Hoooo! What a day! Long, steady, and enjoyable, though there were no really big-ticket items in it. Here's the rundown, as written in an email to Janneke about ten minutes ago:
"Up at the crack of 8:00, out the door around 10:00 to Stop & Shop; from there, here, to put away the refrigeratables, and thence to Caretaker, where we arrived just in time for closing. But we grabbed a few things. Back out the door to Wild Oats and to the vet's, where I bought a bag of Science Diet Puppy Food! Tomorrow we may go to P-field to buy a doggie bed, a little choke collar, etc. We'll see.
"Then back home for lunch, which was eaten heartily; a run to the dump and to buy another 20-gallon garbage can, for the dog food, which is now installed. Around 3:00, Mike from Good Dog Rescue called, and we switched over to the Mungaboo email address. He received the photos, which serve in lieu of a home visit, and we talked about the interview I had done with the foster mom. And he said now he just has to check references, and if all that gets done, then next Saturday we'll be picking her up!
"House cleaning until Kate came, and continuing after her arrival; I started making dinner around 5:30, and we at at around 6:30. Lettuce and shredded carrot salad with a dressing that Q and I liked, but T didn't; cake and chocolates for dessert. We all watched the religion episode of the Simpsons, then went outside for a bike ride that was long & fun. (T fell twice, but she was OK.) Inside, where we watched "Nature" ("The Andes") and ate popcorn; then they brushed teeth and hit the hay. It's now 9:46 PM, and soon I'll go in and tell them it's lights out. (They're in T's room playing "UNo".) I was emptying the dishwasher in order to be able to put all the dirties from tonight into it when I decided I needed a break. So I wrote you this.
"Hoooo! What a day! I'll check the weather tomorrow - if it's hot, we're hittin' the pool. Me cago en Dios y todos los santos.
"Names the kids were brainstorming at dinner (despite being told that we adults (I) would be naming the dog):
"Sunshine
"Biscuits
"Pumpkin
"I have to say, I like them all.
"OK, off to be Mr Responsible. Hope all's well -
"Joe"
So there you have it. Kate is here for a sleepover, and that's going well. They claimed just a little while ago that they couldn't sleep, but I've heard nothing but snoring since. T was upset yesterday because she hadn't fully realized that Janneke was going to be away for a couple of weeks now, and said that she needed to sleep with someone. Q said the same thing. So we all three crowded into the master suite and made a go of it. I slept elsewhere from about 12:00 to 5:00, since I had gotten so many elbows and knees in various tender bits of me and hadn't been able to doze off. But around 5:00 I went back in and lay ON TOP of the covers, with the elbows and knees pinned beneath on either side of me. And slept well 'til morning. That's a good trick - put that one in your back pocket.
Mike, the guy from Good Dog Rescue, did indeed call me today, and it looks like it's all over bar the shouting. They'll call Ronadh and Mark and/or Brad and Betsy, all of whom have been paid off, and then the vet, who has no idea what really goes on here. And then it should be next Saturday! Here's a link to their website - you can see the dogs there that are available for adoption. (I won't tell you which one is the one we're after, but I will tell you that Mike told me that many people - I believe the number 10 was thrown out - have posted a claim on her, but that we're the ones he'd been waiting for for this particular dog, because we have kids.) If all goes according to plan, as I said in the email, come this time next week we'll be cuddlin' a pup! We'll have to drive to Connecticut to pick her up off the doggie Underground Railroad - check out the transportation page, which is cool - probably at the Glastonbury stop, which is the closest to us, I think. (Funny they don't stop in MA. Must be some kind of law agin' it here.) I hauled up the baby gate for the stairs from the basement today, and will probably go get Hobie's old carrying crate when I'm done with this. It's all very exciting.
On the deck front, I will never, ever be able to repay our good friend Matt for the entire workday - The Entire! Day! - that he spent here, basically saving our house from rot and erecting the skeleton of our deck. I helped, but he was confidently in charge the whole time, and gave us any number of things from his house - plywood, insulation, flashing - that he just had laying around. As he was about to leave, I said, "Now, I'll be expecting a bill, Matt." And he said, "Well, don't look for it TOO soon." I'd bet you just about anything he's never going to bill us. But that's OK - I have a counterattack planned. Because I had already invited him and his son Alex to accompany me and Q to the Patriots-Packers game in December. And when we go, and he says, "What do we owe you for these tickets?", I'll say, "I'll send you a bill. Don't look for it TOO soon, though." Which will echo in the halls of human history as the most symmetrical and touching buddy-buddy moment ever. We may just have to clink beer bottle necks as I say it.
