The Mad Dash!

There we were. 4 days in counting until the big day. D Day. The Housewarming Party. Now let me explain a bit here. We had originally set this date back when we closed on the house because the only plan was to re do the master bedroom. Oh we would DEFINITELY be ready by then! The house would surly be presentable. (snigger) You see, we have big families, MB especially and his family is very prevalent in our lives and EVERYONE wanted to see the house. Not to mention we have a large group of friends we often entertain with and we were convinced their social lives were ruined because of us.

Well instead of entertaining a stream of people every single weekend while we were trying to work on the house, we deiced to stave them off by having a big reveal party! Now, 4 days before the party MB had JUST finished the floors. Something, that until it was done, I hadn't realized was causing me such an ucler. But now, I was faced with the fact that we still needed, what was it? 14 coats of paint overall? Yeah, not gunna happen.

I decided to prioritize. I literally sat down at work one day and made a list of all of the projects. #1. heat registers (the metal thing that covers the pipe of heat that runs across the exterior walls for those of you lucky brats that do not have this), they were out. There was no way they would be sanded, primed and painted twice before the party. #2. spare bedrooms? Nope those definitely weren't going to be done. luckily, although I can't remember the time line for this as it's all a bit blurry, MB had finished priming the spare bedrooms but there was no way, wall, ceilings or closets would be painted for the party. OK so this left the living room as the "big to do" (heh. Drive By Truckers Album. tehe.)

Now by this time i had been desperately calling all the people who "LOVE to paint" short of the Home Depot "Paint Girl" (but don't think I hadn't considered it). I was faced with painting all of the trim around the windows and doors, painting the ceiling white (again), cutting and PRIMING the walls and then doing two coats of paint...in a mere few days. Now I work full time. That doesn't leave me with an awful lot of time to do these things. I had spent my whole previous week up until almost 11 every night painting. looked like this would be a repeat. Plus we had nice new beautiful floor to protect upon pain of death. So poor Mary (see girls weekend 2 days earlier!), who is self admitted not a good painter, showed her cute little face to help paint ceilings on Wednesday. Matt took painting trim, I took babysitting Mary and cutting the primer into the walls. Mary worked very hard but i ended up finishing. I finished priming the walls on Thursday and then Friday, I left work early. I HAD to. I was out by noon and had to, of course pick up MORE paint.

Now i was always told paint is the cheap thing. 'Oh it's a cheap way to change a room around/spruce it up.' HAH! Tell that to me nearly $400 deep in paint with still 2 more rooms worth to buy. Well any who, we had very smartly gotten what we needed for the party on Thursday night so I could get stuff done for the party Friday. I had a room to paint, a few dishes to make (we thankfully made it a pot luck because I knew there was no way I could make food for 60ish people given the circumstances) and a whole house to clean. Somehow, I got it in my head that, why of COURSE i could finish the second coat on all the trim and cut and paint the entire living room and hallway that night and have plenty of time left. I start at around 2:15 painting trim. Somehow, MB had to work this night. Of course. He would be home at 9pm. No biggy, i had plenty of time.

I finished the trim and got my paint. Now up until this point I had never been the one to put color on the walls. Everything else had been the same color (white) and MB had given me only a quick lesson in cutting in color by hand without tape. I took a big gulp and C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y slid the angled brush into the crevice between the upper wall and ceiling in the hallway. I think my heart stopped. this was by far the most terrifying thing I had done yet. you get paint on that ceiling and your screwed. There's no going back. I jumped that hurdles and stood back and was assaulted by a whole new litany of fears. It was YELLOW. I mean YELLOW! Insert panic attack here. Now, in the scheme of things, this was nothing to panic over. But I did. It was just so striking to actually see color on the walls. And yellow is a very tricky color. Suddenly i was panicking that we had picked the wrong yellow. There was nothing I could do so I plowed on at my painstakingly slow rate.

