Home Improvement

Today my super, bless his heart, helped me out by putting up these window blinds that I bought from Huge Scandinavian Furniture Store. I feel almost as exhausted by the whole process as if I had done it myself. Well, I did get up early to move all of my clutter out of the living room and dining room into the rooms that have closed doors. (Because it won't do to have the super think one is not a neat person.) Then I managed, amidst all my hurrying about, to set a big plastic serving spoon on fire in the kitchen. Slightly scary, but I doused the fire successfully and managed to clean the burnt plastic off the stove and get all the burners going again. Then, after the super and his assistant arrived, there was the anxiety about whether the blinds would actually fit. They do, although not exactly the way they are supposed to. Measuring windows is trickier than it looks. Apparently, my windows are a tiny bit smaller than the standard size I thought they were (because of the molding, the super explained)--and the blinds that I bought, labeled as being that size, are actually half an inch wider with the brackets. So, the blinds are sitting a little bit in front of the individual window frames although still within the deep frame that goes around all three windows. And because they had to be mounted in the ceiling of the frame, there is no room for the esthetically pleasing wooden piece that is supposed to cover the head rail. Oh well. Live and learn. I think they will be fine overall.

After that whole drama, I still had to go to work in the afternoon and then to my teaching gig at night. Before class I was so tired I wanted to cry but then teaching got me energized again in that way that always seems semi-miraculous. Class was good and I felt peaceful on the way home on the subway. But I'll be pretty happy to go to bed soon.