don't let perfect be the enemy of good

My dad had been hounding me to allow him to paint one of my interior house walls that, to be frank, looked like shit.  But it sounded stressful and so much work and blah blah blah.  After years, I didn't have any more excuses.  I'm not working.  Modern paint doesn't smell anymore.  He has plenty of time and was back in town permanently, after 18 months of nomading around the country visiting various siblings.

I had picked out a few possible paint chips months ago, based on a suggestion from a friend, of pulling the blue from a nearby oil painting, coincidentally that my dad loaned to me twenty years ago.  When my dad asked me which paint chip, I let him make the final call.  I liked all of them.  We went to Home Depot together, handed the paint specialist the winning chip, and let him do his magic.  Meanwhile, my dad regaled him with his adventure stories.

Off we went to lunch, and then we called it a day.  Painting could wait. 

This morning, he told me his appointment was canceled, and he could come by to paint.

I decided today was as good as any other day, as my head was relatively clear, so I agreed.

I was already getting tense watching him prep and drag the ladder around.  I decided for both of our sanity, to go upstairs and not watch.  There I found Kitten, hiding under the bed.  I didn't quite join her, but I grabbed the bottle of rum and had a medicinal sip or two. 

I lied in bed and checked on him every 30 minutes or so.  He scrubbed off all the leftover wallpaper detritus (I told you it looked shitty before), and then he took a lunch break, where he enthralled me with stories of my mother, his youth, swimming nuns, and inner city school shenanigans.

After lunch, he taped up most of the edges, and got to work.  I disappeared upstairs again.  Kitten came out from under the bed to snuggle with me and cried.  I'm not really sure why she was crying, but maybe because the downstairs was in disarray.  We're both very sensitive creatures to our environments.  She normally doesn't like people, but she tolerates my dad.

The next time I came downstairs, I was the proud owner of an Atlantis Blue accent wall.

It's not perfect, but it's a helluva lot better than it was, and he was so motherfucking happy to be useful.  Plus he said it will make him smile every time he comes over and sees it.  Awwww.