The Kitchen Part One

Nehimiah prayed about rebuilding the city for four months before he gave the go ahead.  In my head I had been grouching about the sagging ceiling in the kitchen and how Shawn would never let me do anything to the walls or otherwise until that blasted ceiling had been fixed.   I prayed on that for a couple days &; when Shawn decided to demolish the kitchen, I didn't pray at all.  I just said--Go ahead!

Several years ago, at least seven, our ceiling had fallen in do to a ten year old roof.  It was raining and we had our usual pots, pans, and bowls covering the floor to catch the water.  As soon as we get the money, we'll have the roof done, we said.  We tucked ourselves into our bed, preparing for the next of manual labor when all of a sudden--CRASH!

We ran from the bedroom tot he kitchen in matter of two seconds flat.  My socks slid across the linoleum as I searched frantically for our Chihuahua.  "Where's the dog?  Where's the dog?" I panicked.

Chunks of sheet rock and water littered the floor.  I flung open the back door to find my small dog quivering--yes, quivering--directly on the other side of the doggie door as she became more drenched with cold rain water.

That and an abandoned air duct lead the many discrepancies that our ceiling carried.  I begged Shawn to put up a ceiling fan so I didn't have a heat stroke every time I made dinner int he nine months is a Texas summer.  "We can't put up a ceiling fan until the ceiling is done," he'd say.  And that is how the conversation usually went.

Past residents had caulked the joints between the wall & ceiling, creating a doo-doo brown colorizing of the caulk.  Many times I would walk into the kitchen and simply think, "I hate this kitchen," and sigh quitely under my breath.  The pink--yes, pink--counter tops reflect off everything I cook, forcing me to burn it all so as not to discover it raw later on.  The shallow ceramic, white sink shrieks back at me with its 50 years or so of stains.  The utter stupidity of placing a cabinet, floating in the middle of a wall, all by itself has hit us both int he head enought imes that it would make you want to scream.  The painted wood paneling was enough to drive Shawn to the nut farm as one should never, ever paint wood or wooden paneling, for that matter.

I prayed about it for two or three days.  God, please let him want to do the ceiling!  I only wanted to paint the walls, to cover the brown and add some brilliant color to my otherwise bland kitchen.  A couple gallons of paint would be quick, inexpensive, and I could have a whole new look without cigarette stains, without grease stains.  Please, God!  Let him be receptive to my idea, please!

I chose to wait for a time when my beloved was not exhausted, nor in a bad mood.  Last Friday night, Shawn brought up the kitchen.  At this point, I had said nothing of the matter.  The more Shawn talked, the more he wanted to do.  The next day went looking at tile.  Later that afternoon, he ripped the paneling from the wall and tore the mysterious cabinet from the wall.

The cabinet hung next to the garage door with a fur down above it.  Not sure I"m spelling that right....  A fur down is simply a boxed in area often built to hide plumbing, wiring, or what have you.  Shawn built one in the bedroom in hide air duct leading to the bathroom since attic space was limited.  Shawn really wanted to know what was in that fur down, and a little scared of might be behind it.

He's hit his head on the bottom of this single cabinet (built all by itself with nothing attached!) that he was REALLY excited to take it down.  It was the satisfied I'd seen him since the last time I put bacon on his cheeseburger.  And luckily, there was nothing there but a stupid cabinet built in a stupid place in a stupid way.  Much like the rest our house.


(I was writing this & fell out of the mood to write anymore--it was obvious in my writing so I stopped)