Painting the Padre Way

It wasn't until I was able to read that I learned that the First Commandment wasn't

"Thou Shalt Not Put Holes in The Walls"

Recently, (just now in fact) After watching a video on Youtube as a "Refresher" before I gauged my ability to paint J.'s room, I came to realize why putting something up on the wall using a large and an innocent looking nail, was a sin; it's darn hard to get perfection during pre-painting preparation when you decide to re-do it.

Now, Padre isn't a professional painter. But, somehow, before there was youtube, Padre learned how to do it like the pros. Or at least look like it.

 

 He used these amazing skills usually during a momentous event in the family,

like mom having a baby.

 Padre would learn a new skill, make good use of it while mom was in the hospital and mom would be wheeled out of the hospital carrying the newest member of the family. Instead of flowers she had some tool or piece of counter top laminate that would go in the new bathroom.

Back then he couldn't be in the delivery room cause of the notion of germs, so he went ahead and picked out the colors of the basement bathroom as a gift to mom; she could relax and just start doing her duties when she got home.

 

 There are pictures in photo albums chronicling the way he painted.

Wearing white painters garb he'd picked up from where paint was invented back then, he can be seen standing on a drop cloth that was carefully laid down to protect the carpet or hard wood floor. He is holding a long handled paint brush, the room's lamps baring bright light onto the glossy white sheen of paint that matched the equally shiny sheen surface of his forehead.

 

With a painter's hat, on backwards,  his pompadour hid and the glare off bare bulbs, was shiny.

(that sentence needs some serious editing. But, like a painter, I need to keep painting and not get muddled with commas, periods, and the need to breath between paragraphs or make any sense.)

Nope, I am just gonna type tonight. To heck with it!
 (actually, when do I edit? Sorry English teachers. I bring you such shame.)

Padre became so good at painting that he even used to threaten:
"Okay, that's it! I'm not painting the walls ever again."
We'd cry cause we were wanting a hue rather than egg shell when the trend to use dark colors came into style.

Where was I?

Oh, how Dad would do these crazy projects, buy all the gear, become successful at it, and then leave us to wonder how we can even match his abilities and manage to live with orange flooring in the bathroom for our entire childhood.

And I was telling you I needed a crash course refresher in painting and needed to ask what kind  of paint was on the walls. Was it water based? Did I need a primer? If so what and where and who?

More importantly, should I go with Stone Lion again? Totally Tan in J.'s room, or throw the color: just peachy on one wall?

In all fairness, I was asking Padre some questions that made it hard for him to explain and our phone conversation went something like:

Padre: "Ya know I like to talk to somebody that's a painter. The sales people are trying to sell you something and I don't know if the paint on the wall in your room is oil or water based. And it's kind of hard to help you while I am in Such and Such Park and trying to park the trailer."

Me: "I know. I guess I should at least wait until this infection clears up.

And 'cutting in'


 (painter's terminology for the word (s) for doing the edging with a good brush, not cheap synthetic, all the while trying to not paint over the blue tape that is protecting the ceiling, doors,

and on and on and on.
And on.
 

Lans sakes I hate my mental detours during a post!

I think I wass thinking about how well Padre did things and trying to recall how he did them and then calling him after youtubing and learning that I cannot do the kind of job he can. Especially while sick. Or wearing a cast. Makes painting a lot tougher than it seems.

Padre: "Shouldn't you at least wait til you get out of the hospital? "

ME: "Yeh, I guess you are right. The I.V. in my arm is making it hard to look at color samples on the wall and sides of my bed."
I don't have time or energy required for the vocational training invovled at the local college campus.

How do you learn to be as good as him?

One, he doesn't want ya using his tools, and Two, if you did get permission, you'd be so scared of returning it in poor condition that you would rather work overtime and buy him a new tool.

Or pray mom never wanted the walls repainted. Ever. Or at least a color change from surgeon coat white.

So mom would have a baby, and instead of handing out bubble gum cigars in the color of the kid (pink- for girl, so on and so forth) dad took time off, multi-tasked taking care of us and learned how to put in a bathroom in an almost finished basement.

