the drapery effect

Remember in Jurassic Park how Malcolm is talking about the butterfly effect? The whole rigamarole of butterfly flaps wings in China and you have a hurricane in Florida. Drivel like that. Ikea caused this, they are at fault. I think curtains add something nice and homey that almond colored blinds just can't manage.

This all started out as a trip to Ikea to see if I could locate something that would assist in the upstairs closet. Which has, please note, once again given in to gravity and met with carpeting. Dan was quite lucky in that all his boardgame boxes once again lived to see another day, all their happy little plastic peices intact. My dress pants, however, took a beating. Every time that closet falls apart, little bits of drywall get ground into the fabric. It looks like I had an accident of gigantic proportions with a stick of deoderant.

The end of the day'd finally rolled into ADP and released me from twisty phone cord. Par usual, I probably was having some low blood sugar issues...which of course I didn't take into account. I ate an apple and figured I'd try some of those Swedish meatballs. By the time I got to the Swedish meatball section of Ikea, it was packed; dinnerish time. So I sailed on past and rummaged through the bargain section, where, if left unattended, I'm worse than a child with a mud puddle. Thus far my large and joyful yellow tarp-ish bag was full of crap--a spatula, a tea infuser that I later discarded as the mesh was bent (like the tea cares, I know...), a little orange basket thing that snaps onto the kitchen shelves, and some lights (that I have yet to find batteries for but am hoping will illuminate the sink area in the kitchen. I have high hopes, I do. Now if only Duracell implanted a locator in its packaging.)

I got all distracted in the clearance section by bookshelves, more bookshelves, and at long last, a comforter cover that was king sized and possibly could fit my monstrous down comforter. It was marked down to 20 clamshells, which was reasonable...but the more I thought about it, the more I reconsidered, and it ended up back on the shelves. Then I found curtains--not just any curtains, but tab top (yay!) floor to ceiling off white canvas-muslin type curtains. My needy little heart skipped a beat and in an instant my large yellow bag was bulging with more crap.

I say crap lovingly. Like ya do...

They were marked down to 10 bucks, and who can pass up that much fabric for ten dollars? Not this gal. Of course then I had to veer back through and find the rod, and brackets, etc. Straggle back through again, totally distracted this time by some neato vases in the greenhouse area and a candle that was marked to smell like oranges but smelled more like grapefruit of doom. So nifty, Ikea is. Made it through the checkouts. Saw T from work and had to stop and chat and meet her SO and son again.

So why am I just finished installing curtains at this late hour, you ask? Well, you're probably not asking. I'm sure of it. You're thinking, why the hell am I still reading this thing? She keeps talking about drapes. Which are *so* interesting.

I get home. Realize that I really, really ought to eat something, but before I do so I have to clean the kitchen up because I notice that I left my dear crockpot all smarmy with leftover red beans and rice bits. To clean that out I have to clean out the sink, and to clean out the sink I have to unload and load the dishwasher, and wipe off the counter...so at about 8 I eat something. Then on my way back into the kitchen I see spots on the floor.

This is not a pre-fainting issue. It's someone-"rinsed"-something-out-and-dripped-all-the-way-to-the-garbage. Not bothersome if you wear slippers or socks, but dang that sucks to step in. Ewwy. I clean the floor a while, just spot mop with the 409. Now it's what, 9? I think when I was going for the 409 I noticed the kitty box needed attention...so I did that...and then while I was in the garage I remembered I needed to find Serena's pullover--which Eero has now and you will have tomorrow night!--so I dug around and found that.

Then, before I could even think about drapery, I found the little clippy shelf for the kitchen and had to put that up...and then I got distracted by the lights and finding batteries...and finally I was ready to install some drapes. Then when I was looking for the screwdriver I pulled down the toolkit in the entryway closet and got bashed on the shoulder with the hammer. Dan, note to self: you are tall enough to SEE the hammer when it's up there, I'm not. *insert stuck out tongue here*

So they're up now. The room looks sufficiently homey and smells like pissed off woman, mainly because I HATE DRYWALL. It's worse than fricking plaster, I swear to all that's holy. I kept dropping things (go figure) and then having to sort through carpet fibers to find screws, which were so covered in drywall dust that they blended quite well, and then the little ends of the curtain rod (plastic cup things designed to protect the wall and/or drive you nuts) kept falling off. At one point I pulled out the dresser to look for the endie thingy, looked all over, only to find that it was still in the upper bracket, just sitting there. *sigh*

So there's my drapery effect--end score: Ikea 1, Kim thrown out of game for picking daisies on the field instead of paying attention. Or maybe hanging curtains. Something like that.