Beautiful Fall Day

There are all kinds of signs telling me that the season is changing from summer to autumn. One of the biggest, of course, is the change in temperature. I don’t need a thermometer to know the nights are getting cooler. I don’t even need to stick my nose out the door to know if we had a frost. I have Lily.

I know the outside temperature is somewhat cool if I can’t move my feet during the night because her fat little body is lying on top of the covers. But I know it’s gone from cool to cold if, during the night, I feel her walking around sniffing heads, looking for the person who will let her under the covers. She’s a smart kitty. She’s smart enough to know that if she waits at the bathroom sink someone will turn the water on for her so she doesn’t have to drink dog-slobber water. She’s smart enough to know that each night after dinner I will give her some Greenies —as long as she doesn’t trip and kill me in her race to beat me to the bag of treats. So you’d think she’d be smart enough to know that Dean sleeps on the same side of the bed every night and she doesn’t need to waste her time sniffing his head. I’m sure she knows the odds that he would quit hoarding junk collecting treasures are a thousand times greater than that he would ever lift the covers for her to snuggle up next to him.

You just never know when you're going to need a trophy or computer part.

But that doesn’t stop her. She sniffs his head; then she walks over and sniffs my head. Safe in the knowledge she has found her favorite human form, she begins butting my head and doesn’t stop until I roll over onto my side and lift up the covers. Then she crawls under, pushes herself up next to my stomach, and drops her fat, furry body like a lead balloon. That’s one way I know it’s not summer anymore.

Another indication that those lazy, hazy days of summer are ending is Dean trying to weasel out of letting me use one stall in the garage to park my car during the winter. We have a deal. Dean can have the whole garage to do whatever he wants as soon as winter ends, and I get one measly stall when it gets so cold that I need to scrape my windows in the morning.

The other day he even played the retirement card. “I won’t retire this year if you let me build a second story above the garage so I can have a big workshop. That way you can have the WHOLE garage.” Right. I’ll “let” you continue to work so you can fork out more money than you would lose from retiring to make our house look like Rapunzel’s tower. Then I’ll go get a second job to pay for your medical bills and the repairs my car will need after you walk out of your huge workshop, lose your footing, roll down the stairs into the garage and dent my car with the chunk of wood you were carrying. Nope. Not happenin’ buddy.

But for me, the Farmer’s Almanac of all indicators that the dog days of summer are ending and Indian summer is beginning is … here it comes … get ready … the waterproofing of the BFD. Yes. The B  ·  F  ·  D. Betcha weren’t expecting to see those three letters again! It is still alive and well. Not only well, but healthy and whole. And FINISHED! Totally, absolutely, no question about it, completely, for-reals done. It has new stairs! Beautiful new stairs.

Stairs that will give the grandkids a fighting chance if they accidentally somersault down rather than walk in the normal upright stance most of us take.

You’re amazed aren’t you? And impressed, I’ll bet. Me too. Nice job, Justin!

Oh…you thought WE built the stairs? We could have. Oh, we could have, but it wouldn’t have been fun, and I would have been forced to torture you with dozens and dozens of BFD stair-whining posts and then you might get grumpy from reading cranky posts so when Windows froze up you’d lose control and throw your glass of ice water at the monitor. The computer would spark and smoke and as you were running for the fire extinguisher you’d slip on the ice and break your leg and you’d have to drag yourself through the gritty dog and cat fur on the floor to get to the phone to call for help, but before you got there the fur would make you sneeze and then not only would you have a broken leg but your back would be spasming and … anyway … we did not build them so you should probably be counting your blessings now. The thing is, one of the best parts about getting old(er) has been spending some of the money we used to spend on tuition, books, dentists and doctors on us. What could be more enjoyable than hiring young muscle to do something for us we both dreaded doing.

I’m telling you, the feeling of having somebody working outside in the sweltering heat FOR you, all the while remembering that last year it was YOU who was out there  ... well  ... it’s blissful. And, after the stairs were completed, I somehow (unintentionally, of course) managed to be busy during almost all of the 12 hours it took Dean to completely waterproof the whole dang B  ·  F  ·  D again.  That was as heavenly as a crisp fall day with nothing to do but watch the leaves fall gently onto a new deck.

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Beautiful Fall Day

12-Step Program

My name is Dean and I am a BFD addict.  All summer my life has been controlled by chunks of wood.  I have fooled myself into believing I was in control.  I thought I could stop working on the BFD at any time.  I was positive I could be at home for one full weekend without the uncontrollable urge to sort, inspect and touch wood until the perfect board is found.  I thought I could resist planing this newly discovered perfect board on my awesome jointer/planer until it was so soft and smooth I could rub it along the beard-free portion of my face (or maybe the larger area on top of my head) with no worry of slivers.  I told myself I could stop vacuuming stray specks of sawdust from this chunk of wood any time I chose.  There was no doubt in my mind I could say no! when my friend cried out for waterproofing to bring forth the soft lustre of her grain.  I believed it when I told my wife it would be easy to stay out of the garage for one whole weekend.  I promised I would not touch one power tool this Labor Day weekend. 

