anniemiz

Thursday Thrift: Fix It First

Today's topic is fixing stuff before throwing it out, if possible.  I think there's some catchy phrase for this concept, a la Reduce! Re-use! Recycle!, but I can't think of it at the moment.  The idea is pretty basic: if you can, fix something before you throw it out only to buy another one to replace it.

Today's example #1 is the shower curtain.  The shower curtain's  a few years old.  It was in pretty good condition except for a) a few tiny holes that don't affect its usage and that I'd be hard pressed to find if I had to and b) about half of the shower curtain ring holes had ripped.  Especially the ones on the end, which does affect how well you keep the water in the shower and off the bathroom floor.  Typically, one would buy a new shower curtain and, I confess, I have done that in my more frivolous past, but no more!  I've signed on with that Dyson guy: 'I just think things should work properly.'  Amen, brother!

And so with the shower curtain, I think, 'Why aren't they designed in such a way so that the holes last as long as the remaining 99.5% of the curtain?'  It's like throwing away your winter coat bc a couple of buttons fell off.  So, a while back, I had read about somebody who put grommets (I really like the sound of that word, for some reason) on his shower curtain.  Also a while back, I bought a grommet kit.  I (well, Kevin did most of the work, but I did the all important jump starting of the project!) recently got around to putting the grommets on the curtain.  No before pictures, but here's a picture afterward:

 

So I fully expect this thing to last a good long time.  I dunno if I'll keep it that long bc, as you can see from the circa late 1960s/early 1970s wallpaper, the bathroom is in dire need of a makeover and the curtain may not work in the new look.  But it will last until that new look comes along (which will probably be a good long time) and perhaps beyond for someone else.

Example #2 is the dishwasher rack.  I do have a before picture bc the dishwasher (which is a portable one) was leaking and we were thinking about selling it/giving it away so I took pix to email/post somewhere.  But then I decided to look into repairing it.  I think Kevin thinks I found the necessary part and fixed it myself, but actually I called a local appliance repair guy (Kevin used to read my blog at work, but it's behind a firewall now, considered 'entertainment' or 'non-essential' or something like that, and for some reason he never reads it at home so, bottom line, he doesn't read it anymore and so my secret is safe with the rest of the world).  I paid $70 for the guy to come out, figure out the problem, clean out some gunk.  When the part came in, I paid $110 for the part, but he didn't charge me anything more for the second visit to put it in.  So $180 to fix it.

But it did still have these rust spots and the tops of many of the prongs were rusted. I bought this uber goop stuff fixed a bunch of the rusted spots and caps.  Before:

 

It's kinda hard to see the rusty areas in the above picture.  After:

 

And:

 

I would like to get more caps and do most, if not all, of the remaining ones.  So, for about $190 (plus $10-$20 for more caps and goop), it will be fixed. For now.

It might develop some major problem that would preclude fixing it v. buying a new one.  Decent new ones go for about $500.  And I have to say that I have zero complaints about this dishwasher.  It has been a real workhouse for over 10 years; I forget when we got it; maybe 15 years ago now.  And, since the kitchen is in even more dire need of a makeover, I'm happy to just have this one last until then (whenever that is).  For two people, we manage to run it almost every day, sometimes twice in one day.  We do cook and bake a lot at home and Kevin does manage to use the maximum number of pots and pans when he's in the kitchen.  We do use real plates (from thrift stores and old ones we had) for the cats bc they seem to do better with them versus paper plates.  It was more important when we had cats that took their medicine in their food; the medicine stayed in the food until the food was gone and didn't get absorbed into the paper plate.  Plus, although we are washing the plates in the dishwasher, we're also not throwing out tons of paper plates.  And the paper plates end up everywhere!  They slide all over the place...under furniture, only to be found months later...and they flop over easy...onto carpeting.  Ick.

Well, I gotta go get ready for work.  Ciao, bellas! 
 
 

Howdy, Neighbor!

This little guy is the cutest neighbor evar!!1!  I've been trying to get a picture of him for some time now, but I never have my camera handy, but yesterday the stars aligned and I got these pictures.

 

This groundhog has been hanging around for a while now, munching his way through various yards' vegetation.  That's the neighbor's shed in the picture above.  Doesn't it look like Mr. Groundhog is heading home after a long day of eating?

At this point, I think he heard me as I was taking pictures of him from my back porch.  He started to go under the shed...he often goes under there...but then he hung out front a little longer.

Here he's all, 'Just hanging out in mah front yard, enjoying the crisp autumn day.'

He eventually moseyed on past the shed...

...and around the corner...

...no doubt to work that part of his back four.  I guess he's getting ready for winter.  You should see him when he hurries...galump, galump!  So cute.  I wonder if his fur is very soft...maybe it's rough or coarse.  For some reason, I think of him as a male, although I suppose it could be a female.  I've already designated as female a neighbor's pretty cat who also hangs out in our backyards.  She's probably a female bco coloring usually occurs in female cats.  So I'll make this critter Mr. Groundhog.
 

