City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

Today I embarked on a long overdue project, with the help of the man employed as official painter by the management of my apartment building. He is a careful, efficient and genial man. He and I are forming a team to get my apartment painted for the first time since I moved here 22 years ago. Yes. Twenty-two years.

My apartment is small, and is full of many things. The ceilings are high, the walls are covered with drawings, prints and paintings (mostly by me.) There are bookshelves filled, maybe over-filled with books. There are cabinets full of old china, glasses, clothing, paper records, old stereo records, various art supplies, lots of yarn and knitting and crocheting paraphernalia. There are other imaginative places where kitchen equipment is stored.

And so this new project will be handled in small incremental steps. Last night I cleared some walls and the top surfaces of some furniture. Things were relocated to various other places. The center of my living room floor is now filled with mounds of things. I would not want to try to navigate this room in dim light. I would not want to take a photograph.

The painter arrived right on time this afternoon and did preliminary patching and plastering work. It took just over an hour. He did a fine job.

Now the match returns to my side of this cluttered court. I will be bringing home recycled cardboard boxes from the shop, and will pack up the contents of some of the bookshelves and cabinets. This will take hours. Once these big pieces of furniture are empty, it will be more possible to move them away from the walls that are to be painted.

Next week the painter will return to paint some designated parts of the living room. I predict that he will do a fine job.

When the paint is dry, the furniture will be moved back against those fresh-looking walls. (The color will be a generic soft white.) The furniture can be refilled with the items that were put into the boxes. The paintings, etc. can be put back on the fresh-looking walls. This will take many hours.

The painter and I will repeat this sequence a few more times and then the living room, and alcove kitchen will look good as new.

We will then move our attention to painting the bedroom. It is larger, and possibly even more full of things, than the living room.

I expect this painting to be completed sometime in May.

While the painter was here today, I finished knitting another sock. It was rather fun to be working on my own project as he did his plastering.



I will now begin the second sock of this pair. It has been fun to use the Regia yarn and 3 mm double pointed needles. I am beginning to get the hang of sock knitting.

Another ongoing knitting project got some attention this afternoon as well. I have now finished one of the mitts that were begun back in January.



It's hard to take a photo of your own hand, so this is out of focus, but gives an idea of how the mitt fits. It's mate is all done except for the final four fingers. Should be a snap.

I will probably be writing again about the apartment painting project. I am still somewhat anxious about the entire notion, but think that it will have a happy ending.

Best wishes to you all.