As I did so I began to silently fume. At some point, I had stopped to attempt and prep my potato salad. I had boiled and strained potatoes and hard boiled eggs. I had attempted to cut up some vegetables. I may have fed myself but then again I may not have. the panic was starting to seep in even before i realized it almost in equilibrium with the fading light. The darker it got, the later it got and the less I seemed to have gotten done. This turned to annoyance and later anger that stupid MB and his stupid work were leaving me to do this all by myself. We hadn't moved anything in. I had so much cleaning to do. I still had a million things to cook. I do NOT like to be unprepared darnit! I'm a professional! I have things done when people get there, I have it together! Yet here I was faced with the realization that maybe I would have nothing together. There were also a million stupid little obstacles I hadn't prepared for. Like I forgot I would have to cut the paint in around all of the windows and doors and outlets. That took forever. It got to be almost 9pm and by this point, I was murderous. I began 'fantasizing' that MB would walk and the first thing he would say was that he hated the color, it was too yellow. This, in my fantasizing nightmare, was then followed by a complete storming rant from me and a karate chop to the face. By the time 9 o'clock came and went, in my mind, this is EXACTLY what was going to happen. MB was going to hate it and when he told me such, he would get a earful from me. This never happens. I'm a very peaceful person, very anti combative but I'll admit, the pressure was getting to me.

I started rolling the paint on the walls, feeling almost like it was starting over and it was now 9:45pm. MB was NOT answering his phone. His friend AC (and I can't believe I called him, I NEVER do that!) was not answering so I called the only person I could; AC's fiancee and my buddy Ashley. She too was painting (I will back her up here, she offered to come help me paint during the week but the poor girl was already doing the same thing and working so hard to help her brother that I turned her down) and she had no idea where the boys were. AC (her boyfriend or as I like to say, MB's boyfriend (he's married to his job, I'm just the mistress)) hadn't called her either so I gave up.

When MB sauntered in a little after 10 I was poised and ready, waiting for the line so I could take my paint roller and run it right up his body. I was nearly done rolling at this time. I had one wall left (rolling takes FAR less time than cutting). "This looks awesome huh?!" were the words uttered out of MB's mouth. I deflated, although, I will be honest here, there was a part of me that was a bit disappointed I didn't get to let him have it. I nodded, put down the roller and walked away saying I had had enough and he could finish which he did. I walked into the kitchen and deflated again. There was so much to do, the kitchen was a mess, I had about 1/3 of a potato salad done, a dessert with multiple parts still left, a house to clean and oh yeah, we STILL hadn't moved our stuff out of the back room where we were suppose to be housing all the food for the party the next day!

Now this, this is where a lesser person would have burst into to tears. But ohhh no, not this girl! I sucked it up, finished cutting the vegetables I needed, tossed everything for the potato salad in a bowl and stuffed it in the fridge, took a quick shower and went to bed. I know myself well enough to know that I was of no more use to anyone that night. I would be up at the crack of dawn. I would have it done. It would be awesome. I didn't really get a chance to stand back and appreciate my hard work (although since then I promise you I have, many a times, gloating most of it) in the living room. I actually LOVE the color! We got it just right. It looks amazing in every light but if you had asked me that night, I would have told you to got take your yellow and stick it where the sun don't shine! :D

Thank the God's on Mt. Olympus..the floors are DONE!

I have the up most respect for MB almost entirely because he's not afraid to take things on and do them himself. Independence, I'm a big fan of it. Well we were now a weekend away from our big housewarming party and I was being kicked out..sort of. MB decided he was going to take it upon himself, with his entire Memorial Day weekend, to sand and finish ALL of the floors...by his lonesome. This seemed slightly mental to me, like his time line of putting a coat of sealer on the floor at about 1am I think he figured it. However, when MB gets an idea in his head you don't question it.

The problem with this whole endeavour was that our only bathroom (tiny and ugly as it is) sits smack dab at the back of the hall...past all of the floors that were being re done. 3 bedrooms, living room and hall in all. Therefore, I couldn't be there. MB can pee outside. Me? Not so much. So I was told to find a place to put myself. Find a little salvation. So on Wednesday of that week (admittedly a bit late), I got a epiphany: I would call for a girls weekend! Two of my life long best friends just HAPPENED, by the grace of unknown forces, to be available the entire Memorial Day weekend and, why yes, they would LOVE to go up to Maine! So here I was, getting all excited; we found a great hotel for a cheap price right in the center of where we wanted to be, I got to take a little mini vaca which it been quite some time since I'd done so AND, the peice de resistance..when I got back I would have FLOORS!!! Brand new (not really sanded) shiny floors! We chose to not stain them, but rather seal them and keep them light. As I hoped around giddily, poor MB looked like he was planning for a funeral.