Irises

Kevin planted a bunch of irises last fall and they're starting to show themselves.  A nice, clean white:

 

A variegated purplish blue:

Not irises at all, of course, but cheerful interlopers nonetheless:

A soft bi-color:

  

Another bi-color:

 

That's Kevin in the background, doing a final sanding on a door from a dining room closet.  He used a heat gun, then chemicals and then good old-fashioned elbow grease.  Thanks, Kev!

Numbers 81 and up are out of luck.

I am ready!  Ready, that is, for up to 80 trick or treaters on Halloween.  I've long wanted, and I don't know why, to either:

• give out full size candy or

• give out small bags of fun size candy.

It's been fun handing out gobs of candy, but I thought it would be fun to do something a little different.  Halloween is a fun holiday.  I've always thought that it's one of the best holidays for kids.  Candy?  Check.  Costumes?  Check.  Run around with your friends?  Check.  At night?  Check.  Scare people?  Check.  Pretend to be something you're not?  Check.  What's not to like?

So I got myself some Halloween paper bags and stickers.  I already had bunches of candy (minus the piece or two [or three or four...] I ate).  And now I've got 80 of these:

 

The bags are closed by stickers like on the one front and center.  Halloween is on a Friday this year and the weather forecast is for a clear night.  I wonder if I should get more.  It'd be horrible to run out and have to turn away some evil ghoul.  It'd be just my luck that the empty handed kid turn out to be an actual ghoul with the power to control my soul forever and use it for evil.

For your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of Tom, infamous Stuff On My Cat unofficial poster boy.

 

Happy Halloween!

In His Spare Time

Kevin's been working very hard on painting the dining room.  The house is about 85-90 years old and the dining room walls are the original plaster with decades of paint over it.  Flaky, garish paint.  Kevin scraped and sanded until either he hit plaster or the paint stopped flaking off.  If he's said it once, he's said it 42 times: 'Prep work is crucial to a good paint job.'

Down to the nub:

With a coat of primer:

Once again we enlisted the help of our neighbor, Sandy, to choose colors for us.  Let's see if I can remember the color numbers and find them online.  Hmm hmm hmm....

Okay, I think I can link you to the colors.  Go here to look at Benjamin Moore's paint chips.  Choose 'Historical Colors' from the drop down menu.  IIRC, the walls will be Georgian Brick HC-50 and the trim will be Peale Green HC-121.  Dark!  I think of the new colors as the old colors, just much darker.  I do tend to go too light when choosing paint colors.

The Benjamin Moore website also has this thing where you can play with colors in different kinds of rooms.  Huh.  Maybe I should have done that before buying the paint.  I just did it and I like it.  Whew!

He'll paint the living room, which is off of the dining room, next in the same colors.  We got some light fixtures for those rooms and the foyer (the rooms all run together).  After painting, we'll get the floors refinished.  At least, we hope we can get them refinished.  They're not in great shape and there are some fixes that are much more practical than attractive (e.g., small pieces of floorboard that were inserted for a fix, but inserted perpendicular to the original floorboards).  It's an oak floor, but it is not the original floor.  The original pine floor is underneath; you can see its underside from the basement.  I don't know what kind of condition it's in on the floor side.  I don't mind that the floor's imperfect, unlevel and kinda funky in spots.  I like old houses precisely bc they look lived in and not just by us, but by lots of people before us with their own stories.  So yeah, get the floors done.  Then we can get dining room furniture!  And we'll be able to sit down at a nice table!  And have more than two people over for dinner!

We bought my mom a glider at Snyder's Furniture in PA; we'll probably pick it up next week.  That was a task, finding an unupholstered glider.  Saint Bridget insisted that she does not like upholstery and wanted the plainest chair possible.  It's hard to tell how much of that is actual personal preference and how much is martyrdom and wishing to save us money.  Aargh.

Anyway, when we were there we looked at their dining room stuff, liked it and might get our stuff there.  I like the Mission style furniture.  One thing that annoys me about dining room chairs with arms is when the arms don't reach the end of the seat.  Most uncomfortable if one wants to sit and yammer on for hours after dinner with their friends.  I think they have a lot of other stuff there that's not on the website.

Seeing as I'm becoming the domestic diva, what with my forays into cooking and knitting, I'm considering making the curtains for the dining and living rooms myself.  Nothing fancy, just panel curtains that can be hung on rings with 3/4 lace sheers underneath.  I basically want the same style curtains for almost every room.  E.g., we have curtains similar to these in the Mens' Room, hung on brass rods like these, using rings like these, and 3/4 length lace sheers like these.  The 3/4 length is so that the cats can sit in the windows without having/getting to fuss with the sheers.  We think of everything.  You know, it might have been easier to find a picture.  Let's see what we can find.

Okay, here we go; this was taken shortly after Kevin repainted Slimmie's room.

