Hoo, boy...Another post that begins with an apology. I should just copy and paste the apologies from all the other times I've gone months without posting. But that would be still another insult to you, my reader. S. So, no: I will cook up another one, completely original, and heartfelt this time. Here goes:
Sorry, man.
Anyway, on to the hijinks: Q started piano lessons again today. We give him the summers off, what with travel and all (perhaps more about that later on), but then we start him up again in the fall. In the past, he's grumbled about the lessons on occasion - once, famously, he responded to a question about what he would wish for if he had but one wish. And the thing he said he'd wish for was an end to piano lessons. I kind of jumped on him for that one, if you recall - reminded him that he liked to sit and play, that he was proud of himself for what he'd accomplished, that he laughed with Ed every single time he had a lesson.
But this crisis was worse. He cried - yowlingly, sobbingly cried - when we told him it would soon be time to start the lessons again. "I hate them! I hate it!", he wailed. "You're making me waste all my time on something I don't want to do!"
We told him we would talk about it and get back to him.
In the end, a couple of things turned us toward insisting that he start up again. One is the simple fact that we know him, and that he wildly exaggerates his heartfelt emotions into great, combusting fits. He does it regularly - with physical pain, with insults from other kids, with offenses to his dignity doled out by younger siblings and pets. (Seriously. Pets.) He's a wonderfully sensitive, considerate young boy, who is very, very far from being even reasonably tough. So we have learned to read his hyperbolic suffering jags accordingly.
The second clue as to how to best handle this came last Saturday, when Janneke had to take Q to Caretaker Farm with her. Don't recall why, but he would have had to be in the house alone otherwise. (Soccer for T was involved, I think.) And the whole time he was out there with her, all he wanted to do was nothing. "Want to help me pick tomatoes?" "No." "Want to go to the pond and look for frogs?" "No." "Want to go help those guys who are weeding?" "No." Just plain-ol' laziness. Which led us to the conclusion that more leisure time is not what this particular kid needs right now.
So we decided we would say to him, "Fine. If you want to continue just with the trumpet," (a tactic he had deployed through tears days earlier), "we'll find a teacher and you'll have a lesson once a week with the teacher, in addition to your lessons at school."
Convulsions and explosive yowling. "No! I don't need that! The lessons at school are enough!"
"No, they are not, Q. You don't play the trumpet nearly as well as some of the other kids, because you do, not, practice at home. Why? Because we don't make you - you've got plenty of practicing to do for the piano. If you want to continue the trumpet, fine, but we decided long ago not to enforce practicing with that. Well, if, now, you want to replace piano with trumpet, fine - but the lessons to be learned from steady practice and improvement that you're getting from piano, will now have to come from the trumpet."
More squealing and fussing.
But at some point in here, after a couple of ugly stormings-off, we made the following points to him, in just about these words:
"You absolutely do not practice for an hour every day. It's fifteen to twenty minutes, max. Don't exaggerate. And the lesson you go to is not even an hour long, and it's once a week. Which means that four out of five days, you have from the end of school until five o'clock or five thirty to do whatever you want. That often involves soccer practice, but that's your time. You want to do that, and all your friends are there. Four days out of five, you have no obligations. And on the fifth, you lose, effectively, an hour of your two free hours. That is not very much to ask, and the fact that you act as if it were, shows us that you need to learn that it is not.
"You play your Wii every, single, day. This is very generous of us - you play it in the morning for a bit, and then often in the afternoon. You have plenty of time for goofing around.
"Today is Sunday. It's 10:30 AM. You won't have to go to bed until 9:30 - that's 11 hours. You have NO obligations during those eleven hours. The Packers are on, we're going to watch that, your friend Ethan is coming over - it's one long party for you. A lack of free time is absolutely not an issue in your life.
"All kids want to give up on things that start to seem hard. But part of growing up is learning to accept that sometimes, you have to work at something to achieve it. The fact that you're saying 'I'll keep playing the piano, just without the lessons', shows us that you haven't learned that lesson yet either. Because you won't - you've hardly played it all summer. Having a mentor and a teacher who has expectations is an excellent way to grow as a person. It's our responsibility to help you grow into a person who can do that.
"My mother let me quit piano when I whined about it enough. I was very excited not to have to practice or go to lessons. I still remember the giddiness I felt when Mom and Jayne trooped out the door to go to lessons for the first time and I got to stay home with Jim and Jess. I was so excited! You know what I did?
"I don't either. I have no memory of it. I have no idea what I did with that one little hour every week, with those twenty minutes a day. I wasted them. I got nothing at all out of them. And now I can't play the piano."
He got calmer and calmer as the discourse wore on, weaving back and forth between Janneke and me, his demeanor growing more and more free and easy.
"Fine," he said, without petulance. "OK. I'll do it."
And today's lesson? Fan, tastic. Grinning, laughing, never once complaining when I went to pick him up. It may help that the lesson is on Fridays now, and many kids are out of the Youth Center by late afternoon, off to fulfill weekend plans. But I can't tell you how great it was to watch him playing again, watch him interacting again with Ed, that wonderful man. It just made me sigh and smile and snuggle back into my chair.