I am a BFD addict. I cannot stop. Help me....

Fessing up update:  Okay, I wrote that.  But I'm absolutively, positively, no-doubt-about-it sure that's what Dean WOULD have written if he could have.  I've heard admitting you have a problem is the first step.◦

12-Step Program

Finally! The Big Announcement

I'll bet you thought this announcement had something to do with our 37-year anniversary and the fact that I gave Dean a trip to Portland to celebrate. No, not a trip alone to get away from me; he should be so lucky. This is a chance to get away from the BFD and visit the city he mentions, on average, once a month. "Powells Books is there", he says with reverence and awe in his voice, "and art galleries" and (sigh) "lots and lots of brew pubs". So we're off ... but not til September. We can't leave until we've conquered the wooden monstrosity.

Or maybe you thought I was going to announce we'd finished the BFD so you wouldn't have to read about it anymore. If only we were all that lucky. Sadly, that is not the announcement. However since we're on the topic of the BFD -- we were back out there again this Sunday morning in a bit of a panic. We foolishly allowed ourselves to sleep in this Sunday morning and enjoy a lazy breakfast of Dean's famous buttermilk pancakes, and my too-strong-for-anybody-else coffee. As is my habit on Sunday mornings I read the paper and drink coffee as Dean's cooking breakfast. This Sunday morning I made the mistake of reading the weather outloud to Dean. "Possible rain showers are predicted for the next five days." The guaranteed to last four years waterproofer needs 24 hours to dry so that was the end of the lazy breakfast. I hadn't even finished my last bite of pancake before Dean was hauling out the brushes and buckets and slathering on sunscreen .

There's alot of time to think while you're doing this

to touch up this

See the unpainted bit between the boards? Just not acceptable.

I was thinking of lots of things; like how if we would have taken three minutes to check the web we would have known that Fort Collins moved its farmers market from Saturday to Sunday. And yesterday Saturday when we drove there to give ourselves a break from the (surprise!) BFD, we found not tables and tables of veggies and fruits, but an empty parking lot with a sign. And if we would have know there wasn't a farmers market to rush to, maybe I could have slept in past 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

And I thought about the protest march we walked into heading back to our car. We were going in opposite directions both physically and ideologically. Bless their little hearts, all the blue-haired folks probably just forgot that the Medicare benefits they're currently receiving are coming to them via a government-run program. The same type of government run program they were protesting. I suppose the young ones just never think they'll get sick. And the folks that came of age in the 60s, well, I can understand how their brains may not be functioning at full capacity anymore. And then I thought about how I saw more Obama bumper stickers during the three hours I was in Fort Collins than I have in the past two years in Wyoming and my faith in humankind was restored.

I wondered whether my ankle, yes, ankle, would cramp again this Sunday morning (it did not) like it did the other night because I have found no ergonomically correct way to waterproof the deck. The tried and true cramp remedy of grabbing your toes and pulling up at the same time you are pushing down on your knee does not work when that foot is bending back and up, trying to align itself perpendicularly (is that a word?) with your lower leg. It hurts. Alot. When Dean and I rise from the deck, we do it very slowly and tend to say alot of "oh, ahhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, mmmmmmmmmmmm, phew, ohhhhh", and, for the first few steps appear to be walking like we have an invisible walker. The other night when my ankle cramped, the noises I made as I was walking around the far end of the BFD didn't even register with Dean. "oh ... oh ... OH, OH, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Finally, as I was bent over clutching the rail, I heard a soft voice say "cramp?" and then he went back to brushing.

Dean's hopes of finishing the BFD by the end of the weekend were dashed but we did make noticable progress. Even if we would have stayed home yesterday Saturday, it got up to 95 degrees and that's too hot to apply the guaranteed to last four years waterproofer anyway. That's what he's telling himself anyway. I don't really care. I'm sick of the BFD, which, as of Sunday night has had reached this point.

I asked Dean what he thinks about during the hours we're out on the evil wooden monster and, other than wondering if he'd caught Abby's head-squeezing-energy-sucking-drooling's-better-than-swallowing-knock-you-down-flat-cold through the phone lines, (updated Monday night--turns out he did, only not as severe), the thing he'd been thinking about most was the topic that occupied most of my time on the BFD this morning; the topic that has been occupying my mind a good share of the time since I learned of it; the topic I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting (Been waiting since Tuesday ... Wednesday ... Friday ... Sunday---I give up and write the post so I'm ready ... Dang that cold! ... still waiting Monday night. ...waiting ANOTHER Tuesday.....Tuesday afternoon ... still waiting ... THIS IS KILLIN' ME ...FINALLY--NOW!) to tell you; the true topic of this post. And that topic is THIS!

