From Hot to Cold

Because I've somehow stayed with the same company for more years than I ever intended, I've managed to accrue some degree of seniority. This comes with the benefit of more vacation time than I've ever had. I arranged to take the last week of 2007, as well as the first week of 2008. My officious stuffed-shirt supervisor insisted that I draft a "coverage plan" for my absence, even though I'm the only person in my department, thanks to a hiring freeze he helped to orchestrate.

The progress on our kitchen has been slow, and I'll write more about that later. However, we did rent this little steamer to take off the existing wallpaper during the weekend before Christmas:





It turned out to be a messy job, steaming and scraping sticky gobs of soggy wallpaper off the walls. But worse than that, it was hot. Sauna hot. The steam rose to the ceiling and hung there at head level as we strained and scraped and sweated like pigs.

On the day after Christmas, we flew to Boston to visit friends for the remainder of my vacation. The evening we arrived, we went out to eat with a big group to an Indian restaurant. It was pretty authentic, hot and spicy, and once again we sweated like pigs.

The next day, we drove up to a "camp" in the woods of Northern Maine owned by two of our friends, D* and J*. I'll write about that later.

On the way up, we stopped at a New England retail icon, L.L. Bean. L.L. Bean started as a folksy equipment retailer for hunters and fishermen. In the 70's, I visited their retail outlet in Freeport, Maine. It was a classic shabby New England general store, with linoleum floors. Shortly after, it became fashionable, and sales exploded. Now it's a cluster of chic, modern buildings, selling all kinds of high-tech outerware, camping gear, and New England delicacies like chocolate-covered cranberries.

It had begun to snow on our way up the coast, and the temperature dropped as we went further north. By the time we got to the camp, 4 inches of new, fluffy snow had accumulated on top of the 12 inches they already had.



And it's cold. Frigid cold. I wonder if our friends need any wallpaper removed.