When we last left this retirement saga, my husband had
recreated a part of the apartment to accommodate the new washer and dryer. He has been retired for two and a half
months, and his enthusiasm for new projects is undimmed. He has created a new bar table for us to eat
at, finally putting to use the bar stools that have had many serviceable years
as storage units for magazines, junk mail and the lost cable bill. He has fixed a bit of the floor we have
regularly tripped on, eliminating the need for a swear jar which chiefly funded
our regularly Sunday brunch. He’s gotten
rid of the couch so we have a lot more room for our studio, and nowhere to
sit. He’s put wheels on everything so
that you can’t lean casually on any surface with any degree of safety. But by far his biggest enthusiasm has been
reserved for lighting.
It started innocently enough by replacing the single light
bulb hanging from a frayed wire model of lighting we had in the spare room. Then he put a light in the overhead fan over
our eating area so we can actually see our food in the dark winter months. But then something came unhinged. I arrived home one day to find that the
kitchen was lit like the runway at Kennedy airport. It was blinding. I could see everything, and it all needed a
good clean. “This is nice!” I said.
“You’ve always wanted a bright kitchen!” he
said proudly, detecting no hint of irony from me. He had, instead of replacing the existing
hoary track lighting from a bygone era, added a brand new track on the opposite
wall. I gave the place a good scrub and
settled in to enjoy my new bright kitchen. And then one day, no doubt while I was at work
battling with some computer problem, he must have been gazing with pride at his
handiwork and was stunned to notice a tiny section of slopped ceiling in the
kitchen that was absolutely bare of lighting.
He must have rushed back to the hardware store that is his new second
home, and, enthralled by the brilliance of the lighting section, been overcome
by a desire to replicate these very conditions in our kitchen.
Lights have
sprouted everywhere like missile silos in a cartoon of Spy v. Spy. Now I stagger
home from a day of battling the ever present threat to order and good
government that is our district’s head office, and stand mesmerized in the
kitchen wearing sunglasses, with a handful of junk mail and magazines, wondering
where to put things.