Man, I'm beat. I'm off to accomplish a few things and then hit the hay. Take care, brush your hair...
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Deck: Continued...
So, my friend Matt the contractor came by, very generously, and had another look at the deck and at the rot I found under the sliding door. And he said, "You know what you need? You need me here for, like, half a day." Which is exactly what I deeply, deeply hoped he would say.
Pretty much word for word, too - his being there means things will be done correctly; half a day means that it isn't going to cost me an exorbitant amount. He dropped off a hammer (though I do own one), a cat's paw - which looks like this - for pulling nails, and a saws-all, which looks like this. And he told me to remove all the joists and the ledgers, but to leave the rim joists, which form the outer edges of the deck framing, standing.
And I am proud to say that I have almost accomplished it. I will say that the sawzall is about the baddest piece of equipment I've ever run - it thrums with an electric might that is astonishing, and slices through wood and metal like a slow-motion light saber. I felt very manly indeed in the hot sun, shirtless, soaked in sweat, blasting a slice through a 2x10 with that machine-gun-like piece of testosterone candy. Must have put on quite a show for our retired neighbors.
Which is another thing - I've lately been getting more and more cheesed off at the fact that, out of the seven houses that could be said to directly or diagonally abut our own, five belong to retired couples. And those of you who know our street will know: It is a perfect - PERFECT! - street for kids. Little traffic, level for the most part, back yards that are fun to cross through...Perfect.* And we're stuck with codgers everywhere. Now, I like codgers, but I would also like to see a crowd of kids on bicycles swarming past of a summer evening. All I see are my own two. Who are about as cute as a person can get (I refer you to this video), but I think the quality of their lives would go up substantially if they had buddies living nearby. And these folks living around us pretty much only interact with us to complain that Q is bouncing his basketball at 8:00 AM.
Or to accuse them of climbing over the fence separating our yard from theirs and smashing their glass-top deck table, only to have it pointed out to them that during the weekend, when they were away, there was an enormous wind storm, which would explain not only the numerous branches lying about their yard, but the fact that the enormous parasol that ordinarily stands inserted vertically in their deck table, lying forty feet away, and open, against their opposite fence, just might have been the true culprit and not our then-four-year-old-and-two-year-old children.
But I digress. For some reason, the joist hangers - which look like this - on the outer rim joist are a complete b___h to pull out. (That word back there is "bitch".) Perhaps something to do with the boards they're nailed into not being rotten. So around 5:30 this afternoon I called it quits, and will resume nail-pullin' in the morning. I have until Thursday AM - Matt's coming by then to raise holy hell with the deck.
Apparently we've got to replace the sill underneath the sliding door, which is something Matt says he can do with just the two of us and no giant jacks to lift the house up, or even a diminutive green Jedi Master to lift the house into the air so we can insert the new wood. Matt must know what he's doing.
So that's going on...And the dog drama. A litter of pups upstate in NY is adoptable, but sick, so they keep putting off the date when we could come see them. And in the meantime I've fallen for, and applied for, a pup that's currently in Georgia, and can be adopted (sight-unseen, which is a little (but only a veeery little) worrysome) and delivered to the area via a modified horse trailer that regularly makes the trek to bring dogs from the overcrowded "shelters" of the benighted South up to the nearly-stray-free New England States for adoption. Lots of people in town here have done the same, and been very pleased with it. As it stands, I'm not sure what will happen first: Confirmation of the adoption of the very nearly perfect pup from the South, or a trip to see the suddenly-healthy pups up North. It's a race. Both sets of wheels are turning. I will keep you posted.
But I'm thinking a very simple railing for the deck, and right now I'm leaning toward using pressure-treated wood for the decking itself. Cheaper by far than the composite stuff, and it should last a loooong time, given the perfect - PERFECT! - state of all the pressure-treated stuff that was holding up the deck. I mean, some of the joists were double - they had sistered a new pressure-treated joist alongside the original, non-pressure-treated joists. And the originals are gone. Dust. Nothing there but rusty nails that mark where they once hung. But the pressure-treated stuff looks like it was put in yesterday. So it's not like it would be rotting away soon - and splintering and such can be avoided with some basic maintenance. And we're not feeling quite so flush with money these days.