Which was really uncomfortable. It's held in a practice hall, after all.
So, enough of that. Here's some visual aids.
That's Clarabelle, responding to some obscene sounds being produced by the wife and the boy. Crazy, crazy stuff.
Speaking of which, did I ever show you this:
T showing off her new room. Can't recall if I ever posted it here. If I did, hey, what's the harm in doing so again? And if I didn't, well, good. Now I have.
And finally, here's a video I made to promote the Spanish Guitar Club at my school. On "Back to School Night", it played on a loop on a TV cart in a lobby area. Thought it was a pretty elegant solution to the simple impossibility of being up in my classroom, greeting parents, and downstairs manning the guitar club table. So there was no guitar club table - there was simply this, over and over:
OK, officially punchy. G'night, Grandma...
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Barefoot Deck Construction In My Dreams
Hey. Well, the insomnia is back. I don't understand it this time at all - I am bone-tired. Or was - just after dinner I was yawning and groaning, dragging myself to those post-dinner chores like washing the dishes and smiling at my children and acknowledging my wife and pretending to listen to people with the very last fumes of my day's worth of energy. But then Chris, Q's friend who was here for a sleepover, got sick around 10:00, and I drove out with Q to take him home. And then I tried to catch a few minutes of Keith Olbermann. And then during a commercial I switched over and found an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I hadn't seen. (Lame as hell - Wesley frickin' Crusher figured prominently. If that TV hadn't cost us a week's salary I'd have thrown the remote at it.) And then Clarabelle had to go out for one more quick turn so she won't suffer in her crate tonight. And then it was 11:30, and I re-read a couple of portions of "Born to Run". And then I was all wired up, thinking about running.
Because I ran today. Four miles, in one solid loop that didn't repeat itself at all. I've been feeling so fragile lately that I do all my running on a 1.5-mile loop around the house, so that if anything does start to hurt, I can stop and be no more than half a mile's walk from ice and a sympathetic ear. But today, dammit, I was going to go four miles. So I went to Google Earth, mapped out a route exactly that long, and hit the road in the Runamocs.
It was great. I don't try to go fast anymore - I just try to go. Go easy, go light. Just go. Speed will come when my body's ready, when I have slowly built up every susceptible muscle and piece of connective tissue to be up to the job with ease. And in the meantime, I run with an easy joy that doesn't care how fast it goes. Mind you, I do fantasize as I run about the day when I'll once again be able to do six, seven, eight miles. And then about the first marathon I'll run. And beyond that; I do fantasize about going fast. But I don't actually go fast - I just revel in the complete lack of pain anywhere, especially in my feet.
I go barefoot as often as I can. I worked on the deck today (more on that below) for hours and every minute of it was barefoot. I walked the dog around the neighborhood barefoot, dropped T off at day care barefoot. And my feet love it. They love being challenged and stretched with every step, using their muscles in ways that make them interact with the ground. Tomorrow we're going onion harvesting at Caretaker Farm, and I plan to do the whole thing barefoot. Why not? It's bare earth and weeds - the most annoying thing about the dirty work at the farm is the dirt in your shoes. What if you have none? The dirt just rolls off your feet, or pleasantly between your toes. It'll be great.
Re-reading Born to Run, I came across a part where someone who agreed to run the last fifty miles of a hundred-mile race with a Tarahumara Indian runner was struck by the sound they made as they ran. Just a very gentle sort of tap, touch, stroke on the ground, made by their sandals. They didn't pound, they didn't go whap-whap-whap. They treated the ground gently so that it would treat them gently. And it struck me that I have been remarking at that very same sound lately as I run in the Runamocs. There's no scraping, no scuffing. just touch, touch, touch. My feet feel far better at the end of a run than they did at the beginning. It's very exciting and I can't wait to do it again.
Not tomorrow, though. Absolutely not tomorrow. I am not pushing too far, too fast, too soon again.
All that excited thought kept me up. And then the deck! Well, a couple of revelations, first. Here's the biggest one: The Titan Post Anchor. This thing is going to solve every single one of the problems you didn't read about in the last post. The posts are set directly into the wood of the deck, through the decking. Brilliant - I've ordered seven of them for the seven posts I have and will definitely be setting. And then I spent today getting ready to place them. Now I just have to figure out where in hell to get something called a "hole saw".
First, though, before I can set them, I had to trim the edges of the deck to be able to accurately measure where the posts will go. So I did that, with some semi-skilled slicing with my brand-new circular saw. I'm very proud of it - it's this model. I've named it Betsy, in honor of our fallen Wednesday Barefoot Soccer comrade. Not just to honor her, though - Betsy and my new saw have a lot in common. They are both treasured by me; Brad, Betsy's husband, owns an identical model, so she lives in both our hearts; she is precise and exact and causes beauty to be created everywhere she goes; and if you get in her way, she will quickly and efficiently reduce you to sawdust. While making a very strong sound. We evened out that deck nicely, Betsy and I. 'Course, before I could do that, I had to put down the last board. So I did that first.
