"You gonna get another job?"...

[Volpone]

I still pop onto The Other Place if I feel like I have something that I can get an easy rise out of people. So I had to go over there to mention buying what I hope will be my retirement rental. I was, of course, (once the 'tard rage passed) offered plenty of advice on how to be a good landlord. Apparently I shouldn't be cheap or renters won't take care of the place. I couldn't resist coming back to say that renters actually don't want nice stuff and, furthermore, if you give them nice stuff, they'll just wreck it.

While it was a trollish way of saying it, I'm sad to say there is a lot of truth to it. To recap, I screwed around too long before starting to buy rentals so anything that I wanted to own was too expensive. So I bought a neglected place that was in an estate that wasn't a good rental or starter home, moved there, and rented out MY house. Yeah, it's only a 2BR, but the way the market is these days, a 2BR commands the kind of rent a 3BR did a few years ago. I have accent walls in most of the rooms and the kitchen is a kind of harvest gold to play up the retro vibe of the 1950s pine cabinets and hardware and vintage blue linoleum. It took awhile to rent. The feedback from my property manager was "What's with all the crazy colors!?" 95% of renters wanted everything to be beige, because I guess a midnight blue paneled wall in the living room (with a white brick gas fireplace) was too wild and "out there" for most renters.

On a related note, I've put stainless appliances into all my places. When I rented out my old home, I pulled the fridge because it was a bit small (16-ish SF because I didn't know about buying appliances when I got it) and replaced it with a brand new larger one. Now my stainless fridge is...6 years old. It looks nicer than a fridge that has been in a rental house for a year. The first house, there was a big dent in the freezer door so I had to order a new door to replace that. The other place, the door is all scratched up. I don't even know how that happens. How do renters wreck things so fast?!

And yeah. The reason landlords paint everything beige (or at least they used to before greige became the rage--I think even that is played out now) is because renters WANT it. And it hides dirt and nicotine staining well. The reason landlords buy cheap shitty stuff is because they're going to have to throw it away and buy new when the renter moves out. Might as well throw out something cheap and buy something else cheap instead of buying something nice that should last a lifetime--and wind up throwing it out in a few years.

This is something I'm fighting with on the current place. There are lots of little things that bother me and I'd like to "fix." But I know renters won't even notice them and won't give a fuck because they'd rather have practical over nice every time. No, nothing lines up neatly in the master 1/2 bath, but no one but me will notice so it isn't worth the effort to move things and they'd rather have the storage of the off-center medicine cabinet than a slick looking mirror that is centered over the sink (the medicine cabinet is recessed in the wall so I think it is constrained by where the studs are--and the sink has to be where it is because it is such a small bathroom).

 

[Volpone]

On an unrelated note, like I said, I wanna live in this place a bit. Both because it will give me a "shakedown cruise" of any problems it might have and because it will be easier than spending 15 minutes driving--each way every time I want to work on something. Oh, and I won't have to do weekly cleaning at my house if I'm not living at my house. T-Mobile's 5G Internet makes this a fairly practical thing. Just unplug the device at the current house and plug it in at the rental. I will have to dig out the old 19" CRT Zenith TV and converter box and see if I can find some rabbit ears if I want to watch any TV there, but that's another story.

I've got furniture for staging. Oh, that's the other thing--staging a rental is a bit overkill, but I want to rent this fast for top dollar, I'm planning to live there a bit, and it is a fairly open floorplan, so it will help prospects see how the living room/dining room space can be used. Also, I want to do it.

But what I do NOT want to do is move any beds, futons, or couches. I'm getting too old for that shit. So I'll get a couple inflate-a-beds and probably an inflatable couch. Stick a slip-cover on it and it should be fine. There's an "L" shaped one that seems to be the predominant design, but I'm sure a slip cover will be impossible for that. Besides, I realized, if I get a smaller, more conventional inflatable couch, I can use it for the back seat in the Awesome Van when I'm done with it.