Not that we ever were, but our stretch of my handing Janneke a ton of money I don't need at the end of each month and our savings growing by leaps and bounds has been interrupted lately. Got something fixed on the Subaru, got an appointment to have the brakes on the Prius looked at on Monday, gettin' a dog...Things pile up.
OK, I've probably worked through the insomnia by now. Off to take another crack at dreamland. Hasta la pasta -
Jose
*And for any lurkers who read this and like the looks of our kids, or our neighborhood: Have I talked on the blog about the many guns I have in the house? And my extensive experience in their use? And the fact that I am a fairly intimidating former wrestler, former rugby player, and generally bad-tempered sort who lifts weights and bites through chainsaw blades in my spare time?
Pretty much word for word, too - his being there means things will be done correctly; half a day means that it isn't going to cost me an exorbitant amount. He dropped off a hammer (though I do own one), a cat's paw - which looks like this - for pulling nails, and a saws-all, which looks like this. And he told me to remove all the joists and the ledgers, but to leave the rim joists, which form the outer edges of the deck framing, standing.
And I am proud to say that I have almost accomplished it. I will say that the sawzall is about the baddest piece of equipment I've ever run - it thrums with an electric might that is astonishing, and slices through wood and metal like a slow-motion light saber. I felt very manly indeed in the hot sun, shirtless, soaked in sweat, blasting a slice through a 2x10 with that machine-gun-like piece of testosterone candy. Must have put on quite a show for our retired neighbors.
Which is another thing - I've lately been getting more and more cheesed off at the fact that, out of the seven houses that could be said to directly or diagonally abut our own, five belong to retired couples. And those of you who know our street will know: It is a perfect - PERFECT! - street for kids. Little traffic, level for the most part, back yards that are fun to cross through...Perfect.* And we're stuck with codgers everywhere. Now, I like codgers, but I would also like to see a crowd of kids on bicycles swarming past of a summer evening. All I see are my own two. Who are about as cute as a person can get (I refer you to this video), but I think the quality of their lives would go up substantially if they had buddies living nearby. And these folks living around us pretty much only interact with us to complain that Q is bouncing his basketball at 8:00 AM.
Or to accuse them of climbing over the fence separating our yard from theirs and smashing their glass-top deck table, only to have it pointed out to them that during the weekend, when they were away, there was an enormous wind storm, which would explain not only the numerous branches lying about their yard, but the fact that the enormous parasol that ordinarily stands inserted vertically in their deck table, lying forty feet away, and open, against their opposite fence, just might have been the true culprit and not our then-four-year-old-and-two-year-old children.
But I digress. For some reason, the joist hangers - which look like this - on the outer rim joist are a complete b___h to pull out. (That word back there is "bitch".) Perhaps something to do with the boards they're nailed into not being rotten. So around 5:30 this afternoon I called it quits, and will resume nail-pullin' in the morning. I have until Thursday AM - Matt's coming by then to raise holy hell with the deck.
Apparently we've got to replace the sill underneath the sliding door, which is something Matt says he can do with just the two of us and no giant jacks to lift the house up, or even a diminutive green Jedi Master to lift the house into the air so we can insert the new wood. Matt must know what he's doing.
So that's going on...And the dog drama. A litter of pups upstate in NY is adoptable, but sick, so they keep putting off the date when we could come see them. And in the meantime I've fallen for, and applied for, a pup that's currently in Georgia, and can be adopted (sight-unseen, which is a little (but only a veeery little) worrysome) and delivered to the area via a modified horse trailer that regularly makes the trek to bring dogs from the overcrowded "shelters" of the benighted South up to the nearly-stray-free New England States for adoption. Lots of people in town here have done the same, and been very pleased with it. As it stands, I'm not sure what will happen first: Confirmation of the adoption of the very nearly perfect pup from the South, or a trip to see the suddenly-healthy pups up North. It's a race. Both sets of wheels are turning. I will keep you posted.
