Willie the
electrician arrived shortly after 8 a.m. and my worker bees arrived soon
after. They got right to work and we
left for the gym. Later, when we
struggled out of the car back at home, we could hear the nail gun banging and
the reciprocating saw screaming through wood before we even reached the front
door. Angus spent most of his morning in
the only cave he could find.
At one point the racket was so loud I wanted to find a cave myself, and for a few intense moments when the nail gun was blasting over and over and over, my hands shook when I added ingredients to yesterday’s construction cookie – brownies, which are again, technically not cookies. But if you can eat them without a fork I’m going to call them a cookie.
Normally I
might have spent part of the day cleaning.
With everything that’s been going on, cleaning should have been high on
my list. I could see dusty boot prints
from the front door to the stairway, the stairs were covered in sawdust which
is tracked and mixed in with the boot prints and on top of that, it’s been so
warm Angus comes in with wet, muddy paws after each time he goes out and adds
his mix of grime to everything else. However,
I didn’t see any point to cleaning when every day is a shower of sawdust, worker
bees are walking outside for a tool, back in to work, outside for a tool, back in
to work. And then there’s me. I keep spilling more and more flour on the
floor when I bake. Anyway, those noises
were making me so jumpy yesterday I needed even more distraction, so in between
baking brownies I baked cheese and pepper bread.
While there
was a lull in the action and Willie was out eating lunch, Dean brought him a
fossil from his own collection.
I think he was just so happy that somebody was interested in his rocks and fossils that he wanted another excuse to talk rocks. It turns out Willie has his own rock collection which I’m sure raised him to almost saintly status in Dean’s estimation.
After Dean got
his geology fix, and work began again in the basement, we took Angus and Baxter
for their daily walk. It was so warm and
felt so spring-like that that the pathway was busy with lots and lots of other
walkers.
And even better, there were no sounds of blasting nail-guns or earsplitting saws ripping through wood. We were enjoying the sounds of silence so much we prolonged them as long as possible by stopping at the local brewery on the way home and drinking a comforting beer.
When we finally
got home, the workday had ended, and the only trace of my worker bees was an
empty plate in the sink sprinkled with brownie crumbs. The joists had been insulated, the framing
was all completed, there are boxes for plug-ins, cans for recessed lights,
switches to turn those lights off and on, and phone jacks because yes, we did finally cut the cable. The post was still in the middle of the room
but I think the worker bees are waiting for the bracket/brace/I can’t remember
what they called it to come in, and when it does they will attach it to the new
beam somehow for additional support.
Then they will remove the post. I
think. And I think maybe then there will
be a bit more electrical work. Pretty
sure. After that the drywall will be hung
and textured and painted. I'm almost positive. Honestly, they tell me things but when I try
to pass it on to Dean, I can’t remember half the details.
I am sure, though, that we will have a
two-day break from the banging and sawing and buzzing and all those
construction noises. I might even take a
break from blogging. Unfortunately, I
probably shouldn’t take any more breaks from cleaning. But I will almost definitely give myself a break from
baking because I always taste everything I bake
before I give it to my worker bees to make sure it’s okay and frankly, I can’t
take much more sugar.
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