Picasso had his Blue Period. And now, I've had mine. The difference between us — aside from the important fact that he had talent but is currently deceased — is that Picasso didn't paint his bathroom.
I painted mine. Or at least I painted part of it. And I chose the color: serenata blue.
It's AT-535 in the paint-sample kit, which contains so many shades of so many colors that the kit could rival "Fifty Shades of Grey" for sheer thickness, though it's not as painful to read. This was the first time in a decade that I've had a brush with disaster. In the first 10 years of the quarter-century that my wife, Sue, and I have owned our house, I had 20 painting projects.
The biggest ones, with and without help, were in three bathrooms, three bedrooms, the dining room, the family room, the very large living room (twice) and, worst of all, the hallway. The problem with the hallway was that I didn't know where to stop. That's because it leads upstairs and connects to the hallway up there.
So I ended up painting half the house. The day after I finished, Sue said, "I don't like the color." And she picked it out! After that, I retired from painting.
"You're not retired," Sue told me. "You're just on hiatus." She was right, because a little over 10 years ago, I came out of retirement, drove to my daughter and son-in-law's house and helped paint the bedroom of my soon-to-beborn first grandchild.
It came out great. Even Sue thought so. It eased the haunting flashbacks to my worst painting.
