Our
electrician, Willie, arrived about 8:30 with his hair looking like he’d stuck
his finger in a live socket just before he knocked on our door. Or, given how old he seems, it’s more likely
he stayed up half the night playing video games and yanked on his hair every
time his voltage-tester-wielding avatar was blown away by
the scorching-torch-brandishing figure of a plumber.
But no matter, he was here, rarin’ to go and my worker bees still were not.
About an hour later as Dean and I headed out for a dog walk (on-leash, of course.....the dogs on-leash, not us, although if there are rocks nearby sometimes I've wished I had Dean on a leash....joking, Dean....I'm just joking.....) my worker bees pulled in. They hadn't come the day before because they’d been waiting for the official
certificate saying they could remove that support post and replace it with a
beam so we won’t have a big pillar in the middle of the basement. I’m trusting (which does not come easily for
me) the engineer who issued that certificate knows what he’s doing because as nice as it will be not to
have a pillar in the middle of the basement, if it’s a choice between no pillar
or the floor above landing on my lap while I’m watching TV in my newly finished
basement, I choose the pillar.
Anyway, the
worker bees got right to work … for two hours … and then went to lunch and to
pick up more wood … for two hours. Willie
took a 15 minute lunch break and was the first to enjoy day four’s construction
cookie – lemon bars. I suppose lemon bars
aren’t really cookies but they are in the cookie section of my cookbook so
yesterday, they were cookies.
Willie did all he could until my worker bees finish the framing (which they almost finished by the end of the day) and said he would be back today. As he was walking toward the front door one of the 7,821 rocks and fossils we have around the house caught his eye. I called Dean over so he could enjoy the rare experience of explaining a geologic wonder to somebody besides me, whose eyes, no matter how hard I try to look interested, always glaze over with boredom. Actually, that’s not true. I don’t even try anymore. Poor Dean. What he has to put up with ... Willie, however, seemed genuinely interested in what Dean said to him, but just in case, I rewarded him for his patience by giving him another lemon bar for the road.
I’ve been giving my worker bees a bad time here, but really they’ve been hard workers. It was their idea to see if the support post could be removed (which should happen today) so we’d have a nice open area, and they made the effort to talk to the experts and make sure it really would be safe to use an alternate method. And it was their idea to frame in a bump-out for the TV.
 |
| TV area boxed in on the left, furnace boxed in on the right. Post will be gone today. |
I knew this finished basement wasn't going to
be much bigger than a postcard but with actual walls going in I'm beginning to feel like it might be more of the size of a postage stamp. But with the help of my worker bees, at least it will be one of those larger commemorative stamps. I think my cookie baking is paying off.
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2 comments:
Well, with all the cookies and lemon bars, aren't you worried that the worker bees will be too large to get back through the doorway up stairs? The job will drag on as the worker bees start a pool on what kind of bribes you'll come up with on day 6, 7, ... n, as the engineers and scientists like to label them.
Speaking of cookies, Kath made some ginger cookies this morning, a recipe she got from a friend who got it from his grandmother. She discovered how hockey pucks came to be. These cookies would really hurt off a wrist shot.
That glazed geology look must be genetic.
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