It’s Good To Be The Princess

My dad and a dear family friend have been visiting quite a bit the past couple weeks. It was Pop’s idea, no his mission, since the spring to get an easier and safer bathroom area for me at home. It’s especially important since last June when the visiting EMTs suggested that I really needed to stop going upstairs. The shower is upstairs.

So, we worked on where we could put the bathroom, what I needed in that space and when we could do the work. Pop did the construction part and Greg, who is a family friend and he and his wife were my first bosses, babysitting their kids on bowling nights when I was a teen, is a plumber by trade and is doing the rest.

I’m enjoying the fact that growing up a construction princess means that I have a very real idea of how much materials cost and I know what you get for the cost of labor, even though I don’t get charged that; it’s a gift. I do know that there shouldn’t be any complaint about construction costs when you employ a responsible contractor. I grew up with the importance of quality work instilled in me and I know there are many days when construction workers are home late finishing a job or because they fixed or headed off problems or changed something because the person ordering the work wanted a change half way through the project. Part of those labor costs include vacations the family never takes in the summer and games or concerts dads and even even moms miss because work keeps them away. Honest contractors make those sacrifice to deliver quality work and at times their families make those sacrifices right along with them. Ideally it makes the family stronger and ideally that really does answer any questions about the worth of the cost to anyone who hires a contractor to do a good job.

I’ll have the grab bars installed next week by the same local small company that did the grab bars we have now and wheelchair ramp and Pop will be back to do the finishing, but everything is installed and all the water is working. I can use my electric toothbrush tonight!

Spire during early construction

We have had one mystery that’s part of the new bathroom and sorely missed. We have 2 plants that we’ve had good luck with. They are both baby rubber tree plants. Spire was the one plant I had in Northville that survived Kaline’s kittenhood. I had replanted the plants from a couple of growing greenery arrangements from my mother’s funeral. When a sprig of a couple of Spire’s leaves broke off, I put it in water and it sprouted roots. When the new roots were robust enough I planted it and we christened the new plant Sprout, Spire’s offspring!

Sprout in a photo shoot with Coca-Cola Life in August

Somehow in the early construction we lost Sprout; I mean file a missing plantson report, lost. How do you lose a plant? Sprout was a fairly robust plant on the skinny top of the short wall off our kitchen counter right next to where the bathroom wall would go. Pop handed sprout to me and I set him on the counter next to the stove. He’d been moved to on top of the toaster oven, which we weren’t using yet at the time. I saw him there. David saw him there. But in the evenng after the rough construction and electric inspectors had been in, David filled the cats’ water bowls, watered Spire and then went to water Sprout. He asked, “Where is Sprout?” We looked all over the house and Sprout was no where to be found. I texted Kelly, who’d been here during the the start of construction and the last place she’d seen him was on top of the toaster oven. When Pop was in again we asked and he joined another impromptu search party. Still; no Sprout. It was an involved enough mystery that Pop was soon joining us in using the personal pronoun “he” in searching for the plant!

It’s been weeks now and Sprout hasn’t shown up anywhere. We’ve looked on top of anyplace he could have been put and under anyplace he could have fallen. Maybe when things are done and I start to move the pantry and clothes out of the dining room and living room, I’ll find him. Or maybe the mystery will never be solved. There is another sprig of baby rubber tree plant that had fallen off one of them in a glass of water in the kitchen. I think it’s growing roots in the water.