Let's just take a moment to remember our dear boy, Slim.

Mwah!

Why bother making curtains?  Well, for one thing, about half of our windows have radiators under them.  Most curtains that I can buy are too long (even if only by a few inches as you can see in the above picture) and end up bunching up on top of the radiator or behind it.  Unattractive.  I also don't like the idea of the fabric in contact with radiators.  If they're just panels, I should be able to handle that, although I would like to line them with insulating and/or blackout material.  Of course, I will consult with Sandy next door wrt fabric selection.

Thanks for all your hard work, Kev!

Earnestness Avoided

So anyhoo...........just hanging out, wiiiiiiiiiiiiide awake, wondering what to blog about.  I have a number of things to write about, but I don't have the inclination to go into anything remotely heavy right now.  E.g., I want to write about earnestness; demands on/requests for one's earnestness; how to best distribute one's earnestness; how to best distribute societal earnestness; etc.  E.g., Alas, A Blog is on my blogroll.  The peeps there post about a lot of issues.  Some of the issues are important to me.  Often, there are interesting posts about these issues.  Yet more often than not, I end up avoiding Alas, A Blog and head straight to Apostropher in the hopes that the folks there have posted something that will make me laugh.  Or at least not bring me down.

Yes, I agree that: racism sux; sexism sux; poverty sux; the war in Iraq sux beyond belief; that stuff sux sux; etc.  But a person could get all the way from waking to retiring dealing with the vast vastness of suckitude that affects the issues they consider important.  I feel that, if I think an issue is important, I should keep current.  And do something on behalf of the cause.  But just reading the current stuff about important issues could take me from morning to night.  I can't be doing that.  (a) It's unproductive.  (b) What a fucking drag.  And no, I don't expect issues like sexism, racism, etc. to be entertaining, but I also don't want to spend my waking hours on a permanent downer.

And then I think, Is it wrong to want to be happy most of the time?  There are people who ignore the niceties of life iot devote more of their time and effort toward The Cause.  I know those people are out there bc they've shared their passion and enthusiasm with me (and others).  I know they're out there bc I've seen the sacrifices they've made iot better serve The Cause.  I know they're out there bc I've smelled them.  But I don't want to sacrifice such niceties of life as those that keep one's body odor at a socially acceptable level and one's teeth in situ.  Call me shallow, but it makes me happy to have a few cats, a decent home, regular dental care and Dial soap (among yes, so many other things).  I thought it doesn't take much to make me happy, but when I think about all the important things that need to be addressed and how much work it would take...maybe I could have a smell sandiwch* for lunch all week long?

But like I said, I don't want to blog about this right now.  So, what else is new?  The carpet cleaners come tomorrow to try and save the carpet upon which HG spewed his unearthly leavings.  That linked photo, btw, does not do the spew justice.  We moved the bed out of the guest room tonight, which should have the happy consequence of making it easier for the carpet guys to do their mojo in there.  It did have the unhappy consequence of revealing a CSI-worthy splatter of what I think is Yoohoo.  Does it strike anyone else as odd that a grown man drinks Yoohoo?  And why would one drink Yoohoo when one could put chocolate syrup in milk and drink something that actually tastes good?  As an aside, HG would often buy Hershey's chocolate milk.  Now I don't want to discourage anyone from buying Hershey anything (I have a little stock in it; your Hershey purchases will contribute in a small, but much appreciated, way to my retirement**), but I did mention that we had Hershey's chocolate syrup and he should feel free to use it to add to his milk and make chocolate milk.  Milk is expensive.  (I read an article recently about the recent increase in food costs.  Recently. Dairy prices have increased 11% since this time last year.)  Chocolate milk is even more expensive and stupidly so.  Does HG think making chocolate milk is a good idea?  No.  Why?  Bc apparently anything that would save him money and make him less poor is a bad idea.  He didn't actually say that; I attribute that reasoning to him bc I also don't know why he'd spend $100/week on cigarettes and an untold amount on scratch off lottery tickets when he can barely afford pain medication, but wtf do I know?

In other news, although I continue knitting squares for Kevin's afghan, I have decided to interject a new knitting project: a baby blanket.  I like alternating texture, like in this baby blanket.  There's a little of that going on in Kevin's afghan, too.  I hope to finish the blanket before niece #7 is born.  I make no promises, however, as I previously tried to knit a baby blanket for an impending baby and it's still incomplete years later.  Thing is, wrt that blanket, it was one of the first things I tried to knit and, quite simply, it wasn't on.  So many mistakes!  So many dropped stitches!  So many lost counts!  It's a wonder I found the fortitude to pick up needles and yarn again.  Although an experienced knitter would consider the pattern easy, it was probably too involved for my first project.  I'm a better knitter now; I hope it will go a little better and faster.  I ordered the same type of yarn as the linked knitter used, but in lilac.  Actually, I thought I decided on yellow (such a happy color), but my order confirmation tells me otherwise.  Although ultrasound indicates that niece #7 is a girl, I thought it best to hedge my bets color-wise bc it ain't over til the pregnant lady screams.  Plus, girls get so much pink stuff thrown at them in life (oh, that's another thing that sux: pink oppression) that I loathe to add to it.

