Wednesday, May 10, 2006

It's been a head-smashingly fun week in the 'shwa

Has it ever been a loooonnnnnng week. I have no idea how I'll survive until Friday. Oh well. I'm supposed to be at a bachelorette party which should be lots of fun and games. That's of course if I'm still standing!

Anyway, moving on, I've done lots of learning this week. I've learned my parents have decided to do some work to their already gorgeous home. I've also learned that my mum probably should have become a highly paid accountant for some big nameless corporation because her tax-refund-getting skills are impeccable and I'm now expecting a fairly fat cheque from the man. These two forces have combined to make it virtually irresistible NOT to do some work on the house.

We moved in at the end of last summer and, beyond a few tiny things, we haven't done much work to the place. I have a long list of things I want to do to this place. It's an older house which definitely has lots of quirks, both good quirks and bad.

I'm hoping to slowly start to rid the house of the non cute quirks. The beige in the living room is making me a little cabin feverish. The original kitchen (or an early successor to it) in our 1940s house is getting more and more annoying especially when you view all the glorious cabinet options and choices there are out there. The original hard wood floors are still gorgeous but badly in need of re-finishing. Most of all the wallpaper in the front hall and upstairs hall is making me nutso.

In a bid to rid the place of its quirks, I think I've found a pretty good score. A neighbour down the street works re-finishing floors for a living (SCORE!) and has given us a wicked price to re-do them. So, that will happen once we get the walls un-beiged, and the ceilings touched up with plaster and painted, the floors are next.

But, in the meantime, the wallpaper in the halls is the bee doing the most stinging in my bonnet. Actually I have a bonnet full of bees right now, but I'm directing it all at the wallpaper.

I'm sure at some point this wallpaper was pretty to some person. I can't think of either a time when that would have been, or a person who would have found it pretty but I'm sure it was, just as I am sure that it is not pretty to me.

I'm curious as to what I'll find behind the wallpaper. The walls are lathe and plaster and we already know of one spot that will need work (we call it the rollercoaster wall because it dips up and down), but the rest is a mystery. My fingers are crossed that it isn't too bad and the wallpaper removal itself isn't as dreadful as I'm imagining it will be.

_________________________________________________________________

Finally, should you randomly happen to be a caterer who happens to stumble onto my blog, I have some completely unsolicited advice for you. Aren't you lucky!

If, as a caterer, you're being asked to price catering an event such as a wedding, and one of the MAIN parties identifies herself as a vegetarian right from the beginning, it would probably not be a great idea to note how big a "pain in the ass" some vegetarians are at catered events at length. You would probably also be best not to tell said vegetarian about how she should realize that most of the people attending the event will eat meat so she really should focus on ordering food that will please them (meaning all meat, all the time) instead of the "few vegetarians." This type of comment will make said vegetarians consider hiring one of your competitors instead.

Just moments before the steam started to come out from my ears and my head started spinning rapidly in counter-clockwise fashion, I told her that as a vegetarian I had more often ran into caterers who were a pain in the ass that treat vegetarian guests who were paying a great deal for their services as the pains in the ass. I'm also not a fan of cocktail receptions where all the hors d'oeuvres are meat. Moreover I didn't want my veggie friends to end up with a dish of the standard cold penne primavera, or, as I served one time, a vegetarian dinner that consisted of two potatoes (one still covered in sauce from the chicken that had until moments before occupied the plate) and veggies. I don't want my own freaking wedding to be like that!

Beyond that, when we said pork was out as an entree option because we have friends who are devout muslims who can't eat pork she implied that was completely unreasonable and said that "some people are so unreasonable as to not want to be in the same room." Uh yeah! And they're our friends, so we're happy to accommodate that. You should be too! Frig!

So now, after the fun this week has been so far, my sweetie has prepared a hot water bottle for my aching back (no, I'm not 90 years old and yes I use water bottles regularly) and I'm off to bed. You may have guessed I didn't get much sleep last night, which has made the tone of this post somewhat cranky. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow fresh and ready to tackle the wallpaper sans cranky pants tomorrow night after work.

6 comments:

DebbieDoesLife said...

That is some shiny purdy wallpaper!

Find a new caterer. Preferably one who is vegetarian.

~ said...

The caterer is completely unreasonable. I would, quite frankly, seriously consider going with the competition, if there's still time. If she's this objectionable now, she'll probably get worse if you need to add or subtract meals the closer you get or make special arrangements for someone who, you know, is one of those crazy jews or can't tough out their nut allergy.

When we were chosing the "cake designer" for our wedding cake we went to one very posh baker and we were told that there would be no consultation, no meeting of the minds, no viewing of her "portfolio" until we dropped a desposit of $500. And that was the end of that.

Anonymous said...

Wallpaper is truly the devil's work. Hope you are feeling better today.

Good luck with the caterer and have a great party!

Anonymous said...

I can't for the life of me understand a caterer who would act like this. It's just beyond me why someone whose profession depends so much on word-of-mouth would act that way with a client or potential client.

Besides, it's not like you're getting married in the Dark Ages -- people with other than meat-and-potatoes diets are MUCH more the norm than they used to be, with allergies and religious preference and health/diet crazes, not to mention vegetarianism and veganism. She needs to get with the program if she wants to maintain business!

(end rant) ;-)

Anonymous said...

Dude, please tell me you fired the caterer. The one you talked to sounds cold, wet and wrong.

Heather said...

Debbie: it sure ain't! We're looking into other caterers.

Leslie: I'm hoping there is still time... I got in touch with another dude who asked if I was veggie or vegan and he sounded pretty with it. This wedding shit is crazy.

TB: Somehow I have good wallpaper karma, and so far this stuff has been a breeze to peel off. I've never had luck this good with wallpaper.

Nancy: Yeah if it were 1960 I'd be inclined to agree with her, but lots of people who do eat meat won't storm out of a reception if they don't have it every 3-5 minutes.

Roro: I had it down to 3 caterers (she sounded cool on the phone!), so her and two other dudes. One was very shi shi fru fru, and failed to give us a quote so he's out so it's still between her and another dude. I'm picking the other dude over her unless he's totally unreasonable.