A Hipster Grandma
I spent most of the day doing household chores yesterday. Saturday night I went to a farewell party for my friend Shane at Priory West. Shane is getting married in August and he and his fiancee, Leilani, just bought a condo in Foster City. Shane is moving to the new condo this coming Sunday, and Leilani will be moving in after the wedding in August. Anyhow, that party and the post-party festivities kept me out up until about 3:30 a.m., so I slept until nearly 11 a.m. on Sunday, but once I was up, I spent most of the day cleaning the apartment, as I said already.
The worst offender, by far, was the kitchen. There were dishes and foodstuffs that had been left sitting out - or worse, hiding - since Easter. It was pretty ridiculous. I gave the kitchen a full service cleaning, starting with all of the dirty dishes, then doing a complete clean of the countertops and the stove, and then mopped the floor. The kitchen floors had never been mopped since we moved in, actually, and who knows how long it had been before that. Needless to say, the floor was filthy, and the water in the mop bucket evidenced that fact.
When the cleaning was done, the kitchen looked better than I remember it looking in a long time. Dishes weren't piled up in the sink, pots and pans full of three-day old food weren't left sitting on the counter, the blender/food processor was put away, there was no more splattered oil and pasta sauce all over the stove, food derbis wasn't scattered about the floor, and trash wasn't just lying around on the counters and kitchen table. It looked great, but something was missing.
I decided that it would be best to permanently free up a little counter space by moving the toaster oven. At Easter we "temporarily" moved the toaster oven into the dining room using a table from my bedroom, but I decided that I wanted to move it out of the dining room back into the kitchen to free up my table. Originally we had the toaster setup on the counter, but with the microwave there as well, we had virtually no room for food prep. So I headed out to look for a wire shelving unit for the kitchen. I headed to Bed, Bath & Beyond where I was almost certain I would find something. No luck! It is the first time in memory that they have let me down. So off to Sears I went.
Now Sears was in a different place than Bed, Bath & Beyond, so I headed off if my car. Along the way, I came to a stop at a light just before getting on the freeway. I looked to my right and noticed a car with spinning rims. "Ridiculous," I thought ot myself. Spinning rims are silly and ghetto, if you ask me. I looked into the car expecting to see some "too cool for school" type guy, but was shocked to see a grandma! I was stunned. What in the world is a grandma doing driving a car with spinning rims? I lauged the rest of the way to Sears.
Now, surely, I thought, Sears would have a simpe kitchen shelving unit. It turns out I was wrong on that count, as well. Interestingly, Sears actually had almost exactly what I was looking for, except it wasn't for sale. They were using metal shelves to display all of the housewares. I asked if they actually sold such carts, but was told, "No." The sales associate, though, confided that they had actually just bought the shelves from Target which was just down the way in the mall.
I made my way to Target and looked around. You think they would organize things a little better there. It took me about 16 minutes to find the chrome shelving unit I was looking for. I even asked an employee where to find them and was directed to the completely wrong level of the store. Ironically, when I asked the employee where they were I was only two isles away from the correct, but unsigned, location. Alas.
I made my purchase and headed home.
I put the shelf together last night just before watching the end of a movie from Netflix, "After the Thin Man." It looks good. It is a 3-shelf unit, with the toaster oven on the top and plenty of space for dry goods and other kitchen essentials.