*****

On a different unrelated note, I like a lot of things about my current job. I'm a bit of a hipster doofus and I've styled my current house in a 20th century historically accurate farmhouse vibe (forget this horrible white "modern farmhouse" abomination, I've done something that is accurate to the house--when I went with sage green trim, I was rewarded during paint prep to find that at some point the trim had been almost the same exact color). When I lived in a studio apartment, I had a touch-tone phone that was styled after a 1930s phone in my living room. I got the line disconnected when I did the Iraq War and never hooked it back up when I got back, but the phone still looks cool sitting on an end table. Well in this house there's a phone jack on the kitchen wall next to the fridge. So I've been looking for, like, a Princess wall phone--ideally in avocado green or maybe flesh tone pink. Of course these are getting harder and harder to find. So imagine my surprise when I found a slick black 12 button wall phone at work. Checked it and it was (of course) not actually working--or even connected to a line. Almost stole it, but decided that would be a stupid thing to get fired over--even though I was 99.5% sure no one would now (or care). But I did bump into the store manager one night, as he was ending his day and I was starting mine, and couldn't resist asking him if I could have the phone. He said he'd look into it. Thought that was the end of things and nothing would come of it, but the other day I bumped into him and he said I could have the phone. So now I have a slick black late 20th century phone on the wall in my kitchen. No, it isn't hooked up to anything, but I'm happy with how it looks. Now if I could just figure out how to get the stainless steel and black plastic coffee/sugar/flour tins from my parents' farm without having to admit to my brother that being a packrat is sometimes useful.

 

[Volpone]

End of day brain dump:

Did necessary weekend chores. Then primed the last bedroom at the new rental. Had some extra paint so, rather than dump it back in the can, I started on the living room. Then it turned out we didn't get a truck at work tonight so, rather than go home, I went back to the house to finish the living room and make a decent dent in the dining room. I'm going to run out of KILZ. When I do, it will be time for another run to the hardware store.

Paint and flooring are the 85% solution. And that is what motivates me to keep going. But it also tires me out, because I've worked so hard on priming and once that's done I've got to do it all over again with finish paint. And that will take a lot more time because I can't just slap it on. And before I get to that, I need to finish plaster repairs. There's still a ton of cleaning. These people lived like animals and degreasing the kitchen and trying to save the tub will be nontrivial tasks. Besides the tub, I've got to do kitchen counters. Then there's all the fiddly little things like chair rails and baseboards. And the exterior...I'm not even going to start on everything that needs to be done on the exterior.

But it's a nice house and it has a lot going for it and should make me a decent amount of money when I finally get it done and rented.

 

[Volpone]

Placeholder. This merit's a thread, but for now I'll stick a draft here.

I have been thinking about where America jumped the shark. It's somewhere around the end of the 20th century. Channel surfing tonight for something to watch while eating dinner later than usual and bumped into the Story Channel.

The Story Channel is a bonus channel that runs old History Channel documentaries. They were doing a thing about the 19th/20th century robber barons (only because it was an old show, they called them titans of industry). It was great. Well written, well cast and costumed, beautifully shot. Interesting. Made you smarter. The stuff History Channel was great for. What is History Channel known for these days? I have no idea. Is History Channel even a thing anymore? If it is, I suspect it is know for Ice Road Bigfoot Hunter Alien Anal Probe Truckers or some goddamn thing. What was late 20th century Discovery Channel? Mythbusters. What is it now? Alien Anal Probe Honey Boo-Boo. What was late 20th century MTV? Music goddamn TeleVision. What is it now? Who knows? Who cares? Alien Anal Probe Jersey Real Brother.

***

Just for posterity, worked on the house a bit today. Out of spackle. Low on KILZ primer. The Plan was to use up the primer so I could see how much more I would need when stores are open tomorrow and then maybe go see a movie or do necessary household chores. I had more primer than I thought so I used up all of my time and more. But I did NOT get everything done. Still hoping for the moment when I open the door and cannot smell cigarette smoke. But haven't got there yet. Someone not expecting it might just catch a stale smell, but knowing what to look for, I smell it. Baking soda is the last trick in my book before hiring an ozone machine (and finishing encapsulating all tainted surfaces--and there's stuff like bathroom tiles, cabinets, and ceiling fans--to say nothing of ductwork--so I may never get there) but I wasn't able to buy straight up baking soda. I got stuck with something designed to get pet smells out of carpet. So instead of being scentless, it has that wonderful new disposable diaper artificial clean smell. Luckily I sprinkled some on the cabinet tops (more on that in a bit) before strewing it across the entire house) to alert me of the strong smell.

