escape from alcatraz, and other short stories

Initial renovations in the kitchen included ripping up the layers of old lino and masonite to reveal an original lino floor made up of reddish and gray tiles. Badly chipped and covered with years of dirt, the prison like lino was miles ahead of the mission brown lino that was on the floor when we moved in.
Miles ahead of the mission brown that is, until last week, when I told Mr H the floor was nauseating. Mr H decides to remove the pink and gray tiles The plan is to lift the tiles, scrape off the old adhesive and sand the original wood floor. Mr H begins removing/scraping/sanding. Four hours, several different trials of solvents, and five sanding belts later an entire square meter of original floor has been revealed, with a third of that having been (less than successfully) sanded back. I google "how do I remove old floor adhesive". The results of the search promise much back breaking labour and spending of many many dollars on professional adhesive removalists.
This dllemma is resolved by a quick trip to the house of all things for home & garden yesterday and the purchase of some new faux oak flooring. Which is currently being installed (I am typing fast because I expect to hear Mr H bellow for my assistance any moment). New floors! Huzzah! New floors that don't look like part of a prison. Even better.
Photographic evidence to follow soon.

In other news:
A week of being sick followed by two weeks of meeting madness leads to Esmerelda being a cranky and not very prolific blogger.

Kindness of strangers:
I am crammed into a train (which should be 8 carriages but for some reason has been reduced to four) - my nose is way too close to someone's armpit. The next three stops come and go with no one getting off the train(at least in my section) and more people cramming on. The tension is broken briefly when one pretty young thing shouts "I have chlamydia".
Further along the crowd thins a bit and I smell reeses peanut butter cups. I think I am becoming delusional from the lack of air. I glance to my left and see two girls sharing candy. Yes, they ARE eating peanut butter cups. And they take pity on the poor old american lady far from home and share them with me. I try not to cry as the peanutbutterychocolatey goodness melts in my mouth. Fuck the calories.

non-celebration of secretary's (now known as office professional's) day
Wednesday was Secretary's Day. One of my fellow secretary type co workers rang me on Tuesday to ask if I was going to lunch (ie meaning was my boss taking me out to lunch). I state that I refuse to book a mandatory lunch in boss's calendar - to me reminding boss to show appreciation goes against the grain - it's like sending a reminder to your children to send you a mother's day card. On the day however, one of the people in my group buys me a cup of coffee and a girl on my floor (who works in another department) brings me a chocolate cupcake in a bag with "happy P.A. day" written on it. I have to dash out for another cup of coffee so she doesn't see me cry

footnote: apparently there are two days to celebrate/fete your office professional. Obviously the days of celebration are not organised by an actual office professional as there is much confusion as to which day is the actual day. So office professionals in Oz get a chance to be disappointed twice twice the number of presents.

Comments

[Tors]

Awww how sweet of your co-workers to do that for you! I didn't know the name of the day had changed...seems I've been outta paid work a little too long, hehe.