Tales from the Shark Tank

My kitchen is being reorganized.

Mind you, I’ve needed to clean, sort and organize for awhile. It had gotten out of hand, to the point that I was looking for things and saying “I know I have….” fill in the blanks. This level of rearrangement and reorganization is not what I had in mind. It’s just what happens when your kitchen cabinets decide to detach themselves from their moorings.

Thursday evening, on my way to bed after staying up far too late, I went to close a kitchen cabinet door. It swung back open. These doors have stayed shut pretty consistently, so I looked more closely, thinking something must be blocking the door. Nothing was. By that point I was headed not only toward alert, but alarmed. I looked up at the ceiling, to see a decided gap between top of cabinets and ceiling that I did not remember. A little further examination led me to the inescapable conclusion that my kitchen cabinets were doing their very best to fall off the wall. We’re talking about the cabinets that hold all my dishes, things in jars, mixes of varying sorts, flours, and so forth. The catastrophe potential was not a thing I cared to contemplate. I grabbed an empty box and began to lighten the load somewhat first and foremost.

So just then my husband came through on his way to answer a midnight call of nature, and I explained the problem. He came up with the bright idea of putting a stack of large heavy books under the unsupported front corner of the cabinet, which we did, and off we trooped to bed. Friday morning I called the landlord, and Saturday afternoon the handyman came out. The original plan had been for him to see what was called for, but he took one look and grabbed tools. As he worked, he explained the problem to me. Basically, these are lightweight cabinets, not intended for the amount of weight I’d put in them. I admit that confuses me somewhat, because I didn’t put anything one shouldn’t expect to find in kitchen cabinets, but hey, this house is like that. He told me I could, after he reinforces things, put heavy stuff on the bottom shelf, but should keep the things on the higher shelves light.

Of course, removing things in haste leads to chaos even greater than is normal for me. I’d already had a box I’d tumbled full of assorted things we use regularly. The decision to reinforce/ repair right then led to my having all my dishes and more random stuff stacked in laundry baskets. This is not conducive to kitchen functionality, and it was clear that even once the work was entirely complete, which won’t be until sometime in the coming week, things should not go back where they had been. So began the grand rearrangement. My teas and pasta, which are things that weigh very little for the volume they take up, are where the things in jars used to be, with some aluminum baking pans on the top shelf. The jars are where the baking pans had been, and once the handyman finishes putting in additional supports, the dishes will go where the baking where the baking mixes were. The baking supplies are now in where the teas were, and the mixes where the pastas were. And so on, bringing something vaguely resembling order out of the chaos.

So I’m getting through it. It’s been done between taking our son to his best bud’s little league opening day (he’s gone from “I don’t want to hear about baseball” to “I wanna play!”), the Hebrew School field trip that ran an hour and a half over the anticipated time, and other assorted weekend randomness. I’ll finish it after the handyman is done putting in reinforcements and additional supports, like posts that run from the bottom of the cabinet to the counter-top. And then I’ll wait for the next surprise this house decides to spring on us!

I have some medication I’m taking for a few months (three more, to be exact) that comes with a warning to be cautious about excessive exposure to sun, because “increased sensitivity may result”. Wow. Somehow I didn’t expect “increased sensitivity” to translate to “any square micrometer not covered in copious spf 50 sunscreen will turn a color that would make a fresh-cooked lobster envious, and areas that are sunscreened will still tan a bit.” Yes indeed, I have tanned through spf 50 baby block. Eek!

I have the world’s weirdest looking sunburn on my back after working outside most of the day on Sunday. You can see clearly where my reach extended in application of sunscreen, and where I either couldn’t reach or missed. There’s literally a sharp line between the covered places and the uncovered ones, in sweeping curves. Not that it’s visible; I got the burn in a tank top, and am now wearing the softest cotton shirts and blouses I own until this thing settles down a bit.

Otherwise? Life is fairly quiet, which is a great relief. I’m garden-planning, and gradually garden-doing, being somewhat slowed down by prudence in the matter of when I work outside and for how long. I’m a little irritated, as of the roughly dozen perennial herbs I planted in my herb bed last year, only three have come back. I have lemon balm, true chives, garlic chives, and an amazing crop of dandelions. I knew it was moderately shady, but it was good soil and close to the house, so I took a chance. So I shall be moving those three survivors into the bed that’s in full sun, removing the dandelions, and transplanting violets from the yard where they get mowed to that shady corner where I can let them be ground cover. It strikes me that if I want ground cover that will thrive, using a native shade plant is a good way to get it. Other than that, I’ll try the herbs that failed by the house out in the sun, put in some flowers and a few veggies, and call it a garden. Back in January I gave up on having one this year, but now I can. Compared to that, being sunburnt just isn’t that big a deal. And I have plenty of lightweight cotton upstairs, and a pattern for a nice, simple long-sleeved blouse. I’ll just look a little odd when I take my son to the beach this summer, is all.