July « 2010 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

July, 2010

friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off
31
Jul 10

Starting the settling

Slept in a bit after the world’s longest day, which was preceded by two hours of sleep. As yesterday wound down I started the count. I think I’d had about nine hours of sleep in the previous three days. So it was a great relief to sleep this morning. I spent the first part of the day much like the TiVo, “Preparing to connect …”

Brian, who spent the night with us after the move, continued his routine awesomeness today by generally helping out with the handyman stuff and also building a bookshelf.

The Glomshelf

I stocked it with all of my Gloms.

We discovered that one of my wrenches is antique. It is a Craftman. Singular. They were only doing the one thing back then … It fell apart in my hands (Isn’t this the company that promises that won’t happen?) while I replaced a shower head. We had to save the wrench to install the washer connectors.

And then we decided to get new washer connectors. (I have a feeling the next few days on the blog will be about unpacking and trips to Lowe’s. If you want to avoid that, I don’t blame you. I want to, too.)

For instance: We discovered a few pieces of large Tupperware the previous owner so graciously left behind. I’m storing cables in it — so they stay fresh, you understand. I’ve discovered today we have a lot of cables. If you need any RCA, coax, cat-5 or USB cables, stop by and pick some up.

The Yankee set up the kitchen today. I pulled all of my books out of boxes and started juggling things in the office.

All the furniture is in place. Now we’ll just have the boxes, a ton of which are in the garage.

We met a neighbor. She’s a woman who moved here from California. She takes care of the grandchild while her son is doing his doctoral work. Nice job if you can get it, eh? Turns out her son served in Iraq and Afghanistan, will soon finish his PhD in engineering and then head north to teach for the rest of his career at West Point. Sounds like one together guy.

The neighbor already knew all about us. We’re no longer talking out in the yard, just in case the community has strategically placed microphones in the hedges.

We bought Brian, who is awesome, dinner at Niffer’s Place. He wanted corn nuggets and the man deserved corn nuggets. He’s sleeping them off tonight and then, having craftily avoided a baby shower, will head home tomorrow. (We’re trying to talk him into staying longer and diving into a few more of these boxes.)

Tried out the pool tonight. Triple-digit temperatures mean an exotically warm swimming experience. Sitting on the pool deck it was nice to just relax and not sweat. And then the moisture dried off, the warm summer air kicked in and, lo, at 11 p.m. at night we did begin to sweat again, while stationary.

It only reached 99 today … though I saw a bank sign that disagreed. If you stare at the heat wafting off the asphalt long enough it will rise into the shape of a number. And that number was 104. Who am I to disagree with the heat itself?

adventures / Friday / friends — 1 Comment
30
Jul 10

We hereby resolve …

… To never move in July or August again.

The heat index was 108 at one point. We are so glad we hired movers. This company sent two young men who worked hard, sweat a lot, were courteous, extremely careful and did a terrific job. Those two guys were worth every penny.

The company did the estimate based on our self-reporting and then a phone call. The person that conducted the phone call interview erred in a big way. We did not have a big enough truck. The company couldn’t see beyond this error, and I couldn’t see allowing the company to profit from its own mistake.

Meanwhile, those two guys were doing a great job moving a lot of stuff on a ridiculously hot day.

So we scrambled for Plan B, which is hard to do on a Friday, at the end of the month just as college kids are getting ready to go to campus. There aren’t a lot of extra trucks sitting around.

Finally we found a little van which ably handled the overflow. The day started at about 7:30 and ran far, far, far too long. Even though we were well organized and fairly streamlined, even though The Yankee did an insane amount of work and I did my bit too, it still was not an uneventful day.

Moving is a nightmare, everyone knows this. But at least and at last you’ve made it to the point where the nightmare is upon you, rather than a pensive weight. Finally, you can just move stuff, move it again and then be finished with the exercise. Even if it seemed you’d never be finished during the preparation. Especially if it seems you’ll never be finished on the fateful day.

I picked up a late lunch on the way out of town. I complimented the guy at the Chick-fil-A window for doing me an extra little favor. He seemed surprised by that, but the day was such by then that I needed to compliment someone as much as he needed to hear a compliment. And the move wasn’t even bad, really. We had the help, who were indispensable. We had the heat, which was ridiculous. We had the mad scramble to solve a problem, where we lucked out. Still: it was a day of serious moving.

We’ll be ready, soon, to never speak of it again.

But we must speak of our friends. On the days when you find you need your friends the most, you are at your most grateful for whatever thankless task they are willing to endure with you.