Now, when I did that, a problem arose. Somehow, I had been hanging all the joists, or at least the ones in the middle, a little too low. Such that this last decking board, which rests on the rim joists, sits a good quarter inch higher than the boards adjacent. Meaning that the spot where I install the posts on that whole side will have one half sitting on the low board, and one half sitting on the high one. There are a number of possible solutions - the Titan Post Anchor comes with washers that you can use to shim up one side or the other to bring it into level. But I'm not going to want a quarter-inch gap on one side (the visible-from-the-picnic-table side) of the post anchor. I could also chisel out a seat for the post anchor in the higher board, but that would then look bad from the angle of the person who walks down the stairs and out into our yard, with the posts quite near eye level. Nor do I like the veeeery visible height difference between that last board and the ones adjacent. I put the board down, and set all the screws, having decided to live with the difference...but now that I think about it in my mind's eye, and picture that damn difference in height and all the problems it causes, I say to myself the following:
"Joe, you gotta pull that board up, trim down the joist a bit, and then replace the board."
I've pulled one board up already - they're made of plastic, so with a little pry bar pressure, they pop right up. Then the screws can just be unscrewed and removed.
How am I going to trim the end joists?
Betsy.
Other news...Heck, you know what? I'm tired now. I think I can go to bed again! Tell you what: If it doesn't work out, I'll come back and tell you all about the nifty parallel I found for our continuing to call Barefoot Soccer "Barefoot Soccer", even though, the next time we do it, people (except probably me) won't be barefoot.
Aw, heck, it won't take long, so I'll just tell you:
It's like people calling two-by-fours "two-by-fours". They're not actually two inches by four inches, and everybody knows it. But they still keep calling them that.
See? Isn't that clever? How I saw that? That those two things are the same? Aren't you proud?
Good night.
Because I ran today. Four miles, in one solid loop that didn't repeat itself at all. I've been feeling so fragile lately that I do all my running on a 1.5-mile loop around the house, so that if anything does start to hurt, I can stop and be no more than half a mile's walk from ice and a sympathetic ear. But today, dammit, I was going to go four miles. So I went to Google Earth, mapped out a route exactly that long, and hit the road in the Runamocs.
It was great. I don't try to go fast anymore - I just try to go. Go easy, go light. Just go. Speed will come when my body's ready, when I have slowly built up every susceptible muscle and piece of connective tissue to be up to the job with ease. And in the meantime, I run with an easy joy that doesn't care how fast it goes. Mind you, I do fantasize as I run about the day when I'll once again be able to do six, seven, eight miles. And then about the first marathon I'll run. And beyond that; I do fantasize about going fast. But I don't actually go fast - I just revel in the complete lack of pain anywhere, especially in my feet.
I go barefoot as often as I can. I worked on the deck today (more on that below) for hours and every minute of it was barefoot. I walked the dog around the neighborhood barefoot, dropped T off at day care barefoot. And my feet love it. They love being challenged and stretched with every step, using their muscles in ways that make them interact with the ground. Tomorrow we're going onion harvesting at Caretaker Farm, and I plan to do the whole thing barefoot. Why not? It's bare earth and weeds - the most annoying thing about the dirty work at the farm is the dirt in your shoes. What if you have none? The dirt just rolls off your feet, or pleasantly between your toes. It'll be great.
Re-reading Born to Run, I came across a part where someone who agreed to run the last fifty miles of a hundred-mile race with a Tarahumara Indian runner was struck by the sound they made as they ran. Just a very gentle sort of tap, touch, stroke on the ground, made by their sandals. They didn't pound, they didn't go whap-whap-whap. They treated the ground gently so that it would treat them gently. And it struck me that I have been remarking at that very same sound lately as I run in the Runamocs. There's no scraping, no scuffing. just touch, touch, touch. My feet feel far better at the end of a run than they did at the beginning. It's very exciting and I can't wait to do it again.
Not tomorrow, though. Absolutely not tomorrow. I am not pushing too far, too fast, too soon again.
All that excited thought kept me up. And then the deck! Well, a couple of revelations, first. Here's the biggest one: The Titan Post Anchor. This thing is going to solve every single one of the problems you didn't read about in the last post. The posts are set directly into the wood of the deck, through the decking. Brilliant - I've ordered seven of them for the seven posts I have and will definitely be setting. And then I spent today getting ready to place them. Now I just have to figure out where in hell to get something called a "hole saw".
First, though, before I can set them, I had to trim the edges of the deck to be able to accurately measure where the posts will go. So I did that, with some semi-skilled slicing with my brand-new circular saw. I'm very proud of it - it's this model. I've named it Betsy, in honor of our fallen Wednesday Barefoot Soccer comrade. Not just to honor her, though - Betsy and my new saw have a lot in common. They are both treasured by me; Brad, Betsy's husband, owns an identical model, so she lives in both our hearts; she is precise and exact and causes beauty to be created everywhere she goes; and if you get in her way, she will quickly and efficiently reduce you to sawdust. While making a very strong sound. We evened out that deck nicely, Betsy and I. 'Course, before I could do that, I had to put down the last board. So I did that first.
