It's the Plumber. I've Come to Fix the Sink.

Inspirational song: Monkey Wash/Donkey Rinse (v. David Lindley)

I'm not that complicated of a woman. I live a relatively quiet life, and I have learned to find joy in very simple actions. As a middle aged woman, and yes, I admit that I am somewhere in the middle of my life, I have learned that there is one thing I cannot live without, and that is a toilet on the same storey of the house as my bedroom. I can live without most luxuries, but ask me to go more than a couple nights in a row of navigating stairs at 3 am or trying to ignore a full bladder at 6 am because I don't want to wake up the dogs by heading down the stairs (wasn't a problem before Murray), and you are asking too much of me. The first thing I did when I woke this morning was touch up the paint on the quarter round in the hall bath, so that we could finally install one of the two toilets that had been removed for tiling. By mid afternoon, the install was done, and the middle aged man and I celebrated. Apparently he is as easy to please as I am some days.

One of the items on my punch list was replacement of a couple of the faucets. The kitchen sink had a poorly designed faucet that made me a little annoyed every time I touched it. The downspout came out straight from the base, and combined with the tiny "produce rinsing" left sink basin, they made it impossible to rinse big pots that couldn't run through the dishwasher. In preparation for the move, I took off the water filter I had on the tap, and couldn't find the aerator anymore. It made the water shoot out in a high velocity jet with the slightest tap on the controls, and spray all over the paint that I just touched up around the window. The wedge that holds the sprayer in place broke a year ago, and to top it all off, it had a green tarnish stain on the foot plate that refused to clean up. This thing had to go. We picked out a new one, and as soon as I started opening up the box holding the brushed nickel faucet, I looked up and realized that every light fixture in the room was oiled bronze. So I turned around and went back to return it for essentially the same model, but ten dollars more expensive in the finish I needed.

I decided that it was imperative that I do the work on the installation. Not only would it make me feel accomplished to learn a new skill, but if we go forward on buying a fifty year old (give or take) house this summer, with the man spending weeks at a time up on his property to build there until the snows come, then I'm going to need to know how to do a whole lot more renovations and repairs by myself. I learned quickly how uncomfortable it is lying half inside a cabinet, working upside down over your head to fix a sink. Our cold water shut off valve is no good, and I ended up soaked before I finally called the man for assistance. Between us, we got the old faucet disconnected, and we had to trade off installing the new one as well. Mr S-P has many, many talents, but teaching his wife anything is not one of them. He uses terms that I don't know well and gets very upset when I repeat his words back at him because I didn't understand what he was telling me. I've told him often that we do not speak the same English, but he always takes offense when I insist that he is more precise in his word choices. Eventually we arrived at an accord, and thanks to our joint efforts the sink and soap dispenser are now in place. It's a huge improvement over what was there.

I intended to take a short break for a bowl of ice cream, and then go start the faucet in the hall bath before bedtime. Once I sat for a while, with a giant soft-pawed kitty boy in my lap, my enthusiasm for plumbing upgrades started to diminish. The same happened with the Mister. He opened a glass of wine and went out to sit by a fire while I stayed in to blog (and drink wine). Our time is running out quickly, but there is only so much energy to be had in a middle aged couple of DIYers. The next five days are going to be nuts. But man, is this place going to be spectacular when we are done.

One Last Bonfire

Inspirational song: Meet On the Ledge (Fairport Convention)

On any normal Saturday, the things we accomplished by early afternoon would count as a very productive day. We looked at our schedule for the day, and sighed dispiritedly, knowing we were behind the power curve. I blogged early (relatively) last night, so we could turn our overachieving behinds to grouting the tile we laid in two different bathrooms. We wrapped up at 0100, and woke around 0630 to finish washing the grout haze off the tiles. We hit the ground running, painting inside and out, packing up the Model T computer, mowing the grass (these last two were thankfully not my jobs), and then we took off for the auto shop out in the country, to install the transmission in the Jeep. I even helped, operating the engine lift, and it still took twice as long as Mr S-P predicted it would. We came home to more work, but despite our best efforts, we still haven't managed to install a single toilet upstairs in the remodeled bathrooms. Eventually we had to stop working, because we were obligated to play.