We took a trip to our other home, Home Depot and picked out the gigantic can of sealer. MB was going to do 3 coats. Now, since we started painting and this had become my task, I'd grown rather fond of "the paint" girl at Home Depot. thin, very tom boyish with the most dazzling blue eyes, way too much black eyeliner and always a paint splattered bandanna in her hair. She is cool shit. No doubt about it. She knows her stuff, shes honest and "dude [she] LOVES color!" I'm thinking of adopting her..she looks like she could use a good home cooked meal at least. lol well she helped us out and we took the big step and purchased our paint color for the living room. Pale yellow. This was BY FAR the hardest color to pick. We had a rough idea of all the colors we wanted and we knew we wanted them all in the same family so they would flow together. There have GOT to about 78 shades of pale yellow..at Home Depot alone. I came home with a STACK of paint swatches one day and through processes of elimination we picked "Banana Cream", I'm sure partly for the name but it beat out quite a few others.

Anywho, so there I was setting out for a great weekend with my two girlfriends ( and it WAS a great weekend let me tell you! BEAUTIFUL weather, good company, just awesome) while poor MB took on the roughest task yet. Now the saving grace here was MB's dad CB to the rescue yet again. He held off a little vaca of his own (he made some silly excuse but I think he wanted to help MB) and came to help MB sand the floors. They rented a sander and an edger and one worked one and one worked the other. While I was laying on the beach, walking around eating ice cream and getting my nails done I did think often of poor MB and his task. I kept my phone conversations short because when he's grumpy he's not fond of chatting. Luckily his family entertained and fed him during a party but he still worked his skinny tail off.

Monday night I was sent to stay with MB's parents as the floors still had to dry but I was DYING to see the floors! I went to work the next day and practically bounced in my seat with anticipation. When I got...I couldn't believe it!!! They were so shiny! I almost cried. The moment I, for some reason, was holding everything against, was there. We had floors. We could move things! (although we waited because it's easier to paint when there's nothing in the room and the sealer needed to set) It was a weep worth thing let me tell you. Just look at the pictures and you will understand my excitement and joy. HOWEVER, this did not negate the fact there were STILL, all told about 15 coats, after you break down cuttings in, ceilings and 2 coats of paint, and heat registers, i forgot to mention those, that needed to be done (?) in 4 days. NOT going to happen.

PAINT II: OK, I get it now.

Why is paint so complicated? I mean it should be simple really. You have a room, you need a color, you choose said color, you paint and your happy. But NOO paint is just as complicated as picking anything else in a house, in FACT it's probably harder than most things.

The thing that baffled me the most about paint was that it's not JUST about the color..it's about the finish. Eggshell? What's eggshell? And why do you need a glossier paint in high traffic areas? To WASH the walls? WHO WASHES WALLS?! Well apparently, you are suppose to, cause they get dirty. And the glossier they are the easier they are to clean. Well this was all news to me. Beyond this I also learned that really, in the scheme of things, painting a new wall with new primer and then painting it and adding trim is really relatively simple. It's the existing stuff that makes you want to cry. The prep, the prep will KILL you, drive you mad if you're not careful.

I learned this lesson one Saturday when MB's parental units both came to help with the progress on the house. MB's mom happens to be very helpful and rather good at decorating and design. Me? Not so much. I like simple, although I don't think I'd say I have bad taste, it's just some times I have not the slightest clue about how to go about something. It's like accessorizing your outfit. I can pull the actual outfit together rather well, its the accessories that I lose my nerve on. I'm the same with designing a house. I tend to go with things that are relatively safe and if I don't know what else it needs, I'm none the wiser and the house and my bank account are none the worse for wear. Well on this particular day we decided to tackle the living room. The living room was one of the few rooms that was not gutted. There was a random sort of hay color on the walls and carpet covering a beautiful red oak floor (we have been over this but I have included a before picture of the living room for effect) and wood trim around the windows and doors. Well these were all staying but being repainted. Apparently, you need to wash the walls with TSP(?) Before you paint. You ALSO need to sand down old finish on trim so the paint has something to stick you. I KNEW I wasn't going to like that part. I took wood shop. I know sanding is the most tedious and annoying task there is. Well luckily MB's mom took on the sanding for me (thank God in heaven) so I could go outside and pull weeds out of my poor, neglected garden.
Then we took a little trip to the store and got us some TSP and some sponges and went to work on the walls. YUCK. That's all I have to say. I had no IDEA walls could get so dirty! I'm a bit of neat freak so of course, now that I know how dirty walls get I will be washing them often I'm sure. Again, something you just don't think about in a log house! The water coming off the walls was a nasty greyish/black color. We worked in a wave, MB's mom going first and me following behind the clean up the rest of the grossness. I knew there was one spot that was obviously dirty where 'dude' had had his TV and that was disgusting. By the time we were done I was thoroughly disturbed and the walls were ready.

