I haven’t really had the energy to deal with computers for a few days. I sold my home in Georgia, bought a new home and went through the process of trying to move. As I mentioned before, I got sick of sorting and unpacking and going back to the old house to clean it and organize it so my dear one and I ran away to go to Washington State to see the children and grandchildren that live there. This was partially motivated by the fact that all four of my grandchildren were scheduled to perform in the New Blue Parrot Children’s Theatre production of JOSEPH AND HIS AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT.

I watched rehearsals, and watched it pull together into a really effective show (somewhat amazing with a cast that ranged in age from 6 to eighteen years old) and I was proud of the people in my family who helped make it happen.

About eight days after we arrived, my son closed on a new house of his own, so I found that I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. (The main difference being that I moved the two of us from a 2700 square foot home into one less than 2000 square feet, and I am helping him move the six of them from a 2600 square foot home into just less than 3000 square feet.—but which seems, so help me--smaller) I have lost a lot more weight, become physically stronger, and am beginning to wonder what all the problem was back in Georgia. In addition to which his cabel modem is still in the old house and his new one won't come for a week (comcast?)

IN this time, I have spent some time in Home Depot and cabinet shops and dealing with folks who are supposed to ready the old home for sale, etc.. I was trying to re-stain a worn spot on the edge of the kitchen cabinet, and I was shocked to discover that the ends (not the doors and the showy parts) of cabinets that are built for and installed in homes designed to sell in the four hundred thousand dollar range are not even made of a piece of plywood veneer, but of composition board with the wood grain appearance created by, what amounts to, a decal. (The lady at one cabinet shell assured me that their term for this was not “decal,” but “film” and to have a damaged “film” repaired costs more that using real wood.)

Really new houses nowadays are filled with parts made of FAKE wood. Not even pressed sawdust composition board but truly fake wood. I took a sander to work on a damaged window sill in the old house (six years old) and it quickly became apparent that this was not even plastic but some fake wood, identified not by name but a- - -You guessed it- -- ACRONYM. Pxj or Pby or Sci fi, or something like that. (I refuse to even remember acronyms.).

I am not a totally ignorant dummy (how do you like that redundancy?). I drive by new constructions and see the exteriors made up of , what amounts to, chips of wood glued together under pressure. I have even used some of this (again identified by an acronym) stuff and have found that it isn’t bad. It even has some advantages over some types of plywood, but there are NO advantages (other than saving the contractor money) in fake wood or fake wood covered in decals.

I should be careful of my criticism since I have used a laminate, which is, in a way, a fake wood- -You know, he Pergo type stuff—to cover a kitchen floor, and liked it better than linoleum, but the linoleum wasn’t wood and--- oh heck I surrender. Coots are always sure that it was better the way they used to do it, and conservative coots are even more sure.. Of course I sculpt in polymers, so I know that --- Oh heck. I want everything the way it used to be, especially me. (Age forty would be a good place to return to.)