And that reminds me of something else I consider blogging about: So often I hear/read people talk about what little girls like/want/expect/dream about/etc.  And so often it's so not my experience.  Pink was never my favorite color; red was my favorite color for the longest time.  It might still be, although I must say I've grown quite partial to green, so much so that I can no longer be certain of my own favorite color.  The whole princess industry passed me by: thoroughly uninterested in being a princess.  Fairy tale weddings?  No interest.  Furthermore, I lacked (and continue to lack) any comprehension as to why one would like or want, nay, dream about this stuff.  So yeah, sometimes I've considered blogging about my lack of girly cred.

So I've basically just blogged about some things I didn't want to blog about.  I'm off to knit a few afghan squares and then call it a night before I start thinking about Issues of Great Import that require Immediate Attention.

*From one of the Tightwad Gazette books, a compilation of Gazette issues.  A reader sent this in as a way to save money on lunch (based on a Monday-Friday work week):

1. Sunday night, make this sandwich: mayo (or some other condiment, e.g., mustard), salami, cheese (go crazy), on bread.  Lettuce, tomato, etc. are okay, too.
2. Monday morning: Remove the salami and cheese.  Spread mayo on two new slices of bread.  Put the salami and cheese in between the new slices of bread.  Lettuce, tomato, etc. as desired.  Wrap this new sandwich and put in fridge.  Take the 'smell sandwich' of mayo, bread, lettuce, tomato, etc. to work for lunch. 
3. Tuesday through Thursday mornings: Repeat Monday.
4. Friday: indulge and take the whole sandwich to work for lunch.

**Why have stock in Hershey's, you ask?  I like to invest in stuff I like or at least like the idea.  E.g., I like Reese's peanut butter cups.  No, actually, I loooooovvvve Reese's peanut butter cups.  Those miniature ones are the death of me.  I can eat them like potato chips.  I think the saltiness of the peanut butter and the sweetness of the chocolate are set exactly so that the saltiness makes me want to eat something sweet and vice versa.  It's a vast confectional conspiracy.  I've also had stock in Rubbermaid (good products); Kellogg's (I ate their cereal); Coca Cola (anyone who knows me IRL knows of my most violent affections toward diet Coke).  IIRC, I have stock in Celgene, a biopharmaceutical company.  One of their products is Thalomid.  Yes, thalidomide.  It's now used for multiple myeloma.  I think I have some stock in some other bio company that does some cool stuff like grow body parts out of some cool bio-material.  I may not have that anymore.  My investment advisor has my permission to buy and sell, so I'll have to ask him about that before he leaves for work tomorrow morning.

One More Thing

After reading my post about our houseguest experience, Kevin added Lesson Learned #6:  Don't ever do this again.  Ever. Never ever ever ever ever.

Now, I don't feel so strongly about this #6.  I could see instances where both of us would be delighted to have someone stay with us for a while.  Kevin thinks I'm nuts bc I've invited a blogger and a student, neither of whom I'd met IRL, to stay with us when they were in the area and needed a place to stay for a few days.  The former was attending an unfogged meetup in NYC.  The latter was a foreign student who was looking for an apartment in NYC.  Why not?  It's not like I knew nothing about these people.  Plus, in both instances, my uncanny intuition supported the invitations.  I think it's fun to have people stay with us.  Of course, a few days is very different from a few months.

So I wouldn't make a Lesson Learned as rigid as Kevin's #6.  My #6 would be more along the lines of: Know more about the potential HG before deciding whether or not to invite them to stay with us.

But what to know about them?  And how much more to know?  E.g., I didn't imagine until this virgin HG experience that a HG could be such a blithe slob.  Temporary, victimless slobitude is one thing; slobitude that leaves marks is another.  The latter is unacceptable.

I also didn't realize until this experience how much I want to live with sensible people.  When HG did something weird, I'd wonder, 'What was he thinking?'  I soon began to wonder if he was thinking at all.  He seems peculiarly unobservant.  E.g., last night - obvs, this is fresh in my mind bc it screwed up Nosey's urine testing and annoys me to no end - we confined Nosey to a bathroom (the one HG uses) with a bed, food, water, an almost empty litterbox and a big sign on the door, 'Do NOT let Nosey out'.  The Plan is that Nosey will eventually urinate in the almost empty litterbox; it will be a relatively untainted urine sample; and we can use the home test strips to check his sugar.  Today, we were also going to give the urine to the vet to run another test that tells her what Nosey's sugar level has been over the last few weeks.  The Plan has been executed numerous times since HG's been here.