I was tasked with painting the ceilings and walls in the two closets in the master bedroom one weekend (mother day weekend mind you) while MB was a away on a boy's fishing trip. Lovely. I spent my Friday and Saturday night's drinking wine, listening to Nora Jones and Reckless Kelly respectively (those were the CD's in the stereo so those are what got played!) and painstakingly painting. It took me forever. I also painted Sunday. I was terrified I was going to mess up cutting everything in and it took me a whole night to do just that. I cut in all the primer. then rolled the primer. Then cut the white ceiling paint being used for the whole thing and then rolled it. All told it took me 3 days. A very long time but I was being meticulous. MB couldn't believe it took me so long. I then spent a Monday night or such finishing the third coat. By this point, I got it. I see why people don't like painting.

Having no idea real idea how to paint, and all of the switch plates being off of everything in the bedrooms, I had no idea how to tackle the living room but MB was confident that I could handle cutting and rolling the living room with primer. So, having a bunch of blue tape in hand, I proceeded to tape off all of the trim and, all of the switch plates in the room. I had primed more than halfway around the room and hallway when MB came in and bust out laughing. "You can just take these off you konw?" No, OBVIOUSLY I never thought of that or I would have done it! (working on a house puts tremendous strain on a relationship, everyone knows that but I kept my mouth shut). The first switch plate MB removed was to a random cable outlet and lo and behold the dumb ass that was the last owner, instead of drilling a proper hole for the cable, just HACKED a big hole in the wall! I was instructed that this would need to be patched before a second coat of paint could be applied, another annoying thing I learned being that all rooms need two coats of paint (and this hole has STILL gone un-patched but we did buy the materials last week to do so). So after all of this work and with some help from MB we had primed all of the bedrooms and ceilings and painted the master bedroom entirely.

This was now two weeks before our party "deadline" and we were getting there but there was still the issue of the floors. This was my big hurdle. It felt to me, as though once the floors were done we would BE there. Everything else was just fluff, but the floors, we couldn't move anything in until they were done and THAT was the big goal!

PAINT. A WHOLE new world of lessons

So I'm sure I've told you, many times, I grew up in a log house. So to me, a wall is a wall and when it goes up and it's smooth, it's done! Right? WRONG! You have to prime. You have to put up trim and crown molding (really? why?). You have to choose colors. You have to paint CEILINGS! Who paints ceilings honestly?! They looked perfectly fine to me. Well apparently, this is very important. This is also, where I learned about a little thing called primer which I learned to both simultaneously love/appreciate and LOATHE entirely. Moreover, this is where I accomplished my most frightening task/lesson: painting.