Now, when I did that, a problem arose. Somehow, I had been hanging all the joists, or at least the ones in the middle, a little too low. Such that this last decking board, which rests on the rim joists, sits a good quarter inch higher than the boards adjacent. Meaning that the spot where I install the posts on that whole side will have one half sitting on the low board, and one half sitting on the high one. There are a number of possible solutions - the Titan Post Anchor comes with washers that you can use to shim up one side or the other to bring it into level. But I'm not going to want a quarter-inch gap on one side (the visible-from-the-picnic-table side) of the post anchor. I could also chisel out a seat for the post anchor in the higher board, but that would then look bad from the angle of the person who walks down the stairs and out into our yard, with the posts quite near eye level. Nor do I like the veeeery visible height difference between that last board and the ones adjacent. I put the board down, and set all the screws, having decided to live with the difference...but now that I think about it in my mind's eye, and picture that damn difference in height and all the problems it causes, I say to myself the following:
"Joe, you gotta pull that board up, trim down the joist a bit, and then replace the board."
I've pulled one board up already - they're made of plastic, so with a little pry bar pressure, they pop right up. Then the screws can just be unscrewed and removed.
How am I going to trim the end joists?
Betsy.
Other news...Heck, you know what? I'm tired now. I think I can go to bed again! Tell you what: If it doesn't work out, I'll come back and tell you all about the nifty parallel I found for our continuing to call Barefoot Soccer "Barefoot Soccer", even though, the next time we do it, people (except probably me) won't be barefoot.
Aw, heck, it won't take long, so I'll just tell you:
It's like people calling two-by-fours "two-by-fours". They're not actually two inches by four inches, and everybody knows it. But they still keep calling them that.
See? Isn't that clever? How I saw that? That those two things are the same? Aren't you proud?
Good night.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Insomniac's Confession
Cripers! Well, since my insomnia is back, and since there aren't any big-ticket news items that might occupy me at this late hour, I find myself once again pretending that there's someone out there interested in the goings-on of our little tribe, and pecking out some updates thereupon. To whit:
The deck progresses. Although I am lately preoccupied a lot more by the "should have"s than by the "should"s. For instance, I think perhaps I should not have bought the Azek railing that I bought. Mostly because I did not properly plot out just how my railing would attach to the rim joists of the deck. Mostly because my deck-building book didn't say I really needed to. You just notch the 4x4 posts and plop them down as you need then along the edge, and string the rails between them.
(Things get pretty wordy and impractically detailed here for a couple of paragraphs. You might want to skip ahead to the parentheses below.)
But then there's the issue of the rail sleeves I bought, which fit nicely over 4x4 posts that are not notched, and which disappear neatly into the decking as they plunge in behind the rim joists they were bolted to before the decking was applied. But I already applied my decking, and did not build any posts in.
Nor could I have, to be fair - the outer rim joist would up being double on one side and triple on another, meaning I would have had uneven and oddly-inset posts had I placed them that way. Of course, now I'm faced with the notion of having oddly incomplete post sleeving, since once the posts drop below the level of the deck on the outside, the post sleeve will stop.
Probably - I don't think I can fit the post sleeve over the bolt heads that will protrude from the lower faces of the 4x4 posts. Maybe I can, but I doubt it. Meaning that I would have to end the post sleeves at the level of the decking, and then surround the bottom of the posts with the joist-covering Azek sheeting I also bought. Which, I think, will look weird. So it's beginning to seem that all my remaining options are going to look somehow weird. Leaving me feeling paralyzed and pressed for time at the same time - the summer is ending, here, and I have no rails on the deck. Or stairs. It's covered, and that looks fine, but it's still not serviceable. And I'm not sure how to go about making it so tomorrow. Beginning to feel like I'll need advice from an expert, and that this expert is going to say "You should have thought this through better", which will make me feel very hot and trembly and sweaty. A feeling I am accustomed to having in association with carpentry in general.
(There - That should be enough of that for now.)
So, on to the other big news, which does NOT keep me up at night. Here it is:
Her name, in case you haven't yet heard, is Clarabelle.
She has now been in Massachusetts for a week and a day, and it's beginning to be hard to picture what it was like before she arrived. But let's not get ahead of ourselves - there's a lot to describe around this enormous happening.
Beginning with the trip the three of us - Q, T, and I - took last Saturday. We hit the road around 7:30 with Hobie's old dog crate in the back of the Subaru (it wouldn't fit in the Prius) and were humming down the highway to Glastonbury, CT, for the next two and a half hours. It was probably the nicest day of the summer - sunshine, high, white clouds, and temps in the upper 70s. The drive went phenomenally well, with kids playing with their games, and with each other, as only good sports who are being driven to a puppy can do. (Part of it is probably due to T being hopped up on Dramamine.) As we approached the target destination, the kids became active exit-searchers, and navigated me safely into the park-and-ride parking lot just off the highway where the local dog rescue group coordinates the weekly dropoff.
Now, this whole business is painstakingly and professionally catalogued on a weekly basis much more completely than I can do here, on a television show called "Last Chance Highway". Here's the short version:
New Englanders spay and neuter their dogs. Southerners don't. This leads to an imbalance of adoptive households and adoptable dogs -the South has too many, the North, not enough. And vice versa. Twenty different animal rescue groups across the South adopt dogs out ot homes in the North, and put the dogs on a trailer that drops them off every single week in their northern end cities, with the families that have applied for them online and been approved.
