Yes, we met with a kitchen contractor on Saturday. Recommended by a friend/neighbor who has been happy with several prodjects (intentionally misspelled). I came out of that meeting pretty discouraged. My expectations? I *thought* the contractor would take my fuzzy little list of requirements and narrow them down so that we can come up with a workable design. Instead, the meeting took on a life of its own with discussions about partitioning work and how to deal with building codes and things. In other words, it felt like we were asking, “how do we do this on the cheap without hiring a general contractor?” The conversation veered off into building codes (which, yes, we will have to deal with) but I didn’t understand the vocabulary and I got frustrated and then panicky and then I started to answer questions that were directed at other people (which I didn’t even realize I was doing until the GG harassed me about it later) and then I spiraled down into checking my email and Twitter et al on my phone. Rude? Maybe. But I wasn’t really included in the conversation and I am meeeee and you get what you get. There was a band playing in my head and I felt like getting high.

The problem? We do not know what the heck we are doing! We *need* to hire a contractor. I certainly can’t just grab a hardhat and jump into the fray of ordering various workers around. I don’t know the first thing about construction. I don’t know the process. I don’t have the vocabulary. I can talk your ear off about the web application design process, virtuoso flute compositions throughout the ages, and the intricacies of garbage-processing here on the Planet Ann Arbor. Don’t worry, I won’t. Construction? Not. I cannot tell a plasterer from a midget.

I can make lists and I can make decisions. Really. What I need is somebody to help me refine my fuzzy little requirement list into a detailed specification. Who can help translate my requirements into choices and options. Things that I can make decisions about. I don’t know how to order cabinets and things and I hate to shop and places like Home Depot just overwhelm me and make me depressed. I am at rock-bottom on the learning curve. I am a fast learner but I need to absorb just enough data points to be able to progress. I am not anywhere there yet. Once I get there, I will ROCK it! I will be trying to redesign YOUR chitchen too! Watch out. Alas. I am still down there in the basement with all the mushrooms. Nobody is giving me the information I need, not that it’s anybody else’s fault. I am obviously not asking the right questions! This stuff is all a lot like my job, which involves picking people’s brains for requirements and then trying to translate them into detailed specifications for usable web pages. I am good at my job, so you would think I would know how to do this. Sigh.

I hope we are not stuck in this 1970s chitchen forever. I do not want to bleed money on this prodject but, yaknow, I am kind of ready to at least fling some at it. We have owned this old place for 26 years and it’s been paid off for so many years that we have equity up the wazoo. We are not rich (i.e., don’t ask us for money). But. We are done with [small expensive private liberal arts] college tuition. We both have good jobs. We have made *very* minimal improvements to this place and most of those have been maintenance oriented or repairs after natural disasters. How many trees can fall on one house?

Today I started to feel better about the whole thing. Because my wee leetle brain has already started to think about how to move on from here. We’ll get there. I think.

Go play now. Have fun.

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