MB took the liberty of priming and painting the ceiling, in the master bedroom only, for me. Thank God. I don't think I could have handled this. But then we took on the task of priming the walls together. At this point the floors were still unfinished so we didn't have to worry too much about getting them covered in paint but we were methodical with our tarps none the less. This was the lesson in home ownership that I was the most excited and frightened about. I had painted furniture. Once. It came out OK.
I dressed myself head to toe for painting. I showed up in the room, on a very hot May day in hospital scrub bottoms (WAY too big), my old white, button up smock from working in the bakery at Market Basket (something that resembles very much a butchers smock and also, far too big) that I had saved for just such an occasion, and a far too large (I have a very small head this is not my fault!) red baseball cap. I thought MB was going to die when he looked at me. Clearly I was overdressed for this excursion and he made me feel rather foolish. His responsibility was to "cut" the paint into the corners and the trim. Mine was to roll. I was terrified to actually do this. MB gave me very specific instructions: "don't roll too fast or it will splash paint, don't let it drip, make sure you can't see lines..." I put the roller to the wall and went about as fast a snail crawls I would say. MB thought this was pretty amusing and told me I could go a bit faster than that. After the first wall I sort of got the hang of things and got more comfortable, learning how to go over the "seams" of the paint and smooth them out. By the time we were done it looked damn good!
MB and I picked out a paint color sort of on a whim on one of our many trips to Home Depot (it was beginning to feel like we lived there). We knew we wanted a sage green. We knew we wanted muted colors, nothing bright. This was by far the most exciting part of this whole experience for me. for YEARS I had begged my mother to let me paint the spaces in between the logs in my room (I got rebellious one day and posted every picture I could find in a few ski magazines and tapped them to the walls in between the logs in my room. This didn't last long.), envied my friend who seemed to paint her room based on her mood that day, and sat quietly (sometimes) simmering over the injustice of being a creative person whose artistic abilities were wasted due to lack of ability to paint. Well we got our praire sage without putting a sample on the wall and MB took the liberty once again, of painting the master bedroom one day when I was gone. It was glorious. I LOVED it! It was also very exciting. You see, we had planned a big housewarming party for the second weekend in June and originally, had thought that was more then plenty of time. Well by now we were three weeks away from the party and not very close to being done. But this was one step closer!
MB's father then showed up like a Springtime Santa Clause late that Sunday with our crown molding. Ooo trim! God it's pretty. We don't have things like trim and wain's coating and bead board and crown molding in a log house. Just logs. Nice and simple and uncomplicated. Well, they put it up and then MB put the two coats of antique white trim paint we had picked out for it. We then, together, him cutting, me following with the roller, finished painting the room and the master bedroom was finally looking like a room. The thing was, there was a LOT more painting to do and I was learning very quickly why I couldn't seem to get anyone to come help me.

Hear yee, hear yee, we have walls

It is a strange and bizarre sight to be able to see THROUGH your walls. To see thee bones of your house..although, admittedly, very cool as well. It makes you realize there isn't much to a house. It makes you understand the structure and that is the first step in understand your house I believe. I'm not going to lie, the idea that there is space between your walls in which small critters and ants and spiders (over whom I am currently waging war. Our house has an unnatural draw to spiders apparently)freaks me out to no end. Again, I grew up in a log house. That means there is no space in between the outside wall and the inside, it's solid wood. It certainly brings to light the importance of good insulation I can tell you that much!

There's also something very misleading about walls. They go up and OH MY GOD you're done! right? Well that's what it looks like. The insulation went up on our after what seemed like forever and then MB and his family team (Dad and Bro) began to "hang dry wall". Again, this is a very new and bizarre experience for me. The walls go up and it seems like everything is done. Like you are well on your way to being finished. HOWEVER, there is a lot more that goes into this then just hanging them up and screwing them into the studs.

The joins need to be tapped. Then every single line of tape and every screw hole needs to be mudded. Apparently, there is another method where the entire wall is covered in plaster? Well that's not how we did it and I must say, our walls look phenomenal. You cannot see a single line or seam anywhere, more than I can say for the crappy job the previous owners did in the living room (grr). Well anyways apparently, this process is excessively time consuming. Only one corner can be done at a time. Then it is sanded, then mudded again, and then sanded again. This takes more time, esp with one man doing it in his spare time on three rooms and 4 closets (that is a LOT of corners for those of you who can count!). By the time I was soo done with remodeling I wanted to LIVE in my house!

I have yet to explain that while this entire thing was going on we, the two of us and three cats, were now living in essentially one room. We had the kitchen yes but everything was in one room and thank god for it. Our house has a good sized addition, sort of a three seasons room with lots of windows and separate, electric heat. Our bed, our small couch and half of our clothes were stuffed into this room. The vast majority of the rest of our stuff was in the basement. In fact, it still is. I'm still getting dressed in the basement daily. But the reality was that we had been over a month in one room while a good %85 of our livable space was being redone. This sucked. It sucked big time! I was getting claustrophobic to say the least. So when the walls went up I thought "Yes! this is it we are nearly there!" this sad idea lacks the truth that no, we were not nearly there. The FLOORS. we still had tar covering most of the floors even after MB's repeated work on the tar. I was getting disgruntled but there was still so much to do!

The Fridge Fiasco

This story right here is what inspired this WHOLE blog. I sent it in an email to my old co workers and they told me to write a book. Well, I already wrote a novel (working on getting it published, not so easy) but a book seemed silly. Now a blog, that made sense.