We are doing the happy dance. (If you're thinking "why are they doing the happy dance? The BFD isn't even finished" go back up and click on THIS!) Yes, Dean and I. I'm on my tippy toes; my arms are above my head and I am twirling, twirling, twirling around. Dean is up, on the toes of two feet, no, down, now up on one foot, on his toes, he's holding on to the back of the couch, yeeeessss, almost, on tippy toes on both feet, yes! now one arm up, next arm almost up, almost ... one foot down, back up, left arm down, back up, starting to turn, just a little, ... tipping, tipping, tipping, ... caught by the end table ... that's okay, I didn't like that lamp anyway, ... I know, it's those white athletic socks ... they slip ... Okay, that was my imagination. In reality Dean would have been wearing his sandals along with those white athletic socks and thus would not have slipped. He still wouldn't have twirled as good as me, though. We are very happy and excited for Abby and Jorge. Can you tell? We welcome Jorge to our family with open arms.

Wait ... what's that feeling? ... It's a twinge ... in my brain ... now my fingers are twitching ... starting to move ... a post ... I feel a future post coming on ... current and ... future ... sons-in-law ... crazy ... in-laws ... oh, ... it's out of my control ... the fingers ... stop ...
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Finally! The Big Announcement

HOW long?

Thirty-seven years tomorrow.

Thir ... ty ... Se ... ven years living with the same person ... tomorrow. Wow.

I have something I so much want to tell you all. Oh, how I want to tell you all... well, the five or six of you who might be reading this ... but I shouldn't ... not yet ... tomorrow? Maybe ... I hope so ... it's pretty exciting ... I'm excited anyway ... but I can't tell you ... not now ... later...

In the meantime there has been progress on the BFD which continues to occupy our spare time. There are now new rails on the narrow, smaller (smaller being a relative term) end of the deck which requires only a bunch more spindles and top rails to complete it (complete being a relative term). Of course, now that this project is almost over, our assembly line procedure has reached near perfection. If there was another BFD needing the same repairs I'm sure we could do it in half the time, or three-fourths the time, or at least a couple of days hours quicker; as if we would ever be stupid enough to do that. If this deck ever needs new planks, support beams, spindles, top rails or stairs again during my lifetime, I vote for moving.

One of the steps Dean stumbled upon to increase the efficiency, and speed up the process of this whole project, has been to waterproof the rails and spindles before he screws them on. Since that step didn't begin occurring til near the end of this project (see above near perfection), it means we had to go back and waterproof all the parts we've already installed. And, since he was tired of waterproofing the deck every year, he did some research, actually asked some questions (I know, who knew, men do know how to ask questions---if it doesn't involve directions) and purchased some super duper, guaranteed to last four years deck waterproofing stuff.

You'd think we could just slop it on those planks and be done with it, but remember, this is the guy who made us wash all the rocks from under the deck before we could put them back. So what do you think the step before waterproofing was? If your guess involved water, a special scrubbing broom and special stuff to scrub off mildew from redwood, you're right!

The dreaded mildew.

Oh, how I wish I had a picture of me scrubbing ... you'll just to trust that I scrubbed this.

As I was scrubbing with this specially designed mildew-scrubbing brush, it occurred to me that I probably didn't really need to feel guilty about not making it to the gym. I was sweating, my heart rate was nearing cardio range and I was sculpting my arms. And I didn't even have to pay a membership to do it.

This is August, and it should have been so warm that the newly scrubbed deck would have dried quickly, but no. Instead of global warming we seem to be on the edges of the next ice age.

Yes, that's frost on the roof....in mid-AUGUST!

So out came the fan, not to cool us off, but to speed the drying of the deck so we could move on to the next step. It was like hearing a prop plane warming up....for hours. I'm sure our neighbors really enjoyed the background noise as they ate dinner on their patio.

Once the required washing, scrubbing, rinsing, and sort-of-drying was completed, it was time for the rolling-on of the special guaranteed to last four years waterproofing stuff. When we started the rolling-on process the sun was still shining.

As we rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled, the sun got lower and lower and lower and the temperature got cooler and cooler and cooler. I donned a sweatshirt and Dean kept complaining about his toes being cold. I would have felt sorry for him but he'd switched out boots for sandals. I can't dress him all the time.

After an eight-hour day at work (for some of us) this process began at approximately 3:00 p.m. At about 5:30 p.m. we had a quick piece of warmed up pizza, and at 8:30 p.m., after the first coat of guaranteed to last four years waterproofing was on, we ate a boy do we deserve this guilt-free ice cream bar. Then it was back out for the final coat ... in the dark.

Note the stocking hat and sandals.

By 10:30 p.m. the prop plane/fan was turned off, the lights on the deck were back in the house, and the painting equipment was cleaned. Boy, that was fun ...

Finished (finished being a relative term).

Now all we need to do is go back out and touch up all the places we missed while we were rolling, and rolling and rolling in the cool, cool, cool air during the dark. But Dean told me that because it's our anniversary we don't have to work on the deck for Two whole days. He's a prince!

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HOW long?

Worth a Thousand Words

Yesterday after I had posted about my golfing experience, I received this timely gift in the mail from my very astute sister.


Today, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Dean donned his Doo Rag for our weekend deck work.


I like to think of it as his Do Rag because I have a list a mile long of things waiting for him to do once the BFD is finished. I know he'll be thrilled to do them.◦

Worth a Thousand Words