One of those families, August 7th, was us.
Q and T were excited, but dignified. The show sends a camera crew regularly to the Glastonbury site, and the camera crews must whoop people into a cheering frenzy, because they always appear on TV to be about to witness their favorite rock stars coming off the trailers. We had no such raucous buzz happening for our big day, but there was definitely a lot of excitement in the air when we were there. Just quieter. We were all pulled into a circle to listen to a spiel on getting a new dog, and then the truck and the trailer arrived, about ten minutes early, and before you knew it all sixty or so people were lined up in front of a card table, where the driver had a box of files and would pull your dog and its medical records up for you, nod to another fellow at the door of the trailer, who would disappear inside and then come right back out holding the exact same dog you had been going nuts over in photographs for a couple of weeks and just plain hand it to you.
It was very, very fun and emotional. We were thrilled - she was such a little squirm-butt when she came off, all white-faced and waggy and peeing excitedly as she received her first hugs and kisses from all three of us.
I have worked up some video, in a very quick and dirty version, which is available here.
We walked her around the parking lot a bit, then drove to a nearby Petsmart, probably all of 200 yards from the parking lot where we picked her up. She scoped out a couple of toys and some rawhide bones (the kids were eager to see what she might be most interested in), which we purchased, and then headed over to a school with a playground that we had scoped out earlier. But that quickly got old - Clarabelle (whose name had previously been Demi, but whom I decided I was going to go ahead and name my own damn self) was doing a lot of sniffing and the kids a lot of following, when what I think they had imagined was more of a cuddle fest. Walking around in the sunshine behind a dog that was picking up everybody's leftovers from under the picnic tables was a little too stressful, to tell the truth. And by now it was near noon, so we adjourned to the local Burger King, where we parked the car so that the end gate abutted a slight grassy rise. We opened the gate so Clarabelle could see us as we sat in the grass, arrayed in front of her, eating our lunch as she gnawed happily on a rawhide bone in her crate. It was very idyllic - in fact, it was very strangely so. If you ever get to Glastonbury, check out the strip of grass and trees that forms the border of the parking lot of the Burger King across from the park-and-ride lot. It's far, far more picturesque than such a place has any right to be. And we weren't the only ones to think so - a very sad, shabby, and shaky man, probably nearly 90, looked a bit put out by our arrival; he had been parked similarly to us, tailgate of his pickup drawn up against the grass, in the shade, windows down, playing a harmonica.
But now it was our picnic spot, so he stopped playing the harmonica. But he did do just as we did - he went inside, placed his order, and retired to the breezy shade. I hope he enjoyed it as much as we did.
Two hours and thirty minutes later, with a couple of stops built in along the way, Clarabelle made her debut in our home. It's been fantastic - she is one smart cookie. She's curious about everything, and cocks her head in the most endearing way, eerily reminiscent of Hobie. That was the expression with which she first confronted Skittles, whom the kids brought out into the back yard to meet Clarabelle before we brought her into the house. Best to have them meet on somewhat more neutral territory, we thought (and I had read). This may have helped - Clarabelle took a couple of days to catch on, through some gentle scolding and some acclimatizing, that Skittles is not a puppy, and does not appreciate or respond well to puppy-like invitations to chasing games. Now, a week later, Skittles will lie there and recoil her head as Clarabelle approaches to sniff her - "Really? Are you sure? No...?" - and then walks off again; the cat will look a little indignant at having had to snub yet another offer, but will hardly ever go hide any more. They aren't pals, but they're coexisting.
The kids have had many a lesson on how to walk her by now, and are getting pretty good at it. Though they are starting to see it as a chore, it is a chore they take on with grace and a sense of humor. Although the bulk of the serious walking still falls to me and Janneke - she in the early morning, so far, and myself just before bed. Accidents in the house have been few; successes far outweigh failures. Progress is steady and ratchets continually upward.
That very first Saturday night, I finally managed to find "Last Chance Highway" on the TV, and we all settled in to watch it together. And there they were - the same guys whom we'd seen that morning, whom we'd been puzzled to observe absorbing celebrity treatment, stopping work to pose for pictures with giddy new dog owners, handing out hugs as much as dogs. Now we knew why - these guys all feature quite prominently in the program. The episode we watched was particularly touching, I find - I've seen three installments now - and by the time it ended Q and I were clapping and laughing to watch these happy denouments, and T was asleep on Clarabelle's bed, one arm draped around the snoring hound. The very end image of the video above takes place as we watched the same trailer we'd picked her up from earlier in the day. All very odd and circular - I'm still not quite able to get my head completely around it.
Janneke and I were snuggling with her this evening after watching an episode of Last Chance Highway (I'd recorded it for Janneke, who hadn't seen one yet) and were struck by just how much we love hounds. Hobie was a hound, and we've had a soft spot for beagles forever - but Clarabelle is as houndy as they get. Droopy skin on her head, ridiculous ears, bony hips, black back, a plaintive, howling wail (that we hardly ever hear), and a soul that wants out of life only three things: To follow that smell wherever it might lead; to be hugged and thumped vigorously by a person; and to sleep. Provide them with those three, and they want for nothing. And I think there is much to admire in that philosophy.