So the week before we were slated to move into our new home, very unfinished and open at this point, we decided to finish buying the new appliances we needed. MB had purchased a dryer but we were still using the washer at our apartment. The house came with an old but working oven/stove so that was fine. But we still needed a washer and a fridge. I, feeling very mature and special, purchased the washer with some of my tax return. It was my first big girl purchase. I LURV my washer. It matches our LG dryer and they both sing. Makes laundry very entertaining.

This left MB with the fridge. Now at this point we were still harbouring under the delusion that we would attempt the redo on the kitchen this year. MB was INSISTENT upon a stainless steel fridge. I wanted energy star as I pay the electric bill. We looked for a while and found what we thought we wanted at Percy's for under $1,000. I was skeptical but we went to pick up said fridge.

We get to the store and find the SAME fridge (only later I realized much smaller) in the scratch and dent section. It had a dent in the back that no one would ever see but was significantly cheaper. GREAT! The only catch? We had to take it with us that day, as is. OK, MB has a very nice pick up truck, no big deal. So we drive the truck around to back to pick up our new baby. The kid loading it into the truck pushes it in so that the front of the fridge is facing out of the bed of truck, perhaps so it can watch whats going on. How nice of him. MB helps him and begins to strap it in. I ask "Can't you lay it down?" to which I receive dirty looks and MB later explaining to me in his 'patient voice' that you can't lay a fridge down because it ruins the Freon or some other such thing, and it wouldn't work properly. As MB jumps into action strapping the fridge in the helper, noticing his chance to do very little, hops out of the back of the truck and let's MB do it himself. I watched, again skeptical but kept my mouth shut. MB strapped it in using the hooks on the bed of the truck. This didn't seem ideal to me but hey, I don't know much about these things so I kept quite. He put a sweatshirt under the strap so it wouldn't scratch the stainless steel...I now find this a bit funny.

So we leave the parking lot and the fridge seems secure so we go on our merry way, avoiding the highway and going Rt. 9 in Worcester. We make it a little more than half way and all of sudden we hit a TINY bump and I hear a 'thud'. MB pulls over suddenly going "fuck! fuck!" We walk around back to find the strap has slid right down the front of the fridge and the tiny bump caused our nice new undented in the front fridge, to fall face first onto the tailgate of truck. Now in a tiny part of my brain I am laughing at this. But I do not DARE show this outwardly. MB pushes it back and there, right across the front panel of the fridge is a nice large crease where there had been nothing but smoothness before.

MB, needless to say, is BESIDE himself. As he points out, furious with himself, there are many thing that were wrong about this that either of us really should have noticed. One, the fridge should have been put in facing the other way. this way, if for example, it falls over, as it did, it would be the BACK that was damaged, not the front. Also, and this is the biggest thing and MB suddenly sees how to do it correctly immediately following the catastrophe, that the straps should have been secured much high up, therefore cradling the middle of the fridge, not pulled up to meet it. He now straps the fridge in behind the bed of the truck, much more secure but the damage is done.

We get to the house and put it in the garage. MB can barely contain himself. He considered attempting to pop the panel off the door and trying to push the crease out (I put a stop to this as he is attemtping ot pry it off withn his bar hands and I see much more damage occuring). He considers using a suction to pull it out but as it is a crease instead of a dent this doesn't work. We then convince ourselves the crease is really not that bad and we can cover it up. MB keeps saying it just upsets him because it wasn't there before. HE did it. He says this several time.

In fact, he more or less obsesses about the dent in the fridge for the next two days. I, on the other hand, find this all rather amusing and have to fight very hard not to laugh out loud while MB is tearing his hair out upset with himself. This is much like when someone falls down the stairs and its not REALLY funny...but really it is and you laugh your ass off anyways. After a a full two days of listening to him obsess about the fridge I finally told him to shut up and get over it and what's done is done. I was sick of hearing about it. Nothing that could be done now.

A few days later we went to pick up my new washer (in a a nice protective box) and let me tell you, that sucker was VERY securely strapped in and it made it home perfectly unharmed.

The funny thing is, this fridge has been in our house for about 3 months now and i don't even notice the crease anymore. Just don't bring it up to MB....it's still a sensitive subject with him.