and the hits bang on

I've got a new reader, via my painters. My painters are like Eldin, around a lot. Well, not so much anymore, but when we moved in six years ago the house was in dire need of new colors so they spent a few weeks helping make it a home. They make periodic stops back. We suck at painting.

The previous tasteless resident--er, that came out wrong somehow--thought it was cool to put this awful wallpaper up on the giant walls of the greatroom. My sister-in-law and I sat on the sofa one night after a day of unpacking boxes and she turned to me:

"Is it me, or is that wallpaper actually moving?"

I swallowed down half a can of beer before answering, as if I'd just learned that somebody had killed themselves in the basement. Realizing that someone else saw it move was a shock.

"Yeah," I said. "It is."

There were miles of it, and while it came down in painfully tiny strips over the course of the next few days, moving from "old lady ugly" to hip khaki, I got to know my painter. I learned he had boys (mine was ten months old at the time) and that he knew far more about parenting than I could ever hope to learn. He and his wife also know about living life in that cool, laid-back, Northern California way. What can I say? I've just always liked them a lot.

They came in that first week and painted my son's room, and when it wasn't quite right, they got the right color (yellow isntead of yeller) and finished it, even though it ran into the weekend. They didn't get to see the grateful look on my confused ten-month-old's face, but I still remember how relieved he was when he saw his toys and his bed and his walls... his room.

This last week they brought another son who my daughter promptly latched onto. She moved on over the weekend though; some guy at the gym made her a paper airplane.

Anyway, with folks like you, lurker, you must be cool, so welcome. I sometimes, not often enough, get these random people who enrich my life, and for that I'm so grateful. Kinda like y'all. :)

[Editor's note: OMFG. Did Sex just do a smilie?]