I think I mentioned, I was averse to priming because it seems like a step no one will ever know about (unless you don't do it, so the house smells like tobacco and everything is stained brown), but fell in love with it because you can skip so many of the rules of painting and just slap paint on with reckless abandon. I was then dreading moving to places like the kitchen and bathrooms because I'd have to be careful not to get paint on appliances etc. But it turns out if you're careful this isn't a big deal. And with all the tile and cabinets, there's a lot less to paint, so I was enjoying that too. There will be a cost when I get rid of the roller and break out the edging brush for finish work, but for now it's all good.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say, but I forget it. I was kind of hoping for an excuse to start actual painting. It's a stupid idea because I need to edge with primer and I'd be starting with ceilings anyway, but it will be so rewarding when I start laying on finish coat and can finally actually see for real what I've seen in my mind since I first stepped into the cluttered, smoke-reeking place back in March.

 

[Volpone]

Wanna post an update but don't wanna compose an update. Almost finished roller-priming today. I'll need to finish fixing plaster and then go through with a brush for the bits you can't do with a roller, but I am down to the last room. Used up my paint and needed to open a new can but I was getting tired enough that I was making mistakes, it was a wallpapered room and the wallpaper was actually bubbling and peeling in places, and it was a fidgety room with cabinets on one side and washer, dryer, water heater, and furnace on the other side. And a trap door to the attic. And since it was getting late, I decided not to open another can. Of course then I decided to clean up one of the ceiling fans to see if I wanted to keep it.

You know how you clean up a ceiling fan in a house that's had heavy smokers who don't do any housekeeping for 16 years or so? You pretty much take it apart. Take the blades (5) off and clean them. Take the light(s) (3) off and clean them. While it's all apart, you clean the housing. Burned up a huge amount of time on it.

Then I dumped an entire box of baking soda pet odor carpet powder all over the (tile) floors because the place still smelled like fucking cigarettes when I got there, in spite of almost everything but the floors having been painted. If it smells like cigarettes when I get back, I'm going to cry.

I'm at a point where it's poised to start looking nice. But I've also got deceptively a lot of work to get that snowball rolling. And I blew off a lot of day-to-day household stuff this week to get to this point. Now I can't put stuff off much longer, so I may have to take a pause right at a time when I really want to do nothing but work on it. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

 

[Volpone]

I'm getting old. Gotta go to work in a couple hours. Should bang out some household chores, but I just got back from a sunny, 89 degree, 53% humidity walk with The Dog, so all I want to do is lay here and recover. We had an unusually stormy spring, but it was also unusually cool, so now that we're getting normal weather, I'm out of shape for it.

Hadn't planned on working on the house today but The Dog cut her morning patrol short. They're developing the vacant block across the street. She likes to go there to hunt groundhogs and rabbits. This summer she discovered a concrete culvert that is just her size so halfway through the walk, she'll duck into it to lay in the water, have a drink, and cool off--sort of a halftime break. Well today they tore it out, so she decided to end the patrol a half hour early.

Since it was barely Noon, I decided to hop in the car, run down to the house and finish roller priming the utility room. I also did some fine-tuning to lighting, swept a little (the baking soda pet carpet deodorizer may have finally beat the cigarette smell), and had a look at ceiling fans. I have one I wound up not using at my first rental--still in the box--that is a little larger than the one in the dining room. The one in one of the bedrooms is garbage, so I want to clean up the dining room one and move it to the bedroom. But the dining room has a vaulted ceiling so I had to check and it looks like the mounting hardware for my fan is compatible with the dining room fan. So I can keep the extended drop to mount my fan to and use my fan's hardware to mount the dining room fan in the bedroom (which has a totally incompatible fan--and ugly. It's tan/white with handpainted flowers on the fan blades).

 

[Volpone]

No truck tonight. So an opportunity to go down and work on the house. But I decided I needed a break. And I had stuff that needed doing at home. And it just might be nice to take it easy. But then I realized I'd need a machete to cut the grass if it got any longer and I had an hour or two of useful light so I got the tallest part out of the way (there's this one spot that grows like crazy, compared to the rest). And a good chunk of the front yard. Definitely work tomorrow night and I hate to mow on a work night, but it's supposed to rain Saturday, so I guess I'd better. Still got an hour tonight. Probably try to finish up e-mails, maybe do bills and wash some dishes.

