In the five years or so immediately preceding my mother’s death, she engaged in an ongoing argument with my sister and me over her kitchen. The apartment she lived in had been built around the turn of the century. Except for painting over the glass fronted cabinets because she didn’t want anyone to see all her stuff behind them, little renovation had been done in her kitchen in the intervening 100 years.
Oh sure, she’d replaced the wood burning stove. And she put in a metal sink stand that was ugly the day she bought it. But she still vented