RaDonna came by in the late morning and was able to spend a few hours with us. She was a big shot of momentum when we needed the help, in between her own big day of chores.

Brian came after he finished work for the day and did his usual Brian best. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone who’s ever been more giving to friends than Brian has always been to us. Moving someone in 100-plus temperatures — always with a smile, always with a good suggestion and always ready to work hard — has to be up there.

Oh, sure, he’d tell you it got him out of a baby shower, but he didn’t have to spend the day moving boxes to avoid that.

On the other end of the day Fin helped unload boxes. He said when and where, we told him, he showed up and he sped the second half of the process along in smooth fashion.

We still had to change a car battery and run another round of errands, and it was a long, late, bruising, lacerating, sweaty day. But we’re done with it. We’re moved.

friends / memories / photo / Pie Day / Thursday — Comments Off
29
Jul 10

The pre-move

The heat index only made it up to 99 degrees today. And I did my part, I tried, to get that last extra degree so I could say “Hey, I moved furniture in triple-digit temperatures today.”

Because 99, somehow, doesn’t sound impressive.

And that’s when you know sunstroke has set in.

So the recliner went downstairs to the garage. One of the rocking chairs joined its mate. The living room chair found its way safely into the garage. Numerous boxes, all of our books all made it downstairs. The plan, since the move is tomorrow, is to sling everything from the garage onto the truck and call it a day.

This evening we packed up the kitchen. All of our clothes have been dutifully stored in wardrobe boxes. Later I’ll tear down the network and pack up the televisions.

Even still, I managed to do three voiceovers this morning. But the place looks entirely different from that, even 12 hours later. Now it looks like a cardboard factory explosion.

Pie Day

We had our last regular Pie Day with Ward tonight. (Incidentally, that’s the banana cream pie, which is new to Jim ‘N’ Nicks, and quite tasty.)

Ward

I’m a fairly sappy and sentimental person, and waxing on about it is possible, and would be silly. Ward, there, has looked after us for a long time. We’ve been coming here for five-and-a-half years. This is as much a part of our history and social culture as anything else we do. And we’ll still make it here when we are in town visiting, but this was our last regular visit.

Yes, barbecue means that much. Pie means that much. That it was the first excuse I had to get my eventual wife to have a bite to eat with me means even more. (As I’ve mentioned before, it was a competitor’s waitress’ line about how “Friday is Pie Day” that cinched the deal. When The Yankee and I were standing in a parking lot one afternoon I impulsively invited her for a barbecue sandwich. She hedged. And then I invited her for pie. Friday, I said, is Pie Day. You just can’t argue with logic like that, friends.)

We’ve had untold celebrations here. Birthdays, graduations, quiet nights of dinner for two, loud nights of dinner for a dozen. This has always been our date night and we’ve always incorporated everyone that wanted to come. I used to keep count of the people, stopping somewhere around four dozen, that joined us for Pie Day.

And now when I mention it — or even when I don’t mention it — on Twitter people respond to it even people I haven’t yet met in person.

Sure, The Yankee and I will still have Pie Day. Yes, I’m looking forward to finding the new home for the event. But, still, I hold onto things, tightly and closely. And this has been a wonderful event worth holding onto for a long time now.

We managed to sit in the same table where we ate there the first time.

And now, so I don’t waste any more of your time on it, cute cat pictures:

She's helping.

She’s helping.

She stopped helping ...

She stopped helping.

And now for a late night and early morning of last minute panic packing…

adventures / Wednesday — Comments Off
28
Jul 10

We painted this …

We painted this!

That’s the kitchen, obviously, after yesterday’s work.

And this!

And here’s the dining room, after a second coat this morning. You know, it never occurred to me, the whole time we were there, to pull out my real camera. So, my apologies for the cell phone pictures. I’ll actually spend a few minutes with the camera function soon and learn how to use the thing properly.

We returned the ladder to Jeremy‘s grandfather. The lady of the house answered the door again. We’d talked briefly, as much as she wanted to chat with a young stranger, the other day. You can only be so charming, but then you’re still a stranger, you know? I made nice with her puppy today, so all was well. Being from a time and part of the world where your pedigree will tell you everything she needs to know about you, she asked me if I was related to Homer Smith. I assume she meant the football coach.

No ma’am, I said. But there’s just so many of us. I’m related to a Comer Smith, but that’s as close as I know how to get.