 

[Volpone]

As I'm over a half century old and Christian, I decided it was time to finally read the Holy Bible. (I'm Catholic. Catholics don't read the Bible.) After stalling at Leviticus more than once, I overcame my OCD tendencies and listened to advice of reading the New Testament first. At this point I'm about halfway through the Old Testament. Psalms. Short chapters. But lots of them. Even moreso than Job.

As an ex-Marine, I also work on the Commandant's Reading List. This is recommended reading for the military professional. I am underwhelmed by the direction it has taken over the years, so I stick to the list I photocopied in the early 21st century. When I first moved to Portland and it didn't suck, Powell's City of Books was an amazing resource with a top-notch military section. That eventually declined--as did Portland--and anyway I moved. I don't like Jeff Bezos so I try to find books online for free. This is a long way of getting to that I'm currently reading Forster's "The General" along with The Bible. And I'm trying to decide which to go to while I have one more cocktail before trying to wrangle in my errant cat.

On an unrelated note, I do not have a day I should be back at work. "I'll call you." This is actually (potentially) a good thing. I'd rather work on my new rental than stock toilet seats.

 

[Volpone]

I really needed to see some progress today. Color on walls. Even white on ceilings would do. But I did not. I basically spent a month hauling out trash and cleaning. Then another month priming and fixing plaster. And mowing the lawn about once a week. It looks loads better than it did, but it isn't anything you could show someone a picture of and they'd go "Wow, that looks amazing." Everything takes longer and you always find something else that needs doing. I'm forcing myself to not work on exterior because I can do that after the inside is farther along, but after about the 3rd time my lawnmower killed today, hitting something, I had to stop and do some yardwork. I raked about 7 five gallon buckets of gravel from around the stump of the dead tree I had removed. And pulled out a fair amount of the rotted landscape fabric that is now buried under about 2" of dirt. I wonder if all the gravel is what killed the fucking tree in the first place.

This put me behind for the day (again) but I was able to come back to edge in primer. I've got to edge prime the ceilings before I can paint them. And since I'm edging ceilings, I might as well edge everything. And while I *could* start roller-painting the ceilings with finish coat and come back to add the edging, I might as well just finish the edging instead. I've only got 1 edging brush and I might as well finish with the primer so I can clean it and move to ceiling paint.

Hell, what I really want to do is get flooring down, so I can stop looking at the miserable asphalt/asbestos tiles, but it's stupid to put down floor before you've painted. I thought I had more to say, but I guess not.

 

[Volpone]

The best part of making plans is watching how fast they can get fucked when you execute them. Got most of the ceiling painted at the other house yesterday. Hoped to finish up and maybe even start on walls today, but then I needed to sleep in this morning--and I've got work tonight, so maybe no luck there. But when I took The Dog for her morning patrol, she wrapped it up in under 15 minutes, so I thought I just might have a shot. After the post-lunch siesta it looked like I had plenty of time to walk The Dog and go paint for a bit. Since The Dog showed no sign of wanting to go for a walk, I changed into painting clothes. By the time I got done changing, The Dog was waiting by the door, ready to go for a walk. "Oh well, bang that out first," I thought. After a relatively nice and compact 30 minute walk, it looked like we might be headed for home. Instead she looped back to the start of her patrol and did basically a full hour patrol on top of the first half hour. Luckily she ran about a quarter mile of it--in 92 degree heat and 40% humidity--so it only took an hour and 20 minutes for the entire patrol. Not only did that eat up 20 minutes of my allotted painting time, there was now no way I could just go straight to the car because I needed to rest and rehydrate. By the time I'm done with that, I'll have under an hour for painting--and 30 minutes of that would be driving time.

On the plus side, now my painting clothes smell like a high school boys locker room instead of my work clothes, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

 

[Volpone]

Today was a really really good day. Like, a "Thank you God for giving me a great day" day. Miserable hot. So The Dog only did a 15 minute morning patrol again. Which is good because I stayed up too late last night and slept in again. This time, after lunch I made it out the door and got the rest of the ceiling painted. Tempted to start on a wall but realizing I didn't have time. So I swept and tidied up. (It's amazing how many times you can sweep an old house--even though no one is living there--and keep sweeping up a ton of crud.) While I was doing this I heard an indistinct "KLUMP" sound. I decided it was a mop or broom falling over in the closet. But as I was getting ready to head out, I realized it was a medium pizza sized hunk of plaster from where the roof had leaked that I'd patched and just finished painting. So I got out the broom and cleaned it up. And because I'm greedy, I replastered.