Tonight was our last real Bonfire. It's not the last time we will be with the gang, and it might not be the last time we are on the premises of Bonfire Gardens. But this was the last party night with all of us together before we are moved to higher elevations. I'm not ready to share everything from this evening. I need to hold it close and squeeze all the emotion out of it while it's fresh. I'm afraid if I don't wallow in it now, I will waste the good parts. Suffice it to say that most of it was worth imprinting on my memory, and a few little gems may end up being inside jokes forever. Especially if we can create a drink worthy of the name "rusty steelhead." It will most likely involve Guiness and Kentucky  bourbon.

I felt an instant attachment to South Carolina when we moved here. I love it down here, and I don't really want to leave it. As much as I love the Low Country and all it has to offer, no one part of it can hold a candle to Bonfire. I have always been accepted and at peace when I'm there. It's where I go to feed my soul, let my hair down, and release my frustrations. It's a magical garden full of art and creativity, with a side of hedonism. It will stand as the best part of some of the best years of my life. While this chapter is closing for me, I truly believe there will be epilogues. We will meet again. We will come back to visit, and we will demand that the denizens of Bonfire road trip out to see us. This may look like an end, but it is really just intermission.

Jalopies

Inspirational song: Cars (Gary Numan)

I knew what I was getting into. When I was barely 20 years old, and this cute blond guy kept coming in to the office on campus where I worked, I had hints that my life would be like this. Our first "date" was a cold, snowy day in early January, when I convinced him not to ride his bicycle on his errands, but rather to let me drive him. We went to his storage unit and then to an auto junkyard, to get a part to fix his 1971 Datsun 510 wagon. A day or two later, he picked me up to go hang out at one of his friend's apartments, and he had left his car running in my parking lot, for fear that it wouldn't start again when we came back out to start our second date. All of my family tenses up a little whenever I use his name and the word "car" in a sentence. Our friends used to gauge how good or bad a group camping event was going to be by how bad our car trouble was on the way to the campsite. (It was an inverse relationship: bad car trouble = good event, no car trouble = our group getting kicked out of Sand Dunes National Monument and having a group member roll her car on the way out.) He once reached down on the side of the road, where we were broken down, and grabbed a smashed soda can to bridge the faulty circuit in his Datsun's electrical system to restart his engine. I knew the kind of guy I married.

He raised daughters who love a good jalopy. He bought a 1986 Toyota 4Runner for our older daughter to rebuild when she was 15, so she'd know her way around an engine. That car has stuck around ever since, needing not one but THREE new engines, and having been stolen and retrieved at least once. I hate it and it hates me. That is not going to change. The younger daughter once had the newest car in our family, when she got a PT Cruiser that was a mere four years old at the time. It sat, gathering cobwebs and mold, in the reserved parking place for the condo we just sold, for most of the last year. Daddy finally got the car running a few weeks ago, and I think daughter is finally ready to see it turned in to a dealer for an upgrade. At least she is considering it. If she's anything like her father (she is), it will take her a year to decide what kind of car to replace it with, and another year finding the exact one she wants.

I'm the patient wife who doesn't complain when the lemon Cherokee engine is being rebuilt on the living room floor. (I was actually interested in learning a little on that one.) I've put up with project cars lying dormant in my back yard, garage, and driveway (one time all three places at once). Two years ago I got the only brand-new-with-warranty car I've ever had, and possibly the last, if past is prologue. It feels amazing to have a car that I don't have to worry about. I feel like a queen when I drop in unannounced for my oil change at the dealership.

For the last couple days, the hood has been up on the pickup truck. I asked yesterday what the deal was, and he said the transmission has been shifting very hard. I remembered noticing that, and didn't ask any more questions. That truck has been a workhorse, and we have driven the hell out of it. It's towed trailers to Colorado twice already since winter, and we were looking at doing it again in a few weeks. Somewhere just after it rolled over 250,000 miles (recently), he did an oil change, and he added a little transmission fluid this week. This morning it gasped and tripped coming home from buying paint and lumber. This afternoon, on the way to picking up the project Jeep's transmission, it passed out on the side of the road. The man had it towed to the shop that was his destination anyway, and got an estimate for time and cost to re-rebuild the transmission, something that was done in New Mexico five years ago. This really puts a new layer of pressure on everything we are doing right now. We have no hauling vehicle to get supplies for the house, nor for removing the old carpeting to the dump (saves us a reasonable chunk off the cost of new carpet). But we look at it this way: the timing is actually good for us. Imagine, he said, that the engine crapped the bed three hours into our final drive with all of the animals, when we move. Indeed. Wouldn't be the first time car trouble stranded us and our pets on a major cross country move. In fact, I'm trying hard to name a single move when that did NOT happen...

