I spent an enjoyable evening at a dinner for eight. My wife and I joined six other people from the Village Unitarian Universalist Church for conversation, camaraderie, and a very nice meal to which all participants contributed. The view from our host’s home was exquisite; we like our view, but hers is extraordinary! After arriving back home, I returned to the task I left unfinished before we left: examining options for staining brick.
The brick on our fireplace, and indeed all of it on the outside of our house, is an unappealing pinkish/whitish/grayish mix that we find unattractive. Our recent decision to repaint the living room, changing the walls from taupe to light grey actually accentuated the displeasing aspect of the fireplace brick. So I’ve been exploring options. I do not wish to paint the brick. We have examined the possibility of putting stone or artificial stone of a more appealing finish on top of the brick. But we have not liked aspects of the latter. So we resorted to searching for methods to stain the brick; we’d like it to be a light, mottled grey. The ONLY decent options we found are products from a company located in England, Dyebrick. The company offers an array of options that I think would work. Why, though, are there no US companies that offer something similar? Well, if they do, they do a thoroughly crappy job of promoting their services online. So, I may well decide to order a “test pot” from the British company. The cost is not awful, by any stretch, but I’d rather get something that doesn’t have to traverse the Atlantic to get to me. I shouldn’t complain. I really shouldn’t. It’s a personality characteristic of mine that I find utterly reprehensible. Maybe I’ll order a test kit tomorrow.
Have I mentioned the chairs? Well, we ordered five chairs (plus a broken one) from a woman who runs a small furniture reseller (she buys ‘in-demand’ hard-to-find furniture and resells it). The dining chairs we bought are identical to the ones we have now, save for the fabric. Once we get them, we will reupholster them (and the ones we have), so that we can seat eight or more people around our dining table (which comfortably seats four, but when both extensions are used, can seat up to eight). I may have written before about our efforts to buy a new dining set. This purchase extinguishes that effort. Unless, of course, we decide to buy a new table anyway. I like the table we have, when the extensions are not in use; when they are, I find it unattractive. I probably have deviant taste that doesn’t matter in the real world.
I finished a poem earlier today, one that I plan to enter into a contest associated with a writers’ event I plan to attend in early June. I have much more to write, but for the conference contests and to submit to journals. Whether I finish any of that writing remains to be seen.
In other news, I have almost decided to abandon the idea (that I’ve probably never shared here) of changing phone carriers from AT&T (which I consider the embodiment of corporate greed and for which I have nothing but seething, volcanic contempt) to Consumer Cellular. Everything about Consumer Cellular looks better than AT&T except one thing: Consumer Cellular phones cannot be configured to use outside the USA. I don’t know when my next international trip may take place, but whenever it does, I want to take a working phone with me.
Let me end this post-midnight diatribe by saying this: grudges and judgments come back to haunt people by robbing their holders of that one, final opportunity to express love and compassion and to apologize for all the wrongs the holders committed. When I read schlock that says “never go to bed angry with your spouse,” I agree. And it extends to friends and family and random strangers who’ve been the subject of one’s wrath.
That leads to this: “And if I die before I wake, I pray all who beheld me know I forsake, all the pain I may have caused, and I hope all the world’s hatred is terminally paused.” It sucks as poetry, but it works as aspiration.