There is other news. I'm up to 3.5 miles on my every-other-day runs in the Runamocs. I'm making slooooow and steeeeady progress, terrified of getting injured again. But determined to work my way back up to longer distances - just not caring particularly exactly when I get there. These things - the runamocs - are fantastic to run in. I think it's the perfect middle ground for me between barefootedness and shoditude - I don't hurt myself, but I can't heel-toe pound without pain. So I find a great, soft, short-strided method of locomotion, and all of my constituent parts - particulary the feet - are happy. I'm still spending as much time as I can barefoot, including all of Clarabelle's walks and much of the time I spend working on the deck, and all of my yard-care time. In fact, today we spent three hours in the mall shopping, and I wore shoes, in deference to the expectations of society (and in recognition of the fact that the Runamocs, while great for running in, frankly look stupid). And my right foot, home of my erstwhile plantar fasciitis, began to really throb. I had run this morning, and apparently the isolation and protection afforded my foot by the shoe caused the muscles and tendons to do so little that the got stiff. As soon as we got home, I took the shoes off - and the pain nearly instantly disappeared. I am a convert to this whole barefoot thing - just provided you don't do too much, too fast, without building up to it.
Like Betsy did. She broke her toe last Wednesday in our weekly barefoot soccer match...which I feel pretty responsible for, I have to say. I mean, I didn't write the Wednesday Afternoon Barefoot Soccer Association Charter or anything - it just sort of happened. But I have been the loudest and the most annoying about the whole "barefoot is better" thing. We've done it a number of times now and it's been amazing. But there was something amiss last week - a lot of us suffered what I'm calling "toe crumples", where you catch your toes on the ground and drive over the top of them as they bend uncomfortably forward under the pressure from your foot, the top and back of which continue forward, and the whole business causes you to topple in a heap. I did it three times, all with the left foot, and Brad and a couple of other players did it too. And Betsy broke her toe!, though she can't quite say exactly when it happened. It's her left pinky toe, and she has to stay off her feet as much as possible, and absolutely not run, for four to six weeks. This sucks so much I can't quite bear it.
As for me, though...I remain convinced that I am far, far less likely to be injured in soccer if I wear no shoes. The big injuries I have been susceptible to in recent years have been knee twists, which occur when you have too damn much traction, and ankle turns, which are a result of the bottom of the shoe getting stuck while the leg topples over to the side. And I just can't imagine either of those happening if I have no shoes on. The toe crumples hurt, but they didn't especially bother me - I have short, rounded toes, and they weren't really adversely affected. I don't know - I'll stay barefoot in future games, I think, but we may be encouraging the kids to wear shoes. Even cleats - I can take a rake from a ten-year-old. But we'll see. Janneke, post-bee sting, remains an adamant opponent of the whole endeavor. I for one hope it does not go extinct as an institution. It's not what Betsy would have wanted.
(Though she isn't dead.)
Well, seein' as how I stopped being coherent some five paragraphs ago, I think I'll wrap this up and head off to lala land, if I can. Not sure whether I've thought through everything I needed to, but let's hope. I think I'm resigned to my fate deck-wise, though I do have an idea or two on how to get around this whole post business, and apart from Betsy's foot, everything else is all brightness and sunshine. So I should be less than haunted as I lay back against the pillow and sigh.
Wish me luck...
The deck progresses. Although I am lately preoccupied a lot more by the "should have"s than by the "should"s. For instance, I think perhaps I should not have bought the Azek railing that I bought. Mostly because I did not properly plot out just how my railing would attach to the rim joists of the deck. Mostly because my deck-building book didn't say I really needed to. You just notch the 4x4 posts and plop them down as you need then along the edge, and string the rails between them.
(Things get pretty wordy and impractically detailed here for a couple of paragraphs. You might want to skip ahead to the parentheses below.)
But then there's the issue of the rail sleeves I bought, which fit nicely over 4x4 posts that are not notched, and which disappear neatly into the decking as they plunge in behind the rim joists they were bolted to before the decking was applied. But I already applied my decking, and did not build any posts in.
Nor could I have, to be fair - the outer rim joist would up being double on one side and triple on another, meaning I would have had uneven and oddly-inset posts had I placed them that way. Of course, now I'm faced with the notion of having oddly incomplete post sleeving, since once the posts drop below the level of the deck on the outside, the post sleeve will stop.
Probably - I don't think I can fit the post sleeve over the bolt heads that will protrude from the lower faces of the 4x4 posts. Maybe I can, but I doubt it. Meaning that I would have to end the post sleeves at the level of the decking, and then surround the bottom of the posts with the joist-covering Azek sheeting I also bought. Which, I think, will look weird. So it's beginning to seem that all my remaining options are going to look somehow weird. Leaving me feeling paralyzed and pressed for time at the same time - the summer is ending, here, and I have no rails on the deck. Or stairs. It's covered, and that looks fine, but it's still not serviceable. And I'm not sure how to go about making it so tomorrow. Beginning to feel like I'll need advice from an expert, and that this expert is going to say "You should have thought this through better", which will make me feel very hot and trembly and sweaty. A feeling I am accustomed to having in association with carpentry in general.