One Down

Inspirational song: Bittersweet (Big Head Todd and the Monsters)

I might be trying to swim through the tequila in my brain to form sentences right around now. Who's to say? Okay, it's a definite. The bartender had a heavy hand at the restaurant tonight. Don't expect me to make sense through every single sentence in this installment, because I'm really not trying to.

We both wish we had accomplished far more today than we did, but we did the most important thing on the schedule. We were available for phone calls from our realtor and my brother in law, while the BIL signed closing documents for us. The condo is no longer ours. I'm a little sad about that, but the big wad of cash that will appear in our savings account by morning will help alleviate that sadness. I liked that condo, and I liked more how much we had done to provide a secure place for our daughter to live while she was in school. I'll have to do the math to be sure, but it might have been the place she lived for the longest in her entire life. That is a bit of a shock to realize. We moved so many times, that place represents the most stable environment she ever had. And by the end, after the flood, it stressed her out so much that she couldn't wait to be out of it. I think I'm back to being sad, and it has nothing to do with the fishbowl margaritas we had to celebrate finally selling the unit. I hope overall she has more positive memories of it than negative. Either way, it's part of the past now.

I painted a lot more trim today. It was nearly impossible to keep cats out of the wet paint. Every few minutes, someone small walked between me and the loaded paintbrush in my hand. Each wet windowsill was walked on before it was ready. I don't know whether to assume cats are assholes, or whether their reputation as "aloof" creatures is way overrated. They are the neediest animals around. We woke this morning to find footprints on the tiles we stayed up late last night setting. I hope that mortar scrubs off easily. Otherwise it will be me and a razor blade scraper, cursing each animal's name until the floor is clean. They're sweet and all, but they are a royal pain sometimes.

Busy Bees

Inspirational song: Keep On Working (Pete Townshend)

I can't believe that each day is really only a single day. So much happens from midnight to midnight that I am just sure each day is a week long. I've gone through three or four different topics I was sure I was going to write about, but by nighttime, I can't remember why each one seemed important enough to discuss, over anything else. It's past 10 now, and I am settling on "whipping out a quick post" so I can get put to work being a tiling assistant, and then collapse into bed without obligations once the tile is laid in the second half of the master bath and whole of the hall bath. Yes, we are starting to do this at 10:20 at night. I just ran off to the computer while we wait the 10 minutes for the mortar to cure after the mixing. Enjoy your normal life, kids.

The short list of what I think we've done today is interview the yard maintenance "crew" (a young man to mow our lawn), get the house measured for new carpet, learn that the wrong door guy was sent from Lowe's (they sent a storm door guy, not deck door guy), clean and scrub, pack some pottery, empty the living room of all the boxes and crap so I can stage it, paint the mailbox, spray plants for powdery mildew, start tiling (about to finish), and individually we managed to get a massage (him) and play a long game of mah jongg (me). There was more. Much more. I would love to go fall in bed now, but the bathrooms need a floor. I have to keep working.

One last thought, I came around the corner with a bag of trash today, and found the most amazing flower display. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Crunch Time

Inspirational song: Time (Alan Parsons Project)

At any normal time in our lives, time passes gently. We think nothing of letting two weeks go by before we remember to get to some project or event. Now, suddenly, we have three weeks left before we are gone forever, and we are losing our minds over little delays. The transmission for the husband-sitter (project Jeep) was dropped off at the shop five weeks ago. The man made the mistake of telling them he was going away for a few days, so it wasn't a critical rush. They shelved it and never even glanced at it, until he went in a couple weeks later, and found that it was just sitting on the floor, gathering dust. He made another unscheduled visit this morning, and told them that by the end of the week he would either be picking it up and paying for the work they had done, or just picking it up. Either way he will be leaving with it. We keep adding in tasks that must be done immediately, like correcting a power of attorney (because having a middle initial versus a middle name spelled out is apparently a huge problem) or paying in person for someone to come measure for carpets, and the crucial elements of packing and prepping are getting pushed down the priority list. I'm responding by shutting down, and my counterpart is responding by having a hair trigger and no sense of humor. We forget just how much we hate moving until we are in the thick of it. We both wish we could say this was the last time ever. It might not even be the penultimate time. There will be more moves, more stress.

