Here's a new tagline for me: Exploits of a Loser.

Oh yeah. That photo of my future front door? Uh, make that the view through the DINING ROOM WINDOW. How hard do you think T laughed at me for that one? Hard enough to rupture his spleen? Hard enough to crack a rib?*

Would you care for more tales from the life of a woman who could only be more mentally challenged if she were partially lobotomized? Allons-y.

Saturday I am up at Soliden dropping off lunch for T and two of the carpenters who built the garage (they are AWESOME and love T so much when they heard what happened with the "boy wonders" they came up and put in a full day on their Saturday! I tell you.) Anyway, I tell them I am off to Vermont Salvage (going to the annex in Manchester, NH) to look for an old soapstone sink, a big piece of butcher block, an old cupboard-- that sort of thing. Stuff to help me begin developing the look of the kitchen. Johnny, one of the carpenters, tells me I should go to the real Vermont Salvage in Vermont. I look at him blankly.

"Just get on 175, to 25 and then 118," he says. "You'll be all set."

"Oh, okay," I say.

T looks at me. He knows this is ill-fated but says nothing because it really couldn't be simpler and if I can't handle it then he married a mentally-handicapped woman.

So I drive off, merrily merrily. Zip zip.

175, check.

25, check.

118 check. This isn't so bad at all. Except, what's that? The sign says I'm entering the White Mountain National Forest. Hmm, shouldn't I be headed south? Never mind. I keep driving.

Merrily merrily. Zip, zip.

Up a long, LOOooong, lonely, LONE-ly-ass hill. Come around the bend and gasp. A staggering view of a very big mountain. My gosh I'm up in the clouds.

Panic sets in. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

Short version: I went north on 118 and spent 2.5 hours driving on roads reserved for back-country skiiers and the mentally deranged. I finally got my sorry ass back to I-93 and headed south on that for another 40 minutes until I was back in home territory.

When T came home at dark he asked me how Vermont Salvage was. I burst into tears. I was so humiliated. And he gave me a huge hug, before he ran downstairs to the basement to laugh himself silly.

This is why you have no wonderful detailed blow-by-blow of my magical time at the NPR studio. I was too ashamed to lift my head yesterday and instead went to the gym. If I'm going to be a stupid dame, I'm at least going to be a stupid dame with a hot ass.

Anyway. I will post all about it. But only if you love disco-- the show was on the history of disco-- the REAL disco long before the commercial corruption of the BeeGees, et al. It ROCKED. And you know what I have on order?

Manu Dibango.

The Gallery, Nicky Siano.

And also Joss Stone (I know, I know-- I'm always last with new music and I don't think this album is amazing but I adore the first track "I Got a Right to be Wrong" and I'll just listen to it over and over) and Cassandra Wilson.

Running out the door-- asta.

*Due to my absolute ignorance of all things carpentry coupled with my geographic challenges and my dislike of down hill skiing, T and I have decided he can take on a second wife. His second wife will love to spend Saturdays chain-sawing, she'll jump out of bed and say, "let's go shredding!", and she'll LOVE to do housework (that last one is my input). We've named her Ilsa. And, I get to have a second husband, too. A metrosexual who loves shopping and getting facials. We haven't named him yet.

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