Got home almost a half hour late. Luckily, it was still hot as balls and The Dog only wanted to do a half hour patrol. Got to work and there was no truck to unload. So I got to bang out all the computer based classes that they keep piling on me. Almost didn't get the last one done but I was like "suck it up, you may never get a chance like this again." So my OCD is happy that I've completed all the training that has been assigned me. Popped back to Receiving and still no truck, so I told the supervisor that if it was OK with him, I'd clock out and go work on my house and he could text me if the truck showed up. Ran down and painted a bedroom.

Paint is a test of faith. You know what the space looks like. The paint chip shows you what the paint is supposed to look like. You pick an appropriate sheen (I'd do flat if it was my house, but since it is a rental I went with eggshell) and estimate how much paint you'll need. Then you start slapping it on the walls. The sun is down, so the lighting isn't optimal. And wet paint looks different than dry paint. It doesn't look as good. And it actually looks worse as it dries. It looks patchy and shiny and uneven. It looked too dark at first too. But then it dries and it looks great.

Meanwhile, I still had a little paint in the pan, and I realized it wouldn't take much to paint the hallway (it's mostly doors and cabinets. Trim will be a bitch, but the actual walls were quick.) At that point it was about time to go home. I considered putting electrical plates back on but I couldn't find the lightswitch plate. And a lot of the plates were white and I really should have beige/ivory plates. Plus they were all filthy, so I should've cleaned them before putting them back on. So I decided I didn't have time for that.

BUT! I decided I *did* have time to get started on swapping around ceiling fans (even though I knew full well how long this took the last time I attempted it). 1 bedroom has a supremely ugly and supremely filthy 42" four blade flush mount fan. The dining room has a fairly ugly 4 blade 52" fan on an extended angled rod (vaulted ceiling). I have a slightly less ugly 52" five blade that I bought for another house and didn't use. The bedroom really isn't big enough to need a 52" fan so I'm planning to hang the 5 blade fan in the dining room and move the 4 blade fan into the bedroom. The mounting hardware is *mostly* compatible. First step is taking blades off the existing fans.

Ceiling fan blades will generally have a different pattern on each side, so you can put the one you like best down and the other side hidden. The dining room fan blades were showing an ugly white oak with a cane basketweave inlay. The top side appeared to a fairly nice red walnut. But it turned out they were just incredibly filthy. After much experimentation, douching the things down with Crud Cutter spray degreaser and using up a ton of paper towels got them clean. And it turned out they were actually a white oak on that side too. I liked the red walnut better, but once I started cleaning them, it created blotches so I had to just clean them all the way down. Anyway, it needed to be done to combat the smoker stench that was likely embedded in all the filth. Worked on cleaning up as much of the grease around the stove as I could too. Then I did some touch-up work to some plaster repairs I'd effected and got out of there 3 hours later than I'd planned to stay. But I'm on path and think I know what I'm doing. Oh, and I worried about how much paint I used and that I didn't get enough, but then I realized I had a gallon more than I thought I did, so I may have got my estimate about right.

Tomorrow (today?) I should do other things, but I kind of want to do more work on the house. It's really starting to come together. And I love it when a plan comes together.

Oh, I forgot to add that God can give you a good day, but it only is what you make of it. I could've skipped running down to finish painting the ceiling. I could have skipped the plaster repairs. I could have just when home when I found out I didn't have to work. But I took the opportunities that were presented to me and capitalized on them.

Oh, the other totally trippy thing: Other day it was hot and humid so the windows on the car were fuming up. So I had the ventilation set to "defrost." After beating the fogging, I'd turned the temperature down. As I was driving to the house, I noticed the window was condensing at the vent. The AC has been out on my car for some time. I know things don't just "fix themselves" and trying to run broken AC can just make things worse, but I decided to flip it on. Cold air! So there's probably a bad sensor or a loose wire or something instead of a problem with the AC system. Good that there are (hopefully) no leaks to fix, but bad that it is a more difficult problem to troubleshoot if the AC goes on the fritz again.

 

[Volpone]

Had a plan to go paint at least 1 more bathroom tonight. But was overruled by my aging body, that said "OR! You could sleep. Sleeeep." So I guess I'm going to bed relatively early and hoping to get something done tomorrow.