Inventory is drying up in the housing market we're trying to enter. Most of the houses seem to get listed on Fridays or Saturdays, and are assumed to be gone by the following Monday or Tuesday. That worked to my advantage when I was listing my condo (which should be closed on Thursday, god willing and the creeks don't rise), but as a buyer, it sucks. There is no chance anything I look at today will still be available when we finally get out of here and get on the market, or worse, when we get a contract on this place. I don't know why I bother to look sometimes. It's going to be a harsh summer, waiting for the Park to sell and trying to get a winning bid on a house out West.

I looked at one house that listed six days ago (which is, in all likelihood, under contract now). It was so perfectly preserved that it was eerie. It was like stepping back into my grandparents' house in Seminole, Oklahoma, from 1977. The furniture was vintage but immaculate, all the wallpaper and fixtures original and in perfect condition, and even the chatchkis were straight out of the Carter era. I could feel every texture, from the macrame plant hanger to the nubby white bedspread to the pushbuttons on the electric coil stove, by looking at the pictures. I wish I was there to tour this time capsule before it sells. It was fantastic.

The last big club event of the year was tonight. I have a perfect record. In more than a decade of playing end of the year bingo every year, at chapters of this club in three states, I have yet to win a single round of bingo. And now, when I'm about to leave and probably never join another group like this, I did nothing to mar my record. Did not win one hand nor one doorprize drawing. Ah, well. Why start now? It was nice to have one last evening with the ladies. I will miss so many of them. I will probably never have another chance to see most of these women, the ones there tonight, and the ones from the last several years of constantly fluctuating membership. I have to believe that someday I will cross paths with the ones who meant the most to me. It depends on how quickly time passes from here on out.

Not Just Another Day

Inspirational song: What Is Life (George Harrison)

The last two years, I have poured my heart into my Memorial Day post. This year, I lack the words to fully express how I view this holiday. I am grateful beyond comprehension that of those who mean the most to me, those who have served this country have all returned home alive and primarily intact. Most of my family and closest friends who fit this description have completed their military contracts and are now moved on to different phases of their lives. I feel an emotion similar to survivor's guilt, knowing that my loved ones are safe, but thousands of families cannot say the same. My heart goes out to those families, who have to find the balance in their memories between pride and grief. I offer respect to them. I wish I could offer more that would be of comfort.

We accomplished a lot today, even though the man keeps trying to suggest we haven't. He finished ripping apart our master bath last night, to re-install the tile that popped up after less than a year (and grout that cracked as a result). This time it should be a bit more flexible, with a polymer blend in the mortar. We may never know whether that is enough to compensate for the temperature extremes that happen in the floor of the poorly-insulated room over the front porch. While I stayed out of his way this afternoon so he could tile without interference, I scooped all the detritus out of the dining room and piano bar, getting it 90% of the way staged for real estate photos. Unfortunately most of the crap that I moved, plus another half-dozen boxes from the attic, are now piled in the TV room. I have to organize and stage every room on the ground floor at once, because nearly every room is visible through doorways from every other place on this level. I even need to do a sweep outside where bright blue Lowe's buckets and faded candy-colored outdoor rugs are visible through the windows all around. I started touching up the trim paint as well, and I'm very glad I did it. Things look so much brighter in the living room where the paint is fresh. I need to run it all the way around the whole place, and the man will do the same on the outside. The house will look like it's wearing brand new white ribbons threaded through its hair, like a cute little debutante.

Tonight was the 110th installment in our multi-part series, entitled "We have too many things we have to do, so we are going to ditch our responsibilities and go hang out with friends." We take a lot of mental health breaks around here. I admit, I do encourage it. Or perhaps enable it. Or maybe you could just call me the instigator. I'll cop to that. But which would you rather do? Tile a bathroom floor or go to a Birthday Party/Memorial Day BBQ?

Make It Disappear

Inspirational song: Mr. Cellophane (Chicago)

I came to a realization today, about all the things we have been working on for weeks, and will keep doing. We don't want anyone to see them. Not really. We are working our butts off in order to make things blend in and disappear. While I was repainting the shutters on the front, and the man was painting the trim, covering up rusty screw heads, it came to me. I don't want a potential buyer to walk up to the house and think, "Hm, the trim looks terrible. That's a project. Oh, look. Cats have shredded the window screens. I'll lower my offer, and pay someone to replace those. I'll bet the windows are old like the screens and have to be replaced too. That's several thousand dollars. Maybe I just won't buy." Instead, the Mister has already replaced all the screens, so if anyone looks, they'll see that the windows are young and in good shape. All the trim paint is fresh and new. The only impression it gives is that of being clean. Buyers will see past the trimmed trees or powerwashed driveway and focus instead on selling features like the remodeled master bath, closet organizers, or the new carpet that will be here in a few weeks, and hopefully think those magic words, "I could just move right in." Every thing we do from here on out is in search of someone who will say that as soon as they walk up on the porch.

