LADDER LEGS                                                                                   

I have had various ailments throughout my life, none of them terribly serious, usually more of an inconvenience than anything debilitating.

This past few days I have been suffering from a new complaint, namely “ladder legs”.

I am in the process of moving to a new home, same building, same floor, but across the hall with a wide open view of the valley and mountains, I really look forward to waking up with that view.

Luckily, I have over two weeks to make the move so I can do things slowly, as befits my age.  Being on the same floor means I can load my goods and chattels into a shopping cart and shift one shelf full of stuff at a time.  It is great that the new place is identical as I already know what works when it comes to stowing my kitchen utensils and china as it is all going on to the same shelves in the new kitchen.

Before I moved any of my belongings I decided to do some painting just one wall in the bedroom, for a more feminine look and also some colour in the kitchen and dining area.  Luckily, most of my walls can be done from the ground and the top bits with the help of a step stool.

I dug out my box of painting stuff, masked places that I didn’t want to accidentally get paint on and dropped old plastic table cloths over the floor.

After a successful attempt at weight loss, I now wear smaller size clothing and I do not have any of my old painting clothes left.  I am a messy painter, usually managing to liberally splash my clothing and person with whatever colour I am using.  This is handy when describing my colour scheme to friends, but not a good look on clothes.

Not wanting to spoil any of my clothing, I opted for a pair of old, baggy shorts and stripping off my shirt, I donned a black garbage bag with holes cut out for head and arms.  This worked very well and, luckily, nobody knocked on the door for several hours, so I didn’t need to show off my new outfit.  So frugal am I that the outfit is now folded up and is in the box with paint rollers and drop cloths, ready for my next venture with a brush. 

The step stool worked well in most places but, when it came to the corner space over the kitchen cupboards, I needed to get closer.  I had a choice of bringing a bigger ladder from the workshop in the parking garage or standing on the kitchen counters.  Being too lazy to go for the ladder, I chose to clamber onto the counter.

In my usual dainty way I stretched from the top rung of the step stool to the counter.  Painting into the corners didn’t take too long, so I was glad to get back down.  Standing on my “good” leg, I lowered my other leg, the one with the new knee, down to the step stool.  I stretched as far as possible and my “supposedly” good knee creaked and groaned like the timbers in an old sailing ship.  It really was quite startling to listen to the noises coming from my joint.

I honestly felt like I would never get my foot down far enough to reach the step, but eventually I felt my foot touch down.  The problem was that I had to stand upright as there was no room to bend.  The cupboards were right in front of me so I had to lower my leg while standing upright.  As previously stated, I am neither nimble nor dainty, and not designed to do acrobatics.  Getting down to terra firma was a huge relief and, for the second coat of paint, I omitted going right into the corner.

For several days, after going up and down the couple of steps while my home took on a new look, my legs felt like jelly.  Luckily, the whole thing only took a few hours over three days and, hopefully, I will not need to bring out the paintbrushes for a while.