I don't know how mom could conceal her excitement when she came home to a house full of kids who were as excited to see an American Embassy of Foreign Soil as a traveler overseas in a hostile region, as they were to have her get back to making breakfast.
 

 (well, actually that is starting to change. There were movies at one time that made an Embassy look like home base. And when they shut those gates- you were safe, man! i am going to go with my gut on the fact that none of them are safe unless I had a personal drone that fed into the White House that

I was in a hostile environment.

But I don't think the U.S. provides those protective services if you are putting holes in the walls- and missing studs. Then putting something too heavy for the dry wall to handle and the hole sagging.

There is a kit for this,Readers. In case you are visitng and find you want to put a hole in one of our walls.

So before the days of even The Home Depot, he managed to get all the tools needed for a project through out town. In fact, most of the tools are in the original package, their price tag has slowly faded away. Which Padre has re-tapped them the best he could but time has also caused the tape to crack.

Yup, the youtube videos at this stage of life may as well be a "You-Not-Me-Tube" video; cause I'm just not going to be able to do it. NOT that I don't want to, Readers.

I do.

I really want to cover the hap hazardous holes heaped on my walls during some late night bright idea with the white toothpaste looking stuff called caulking, and, instead of having a

"hue of lavender", a "breath of heaven" 

paint color to make my room a

little haven.


Yes, it is hard to refrain from wanting to do a Big project when you are out of commission..

 

But I think I will wait until something even bigger that happens in order to make things more interesting.
 

However, I don't know if I can convince my mom to have another baby so that Padre would get excited and got the incentive like he did when we were younger.

He just flip flopped down here and, upon seeing a box marked:

RELOCATE,

he looked in it like he checks the garbage cans for signs of us throwing out something useful, unused, or untaken care of.

I calmed him down and let him know that it was a mere organization idea so that you can come to it later. Like a first draft of  a paper. Streamlines the whole process.

:He gave me a look and the accompanying lecture,

"Be sure you don't throw away or lose anything valuable." as his eyes scanned the box's insides.

Me: Just relocating it to somewhere in the house, Padre, A mean, Pa, or er, Dad.

Padre, bending over and grabbing a remote control that has to have belonged to something we owned twenty years ago, "I'll relocate you if blah,blah, ha, ha- "
 *******************************************

Confession- still looking for the camera component to upload photos....
I had to dig up this post from the post bin as I can't type due to a very odd and annoying injury that means my thumb and wrist are in prison. I mean a semi-cast. For Real, People. Things can't get more interesting.

Spraining some body parts

Makes it hard to type with two left hands!


* Oh, And I made up some stuff in this post. Well, I make up a lot of stuff. In all my posts.Like Mark Twain I am just drawn to telling a yarn. hmm. I wonder if that is why J. tells elaborate, eye-brow raising analogues about his adventures?

 Here is the dog gone truth, Readers-  I have been pecking out some of this old post like a beginner in typing class.

Yup. Total typing fraud.
Sigh.
How can a writer write or type without the use of a hand?
There has to be a computer that I could talk to and then I could wouldn't even need my hands!
Or I could get creative. Make J. do it like a personal secretary.

Oh, wait now I recall a past post about a guy whose mom strapped a pencil to his head and he typed that way.
Man, I am such whiner.
I wonder if I could at least caulk the holes in the wall....

PPS- Now that I can't type  I am getting the best ideas for free lance articles, journal entries, blog posts, newspaper editor letters with my name next to them, and writing ideas for J,
My words per minute now -- 20, using the middle index ginger to peck out ideas, makes it hard to keep tje flpw of writing inspiratiion goimh.

And back spacing; annoying.

<aking my editing really really necessary.

If J. cou;d only write short hand. Where is that kid anyway <
Oh, he's enjoying summer. Je just may end up with a brolen arm or injury like LAST summer when je o[ened up his knee!!!!

HA<HA!

Who is laughing now?

I left this post un-edited so I could see How my worl was affected by a wrisy and thumb injury.

Ny the looks of ut, thumbs are pretty important.

I hope I donlt forget ,y ideas... jot tjis down will ua?

-alar, clock still set to ski
-friends that fkly

and something I have already forgotten... dang