In the middle of the night, I hear HG get up.  As an aside, I expect to sleep a lot better once HG is gone.  He's kinda heavy-footed and -handed.  He also coughs and hacks up bits and bobs of his bronchial passages throughout the night.  Anyway, he goes into the bathroom.  Okay.  As he's coming out, I hear him talking to Nosey (he is fond of Nosey).  I don't hear the bathroom door close.  HG heads downstairs.  I do hear Nosey.  Sounds like he's out and about.

Now, if Nosey peed and one of us gets down there to test and bottle the urine before we can say for sure that no other cat contributed, we're okay.  If he hasn't peed since he's been in there, peeing in a regular litterbox was probably his first order of business upon his unplanned release.  That won't do us any good for test purposes.  And he probably won't need to pee for another 12 hours or so.

I was kinda snoozy and didn't really want to deal with it, but I did (by waking up Kevin and asking him to check on Nosey).  I waited too long, though, bc by the time I'd awoken Kevin and he went downstairs, Nosey had enough time to pee in a regular box.  So that confinement was all for naught.

The thing is, what was HG thinking?  He's seen this scenario before.  Nosey's been confined in that very bathroom several times before for this very purpose while HG has been here.  In fact, the foster kittens are confined in this way except for when Kevin or I take them out of their room.  Obvs, he blew past the sign on the door.  Still, once he was inside, did he think we'd accidentally locked Nosey up in the bathroom with food, water, a bed and an almost empty litterbox?  That we'd accidentally locked up Nosey with the exact same setup as the six or so previous times we'd intentionally confined him for urine testing?  I know it's the middle of the night, but it ought to register with any adult that any cat found confined in the bathroom might very well be there for a reason.

Again, it's probably bc I read too many privileged yet self-loathing peoples' blogs, but: I read over the above and think it's yet another form of elitism to want to live with sensible people.  Yes, I'm working with a very personal idea of what is a 'sensible' person.  Is there anything actually wrong or unsavory about wanting to live with people I actively like?  And with whom I can easily live?  I don't actively dislike HG, but I can't say I actively like him or that I'd expect that either of us would want to socialize with each other under other circumstances.  As I've mentioned before, it's like having a 50 yo son in the role of a 17 yo son who's moving out as soon as he turns 18, which is relatively soon, so I'll just hang in there until then.

I feel kinda bad writing about it here.  I don't expect that HG would find my blog.  I've never mentioned it, although I suppose he could google me and end up here if he pages through enough results.  It's not so much that I'd be embarrassed if he read this.  There's nothing here that I wouldn't say to HG, but I haven't said anything to HG.  I think I'm afraid of insulting him.  There's always also my preference for non-confrontation.  Furthermore, I don't expect anything to change.  E.g., I did ask him to keep the toilet lids down bc Edison will drink from the toilet, which we'd rather he didn't do.  It's been 50/50 wrt that request.  That's a pretty typical experience.  E.g., when Smudgie was still feeling ill and he hadn't yet been diagnosed with lymphoma, we told HG that Smudgie will sometimes poo outside this one litterbox in the half-bath so look first.  Well, I can't tell you how many times Kevin or I woke up to find that HG had gone in to use the bathroom, stepped in cat shit, threw his sock in the bathroom garbage and left the smeared shit on the floor.  Now, I don't expect him to clean up my cat's shit, but how many times does a person have to step in shit before they learn to look down first?  And please look before you swing the door, only to swing it over the shit, smear it on the underneath of the door and across the floor in an arc that corresponds to the range of the door's swing?  Cleaning cat shit off the bottom of a door is a pain in the butt.    I don't know how to say to someone exactly what I just said, i.e., 'Dude, how many times you gonna step in shit before you look down?'  OTOH, I previously couldn't imagine that someone would have to learn that the really, really, really hard way.  OTOH, how do you ask that w/o making someone feel like an idiot?

Full disclosure: I have done some stupid, shit-related stuff in my day.  The classic e.g.: Kevin and I stayed at a B&B in RI where the owners also stabled a few horses.  Hence, the horseshit in the rural yard.  After stepping indoors, the smell of horseshit seemed to linger behind us, like an unbidden guest.  I thought, 'I think I stepped in horseshit.'  I took off my sneaker, held it approximately 1" from my nose, inhaled and was able to definitively declare, 'Yup, this is horseshit' before passing out.  We had - and still have - such a laugh about that.  What was I thinking?  But I can assure you that I never put my nose so close to a potentially shitty substance ever again.  Lesson learned.

Verily, this has been a fascinating post to write, but I just realized the time and that I'd better get out of here and do some holiday stuff before it's too late!

I've Had A Few

A few months ago, Kevin and I invited someone to be our temporary houseguest.  Background: I met him at work; he's a patron.  He's also an electrician.  We had been looking for an electrician to do some odds and ends electrical work in our house.  We'd had some remodelling done a few years ago and the contractor left a bunch of little things, some electrical, unfinished.  How freaking annoying.  Anyway, he did a bunch of stuff for us and we were happy with his work.