She asked where I was from. I tell her Birmingham, but my people are in northwest Alabama. She knows the place. She used to live there, too.

“Do you know the Thigpens?”

Everybody knows the Thigpens. That’s one of the big, branchiest family trees in that area.

I dated a Thigpen, once.

I may or may not have done that. My memory is foggy. Either way it sounded good. I thanked her profusely, helped get the dog back inside and we left to return to Birmingham. There is still packing to do. And so we had lunch, using a coupon for Surin West, thinking spicy hot coconut soup on a triple-digit day was a good plan.

It is always a good plan.

And then, back to the packing. There is a light at the end of this tunnel. And that light is attached to a train. And on that train is a crowd of people screaming “You’re not ready to move yet! But the time is at hand!”

And so you just accept it. Throw things in boxes. Wrap soft things around fragile things, eschew the detailed labeling system your organized wife has developed and just start doing.

The next step is to move everything that is ready in the house down to the garage. The heat index will only be over 100 degrees when I do that tomorrow.

adventures / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
27
Jul 10

The joys of home ownership

Painting was intended for people of sturdy emotional stock. How else can you explain away the unholy tendency of a material designed solely to please the eye which is represented in one color, is applied in another color and dries in a third? This says nothing of the swirls and the splotches and the missed spots.

The Yankee, my lovely bride, is convinced she loves painting. I know exactly where I come down on this particular skill and it is somewhere around the level of “Glad I’m not a carpenter.” She says she loves to paint, but her frustration would suggest otherwise. Last night she tried to paint part of the master bedroom, but the color of blue-hued blueness that Lowe’s offered was too blue. So this morning we visited again. The paint clerk immediately realized the error, acknowledged that there was no amount of water and milk dilution that was going to lighten this shade of pigment enough to our wishes and granted our money back on non-refundable paint.

So we visited Sherwin-Williams, where the cost is a bit higher, but they are ready to cover the earth, a bit of propaganda which no doubt irritates the green customers and the Earth Day types. (There was a splinter between them in 2003, they split into two factions, look it up.)

So we bought more paint for the bedroom and the proper paint for the library and the dining room. Lowe’s did not have the equivalent, so we picked it up from the place that gave us the handy online tool. The Yankee has been playing with it for days. You upload a picture, you highlight the wall portions (thereby protecting the furniture) and click a color on the wheel. You see a preview, the page gives you the name of a color and so on.

So it is like Photoshop? I asked.

“But with paint!”

Clearly she was in her element.

So we started painting again. The bedroom, which was an experience determined to wound the psyche. A now lighter color was painted over the darker color. The lighter color exhibited peculiar tendencies while drying. We considered hiring a painter. Fortunately for the wallet everyone was booked.

She moved on to the kitchen and the library. Having by this time finished with the ceiling fans project. I picked up our termite bond. I’d risked life and limb and probably several safety codes by standing on the very top of my borrowed ladder in my brand new home to tape off molding. I’d had the idea to invent tape smart enough to not stick to itself and generally done everything else I could to avoid painting. So, I began painting around the baseboards, windows and fireplace.

The kitchen went from a Barney purple and the future library went from a pale gold to a slate green. It matches the curtains. Incredibly, it also matches the color of the font on our family fireplace crock that we received as a Christmas present last year. I wonder if she’s noticed that yet. The bedroom, meanwhile, had dried to just the shade for which we’d hoped. Painting with your fingers crossed sometimes works in your favor, though you tend to drip paint in odd places.

We had dinner, and the romance of new home life continued. What we made for dinner tonight called for a can of tomatoes. Of all of the things my thoughtful, prepared and intelligent bride brought with us this trip the one thing she did not consider was a can opener. (I don’t say this to blame her, merely to point out that she’d packed everything else we could possibly need.)

So I opened the tomatoes the old fashioned way: with a hammer and screwdriver.

Dining room paint

After dinner we painted some more. The dining room. Note the excellent tape work done way up high. I climbed up there for that. She climbed back up to paint it. We are painting in “fired brick” which makes my hands look like a bloodied violent offender who has yet to clean up the evidence. We’ll have to do another coat there tomorrow.

Even still, we painted four rooms today, I painted parts of three of them. I managed to get only one bit of it on my clothes, one tiny little speck of green slate on a bright blue, old KARN 920 shirt; no biggie.

Which, wow, provides a moment of clarity. That job was eight years ago. And this realization right after saying aloud “You know, we should be celebrating (or not) our 15th high school reunion this year.”

Time flies when you’re mixing paint.