But I'm thinking a very simple railing for the deck, and right now I'm leaning toward using pressure-treated wood for the decking itself. Cheaper by far than the composite stuff, and it should last a loooong time, given the perfect - PERFECT! - state of all the pressure-treated stuff that was holding up the deck. I mean, some of the joists were double - they had sistered a new pressure-treated joist alongside the original, non-pressure-treated joists. And the originals are gone. Dust. Nothing there but rusty nails that mark where they once hung. But the pressure-treated stuff looks like it was put in yesterday. So it's not like it would be rotting away soon - and splintering and such can be avoided with some basic maintenance. And we're not feeling quite so flush with money these days.
Not that we ever were, but our stretch of my handing Janneke a ton of money I don't need at the end of each month and our savings growing by leaps and bounds has been interrupted lately. Got something fixed on the Subaru, got an appointment to have the brakes on the Prius looked at on Monday, gettin' a dog...Things pile up.
OK, I've probably worked through the insomnia by now. Off to take another crack at dreamland. Hasta la pasta -
Jose
*And for any lurkers who read this and like the looks of our kids, or our neighborhood: Have I talked on the blog about the many guns I have in the house? And my extensive experience in their use? And the fact that I am a fairly intimidating former wrestler, former rugby player, and generally bad-tempered sort who lifts weights and bites through chainsaw blades in my spare time?
New Room!
On a strictly newsy, unedited, lazy note: Here's T giving you a tour of her newly painted room...
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Deck
So, yeah, the deck. It's been pretty sway-ridden and warped lately, as any of you who have been here recently can attest, and so it was time for it to come down. I had a couple of friends look at it, one of whom is a contractor, and the other, a very experienced deck-builder. And both said the posts were fine and the joists, pressure-treated lumber, looked fine. So it should be a question of simply removing the decking and the rails and re-building those to suit on top of the existing infrastructure. So I did this:
Took about a day's work, spread over two. And I found this underneath:
Still running. Casio digital watch - is it yours, Elliot...?
Yesterday I went out to take a closer look at how the deck was bolted to the house. It looked, to me, at first, as if the deck must have been bolted to the concrete foundation of the addition, but it turns out to have been nailed to the beam on top of the foundation. And the deck ledger, as well as the beam behind it, appear to be rotten. I'll have to have someone who knows what they're talking about take a look at it, but it sure as heck looks to me like that beam's going to have to be replaced. So this might end up costing a fair amount.
Further frustration this morning on the puppy front: The litter we had been looking to go see is still sickly. They said to call back at the end of the week - which is what they said last week. And then it was "Call back Monday". I don't blame anyone - hey, if they're sick, they're sick. Nothing they can do about it, other than provide great care, which they've been doing. But it's a roller coaster for us. We want to get the dog in and get as much bonding / training done as possible before the school year starts again, so the sooner, the better.
Well, off to deal with the house issue. I'm going to see if our friend Matt, the contractor, is in the neighborhood working today. If he is, I'll be stopping over with the beverage of his choice to see if he can come take a look. Keep your fingers crossed...
Took about a day's work, spread over two. And I found this underneath:
Still running. Casio digital watch - is it yours, Elliot...?
Yesterday I went out to take a closer look at how the deck was bolted to the house. It looked, to me, at first, as if the deck must have been bolted to the concrete foundation of the addition, but it turns out to have been nailed to the beam on top of the foundation. And the deck ledger, as well as the beam behind it, appear to be rotten. I'll have to have someone who knows what they're talking about take a look at it, but it sure as heck looks to me like that beam's going to have to be replaced. So this might end up costing a fair amount.
Further frustration this morning on the puppy front: The litter we had been looking to go see is still sickly. They said to call back at the end of the week - which is what they said last week. And then it was "Call back Monday". I don't blame anyone - hey, if they're sick, they're sick. Nothing they can do about it, other than provide great care, which they've been doing. But it's a roller coaster for us. We want to get the dog in and get as much bonding / training done as possible before the school year starts again, so the sooner, the better.