It seemed to us like he'd fallen on hard times.  He lived in a motel.  He needed back surgery (not the incapacitating-for-weeks, in-traction kind), but didn't have insurance (although he does have a full time job as an electrician there's no insurance involved).  He was on pain meds for the back pain but didn't have insurance for that either.  He didn't have a car, although he did drive his boss's van (although he couldn't drive it for personal use except to get to and from work).  A few other problems added to his bleak situation.

He finally had the surgery bc the doctor told him he'd gone long enough living with it and it was getting to the point where if he didn't have it done he'd end up in a wheelchair before long.

He seemed like a decent fellow.  We both felt badly for him and we decided to ask him if he'd like to stay with us after his surgery.  He was living paycheck to paycheck.  Sometimes he was unable to pay for his pain meds.  And yes, we paid for them (and a few other things) a few times.  I know, I know, perhaps we do have the word 'SUCKA' branded on our foreheads.  We figured staying with us would allow him to not rush back to work, he wouldn't have to worry about paying the motel (and we weren't asking for rent), he'd only have to worry about his pain meds.  Basically, we figured he could rest for the two weeks the doctor suggested, then go back to work healthy and without danger of re-injuring his back bc he went back to work too soon, save some money and get himself better situated.

I don't regret the decision to offer our spare room to someone we perceived to be in need.  I do regret that we didn't go about it better.  Some lessons learned:

1. No smokers.  No ifs, ands or butts.  I don't care how little they smoke, smokers smell.  Like smoke.  And it gets everywhere.  Even though he had to smoke outside.   And our houseguest (whom I'll call 'HG') smokes a lot.  Camels.  Oofah.
2. Agree on a raison d'etre for the arrangement.  E.g., Kevin and I figured that someone in HG's position would prefer to live in a decent apartment rather than a motel and that they would use the opportunity to save some money and work toward that, among other goals.  It now appears that HG has just hung out for almost 4 months and will end up right back at a motel.  This has been frustrating for us bc, although we never expected HG to be accountable to us, it appears that he will be no better off when he leaves than when he arrived.  I.e., why should we have bothered?  In short, it seems like both parties had very different ideas of the purpose of the arrangement.  Purposes don't have to be exactly the same, but they should be compatible. 
3. Settle on an end date before anyone moves in.  I think HG would stay indefinitely if we didn't finally bring up an end date.  He does not appear to be one for planning.  AFAIK he never came up with a plan, even in his head, to make the most of temporarily free housing.  As a friend said, if she were in that situation, she would be doing something every day toward getting back on her own two feet, even something as small as telling everyone she meets that she's looking for an apartment in _________ at $X rent.  HG made some desultory searches for an apartment (once I'd brought up the idea that he has to leave sometime), but feels they all want too much in requiring first month's rent, last month's rent and security (brokered rentals also expect a month's rent to pay the real estate person, but there are plenty of non-brokered rentals around so that that fee could be avoided).  Well, those requirements are pretty standard.  I expect that HG has not managed to save up first month's rent, last month's rent and security in the time he's been here.  I am not familiar with the details of his finances, but from what he has said and what I know to be his expenses, I have no idea how he could not have saved up three months' rent.
4. Be socially compatible with each other.  This may sound a bit vague.  It might also sound a bit snobby.  I don't mean that all concerned need be in the same social group as defined by the people who study social groups.  What I do mean is that all concerned are on the same wavelength about the little things in homelife.  And there's a bit of that 'when in Rome' thing mixed in.  Furthermore, there's a bit of being more aware of what you do in someone else's home than you might be in your own home.  E.g., even if you see nothing wrong in urinating in your own backyard, do not do that in anyone else's backyard.  Do not flick your cigarette butts into Kevin's flower bed.  Especially a second time after you've witnessed Kevin cleaning them out of the flower bed.  Invest in a bathrobe; do not run between your room and the shower half-naked, especially when your host is right there.  Invest in a laundry basket of your own; do not dump out your host's laundry (clean or dirty) iot use one of their laundry baskets.  If you make coffee, do clean the pot and filter afterwards.  Do not ruin the carpet in your room (everyone has accidents and can cause the occasional stain; we're talking a path of dirt and who-knows-what-else-but-I-sure-don't-want-to-know).  Do not touch anyone else's thermostat.  Do wash your hands after using the bathroom.  Do brush your teeth.  Do try to vomit in a garbage can, a plastic bag, etc., and not on the bedclothes.  Rough estimate: if you and your potential HG agree on things like where to urinate, standards of cleanliness, basic hygiene, where to put garbage, where to vomit, etc., then you're probably socially compatible.
5. Have some way to evaluate how things are going along the way and to discuss problems.  In this situation, I might have felt more comfortable knowing that a chat was forthcoming every week (or two weeks or whatever) when I could ask questions and voice concerns.  As it was, I felt like I was nagging a 50 yo son.

