The sound of sirens swirled about the Planet Ann Arbor as I walked this morning. Accidents. Multiple ones. Snow? Hmmm. There was a bit of that stuff on our vee-hickle roofs and windows when I went out this morning but the neighborhood streets and sidewalks didn’t seem to be the slightest bit slippery under my feet. Not so on the freeways, it turned out. Accidents on I94, US23, and two I94 overpasses, one death and a 10-car pileup. A little black ice just for Black Friday? Do y’all remember what the roads are like in the winter around here? What month is it? Time to back off on the gas pedal. Oh, and put that stupid phone away, while you’re at it. Yada yada yada. Who is everybody talking to all the time?

I went shopping today but I did not join the throngs lined up outside Walmart or Meijer or the mall. Nope. We drove all the way across town to Home Depot, where I agonized over cabinets and counters and floors and colors and materials and and and… It is time. The dilapidated Landfill chitchen is on the verge of disintegrating. Something has to be done. It needs a new, well, it needs a new everything. Maybe it doesn’t need a new refrigerator. I think we replaced that a year or so ago.

You guys, this is HARD!!! I know think that I want light colors. It’s a small kitchen on the north side of the house. I call it a galley kitchen, the GG says it’s something else. There’s an argument there. I like lighter colors. Except that I also like bright colors. So maybe some tile as a backsplash (or whatever you call that). I kind of want granite counters but not if I decide that the really fancy high-end granite isn’t in the budget. Or that it is maybe too much for my little kitchen. Then what? Floor? Leaning toward wood. Cabinets? I cannot see my way through that forest. I can’t visualize the samples in my house. I look at all those glossy brochures and they all show these big fancy schmancy McMansion-type kitchens. I do not have a big fancy schmancy McMansion-type kitchen. I have a little 60s-era sorta-ranch house kitchen. Ticky-tacky. That’s the kind of house I have. You know the old song, “they’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.” I can’t envision those cabinets in my little ticky-tacky kitchen. I was dizzy. The cheesiest Christmas music on earth was playing and I caught myself thinking, “why don’t we just buy a whole new house? Then I could have a kitchen with a big island in the middle and a couple of sinks and a little nook to use my laptop in and. and. and…”

I do not really want to buy a new house. I like this house. It’s a perfect size for us. There is a woods behind it. There is a woods behind it. There is a woods behind it. Did I mention there is a woods behind it? But this is hard. The last time somebody approached me about coming up with a plan for this kitchen, I out-and-out panicked. No! I can’t do this. I don’t like that and I don’t like that and I don’t like *that*. What *do* I like? I do not know. I am bound and determined not to panic this time. But it is not easy.

By the way, did you know that you can get a cabinet for under your sink that has a *drawer* in the bottom of it so you can just pull all of the little rodent traps out in one fell swoop?

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