Well, off to deal with the house issue. I'm going to see if our friend Matt, the contractor, is in the neighborhood working today. If he is, I'll be stopping over with the beverage of his choice to see if he can come take a look. Keep your fingers crossed...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Brief Summer Update
Wow. So, so sorry about the lay-off - I really can't explain myself. Other than the fact that when I have acres and acres of time stretching out before me, and an able steed beneath me, all I really do is climb down and curl up in the clover and take a nap. Which is a very odd metaphorical way of saying that when I have an open schedule, I somehow get a hell of a lot less done than when my time is restricted somehow. By, oh, I don't know, a job, say. And since in summer I don't have one, the whole day is over before I know it and I haven't accomplished much of anything.
Except a lot of recreating. Janneke and I have made it out to the tennis courts at least three or four times (very good, for us), the kids and we have been swimming a number of times, which has taken up entire afternoons, either out at Windsor Lake in North Adams, up at Margaret Lindley Park in Williamstown, or over at the Sand Springs Pool - the only "public" pool in town, which isn't public, but rather private, and which requires either an exorbitant membership fee or an exorbitant daily pass. We've caved in on the passes a few times, because the pool is wonderful, the poolside amenities are great, and the days have been haaawwt.
So haawwt that we spent several of the last few nights downstairs in the guest rooms, where Q still prefers to sleep - though last night T went down there too, and they shared a bed, out of habit (usually we're all down there, and there are only two furnished rooms), but he came back up after an hour or so because T was snoring. And it had cooled down a lot upstairs by then anyway.
And we've been watching the world cup a lot. Here were the get-ups for the final:
(The Dutch also call themselves "cheese heads".) We were disappointed in the outcome, and in the US' showing in the tournament, but all in all, thrilled by the whole spectacle, and inspired, by our friend Magnus and his son Benni, to make plans for the future. Magnus and Benni, four years ago, decided that they would go to South Africa and watch the WC four years hence, and by crackee, they did it, saving up the money over the four years and going the hell over there. So Q and I have done the same thing, and here's the evidence:
Every day I don't buy myself any junk food, I put $5 in there. And every time Q cleans his room top to bottom, he still gets the $5 pocket money he ordinarily used to get, but we also put $5 in the envelope. (If we made him forego having pocket money to save it for an event four years from now, it would probably actually disincentivize him to save anything at all. So we came up with the "matching funds" program.) And he put about 60% of his birthday money in there. So we should have a tidy sum by the time 2014 comes around - and soon, I think I'm going to start learning Portuguese. With Q. Should be fun.
Dude - T beckons. I'm home alone with her this afternoon. More soon - including the big news of the summer: Gettin' a dog!!
Except a lot of recreating. Janneke and I have made it out to the tennis courts at least three or four times (very good, for us), the kids and we have been swimming a number of times, which has taken up entire afternoons, either out at Windsor Lake in North Adams, up at Margaret Lindley Park in Williamstown, or over at the Sand Springs Pool - the only "public" pool in town, which isn't public, but rather private, and which requires either an exorbitant membership fee or an exorbitant daily pass. We've caved in on the passes a few times, because the pool is wonderful, the poolside amenities are great, and the days have been haaawwt.
So haawwt that we spent several of the last few nights downstairs in the guest rooms, where Q still prefers to sleep - though last night T went down there too, and they shared a bed, out of habit (usually we're all down there, and there are only two furnished rooms), but he came back up after an hour or so because T was snoring. And it had cooled down a lot upstairs by then anyway.
And we've been watching the world cup a lot. Here were the get-ups for the final:
(The Dutch also call themselves "cheese heads".) We were disappointed in the outcome, and in the US' showing in the tournament, but all in all, thrilled by the whole spectacle, and inspired, by our friend Magnus and his son Benni, to make plans for the future. Magnus and Benni, four years ago, decided that they would go to South Africa and watch the WC four years hence, and by crackee, they did it, saving up the money over the four years and going the hell over there. So Q and I have done the same thing, and here's the evidence:
Every day I don't buy myself any junk food, I put $5 in there. And every time Q cleans his room top to bottom, he still gets the $5 pocket money he ordinarily used to get, but we also put $5 in the envelope. (If we made him forego having pocket money to save it for an event four years from now, it would probably actually disincentivize him to save anything at all. So we came up with the "matching funds" program.) And he put about 60% of his birthday money in there. So we should have a tidy sum by the time 2014 comes around - and soon, I think I'm going to start learning Portuguese. With Q. Should be fun.
Dude - T beckons. I'm home alone with her this afternoon. More soon - including the big news of the summer: Gettin' a dog!!
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