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clutter on the laboratory steps
Thursday, April 15 2021
The weather was cloudy and cooler, but it didn't dishearten the birds and the flowers much. Meanwhile, the grass has gone electric green from all the mild weather. In the laboratory, I finally got around to cleaning the steps up to the teevee room (there are three such steps, including the top one level with the teevee room, since its floor is about 26 inches further from sea level than the laboratory's). I tend to put things I can't quite think what to do with on the sides of these steps, and today these included a pile of magazines (Make and Nuts and Volts but no the New Yorkers, even though we've been getting that again for the past year or so), old eyeglasses with imperfect prescriptions (do I throw them out?), an extra 80-volt charger for the Kobalt chainsaw and lawnmower, and two medications (surplus citalopram and maximum strength Fungi Cure, the latter of which I've been using on my toenails since early July). After getting all that stuff off, I painted the steps with a layer of semigloss white paint. But that particular bucket of paint had been sitting unstirred for too long, and much of the pigment has formed huge clots at the bottom that no amount of mixing and shaking can dissolve. This means the paint tends to be transparent unless many layers are applied. But it's hard to obsessively apply layers to a walkway that I must walk on to enter or leave the laboratory. This is particularly true when there are cats coming and going as well. Somehow I managed to avoid white paint being tracked all over the house, but this was only because of how sleepy Oscar was being on the laboratory ottoman. I also had to carry Diane over those steps and to the laboratory swivel chair that she likes to sleep on. The cats respond surprisingly well to voice commands (or other audible indications of stress). If I go "Ah ah ah!" as Diane strides toward wet paint, she'll usually pause long enough for me to put down something to block her or so I can scoop her up and take her somewhere else. Usually when I paint the laboratory floor, there are a few occasions where I'm forced to retrace a cat's steps to clean paint from ever step they've taken. That hasn't happened yet with the laboratory repainting, and I've already repainted all the high-traffic areas.
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