Saving Old Stuff: Musings on a Sunday Morning

I knew two things when I saw three pieces of furniture in Sherry’s loft two weeks ago: 1) I had to have them, and 2) They had to somehow, some day, get refinished in distressed antique white. The first thing was the easiest. I named a price, she said are you kidding me they’re yours, and threw in an antique piggy bank (which I was delighted to have, not having had a ‘lucky pig’ since mine broke in 2006. Don’t laugh, or do laugh and just get it over with, but I’m a not so small believer in feng shui and one of the principles recommends your house has a lucky pig, and also a lucky rooster in your southwest corner. I have both, and will keep you posted. I once taped a pig photo and a rooster photo in the recommended corners of my boss’s office, and within three months, she’d received a brand new diamond ring, a trip to Mexico, a promotion, and a weekly rose delivery from her husband. She’s hesitant to remove the photos so with that said, point made).

The three pieces sat in my place for about two weeks until I decided to take the bull by the horns, as it were, go to Home Depot, get the paint, and get the job done. This is normally not my choice way to spend a weekend, but lately life has thrown me a few curve balls (or maybe it’s more accurate to say thrown the thought of curves other than my own in the way of people closer to my heart than is in my best interest right now) that made it expedient for me to spend a weekend painting. So yesterday, I threw Basil in the car, and off we went to Home Depot.

For those who aren’t dog owners, let me just say that Home Depot is sensory overload for canines. I haven’t seen her so happy in…well, a little over a month, really. So on my way to get the two cans of paint and one paintbrush I came in for, I detoured her through every aisle. She stopped to sniff somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,011 items, and collected several dog treats from Home Depot staff who stood ready to issue candy to kids and dog bones to visitors like Basil. I felt guilty when I finally stepped to the register and ended the trip, although the guilt lessened a bit as I allowed her to pee adjacent to a bags of concrete display next to the parking lot.

So yesterday was, from about one until eight, painting. I knocked out two of the pieces, started on the third, and really thought hard about continuing, then made the mistake of sitting in front of HBO for more than two minutes and was completely derailed by two episodes of Entourage. So I called it a night and went to bed before nine, which was fine with not only me but also Basil and both the cats.

This morning proved much more productive and before eleven, we had the third piece finished and I started in on some trim that needed painted. I didn’t stop until I ran out of paint and deciding not to open the second can, called it good for the weekend. Which, surveying it now, it really is. Not a bad project to have knocked out of the way. I washed the two tarps I’d borrowed from a friend on Friday night, and stuck them in one of my The Store tote bags, to return tomorrow after work.

All things considered, what remains now is to get the paint off of me, but my neighbors seem so used to it that it’s not really worthy of comment any more. Hence this morning, New Girl Downstairs joined me on the front step, seemed to nod at my nails and take in, in the space of one second, the fact that I was wearing an odd combination of Avon’s Summer Rose and Baer Antique White.

“Painting?” she said.

“Yep, but I’m done now.”

“Cool,” she observed, which is her observation on everything, no matter what it happens to be, and then launched into a story of her little boy’s Halloween and would I like to see pictures.

Of course I would. Even if I wouldn’t. It’s just sort of who I am.

So she returned with pictures of her little boy who really did look more than a little cute, decked out for Halloween as a devil. “These are great,” I said. “He’s beautiful.”

She smiled, and I realized we were having, what? Something along the lines of a companionable moment. I thought of Lainie right then, and the wonderful dinner she’d made me on Wednesday, and how one day this week it was my turn to reciprocate and she was coming to my house, and how much I missed her and how, up until the moment she took the last load of boxes from her place and left, her biggest fear was that I’d replace her.

With someone like…New Girl Downstairs, who even then sat smiling at me, as if we’d just morphed into Best Friends Forever.

I returned the smile, but didn’t say much more. There really wasn’t much to be said. I went back inside, cleaned up from the paint project, and thought for a minute that I was very glad to have rescued, as it were, and refinished, three pieces of old furniture that had it not been for me wanting them, would have been tossed aside just because they weren’t…well, new anymore. Half their allure to me is the fact that they are old, they’ve been through their trials, and you pretty much know what to expect from them.

I’d never have tossed them aside.

No more, I realized, than I ever would Lainie, no matter what her ridiculous fears. When something, or someone, is worth holding onto, you just do.

So, after cleaning the paintbrush, I dropped her an email, recounted the incident, and let her know I missed her, or as we put it, “I heart you hugely, girlfriend.”

Other than painting her antique white, I’m not sure how much clearer I could have expressed it.