A long difficult day

I know you’re getting tired of hearing that the weather was basically the same again, but it still was on Thursday.

This was my boss’ last day and we had a goodbye luncheon at a local upscale Italian restaurant. I’ve eaten there once before and the food was great, the service impeccable and I loved the cloth napkins and tablecloths. It was a little pricey, but that’s where he wanted to go.

However, today was different. The food was still great (I had linguine with little neck clams) but, we probably had twenty-five people there and everything took forever! We were there just under two hours, mostly waiting for soup or salad, then our entrees and finally our bills.

Worse yet, I was stuck sitting between a programmer who never shuts up and a new tech who turned out to be a rather pompous ass. It was so bad that, when I left (and I was probably the second person out the door because I had exact change while others had to wait for their change or their charge cards), I burned rubber getting out of the driveway. And, I’d bet I haven’t squealed my tires in twenty years!

I did get the review I’d asked for (I haven’t had one in three years) before my boss left and it was a damn good one, so I was pleased.

Once I got home, I found cat throw-up on the bed (the day kept getting better and better). Jake called and I told him all about the luncheon (since he still knows most of the people, he could appreciate what I’d gone through).

Once we hung up, I started a load of laundry, changed clothes and got to work on the tile. I got the dishwasher disconnected and out, but then ran into a lot of problems. Since the spot where the dishwasher is used to be a cabinet, the old linoleum stopped at the toe kick (or where the toe kick would have been). To hold the old self stick tile they had put on top of the linoleum in place after the linoleum ended, they nailed it down with finish nails. And, the old self stick tiles ended just under the front of the dishwasher.

(I don’t know if you can follow this, but just trust me, okay?)

Now, I can understand some of that, but why would you try to hold down self-stick tile with finish nails? Roofing nails, maybe, or anything with a big head to hold the tile down, but finish nails???

About that time, I got a call from Carla who could not wait to tell me her inspiration for Jake’s birthday gift. Since it’s not his birthday yet, I can’t tell you, but it was a great idea!

Anyway, I had to pull the finish nails out (about 15 of them) and then put my tile in the entire spot for the dishwasher. Of course, the new self-stick tiles didn’t want to stick to the bare wood under the dishwasher and also wanted to buckle upwards where the linoleum ended. So, I heated the tiles up with the heat gun to make them stickier and put a board and two ten-pound dumbbells on top of the seam closest to the end of the old linoleum.

Therefore, in spite of my wanting to finish the dishwasher job in one night, the dishwasher will have to stay out, in my way, until tomorrow night. And, that’s only if the heat gun, board and weight idea works. I took a couple of photos so you can get some idea of what I’m talking about.

I finished up at 9:30 PM and finally took my brace off. I got the bedspread out of the dryer and on the bed, then stuck a chicken pot pie in the microwave. I ate that watching some TV, but was finished and asleep before 11:00 PM. It had been a long day.