Pole Dancing in the Kitchen

Despite my best efforts, including enlisting an engineer, I could not find one person who would agree to remove the offending post in my kitchen. Oh, wait, one person did say we could remove the vertical post if we replaced it with a 12 inch header that would span the room. That was a worse option. And my contractor, who apparently knows me well, helpfully noted that if he removed the post, eventually the stairs would be uneven, but that might not be so bad if I were drinking. So OK, the post has to stay. Someone cheerfully suggested replacing the post with a stainless steel one that would match the appliances and go with "the look" of the kitchen. Naturally, in my haze, I thought that sounded like a terrific idea and promptly Googled "stainless steel poles." Let me just say that those three words put together like that yield some interesting results. Who knew there are also platinum stripper poles? I guess stainless steel really would make me look cheap. And now I have cookies in my Google that I am sure will one day show up in Amazon and Facebook (people have suggested monetizing the blog, but now with these words, I'm afraid of what would show up in it). Of course, this has now proved to be an endless source of amusement among my friends and the kitchen workers. Matthew, wisely, has stayed out of the conversation. In an odd twist, we have a crazy rule that we don't spend single dollar bills - we save them and eventually have several thousands of dollars that we use for a trip or something. When the 800-Got-Junk people came to remove debris, I wanted to tip them but only had those singles. I handed them a wad and they just smirked. Maybe I can pay for the kitchen in cash!

As if the pole dancing prospect wasn't enough to make me crazy, the kitchen is no farther along. In some ways it's worse.

But hey, at least the drywall arrived! Of course, when the guys started putting it up, they made one or two minor errors - see if you can find them:

Yup - no openings for the oven/stove electric and gas outlets! Good trick, no?

And to add insult to injury, the dust and mess are migrating to other areas of the house. The old kitchen table is in the living room pending giving it away (or putting it on the curb), and it's gathering clutter and dust.

Yes, those are martini glasses. Don't judge.