Happy Birthdday RUBEN

It was a long day yesterday....Larry and I spent many hours taping the kitchen, and laying down the first coat of primer on the ceiling and the walls of our kitchen.

We live in an older home, built in 1928. It was built very well, with a thick bluestone foundation and plaster walls, the plaster far thicker than some of the cheaper homes this age.

The kitchen had been wallpapered when I bought the house 16 years ago. It was nice once, but over time off-white patterned wallpaper in a kitchen gets stained, discolored, and looks nasty.

The paint underneath it was the institutional green I remember seeing in schools of the 60's and 70's. Not knowing what kind of paint was used, we had to use smelly thick primer to cover it.

The first coat is on, and we hope to be painting the walls this week, and know it will take 2 coats. I am settling on a color I used in my bathroom, a rich melon type of color that glows in any light. It changes color in the light from a more yellow orange, to a deeper melon with fading light. I am working from a William Morris palette, and hope that the colors I use will all work well together. I guess you don't know until you try it, and you can always paint over it, no? I will just make sure I get the main walls the right color, LOL.

Afterwards I went to a small intimate party for my friend Ruben's birthday. Ruben is the vocalist and drummer of the the fabulous Latin band SONANDO Ruben and I have worked together for 15 years and been through a lot together as close friends. He is a fabu cook, and I joke in the classroom that he is my "other husband who cooks for me".

One winter I broke up with my fiance and was living alone with the kids. We got hit with snowstorm after snowstorm. It was a winter of record breaking cold temperatures; gas lines froze on buses and we had more snow days than allotted that winter. We lost most of our spring break. I felt like I was being buried alive in snow and emotions. Tearful phone calls back and forth to my fiance, hours of staring out into the white wilderness feeling so very alone. Ruben would call me or when he could he would stop by, treating the kids to ice cream, or bringing me a bottle of wine and making sure I had been plowed out.

Happy Birthday dear friend. May you play and laugh and celebrate life in the jubilant way that you do for many many more years to come. Oh and the photo is of Ruben and his daughter Talia!

patti