I'm probably reading too many blogs written by over-educated, class-conscious liberals, but: sometimes I read over the above and I think about our situation and wonder if what I'm thinking and expecting isn't elitist.  Perhaps it's unfair to expect someone else to conform to my expectations.  Especially when they're on the receiving end of a favor.  Then I look at the dirty carpet in the guest room and realize that I'm going to have to hire someone to clean it (and hope they can) after HG leaves and that's just wrong.  It's the practice of returning the dish clean when someone gives you a pan of homebaked brownies, writ large.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I asked HG how his apartment search was going.  Good, good.  Also, could he be out by 12/31 bc relatives were coming to visit shortly after the New Year.  Sure, he said.  He'll be out by Christmas.  I highly doubt that.  I expect that 12/31 will find me reminding him that he has to be out by the next day, him tossing his stuff into black garbage bags and heading off to a motel.

It's been uncomfortable.  I expected that, even with the best of HGs and arrangements and preparation and effort on the part of all concerned, that there'd be some discomfort.  After all, living with another can't help but produce some kind of conflict, if only minor conflict.  I'm not experiencing unbearable discomfort.  It's the kind of discomfort that comes with knowing that something's not working out, but deciding to see it through to the end anyway, even though the remaining time is a real drag.  Maybe it's like couples staying together until the kids get out of high school.  Some days, like today, I am tempted to just say, 'HG, this isn't working out.  You're going to end up back at a motel anyway, so why don't you just go now?'  Then I think, 'No, we agreed to 12/31 and even if he tries to squat his way into 2008, I'll stick to 12/31'.  Perhaps I think that so that I can feel better about how things turned out.  I also think that my asking him to leave earlier would be akin to me passing judgement on him and registering disappointment in him.

So often, when Kevin and I discuss just about any aspect of this arrangement, we end up just shaking our heads and saying 'I don't know, I just don't know'.

Shnow Day!

Yes, the area is currently being incapacitated by a staggering 1"-2" - we're talking inches! - of snow. 

And I can totally dig it.

A snow day.

Just like way back in the day...when I was just a wee lass...and it was snowing...and I'd look out the window as it snowed...wondering, 'Will there be enough snow by morning to cancel school?  Will they have time to plow the roads and school won't be cancelled?  Should I do my homework or take the chance that school will be cancelled and not do it?'...and I had to listen to a radio to find out if school was closed...listening through some music, commercials, DJs yapping away, weather updates, blah blah blah, just get to the school closings already.  A radio, for dog's sake.

For a while today the snow was pretty, chunky flakes.  Now it's morphed into rain.  Yuck.  I do like the way the sound of precipitation of any kind seems to insulate the house sound-wise.  It's like a cocoon of sound that keeps out other sounds.

A big shout out to our young neighbor and power tool enthusiast, Danny: Thanks for snowblowing our walk!  You da man!

We may have to invest in a snowblower.  We never parked in the old garage bc it was on the verge - the verge, I tell ya - of falling down for about nine years.  Nine long years of tension.  Will it fall down today?  Today?  How about today?  Hoping the neighbor's big, listing oak tree will accumulate too much ice on its weary limbs, tumble down and take out our garage, thereby paving the way for insurance to cover the cost of building a new garage.  Alas, we eventually called in a contractor to do what Mother Nature would not do - take down the garage - and then build a new one.  Don't know if I ever got around to posting a picture of the garage, so here's a picture from when it was officially declared finished:

A big shout out to neighbor (and mom of aforementioned Danny) Sandy: Thanks for picking out the paint colors!  As I'm sure I've noted somewhere along the line, I no longer trust myself to choose things like paint colors, decorations, patterns, etc.  Basically, anything that requires a sense of style.  Bc I haven't any.  The house and garage look a bit white trashy (can something ever only look 'a bit' white trashy?  I.e., is white-trashiness something like being pregnant, further i.e., you either are or you aren't pregnant?) bc they don't match, but we'll eventually get the house painted to match the garage.

So now we have a garage that we actually use.  It's in almost the same place as the prior garage (almost bc current code calls for the new garage to be in 5' from the property line; the old garage was closer to the property line).

When we didn't use the old garage, we parked in the driveway closer to the street and/or the street.  At most, we - okay, Kevin - had to shovel two car lengths of the driveway.  Now, if there's shovelling to be done, we - okay, Kevin - need to shovel all the way to the garage.  I suppose we could just park in the driveway closer to the street again, thereby only requiring two car lengths of shoveling, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having had the garage built.  That might be okay for Kevin's vehicle, now that he's got himself a big burly truck.  But my car is too pretty to sit out in the snow.

Shovel.  Just now noticing how, like, medieval that word sounds.  Shovel.  Go ahead, say it out loud to yourself and wonder at its agrarianistic fortitude.

I was supposed to work tonight, but the library is closed bco the weather.  Found time.  I love it.

Enjoli!

