Whew. After reading your posts and e-mails, I am feeling okay about the Food Thing. I mean, you promise, right? You promise they won’t eat like freaks their whole lives?

Thank you, I feel way better now.

Any recipes out there to share? I have no idea what to cook and am unable to locate kitchen. Get this — my Mother’s Day present to myself was having a cleaning service come over this a.m. Two women for two hours. They did this total dynamo cleaning attack, top to bottom. They didn’t have to do the bathroom (obviously. Ha.) downstairs or the office, and I cleaned the upstairs bathroom yesterday, so it wasn’t a total overhaul. (I always clean the upstairs bathroom while the kids are in the tub. Well, except for the tub. Heh. I clean that once in awhile, though.)

So it was the bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, the steps and entryway. The office is now located all over the dining room, so I told them to skip the dining room, too. And they dusted it anyway! I am completely thrilled about the entryway, as I never clean the entryway. I didn’t realize our banisters were white. Wow. I tipped them huge and asked them if they could come back again? Soon? When they said yes I did a happy dance.

Remodellers still going strong. Oogy painter got fired yesterday by nice painter. Why was he oogy? He stared. Too much. Wanted me to entertain him.

Me.

Ha.

Also wanted to spend his morning reading the paper at my dining room table, and the afternoon eating lunch. Again, at my dining room table. Also argued with me. Didn’t want fan turned on (“It won’t help,” he said), didn’t want windows open (“Too cold!” he said. It’s been 70 here, see? It’s perfect painting weather.) Didn’t like the colors we chose. Miller Paint — Coconut Milk (CW034W) for bathroom walls and ceiling; Tasmanian Myrtle (CW78169 — oops, I don’t know if that number’s right! It’s kind of a terra cotta) for door and trim; Juliet’s White (CW063W) for office walls; Lime Peel (CW061W) for office trim. I love paint names. I’m a little enthralled by them, really. I once painted a room Macaroni just cuz the name cracked me up. (It’s a nice shade of pale yellow, by the way. Can’t remember the manufacturer.)

V. pretty, all the colors. The bathroom paint goes well with the tile. But even if it didn’t? None of his business, okay? My bathroom. My office. My dining room table. MY NEWSPAPER. Mine, mine, mine. Bastard. Also a Sad Sack. I hate when guys get all moony and hostile on me. It makes me want to slap the shit out of them and scream, “Come to your senses! Do I look like I’m interested in you?” Uff da, as my grandma would say.

Anyway, I called the sup, who said Sad Sack Bastard needed to go. So painter 2 (twelve years in the Navy, and was an officer, thank you) gave him the boot. Our carpenter (a former Marine who got back from Iraq a year and a half ago and is extremely glad to be home) came by, too. So really, who needs a bodyguard when I have these two around?

Then SSB sat in his car FOR A FRICKIN’ HOUR across the street and wouldn’t leave.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Whining. Complaining,” Navy Painter told me.

He finally left.

Next week, I will take a shower, in my own home. You do not know how giddy I am.