 

[Volpone]

My goddamn friend... He uses me when he's driving at night and wants to stay awake. So if he sees I'm on Facebook, he calls me up. I really wasn't doing anything, so I answered. But goddamn. I'm on Facebook because I'm winding down and getting ready to go to sleep. Then I get stuck talking to him for ...40 minutes... about nothing. By this point my whole "getting ready to sleep" routine is completely and utterly fucked, so I need to make another cocktail that I don't really want or need and try to find something to do to unwind after I've already looked at everything I look at to unwind. Thanks so much for fucking my entire upcoming day when I have actual shit that needs to get done just because you want someone to talk to when you're driving late.

 

[Volpone]

I really need to do some bookkeeping. And lawnmowing. And reading e-mails, washing dishes, taking out trash, vacuuming, etc... But definitely the bookkeeping and lawnmowing. And get the oil changed in my car. But I really want to see if my paint choices are going to work for the new house.

I went with what I thought was a fairly safe choice: A shade of taupe from the HGTV Sherwin-Williams line. But it's funny. It reads darker than I expected. And sometimes it looks grey, sometimes more of a cocoa, and sometimes it even seems like it has a hit of red. I'm doing a coffee colored accent wall to highlight the fireplace and the high ceilings. Planning on that for the back wall of the 1/2 bath in the master too. But I want to see how it looks because I may use it in the full bath (which has light colored tiles over the majority of the room) and the laundry room (which has a chair rail with a light trim color beneath it). I like a little variety--even if renters apparently do not--besides, I'm low on taupe.

But I didn't get the accent color on today. I might sneak over and do it tomorrow, but then I've really got to do some of the other day-to-day stuff that keeps the wheels turning.

 

[Volpone]

"Make hay while the sun shines." Gah. I want nothing more than to go down and paint those accent walls. But looking at the weather report and the height of my grass, I guess I'm going to cut grass until it rains.

 

[Volpone]

Getting old sucks. I mean, it beats the alternative, I guess, but still... 3 things on the agenda for today: Make sure my insurance bill gets paid on time, mow lawn before it rains, and paint the 2 accent walls I've committed to at the house so I can see if I want to use the color in more rooms. Insurance had to get taken care of because it would be *relatively* quick and could not be deferred much longer. Then I had to mow lawn next because of the upcoming weather forecast. It was the right call. Supposed to rain by around 6. Rained like a bastard at 6:30. Here's the problem: I can mow lawn after painting. I didn't have that much to paint and mowing lawn takes relatively little skill or attention to detail--just push the damn thing around the lawn until everything's cut. Apparently I can NOT paint after mowing lawn. I mean, first I'd have to drive down there (and back after) but while I'm there I'd have to work on a ladder and only get paint where it is supposed to be, not on other things. Instead, all I want to do is take a nap. And by the time that's done it will be too dark to paint (the living room doesn't have a ceiling light).

 

[Volpone]

I'm pretty sure I've said this before here, but it bears repeating: It is frustrating, not having enough time to do the things you want to do, but on the plus side, it gives you time to think about things--even things you thought you were settled on.

First off, I'm happy with the taupe base color. Second, I think I'm right in using more of the dark brown rather than less. Third...the kitchen has a shitty quasi-backsplash--there is an imprint of fake tile pattern on the wall between the counters and the top cabinets. Since I'd decided to do a tile counter (that maybe should've been #3) I was just going to continue it up to the faux backsplash. But looking at it, that needs to be taupe. Should I monkey around leveling it with plaster? Maybe? Will I? Maybe. But I may just paint it and leave the faux tile relief. I dunno. Ooh. I could do the area between the counters and the cabinets in the dark brown. :/

[nah. That's too much. Be too distracting.]

 

[Volpone]

Life. Don't talk to me about life. Hoped to paint yesterday. Weather intervened. So today I was going to paint. Walk the dog, mail off some bills, eat lunch and run down to bang out some painting. Oh. Yeah. I should probably pick up some of these branches that blew down in yesterday's storm.

So first The Dog led me to a nearby apartment complex, where she proceeded to take a runny soft-serve ice cream dump that was impossible to fully pick upright in front of someone's window. Then she took me up on a dirt access road where I'd forgotten that there was an abandoned, probably stolen pickup truck. I'd meant to call it in weeks ago but forgot about it. Decided I'd better get it done now so I looked up the police non-emergency number. After 1 disconnected call and about 5 minutes of listening to routing options and pressing buttons, I got through to a human. "Hi. I was out walking my dog and found this abandoned pickup. It's a black Dodge Ram crew cab..." "Dial 311 for abandoned vehicles."