We have been incredibly indecisive over whether to replace the door to the deck. The trim is in bad shape, the threshold is shot (lets water in which damaged the floor), and it just opens in an awkward way that we have always disliked. Today we finally took the plunge and ordered a new door. This one doesn't just open on one side, but opens both doors from the center, and will make the deck feel like a part of the house. During every part of the year except spider season, that will be terrific. There were a lot of times I wished I could have just made that wall disappear to join the deck and kitchen. All the design shows talk about "bringing the outside in." The phrase is overused nonsense now, but if it makes that one buyer picture herself living in my house, then I will have done my job correctly.

My time is running short, and my energy is fading with it. I have tried to reach out for help from some of my friends, but the man keeps cutting me off, saying we don't need it. I don't know who he thinks he is, or more importantly, who he thinks I am, but I could use another couple hands getting the bushes trimmed, weeds pulled, and boxes stacked in the garage. If you've talked to him about it, and he said don't come, take it from me and don't listen to Mr S-P. Mrs S-P would happily take some company and assistance. I won't work anyone too hard, but it sure would be nice to have someone to talk to while we divide and conquer.

An Un-Made Woman

Inspirational song: Oklahoma Song (Hoyt Axton)

It's probably my favorite conditional phrase: "God willing and the creeks don't rise." Rarely do I use it literally, but it seems appropriate right around now. All of my family back in Oklahoma and Colorado, and even some in California have been watching the rains for a while now, and wondering when all this water from the sky is going to translate into unhealthy amounts on the ground. A few years ago, the Central Plains states were suffering under exceptional drought, the kind California is feeling now. I keep the drought map overlay on my NOAA radar app that I consult frequently, and I have been watching the severity of the drought diminish in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado (and grow in the Golden State). My Okie friends and family are complaining about the water, but I'm just hoping it's all sinking down and refilling those big aquifers that we all thought were never going to replenish. My Colorado kids are a little more skittish, having gone through catastrophic floods so recently, and having waited so long for homes to be restored to usable conditions. Even my girl in California is learning that the sound of a heavy thunderstorm brings back bad memories of 2013. Yet for all of that poignant knowledge of the fury of too much water, my daughter suggested that what she would like to do for her birthday this summer is to go tubing on Boulder Creek. Hey, kiddo, what say we wait until the creeks UN-rise, shall we?

I have been stuck on one task for weeks. I have had so many dominoes that needed to fall, but until I knocked out the first one, nothing else was going to happen. I tried packing a few things, but I need to get rooms perfectly clean and staged for real estate listings before I can completely strip them, pack up furniture, and pull art off the walls. I tried day after day to make a dent in the office/guest room, but it was absolutely impenetrable. In my mind, this was the key to unlocking everything. I needed to fix this room, and then I could empty everything upstairs into the two spare bedrooms. After that, it would be no problem to finish downstairs. Finally today, I found the right thread to unravel, and got the room clean and staged. Lots of things, like the old Model T computer, have just been pulled out and set in the other room, but papers have also been sorted and trash has been identified and removed. Suddenly a weight has been lifted off of me, and I am unstuck. I can find my way through this maze. I progressed from the office to the dining room, filling a couple liquor boxes, packing up the sewing machine, and nearly uncovering the table. By mid-day tomorrow, I should be able to stage that room for pictures as well, and then I'll really be off to the races. My time is running short. I need to have it all ready to load in a truck in just under two weeks. It's about time I sorted this nonsense out.

By sundown, we were ready to go to Bonfire Gardens to unwind a little bit. It's sinking in to all of us that there are only so many trips over there left we can make. I have to work hard not to get weepy when I think about it, and I am not the only one. I am going to spend the next several years trying to convince the Bonfire Leader to follow me out West, but she insists that is never going to happen. She swears she doesn't want to leave the beach and the warm climate. Well, if the climate keeps changing, her Gardens will be beachfront property whether she wants them to be or not. So if the oceans rise, years from now, I'll be waiting in the hills for her to throw in her towel and join us at Park West. She'll always be welcome there, even if it takes her a decade to accept the inevitable.