The difficulty with that of course, is that he enjoys those challenges requiring physical strength, endurance and dexterity, and the ability to figure out how to do the electrical work, the plumbing work, the sheer physical effort involved in some of his projects that make so much more extra work than merely applying himself to the endless tasks of home maintenance, that his life quality would be diminished if he just 'sat back', a surrender to lethargy and disinterest that doesn't describe his personality.
So when he mentioned to me several weeks ago that he thought it would be a good idea to replace the pedestal sink he had installed many years ago to replace the pedestrian laundry sink that stood in our laundry room with a sink-vanity, I objected. My objection was that the pedestal sink was perfectly serviceable apart from being attractive itself, and there was no need to replace it. His rejoinder was that he disliked the revealed plumbing behind the pedestal, and that I could use the extra cupboard space to store laundry items. Rather overlooking the bank of cupboards above the sink and washer-dryer. I demurred, he fell silent. As is his wont.
Yesterday when he dropped me off in front of the supermarket where I do my weekly grocery shopping, he began to pull away before I had the chance to retrieve the shopping baskets from the car trunk. While I banged hurriedly on the trunk to remind him, another sharp-eyed shopper wagged his finger admonishingly at my husband, as he curtailed his forgetfulness. That shopper stopped me in the store vestibule as we both secured shopping buggies to tell me that he was an extremely well preserved 86, and knew all about such things as minds wandering elsewhere, and how his intention was to prevent my husband from incurring my wrath; familiar as he was with his own wife's umbrage at such incidents. Married 57 years, he said proudly, so I shouldn't have told him that we've been married almost 60 years. But he was affable and unconcerned and just wanted to have a good jaw between two survivors of creeping age, and we spoke pleasantly for a short while as he delivered a snap history of himself and his siblings.
When my shopping was finished, there was my husband, seated in the vestibule with our little Riley in his lap, waiting for me, and talking with a lovely young woman who greeted me familiarly, then reminded me she used to work as a cashier at our local Salvation Army thrift shop. She had decided to quit employment there though she had good words about the place, to look elsewhere for satisfaction; her ideal being in the fashion industry in Toronto. In the meanwhile, she busied herself as a volunteer and that was what she was doing there, having set up a booth for a neighbourhood charity in support of people in financial need, and was collecting financial donations to that end.
In the car, driving home, my husband informed me he had bought a vanity for the laundry room and had to return to Lowe's with the truck to pick it up. This vanity is a bit of a monster; with a carrara marble top, solid wood base and inserted porcelain sink, it weighs a ton. All of that for a laundry room! Between us, with the use of a dolly and a ramp up the steps in the garage into the house we managed to manoeuvre it from the truck to the house. My portion of the efforts minuscule needless to say, with my husband muscling the enterprise to success.
It sits now, temporarily in the hallway between the laundry room, the powder room and the kitchen. Now, all that's left to do is to disconnect and remove the existing sink, figure out the plumbing moves to install the new replacement, an enterprise the very thought of which exhausts me, but represents pure exhilaration to my ever-enterprising husband.
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