Well fuck you very much. First off, why isn't that a fairly prominent option in the robot operator labyrinth. Second, the car is very likely stolen. People don't generally take their own nice truck, smash a bunch of the windows, dent the shit out of it, and run it on a rim out into the woods on an access trail to leave with the doors open. (I wound up logging on and posting to their anonymous tip line before typing this.)

Got home. For being in the low 70s, the humidity was brutal. Started picking up downed branches and piling them onto my brush pile that now has its own ZIP code. That's when I saw about 1/3 of a black walnut tree was down in my back pasture. :/

Decided I might as well just get out the chainsaw and get to work. Luckily it hadn't taken out the fence (yet) and the charge on my electric chainsaw held up for most of the cutting. Turns out black walnut in July, fully in leaf and with nuts almost mature is fucking heavy. Dragged quite a few branches to the brush pile, but there's still quite a few to go. So now I'm about 2 hours late for the day, exhausted, and soaked in sweat. I'm so done with this year.

 

[Volpone]

A quick note: Getting older for me means having more willpower to power on when you're tired, but having to pay for it later. Now that a lot of the big summer hardware sales are over, I had some time off from unloading trucks for the store, so I got around 4 days of uninterrupted painting on the new house. I knew this time was going to end at some point so I'd better not waste any of it and I got the basic wall painting done Thursday afternoon.* So as I'm stumbling around in 7' tall weeds, thorns, and vines while my dog hunts rodents, I get a call to come into work in less than an hour. Given that I didn't have as much money as I'd hoped for this week, I didn't complain. And I worked at close to my regular capacity.

Then I slept until almost 1pm today and did basically nothing productive. Now, after 9pm, I feel like I've been dragged behind a truck and I'm ready for bed. I'd hoped to use today as a break to finish last weekend's chores, get the oil changed on my car, and maybe even go see a movie. Instead I ate breakfast at lunchtime, did the morning dog walk when the afternoon one should've happened, ate lunch and had a nap so I could do the afternoon dog walk at dinner time. The first chance I had to go get an oil change was about an hour after service stations closed. I guess I could still make it to a movie, if I wanted to fall asleep in it. But I've still got last weekend chores that I could do instead. Or just take a shower, have a cocktail and go to bed.




*I gotta go back and touch up the ceilings, walls, and accent walls before I can move on to painting trim. And I need to clean and replace various electrical plate covers and swap out a nasty ceiling fan.

 

[Volpone]

"So, I was vacuuming nude..."

The story told in the ER for why you stuck your junk in the vacuum cleaner hose. Had something similar happen, only for real, the other day.

Painting at the new house. I've got about 4 rollers there and 2...rollers? The thing the roller goes on. We'll call it a roller handle. 3 colors and a primer, so I just wrap the roller in Saran Wrap instead of cleaning it between uses. When I've transitioned to a 3rd color, I need to take a roller off the handle and put a new roller on. Ist clar? Ich weis nicht.

Anyhow, I was getting ready to do my accent walls, so I needed to swap the ceiling paint roller off the handle to put on a fresh roller. And while the rollers were new (my cheap ass splurged instead of using the same 3 ratty rollers I've had since 2009 or so), the handles were not. Even with good cleanings, they have a lot of built up paint on them. And rollers are designed to fit to the handles snugly--or they'd keep coming off while you're painting. Loaded rollers that are wrapped in cling wrap are even harder to get off. And hard to get on without making a mess. The T-shirt I was wearing reminded me of this with a dark blue roller sized ring on the stomach area. Determined not to further fuck up a shirt that is so thin it is almost disintegrating, I was trying to cradle the handle in the pocket of my shoulder and force the new roller all the way on (it was stuck about 2" from being seated). I succeeded. Pinching a nice chunk of man-boob between the roller and the handle.

It hurt quite a bit. But meanwhile, I'm standing there with a roller attached to my chest and I've got to figure out how to get it off. There's nothing for it but to just grab the bastard and try to pull it free. It was actually fairly simple--and didn't hurt as much as I feared it would. That said, for now I have a nice purplish crescent about 2" to the right of my left nipple.