How I met interior designers

Case One

My cousin's girlfriend is one. I guessed, based on her appearance, that she has that sort of very showy taste but one day, I asked her for some superficial study of my place. I told her that I like natural wood, white walls, I would like to preserve all of my current furniture, that I need more bookshelves, bigger table and some sort of cupboard for my perfume collection.

I don't have the pics of the result.

I got one wall in quite acerbic green (something like acid green but not so much), one wall in deep purple, very extensive shelving of thin plyboard in dark brown and purple, something in the size of dressing table... One room was divided by a partition "to break the space, it's uncomfortably big", and the partition had mirrors on one side "to make the space look larger". My (as owned by me, not made by me) artworks didn't match the colour scheme so they were replaced by some Ikea art. There was some wallpaper in quite acerbic green, too, with some vaguely floral motifs because "I like flowers".

I remarked that the shelves are brown and I detest brown as previously stated, and that they're too small and too thin for any actual use. "It's just a sketch", the designer said, "the shelves will be custom made for the books." "Arglebargle? I think I entirely miss your point." "You know, books 30 cm tall will go in one shelf, books 28 cm tall will go to another," the designer elaborated. "Eh... there's a problem. I don't sort books by size but by general theme," I protested. The designer didn't hesitate a second. "Sorting them by size will save space." "I prefer my working order to saving space," I insisted and then I added, "You know, I have the books for certain practical uses like study, not for decoration or else I'd just get a metre of greens and two metres of blues, don't you think. Also, whatever the height, I fully intend to keep my bookshelves, they're lovely." The designer missed the snerk and the point entirely. "Oh, blonde wood is so out. You don't need to throw the shelves away, you can move them to the basement and use them to store marmalades."

Obviously, I coughed up around 2000 euros for great furniture which I love only to move it somewhere to store crap. And I'll sort books by size and colour because they're just decorative bricks. Yeah, sure, whatever.

Case Two

For some reasons which are not exactly important, the Boss invited an interior designer, allegedly specialized in restaurants and places of this sort, to the hotel. Because she did stuff for Boss' buddy who runs a restaurant. Been to the restaurant and I must say that parquet ceiling and dark blue walls coupled with very small windows and chairs made of wood that looks like plastic didn't really impress me.

The hotel was built in the late 1970's and all the owners failed to destroy the once very modern and for the time and place extremely luxurious interiors. Wood and stone panelling that would be worth a damn lot of money these days, those few original chairs that remained cost half of an average monthly wage back then and despite some damages and less than tasteful additions, the place looks great.

The designer gal was suspicious to me on the first sight. Anyone who wears lots of fake jewellery and a Vuitton bag along with sweatpants is suspicious when it comes to questions of taste.

When she started pointing at the panelling and explaining that wood is so out, that the best thing would be to paint it white, or maybe purple or green would do, and that the white walls are too sharp and bright, that toning them down to beige or taupe would be cool and that all that stone is too rustic...

Conclusion

WTF. Also, I got me a real architect, with 6 years of college, not just some weekend course plus diligent study of Elle Maison, with a real diploma and some brains. When she saw the panelling and stone, she was delighted and ran to check everything about the 1970's interior. Normal people exist somewhere out there.

A can of worms

I got a new job in October. It wasn't a particularly defined position, in fact, it was a pretty nondescript position of Someone who does databases and various things for a hotel. I was peacefully doing various sorts of data entries, untouched by education or experience, struggled with the software in many ways but it sorta worked. I made a database of some 300 recipes as requested, created files for materials that were not listed as on stock, submitted the database, went on to do some research and digging in stuff, created a menu. And it was tough. The baseline was low. Very low. The hotel as a whole wasn't earning much and it was because the kitchen was deep in red numbers. Not that I'd wondered why after I was poisoned by salmon here back in summer, so the brand new software for tracking everything was acquired... One cook went on a sick leave to show who's the boss. She was heard saying that she's not going to follow some fucking recipes, she's cooking foods that taste well (okay, the salmon made me sit on the bathroom floor, waiting whether there'll be projectile vomiting or not but it was not that bad taste-wise) and she wanted to show the management that she's indispensable. The manager was messing around during the New Year period and in January, she decided she needs a break. In the peak season, obviously. The Boss said Okay, but in January, not February when we're packed up to the roof. So, I'm subbing.

