Dirty Business

Do it yourselfers are giving me ideas. Figuring I could not afford what I want (red oak hardwood stairs to match the floor I had installed 8 years ago) I decided to rip out the 30-year-old carpeting that was installed when the house was built. Painted steps should look better, be easier to clean and keep the dog hair under control. The dogs had enough sense to hide in the bedroom while I stirred up the dust. The carpet removal took about 15 minutes. Next came the thin foam under carpet. This was pretty easy to bag since it was disintegrating anyway. When I swept I noticed all the nails that did not rip out with the carpet. Starting at the bottom I used pliers and flat head screwdrivers to pry up the nails. This took more than an hour. I needed a shower after messing with thirty years of dirt and dust and I feel the twinges of shoulder and back aches. The steps are not great. However they are in better shape than I was expecting and slightly better than the ones leading to the basement. The leading edges are rounded but the wood is also cracked in places. When they were installed the workmen did not protect them, so they have paint and Spackle splatters. Next I need to decide if I want to sand before I paint. Are they worth all this work? And how much dust will I stir up? Quite a bit, I think. If I want to sand I need to think about protecting the furniture and the good carpet. I also need to decide on color. I think two-tone, don’t you? Brown and off white might work for the steps and risers. Of course now that this project has started, I see that the walls could use a fresh coat of paint. Slow down, Helen, one thing at a time. Under the carpet I found a dime dated 1975. In that year I could have used this for a local phone call in an enclosed phone booth on the streets of New York City.

Old friends

There seems to be interest in a reunion of the old neighborhood crowd. After attending my 10th year high school reunion, I passed on the subsequent ones. For the most part the girls in my high school were not my friends; the neighborhood kids were. Most of us attended catholic elementary schools and there was a competitive entrance exam for the various high schools in the area. So of the 15 or so kids in the neighborhood, we probably attended 5-6 different schools. My commute to high school took about an hour and a half and none of us drove (driving age was 18.) I needed to catch two city busses separated by a 15 minute walk (sometimes run.) We had a discounted rate for the NY city bus and paid 5¢. There are a few in the old crowd with whom I have never lost touch and others that I have reconnected with over the years. Recently I had a visit over a cup of coffee with Joe and his some of his family. He was en-route home to Iowa. We cannot help but wonder “whatever happened to . . .?” Who would be interested in a reunion? I guess the first step would be to make a list and then find the ones who have dropped from the radar. What about those who were my friends but had better things to do than earn street corner reputations? So the list comes first.

Remote relationship

Paul calls me every day frequently frequently. This man loves to travel to obscure places. I think if something ever happened to me, he would spend his life traveling. I like to travel too, but find I am doing this a bit more vicariously than I hoped. I just got off the phone with him, one of his 60 second calls. He is taking a break from his day of teaching, lunching, and meeting to say hi. Tomorrow he returns to Yerevan which is a 7 hour drive. There he is again. He just popped up on G-chat. You got to love the Gmail. Monday or Tuesday he will be in Moscow. Who knows what adventures await.

A promise of brownies

Was it an omen when the license plate fell off the car at the airport? Paul was leaving for 5 months half way round the world and my first order of business was to figure out how to be street legal. I drove straight to my favorite mechanics at Firestone. Mike was preparing to close for the day but said he’d help. He saw that the license plate was bolted into plastic inserts on the back hatch of the car. I am not sure why these plastic inserts fell out, but simply putting them back in was not going to do the trick. Mike suggested wall anchors which he did not have at the shop. The short version of this story is that I made 2 trips to ACE Hardware and 3 trips to Firestone that evening and promised brownies to Mike for staying late to help me. Saturday got away from me although I finally made the brownies – a Dorie Greenspan recipe w/bittersweet chocolate and walnuts. I was tempted to hold one back but decided to eat the crumbs and give Mike all. The directions said to let cool completely but I did not want to wait quite that long. So at 4:30 I took my warm brownies to the mechanic. Firestone was crowded. Herb had this smile at the corners of his mouth guessing what I had. When I finally got to the counter, I asked for Mike. "He's here somewhere." "Oh, no he's not; he left at 4:30" So I told Herb that this was for Mike - that he had stayed late to help me on Thursday when my license plate fell off. Herb was very gracious and offered to put my goodies in the fridge till the next day. The brownies were covered in foil, so the contents were not obvious. I wanted Mike to know I was grateful for his help. I did not mind if he shared but I knew they would disappear fast. Herb put the two more anchors in the bottom of the license plate so now it is rigid. Do I need to make more brownies for Herb? Do you think Mike ever got the brownies?

Helen is ready for what exactly?

Actually I am not ready. Not ready at all. But I need to jump in the deep end of the pool and see if I can swim. Since I cannot swim this is a really bad analogy. Let's just call this post a test.