Post-construction Chaos
8:27 a.m. - 2009-11-12


The new deck is finished and the windows are all installed. The spouse has to paint a little and then we can start putting the rooms back together. Most of the sewing room stuff is stuffed into the girls' room or in the storage unit, but as soon as we move the knitting machines back into the sewing room, I will have room to putter around again. Many interesting, formerly-lost items have turned up in the sewing room turnout. The one thing I am going to do something about is the quilt top that is all quilted and just waiting for its binding. It will be very comfy for lounging around, especially when the spouse is napping on the couch. It has been waiting for its binding since about 1982.

When the workers were here, they stepped on the downspout extension section and squished it. This annoyed me, since they also squished it last year when they were fixing the patio cover. I went out yesterday to look at it, and it was miraculously back in shape! The spouse had somehow tap tapped it back into shape with a small hammer. My hero!

In other interesting life experiences, Abby was visiting a weekend or two ago, and I drove her back to the Peninsula. We had to stop at the BART station to pick up her car since she had taken BART to our town. Since I did not know the way from the station to her apartment, she installed her GPS device on my dashboard and let me use it to find my way. It was strange to have a calm female voice telling you where to turn, etc., but I liked it fine. Except for the part where it took me twice around one block and right back into the parking garage at the station where I had started from, it got me to the apartment very efficiently.

This weekend the spouse is going to do some painting while Melissa and I take Susie to the bead show in Oakland. Susie is great company, and it is nice to go places with someone who has a great capacity for enjoyment of life. After the show, we are going to go over to Abby's apartment so her Aunt Susie can see the apartment and to go out for a Thai lunch. I am not really in a beading mood yet, but I am always ready for a roadtrip especially if Thai food is involved somehow.

I have been taking my dad to his doctor appointments in the next town. While he goes in for his doctor visit, I park the car across the street in the small shopping center with a fine view of the front of the clinic building. I use my binoculars to scan the people coming out to see if it is him, then I drive over there and pick him up. This works well most of the time and we avoid the truly ghastly parking situation and traffic over there. I am observing that more and more people are noticing me when I have the binoculars out even though I am sitting behind the wheel of my car, and they stare at me as if I were a suspicious character. This is enjoyable, since I have always been considered a goody-two-shoes type, so it is fun to be a little noir. Though I must say that if I were a terrorist or private eye I don't think I would be using my momma's mother-of-pearl opera glasses for my surveillance operations.