I'm going away...
for a while. I think I'll take a walk...

I'll see you when I get back, fellow wanderers. Fare thee well.
what say you..?

It is time...
for me to take a break. There is much going on in life right now that does not make sense and when that happens, it is time to take a step or two back from it all and see just where it all lies, shake it up a bit and see where it might fall. I don't know if I shall pick this up again, or not, nor when, if ever. Check back once in a while is all I can tell you. In the meantime, just chat amongst yourselves and don't touch anything...
Fare thee well, fellow wanderers...
what say you..?

This Old Lair...
Bathroom remodeling edition...
Spent most of the morning and early afternoon stripping wallpaper, whilst awaiting the visit of the appraiser. The wallpaper has been up about fifteen years, as far as I can figure. It has grown accustomed to being there. It's putting up a fight, to say the least. It first teased me, with a few loose corners here and there, which invited the idea that once I started peeling, it would literally cascade down the wall in rolls of defeat, having realized it has lived it's useful term and surrender it's place for the next generation to take over. With careful technique, akin to that reserved to removing a bandage from a wound in a hairy region of the flesh, I started working it off. I came away with what looked like a little kitten's ear between my fingers. The paper decided to hold fast, both to the wall and to it's resolve to put up a fight. I do not daunt so easily, so I went downstairs to the scullery and grabbed our big spaghetti pot and manhandled it up the stairway and started it filling with scalding hot water in the bathtub and went back downstairs again to get the wallpaper removers friend, white vinegar. I learned that trick from my parents, who changed wallpaper in my childhood home as often as they changed their mood. I mixed the concoction, grabbed an old towel and had at it, soaking each strip and savoring the aroma of hot water, vinegar and wet paper. It works like a charm, for the most part. There are little scabs of base paper here and there that require deft work with a razor blade to lift the edges and work them off, but it's going rather well. I managed to get about half the room done (it's a big bathroom, thirteen by fifteen feet, about two thirds of it is papered). Peeling wallpaper is addictive, much like eating potato crisps. It's also a task requiring great patience... it most be done in the proper way, so as to not peel off the top layer of sheetrock paper with it. I've been down that troubled path before and not anxious to tred that way again. I have a busy weekend ahead of me, so I guess I'll take up the task again during the coming week after I get home from work. Nothing takes the edge off a hectic day at the office like peeling wallpaper with the right hand whilst holding an ice cold Stoley martini in the left.
So, after the appraiser left, I went out and mowed most of the lawn and a good portion of the back forty. It's looking rather grand out back these days, better than it has in a few years. I can't wait for firefly season to start so I can go sit in the woods while they swirl around me by the millions. I play at trying to pick out which ones are real fireflies and which ones are faeries having sport at playing firefly. It's a grand time on a midsummer night... you should have a go at it yourselves, sometime. Some of the local fay are quite good at the masquerade...
I'm off for a much needed shower and some dinner.
Have a wonderful evening, my fellow wanderers... Fare thee well.

what say you..?

gahhh...
I am alive. That is, if you can call this living. I've been a very busy gothie the last week. I planted my annual beds, over one hundred fifty plants, finished cleaning up the back forty, dug out some more of the old honeysuckle hedges from the front yard, potted up a mess of geraniums and begonias, potted up my hanging planters, hung the windchimes all over the place and have started demolition on the bathroom; to come - new flooring, a nice rich merlot color mahogany, new cherry vanity with a white overhang basin, all new trim, new wallpaper, probably a tin ceiling, new light fixtures and fans and window dressings, new medicine cabinet, new sconces on either side of it, a wall mounted tilting mirror, new towel racks and such. Yes, and it's all going to be done by July 4th. Right after I put a new roof on the place and rebuild the Yankee gutters. And, to top it all off, I'm right in the middle of a re-fi on the mortgage. The appraiser is coming Friday, closing is next Thursday. And the second She Devils Roller Derby bout is on the 21st of May! Visit http://www.shedevilsrollerderby.com for all the gory details. It's time for Sweet Revenge!
So, stay tuned for some new editions of This Old Lair and other tales of remodeling and restoration mayhem from the dark and dreary halls of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor.
I'm going to bed now. Sweet dreams to you, my fellow wanderers... fare thee well.
what say you..?

Hmmm...
Cindy "It's All About MEEEEE" Sheehan and "reverend" Al Sharpton seem to be spending an awful lot of "quality" time together these days, running here and there playing mouthpiece for the Limousine Left... Is there more to this than meets the eye?

I'll bet poor Casey is spinning like a top in his unmarked grave...
what say you..?

Happy May Day...

I don't know about you, but I'm yearing for the simple days, right now.
Regardless, Happy May Day, my fellow wanderers...
what say you..?