(no subject)

Sheesh, volunteers.

I spent a few hours at church this morning, helping to renovate some of the Religious Education space. A number of jobs were on offer; I picked painting trim because it had the smallest amount of ladderwork. We were working in one huge room which is normally separated into classrooms by those horrible vinyl curtain room dividers, and there was a lot of trim - doorframes, bulletin board frames, and a whole bunch of built-in storage cabinets whose sliding doors had been removed. I picked a section of the room and spent twenty minutes or so carefully outlining my work areas with painter's tape, including the edges that were on the interior of the cabinet.

Just as I started painting, another volunteer came in and also picked Trim as her task of choice. She peered at what I was doing.

"Oh, you put tape all along there?" she asked, gesturing towards the cabinet.

"Yeah, it might have been a little bit of overkill on the inside edge, but whatever." The trim, it should be understood, is being painted a contrasting color from the wall paint. The insides of the cabinet are painted in the wall color. It's a strong contrast, so taping the edges inside the cabinet was only potentially overkill in the sense of "no one's going to care," not in the sense of "no one's going to notice."

"I don't think I'm going to tape it." She wandered over to the next set of cabinets. A couple of minutes later I was surprised to see her with a paintbrush already in hand.

"You're not taping any of it?"

"No." She called out to the Religious Education director, who was walking by. "Becky, I decided not to tape this. I think it will be all right."

"...Okay," Becky said. "I guess I'll just make you touch up the wall color, if necessary."

We painted. Time passed. And then, on Becky's next circuit through, Ms. Tape-free pointed out the quarter-inch edge where the trim comes out from the wall.

"I have a steady hand, but not that steady," she said, "so I'm not going to do that." She paused, and then said blithely, "I guess someone else is going to have to tape it."

And she meant it, too. She went on and painted only the front of the trim on her cabinet. And then she went on and painted only the fronts of the door jamb. She didn't want to bother with painter's tape, so she just plain didn't paint any of the little edges that came close to the walls.

I couldn't believe it. Becky, sadly enough, didn't seem to think that she could criticize someone who was voluntarily giving up her free time to paint the church. But... sheesh.

The terrific twos.

I gave such an unvarnished warts-and-all picture of the Terrible Twos on Wednesday that I feel honor-bound to say that I've had an absolutely delightful weekend with Alex.

Michael had the annual church Board of Trustees retreat yesterday, so he was out of the house from 9am until sometime after 4pm. Alex and I went to the library for the Mother Goose nursery rhyme program (we haven't been in months), checked out a big pile of books and read them, played, watched Sesame Street Old School, and spent a couple of happy hours either playing in the sandbox and wading pool in our backyard (her) or lounging in a lawn chair and reading (me). It was a nice, peaceful, almost completely fuss-free day.

This morning Alex slept in, so I left to help paint the church RE rooms before she woke up. When I came home I was starving, and I decided to make a hot breakfast for the whole family - something I've done maybe four or five times in my ten years with Michael. (Okay, it was noon - I guess it didn't really qualify as breakfast.) I cooked up bacon and scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast, and Michael cut up a plate of strawberries so that we could pretend that something was healthy about the meal. Not for me, of course, because I'm allergic to strawberries - but it's the principle of the thing, right?

Afterward, Michael headed off to church for his turn with the paintbrush. I decided to take Alex to a public wading pool. We tried one last year, and I think she was too young and small - she didn't seem to know what to make of it, and didn't have much fun. This summer, it's kind of just been off my radar screen - we stopped going to the supermarket near the public pool, and I didn't think about it. But boy, was she ever excited when I asked her if she wanted to go to "a big swimming pool, big enough for Mama to go in too." She probably doesn't have any memory of even seeing a pool that big before.

The wading pool is tucked into a large public park in a working-class neighborhood, surrounded by a not-very-nice, graffiti-covered playground and overlooking a beautiful community garden. The pool itself is about 18x24 feet, and I'd say the depth ranges from about 12 to 18 inches. There's a fountain at one end, which scared Alex a little. She doesn't like to get her face or hair wet.

It was amazingly uncrowded, especially for a hot and sunny Sunday afternoon. We stayed for two and a half hours, and for most of that time there were only 6-10 children in the pool at any given time. Alex had a wonderful time. She played and splashed and marched around in the water. Some other little girls introduced her to (god help me) My Little Ponies, and she had a great time making the ponies swim around. I stayed in the pool with her, but as time wore on and I realized how comfortable she was, I stopped following her around and let her roam.

At one point she stopped what she was doing and called out, "Mama! Mama!"

I hurried across the pool to where she was. "What is it?"

"I love this," she said, and grinned at me. That was it. That was all she wanted to say.