(There - That should be enough of that for now.)
So, on to the other big news, which does NOT keep me up at night. Here it is:
Her name, in case you haven't yet heard, is Clarabelle.
She has now been in Massachusetts for a week and a day, and it's beginning to be hard to picture what it was like before she arrived. But let's not get ahead of ourselves - there's a lot to describe around this enormous happening.
Beginning with the trip the three of us - Q, T, and I - took last Saturday. We hit the road around 7:30 with Hobie's old dog crate in the back of the Subaru (it wouldn't fit in the Prius) and were humming down the highway to Glastonbury, CT, for the next two and a half hours. It was probably the nicest day of the summer - sunshine, high, white clouds, and temps in the upper 70s. The drive went phenomenally well, with kids playing with their games, and with each other, as only good sports who are being driven to a puppy can do. (Part of it is probably due to T being hopped up on Dramamine.) As we approached the target destination, the kids became active exit-searchers, and navigated me safely into the park-and-ride parking lot just off the highway where the local dog rescue group coordinates the weekly dropoff.
Now, this whole business is painstakingly and professionally catalogued on a weekly basis much more completely than I can do here, on a television show called "Last Chance Highway". Here's the short version:
New Englanders spay and neuter their dogs. Southerners don't. This leads to an imbalance of adoptive households and adoptable dogs -the South has too many, the North, not enough. And vice versa. Twenty different animal rescue groups across the South adopt dogs out ot homes in the North, and put the dogs on a trailer that drops them off every single week in their northern end cities, with the families that have applied for them online and been approved.
One of those families, August 7th, was us.
Q and T were excited, but dignified. The show sends a camera crew regularly to the Glastonbury site, and the camera crews must whoop people into a cheering frenzy, because they always appear on TV to be about to witness their favorite rock stars coming off the trailers. We had no such raucous buzz happening for our big day, but there was definitely a lot of excitement in the air when we were there. Just quieter. We were all pulled into a circle to listen to a spiel on getting a new dog, and then the truck and the trailer arrived, about ten minutes early, and before you knew it all sixty or so people were lined up in front of a card table, where the driver had a box of files and would pull your dog and its medical records up for you, nod to another fellow at the door of the trailer, who would disappear inside and then come right back out holding the exact same dog you had been going nuts over in photographs for a couple of weeks and just plain hand it to you.
It was very, very fun and emotional. We were thrilled - she was such a little squirm-butt when she came off, all white-faced and waggy and peeing excitedly as she received her first hugs and kisses from all three of us.
I have worked up some video, in a very quick and dirty version, which is available here.
We walked her around the parking lot a bit, then drove to a nearby Petsmart, probably all of 200 yards from the parking lot where we picked her up. She scoped out a couple of toys and some rawhide bones (the kids were eager to see what she might be most interested in), which we purchased, and then headed over to a school with a playground that we had scoped out earlier. But that quickly got old - Clarabelle (whose name had previously been Demi, but whom I decided I was going to go ahead and name my own damn self) was doing a lot of sniffing and the kids a lot of following, when what I think they had imagined was more of a cuddle fest. Walking around in the sunshine behind a dog that was picking up everybody's leftovers from under the picnic tables was a little too stressful, to tell the truth. And by now it was near noon, so we adjourned to the local Burger King, where we parked the car so that the end gate abutted a slight grassy rise. We opened the gate so Clarabelle could see us as we sat in the grass, arrayed in front of her, eating our lunch as she gnawed happily on a rawhide bone in her crate. It was very idyllic - in fact, it was very strangely so. If you ever get to Glastonbury, check out the strip of grass and trees that forms the border of the parking lot of the Burger King across from the park-and-ride lot. It's far, far more picturesque than such a place has any right to be. And we weren't the only ones to think so - a very sad, shabby, and shaky man, probably nearly 90, looked a bit put out by our arrival; he had been parked similarly to us, tailgate of his pickup drawn up against the grass, in the shade, windows down, playing a harmonica.
But now it was our picnic spot, so he stopped playing the harmonica. But he did do just as we did - he went inside, placed his order, and retired to the breezy shade. I hope he enjoyed it as much as we did.
Two hours and thirty minutes later, with a couple of stops built in along the way, Clarabelle made her debut in our home. It's been fantastic - she is one smart cookie. She's curious about everything, and cocks her head in the most endearing way, eerily reminiscent of Hobie. That was the expression with which she first confronted Skittles, whom the kids brought out into the back yard to meet Clarabelle before we brought her into the house. Best to have them meet on somewhat more neutral territory, we thought (and I had read). This may have helped - Clarabelle took a couple of days to catch on, through some gentle scolding and some acclimatizing, that Skittles is not a puppy, and does not appreciate or respond well to puppy-like invitations to chasing games. Now, a week later, Skittles will lie there and recoil her head as Clarabelle approaches to sniff her - "Really? Are you sure? No...?" - and then walks off again; the cat will look a little indignant at having had to snub yet another offer, but will hardly ever go hide any more. They aren't pals, but they're coexisting.