Mother Nature is a bitch

It's January 6 or 7. I went to toss something to the compost heap and noticed my croci (or crocuses, if you want) sprouting. The same thing happened last year. Warm winter, no snow, croci, hyacinths and what else sprouting... and then the temperatures fell to around -15 and killed my plants. The bulbs recovered but my Madeiran Selaginella which happily lived through a bit of snow and frost died despite mulch and a heap of spruce branches. Warm and snowless winters suck in the business but personally, I could live with spring starting tomorrow. I will not hurry to claim that I've recovered from my winter depressions but this year, I'm okay. Or, to be exact, not going through the depressive downs. I'm not happy and I have a constant itch to make the things turn green and run outside among them. Damn... I haven't dealt with the herbary backlog from the previous season yet. And I forgot to sow some stuff that needs to be exposed to cold. Gardening is a winter job, too.

Applied environmentalism

I've been neglecting the blog, I know I know. The thing is, I got a new job. Universe ganged against me and I landed in the position of a restaurant manager, or rather an éminence grise, as there are some staff problems (assholess will go but it needs some legalities and tactics so that I and the Boss don't need to cook ourselves). I'm pretending to be a kitchen typist, entering data in the database of all things, collecting gossips and dealing with The Crazy.... Now I'm having a few days off so I'm sitting at home, knitting, browsing back numbers of Vogue to find an inspiration for the yarn I bought yesterday, I'll go for a lunch with my cousin later on and then we'll pick my spinning wheel. I'm having a good time and I don't want to spoil it with work stories. Now excuse me, I'm going to spend my day by lazying in cafés and places.

Winter!

I have certain reservations about autumn. The best one happened in 2010, it was sunny and warm and nice until around the half of November and then it started freezing and snowing and it was generally sunny, cold and snowy until around New year. The fogs and rotting leaves were entirely skipped. 2012 is doing its best, hopefully, as it was nice and sunny until around a week, then it was nasty and foggy but today, we had snow. Yes, some people elicited screams of Holy shit, it's October, no snow should be allowed. The coolest thing? I'm still on my summer dose of anti-depressants and I'm doing excellently well. Anyhow. The other day I went to the botanical garden and noticed a medlar tree. it took quite a bit of search for what to do with them and apparently, medlars have a bad rap. It's said that they're edible only when they're rotten but it's not true, they need to freeze first and then the meat turns brown and can be made into jelly of sorts. Well, the afternoon plan is to go and steal a few kilos of medlars (I hear that the quinces in the university botanical garden are plentiful but I have an insider friend so I'll ask him to bring some.) to see what comes from them. I've recently become more obsessed with food than ever. Since October 1, I'm a restaurant manager. It's cool and scary at the same time and fun stories will follow.

Uh-oh.

The old Blogspot interface existed for a while so I used that but it appears to be destroyed for ever. I'm repeating myself but the asshole who invented this new piece of crap should be tarred and feathered. To start with. (I know I'm repetitive and I'd link to my previous post but the new, exciting interface can't easily take me to a list of post. Find it thyself, sorry.) I'm calling my IT friend to do something. I don't mind blogger as such but if I'm writing this post and can't open the list of published posts in one click, I need to find things which are placed without any logic I would be able to discover and yeah, I hate icons. I can read, for Goodness (or is it Goodness'? In the current flood of grocers' apostrophes, one can't be sure anymore) sake, while I'm unfortunately not very well versed in Google's Picturese. I hear smart people work there, so why they expect that an user is an illiterate asshole who can't read things like New Post? Anyway, I'll stop this, I wanted to write something with actual content. The blog will be moved elsewhere, that's it.

Holiday

Which means that:

1. I can get up unreasonably early, drink coffee in bed and do nothing without anyone interfering and hinting not so subtly that instead of coffee and Terry Pratchett novel, I could do some cleaning.

2. I wear sari all the time. Office culture is jeans and hoodie which is fine but it gets boring. Hey, I get frowned upon when I wear a sensible skirt. Alright, sensible in my universe means heel length, pleats upon pleats and sturdy fabric because one should be able to run, jump over a railing and climb trees in their everyday clothes. I'm able to do this in a sari as well, for that matter.

3. I knit eight hours a day.

4. I bought a McDonalds menu for dinner because I was lazy to cook and too cheap to actually eat out.

5. I can do all the things. Today, I asked a gardener in public gardens for a hibiscus twig as I wanted a clone of that plant and played with a kitten, silly sounds included, in public.

6. Anyway.