He brings home the bacon and fries it up in a pan.  As mentioned here numerous times, Kevin is quite the cook.  I've had the good fortune to be on the receiving end of his culinary efforts the past two weekends.  Last weekend, Kevin grilled up some shish kebabs for us and our neighborly friend/friendly neighbor Carol.  This past weekend was our turn to host the Third Saturday Dinner (TM).  Although Kevin felt he shouldn't repeat his kebabs, especially since Carol is a founding member of the alternating dinners, I convinced him to, mainly bc I enjoyed them so much last weekend.  This past Saturday, friendly patron/patronly friend Cassie joined Carol, Kevin and me.  You know, Carol and I thought this Third Saturday Dinner thing would be fun, but Kevin's the one who's done most of the work for Third Saturdays at our house, which really isn't fair, considering that he had no hand in establishing the practice.

Ah, well.  So be it.  Can't change the past.  What's done is done.  Water under the bridge.  I suppose I should be more involved in the menus and, really, I will do more on future Third Saturdays at our place.

But he's just so good at it!  And he gets into it, thinking about the menu weeks before the date.  He cut up veggies for a veggie and dip platter for starters.  Assembled kebabs with chicken, beef, salmon, shrimps, scallops, peppers, onion and maybe some hot pepper things.  Marinated the assembled kebabs, which I think I prefer over marinating the meat before assembling, which he did last weekend.  Marinating the assembled kebabs resulted in the veggies being softer, though still with some crunch to them.  He cooked up a batch of yellow rice.  Rice always goes well with kebabs.  And I'm totally into that yellow rice these days...and some of those brownish ones, too.

Besides ice cream (buy one get two free at A&P!), we had the ever reliable banana pound cake I've posted about before, along with freshly whipped cream (the only way to go when you've got the time).  That cake is a trooper of a cake: it always turn out right, works as dessert at night and breakfast cake the next morning, i.e., you can't go wrong with it.

I only wish I remembered to take a picture of Kevin's dinner!  For some reason, I enjoy taking pictures of stuff we cook.  Fun stuff, not like Lean Cuisines and toast.  I don't intend to be like the guy who's taken pictures of everything he's eaten for 30+ years.  Not that there's anything wrong with what he's doing.  Some people knit.  Some people photograph everything they eat.    Whatever moves you.

I'm digging these Third Saturday Dinners.  The idea is to have a regular date set aside to have dinner, meet new people (in friends of the host), have some laughs, good food, stimulating conversation and, most of all, fun.  Seems like if you don't just set a date to get together, it often doesn't happen.  This upcoming weekend we're going to a party at a former neighbor's home.  It may have been this party last year was the last time we saw them.  Hazy, vague plans to get together often don't come to fruition.  Now, granted, these particular people live in another state now, so it's not like Carol, who lives a few blocks away.  Such proximity also negates the worry about drinking and driving bc you'd really need to drink an awful lot of alcohol to be unable to walk a few blocks home.  Which reminds me that Carol brought over the fixings, glasses and a blender (!) last weekend to make her newest thing: raspberry margaritas.  I had one, but they were quite tasty and I was thinking afterward that I really should have had at least another one.  I don't drink nearly enough.

One small problem we have is that we have this dinky kitchen table that we use for a dining room table, so we can only seat so many (so few, really) people.  But we don't want to get new dining furniture until the ceilings are redone.  Marty the electrician dude had to cut into the living and dining room ceilings, so when the sheetrockers come to sheetrock the garage, they'll do the ceilings.  That way, we won't get furniture delivered only to have to move it in (I hope) a few weeks when all kinds of stuff starts falling from the ceilings.  We also have delish new lights for the dining and living rooms, the latter of which didn't previously have a light.  It seems just a little odd to have an overhead light in a living room, but lamps can be so fussy and they can't be too far from an outlet and then there's not enough light in the center....  Turns out there had been a ceiling light some time ago, but not recently.  I think it will look fine.  I hope the lights suit the house.  The current dining room light is a ghastly combo light-fan thing from the 1970s.  I'm sure it was just the thing at the time, but that time has passed.  I'm also sure that, in future, someone will say that about our decorative touches.  It's the circle of life.

We are ever so slowly working on the house.  Really, how do those people do it who paint, refinish floors, install carpeting, etc. all in the weekend before they move into the house?  Especially when they do it themselves?  So, anyway, it's only been 12 years since we bought the house, and the garage has never been in a usable condition, and we're just now having a new one built.  We've outsourced choosing new paint colors to our neighbor, Sandy, bc she has taste and we don't.  Well, I certainly don't.  She's selected a lovely combination of colors to paint the garage and then, maybe in a year or so, the house.  It's a mossy green on the stucco layer (I talk like it's a cake), a goldish kind of color on the shingle layers and a brickish red for the trim.  I am so into brick red these days. Very warm and inviting.  And I've always liked green.  So reminiscent (sp?) of nature.  So suggestive of life, yet also so soothing and welcoming.

Well, I've gotta get some stuff done before I head out to work.