The kids have had many a lesson on how to walk her by now, and are getting pretty good at it. Though they are starting to see it as a chore, it is a chore they take on with grace and a sense of humor. Although the bulk of the serious walking still falls to me and Janneke - she in the early morning, so far, and myself just before bed. Accidents in the house have been few; successes far outweigh failures. Progress is steady and ratchets continually upward.
That very first Saturday night, I finally managed to find "Last Chance Highway" on the TV, and we all settled in to watch it together. And there they were - the same guys whom we'd seen that morning, whom we'd been puzzled to observe absorbing celebrity treatment, stopping work to pose for pictures with giddy new dog owners, handing out hugs as much as dogs. Now we knew why - these guys all feature quite prominently in the program. The episode we watched was particularly touching, I find - I've seen three installments now - and by the time it ended Q and I were clapping and laughing to watch these happy denouments, and T was asleep on Clarabelle's bed, one arm draped around the snoring hound. The very end image of the video above takes place as we watched the same trailer we'd picked her up from earlier in the day. All very odd and circular - I'm still not quite able to get my head completely around it.
Janneke and I were snuggling with her this evening after watching an episode of Last Chance Highway (I'd recorded it for Janneke, who hadn't seen one yet) and were struck by just how much we love hounds. Hobie was a hound, and we've had a soft spot for beagles forever - but Clarabelle is as houndy as they get. Droopy skin on her head, ridiculous ears, bony hips, black back, a plaintive, howling wail (that we hardly ever hear), and a soul that wants out of life only three things: To follow that smell wherever it might lead; to be hugged and thumped vigorously by a person; and to sleep. Provide them with those three, and they want for nothing. And I think there is much to admire in that philosophy.
There is other news. I'm up to 3.5 miles on my every-other-day runs in the Runamocs. I'm making slooooow and steeeeady progress, terrified of getting injured again. But determined to work my way back up to longer distances - just not caring particularly exactly when I get there. These things - the runamocs - are fantastic to run in. I think it's the perfect middle ground for me between barefootedness and shoditude - I don't hurt myself, but I can't heel-toe pound without pain. So I find a great, soft, short-strided method of locomotion, and all of my constituent parts - particulary the feet - are happy. I'm still spending as much time as I can barefoot, including all of Clarabelle's walks and much of the time I spend working on the deck, and all of my yard-care time. In fact, today we spent three hours in the mall shopping, and I wore shoes, in deference to the expectations of society (and in recognition of the fact that the Runamocs, while great for running in, frankly look stupid). And my right foot, home of my erstwhile plantar fasciitis, began to really throb. I had run this morning, and apparently the isolation and protection afforded my foot by the shoe caused the muscles and tendons to do so little that the got stiff. As soon as we got home, I took the shoes off - and the pain nearly instantly disappeared. I am a convert to this whole barefoot thing - just provided you don't do too much, too fast, without building up to it.
Like Betsy did. She broke her toe last Wednesday in our weekly barefoot soccer match...which I feel pretty responsible for, I have to say. I mean, I didn't write the Wednesday Afternoon Barefoot Soccer Association Charter or anything - it just sort of happened. But I have been the loudest and the most annoying about the whole "barefoot is better" thing. We've done it a number of times now and it's been amazing. But there was something amiss last week - a lot of us suffered what I'm calling "toe crumples", where you catch your toes on the ground and drive over the top of them as they bend uncomfortably forward under the pressure from your foot, the top and back of which continue forward, and the whole business causes you to topple in a heap. I did it three times, all with the left foot, and Brad and a couple of other players did it too. And Betsy broke her toe!, though she can't quite say exactly when it happened. It's her left pinky toe, and she has to stay off her feet as much as possible, and absolutely not run, for four to six weeks. This sucks so much I can't quite bear it.
As for me, though...I remain convinced that I am far, far less likely to be injured in soccer if I wear no shoes. The big injuries I have been susceptible to in recent years have been knee twists, which occur when you have too damn much traction, and ankle turns, which are a result of the bottom of the shoe getting stuck while the leg topples over to the side. And I just can't imagine either of those happening if I have no shoes on. The toe crumples hurt, but they didn't especially bother me - I have short, rounded toes, and they weren't really adversely affected. I don't know - I'll stay barefoot in future games, I think, but we may be encouraging the kids to wear shoes. Even cleats - I can take a rake from a ten-year-old. But we'll see. Janneke, post-bee sting, remains an adamant opponent of the whole endeavor. I for one hope it does not go extinct as an institution. It's not what Betsy would have wanted.
(Though she isn't dead.)
Well, seein' as how I stopped being coherent some five paragraphs ago, I think I'll wrap this up and head off to lala land, if I can. Not sure whether I've thought through everything I needed to, but let's hope. I think I'm resigned to my fate deck-wise, though I do have an idea or two on how to get around this whole post business, and apart from Betsy's foot, everything else is all brightness and sunshine. So I should be less than haunted as I lay back against the pillow and sigh.
Wish me luck...
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Long Days of Great Import
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...
"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...
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...
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