal I had. Just to have the kitchen look good again.
Whaddya think??? Did I do OK?
The whole house could use a cleaning. It gets really messy with so many looms and so much fabric. But that sounds crazy, even to me. Overwhelming.
One room at a time, know what I mean?
I was going to travel to Saratoga, about 20 minutes away, and go to Barnes and Noble. On a spree. You know the kind.
But I didn't.
What do I need, really???? But you know what, if I had gone, I would have spent MONEY. Probably more than I intended. Those places are like that. So many wonderful books and magazines and other little trivia, you get that wallet out, and you fork it over even when you shouldn't. So I didn't. I am quite proud of myself. Every once in a while, I do that, just impress the hell out of myself.
Anyway, I was thinking about my Dad, today. My husband had made a reference to the "Lowe's story", and that got me to remembering. We laughed a bit about it, so I thought maybe I would share it with you.
You had to know my father. He was a character, and I am not joking here. He could be a whole book, all by himself.
He had decided that he was going to buy my mother a new dryer. So we took off for Glens Falls, 'the big city', about an hour from where we lived at the time. He came to my work, at the prison, and picked me up, because he had a pickup truck. I left my car in the parking lot.
It was raining sideways that day.
My father had on his usual. A baseball cap. A black trench coat. Some horrible burgundy, knit pants, black shoes, and his signature "stockings". He had decided long ago that socks cut off the circulation in his legs. So, much to our dismay, he went to Walmart, and bought some white knee highs, yup, you got it, the kind nurses wear. He then cut the elastic off the tops of them, so when he put them on, they rolled down around his ankles. They were quite attractive.
So, here we are, in Lowe's, just the two of us. There was something out in the garden section that I wanted to look at, so we started there.
All of a sudden, my father says, "I gotta go."
Now, a visual right here would be perfect, but since I can't give you that, imagine this. A skinny old man, with coke bottle glasses, stark white hair sticking out from under a baseball cap, a black trench coat, burgundy knit pants, black shoes with white panty hose down around his ankles...........got that picture???...ok......now he puts his knees together, clenches his fists in front of him, and does something like the watusi.......down.....up......down....up....with a twist. "I gotta go."
OK, OK.................go straight down to the end, and take a right.......about half way down, you will see the restrooms.
He heads off.
I continue, oblivious, looking at whatever I am looking at.
Suddenly, he is at my shoulder again.
"I gotta go."
ACK.
"DAD, get to the restroom....that way.....go, go, go."
I watch him as he disappears from view.
Whew.
Bullet dodged, I think.
A few minutes later, I look towards the place where I last saw him, just as he comes back around the corner.
In horror, I watch, as he makes his way to me, bending over every now and then, wiping something up from the floor, with his hankerchief.
My eyes must have been about to pop from my head...........I stood completely still. He got closer and closer. And then I realized.
He didn't have any trousers on.
NONE. ZIP. NADA.
NOW, it was the black trenchcoat, the black shoes, the white balled up panty hose, MINUS the burgundy pants.
OH, GOD. I suddenly was really fond of those knit burgundy pants.
"DAD~!!!!
Where are you pants??????"
"Threw 'em in the garbage, underwear, too, in the mens' room."
ACK
ACK
ACK
My arm under his, on a dead run for the door, can you see it????
Out into the rain, to the truck.
"Stay here, I will get the dryer, just wait here for me."
There has never been a dryer purchased that fast, anywhere, ever.
And we were on the road.
Halfway up the road, the cover over the dryer started to blow off, so I stopped to fix it. Horns were honking, and then I realized, my Dad was on the other side, trying to help me, trench coat blowing in the breeze."
ACK
Can I just tell you that I was so distracted that I drove right by the prison, and left my car right there, had to go fetch it later.
But the very best part is, that when we pulled into my yard, and my DH came out, expecting to help with the dryer, and my father jumped out without his pants, looking like a flasher for sure, my husband stood there speechless.
My father just said, very matter of factly, "Hey.............., what's up, Bill?"
Geesh, I really do miss my Dad.
