Prime Time

It's done.

Yesterday morning I got the go-ahead from Jim and we began priming all the new walls in our house. He had taped and worked up to his elbows in joint compound for days, textured the night before, then generously stuck around with me to finish the prime coat, before getting out of Dodge and going to Grandma's for a day so I could have the house to myself to finish the thing. a. he hates painting, but can handle the primer because it's quick and doesn't have to be perfect. b. I hate letting someone else paint my house, but die inside with primer coats- so little instant reward and all. We're a good pair.

Surviving on only diet soda, guacamole and chips and totinos pizzas, I worked for 16 hours and finished all the painting in my house, with a 2 hour window in there where I sat down to eat the guacamole and watch Bride Wars. I digress. Now it's just trim, putting flooring down, super cleaning, and finally then we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I went to Poland in college on a missions trip. On the morning we were set to begin painting a new youth center, I had picked up my roller not five minutes before an old Polish man looked over at me and mumbled something snide-ish to the man next to him, who could speak English. Noticing that I saw Old Polish Man talking sideways about me, the interpreter kindly explained that OPM wanted to know if I'd ever used a paint brush before.
"Yes, I've actually painted quite a bit," was my reply, along with a positive head nod for the non-English-speaking in the room.
OPM turns to him and says, as was interpreted to me a minute later, "What, for painting her fingernails?!" This was accompanied by a mimic action of "painting" his own knotty Polish hands, in an effort to mock my girl power.

Every time I paint I think of that man. He's also the one who taught me the Polish words for "wheelbarrow", "fire" and "slug". And for those precious gifts of language, I thank him. Dziekuje.

But he was totally wrong about the painting. I kick doopa at that.