Splat.

Turns out seven days straight of tiling can not only leave fingers raw to the point of bleeding (I type this entry in much discomfort), but also severely impair judgement and cognition - way beyond the point of having to look on dictionary.com for the spelling of impair.  Here's the deal.  Abby and Ellie come home tomorrow from their week abroad with Nana and co.  The thought of trying to stain the banister with them here seems beyond incomprehensible.  So I still have tonight (it's now 11pm) - although I can barely stand due to having spent the day sanding our living room wood paneling (also to be stained), followed by grouting the tile in our entry.  Given that the wood in our home is, in fact, a putrid orange hue, the staining process includes mixing 1 part black wood stain with 3 parts polyurethane so it will stick on the orange and turn it greenish brown and then afterward I can add a red on top to make it brown....

So I did that.  Got my little dixie cup and dipped out my correct proportions - combining them in a large red dixie cup.  First bad mistake.  Then I proceeded to stain the side of the staircase, perching the red cup of stain atop a flimsy corner table that was not secured in the corner. Second mistake.  Of course I was too tired to mask the white wall with tape so that I didn't stain it black too (third mistake). When I reached extra high to try to get the last of the black off the now-gray wall, I forgot about the cup o' stain in my way and SPLAT! Upside down. On my foot. On the wood floor. And the lower white walls.  Fourth BIG mistake.  Since our efforts to get the puddle wiped up as quickly as possible didn't allow for a photo shoot right then and there, all I had left to photograph were my now-spotted dalmatian legs and plastic bag footwear that got me up the stairs and to the bath.  I have now decided to take my chances with the girls here.

P.S.  In case anyone should ever find themselves in a similar predicament, bathing the stains in canola oil followed by a good rinsing with Palmolive is a much more effective removal technique than scrubbing your skin raw with a loofah.