a home of one's own

the bath is almost ready for inauguration. the tiling is finalized (finally). worked like a maniac during thanksgiving break (nov 21-27) to get it this far.
i had to re-grout two of the shower walls. on the first round of grouting we were a little overzealous and ended up wiping off most of it. when the grout had dried and contracted, there were cracks all over the place. only solution was to go back and re-do all of it. unexpected additonal grunt work that i could have done without.
next step was to seal all the vertical and horizontal seams with siliconized acrylic caulk for baths. that took much longer that i had anticipated. and it was tedious and frustrating. due to our less than precise tiling, the gaps were irregular at these joints and it took some doing to get all the gaping joints all filled out with goo. the process is pretty involved. you have to keep a wet rag and water handy. the smoothing of the caulk is done with one wet finger and you have to keep wiping off the excess as you move along.
third step, finishing the painting. back up on that ladder.
fourth step, remove lopsided towel bar (installed by the a$$hole handyman) and reinstall.
fifth step, clean clean clean...
in the middle of step 5, i realized that the toilet did not seem to be flushing right. and the sink faucet water line (cold) leaked drops of water after the faucet is turned off.
called mr. rooter and had professional plumber come over for inspection. true to form the faucet did not leak and he said that the toilet needs to have its guts replaced eventually but was not an immediate worry. i needed to do this anyway because of my lack of confidence in the quality of the work.
next, installed the shower curtain and the liner was 3" shorter than what the package said (68" instead of 71") which made all the difference because it doesn't reach the floor all the way and has to be returned to target.
...
note - mr. rooter's estimations were free, btw. but he gave me an estimate for $328 for chaning the toilet parts which sounds rather steep even to my ears.
note - cheesecloth is an investment you will not regret making when you do tile work. indispensable.

i cleaned the rain gutters.
in freezing cold. with a ladder standing on uneven ground. with no tools but my hands covered in orange rubber work gloves. i scooped out fistfuls of rotting leaves and pine needles and berries and other types of unrecognizable organic matter - all in various stages of decomposition.
i had underestimated my own ability to stomach the unimaginably gross and yucky. in about 45 minutes i was done with each side. i did the back gutters first (on the wednesday before of thanksgiving). to get the hang of things away from the eyes of passers by. on this pleasant sunday afternoon, i finished the front. it was a brisk 32 degrees outside. but at least it was sunny. school starts back tomorrow so i am glad to have this out of the way.
as a finishing touch, i put in plastic gutter screens under the shingles to cover the gutters and keep things from going back in there so that i don't have to do this again. ever.
somewhere nature is laughing at my naivete.

managed to lock myself out of the house for the first time. had to happen some day. i am an old pro at lock-outs. since i did not hide a key in the garage, so there i was - truly at a loss. i called on sarah, my kind neighbor (who had mowed my lawn for me once), and together we looked up a locksmith in her phone book. i was dreading the costs (given my NYC experience) but it was $30 and he took abt 15 minutes to get to the house. it was the day before thanksgiving and we were going to the grocery store for supplies. and i wasn't even late.

OMG - this was the quote of the day on my personalized google page today... chk it out:

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

- Ellen Goodman



this is *my* life! should i be concerned?

my first halloween with real kids coming over for candy. so i can safely scratch that one off my things-never-experienced list. and while i am at it, add a footnote to said list to remind me not to be home for another one ever again. why? the whole story follows...
well, it was fine for the first three sets of kids. they dressed in ridiculous costumes (one was 'asian girl' dressed in a red chinese silk outfit). however, things came to a head with the fourth set when a cat casually stepped in through my open front door. first i thought it was the kids' pet so i asked them politely to take the cat out. they shrugged and said it wasn't theirs.
these kids - not dressed up for trick or treating - looked the worst for wear in their own way. unwashed clothes, messy hair - the works. an adult was standing in my porch furiously text messaging someone. she could not care less that their little troup had brought along a cat that no one could account for and that cat was now curiously checking out my new living room furniture. i am not a big animal person and to think that this one was actually a street cat... ewwww... the muck he'd been walking in all day was now tracked right into my pristine home. that thought made my skin crawl. after some effort - and with the help of their very disinterested adult guardian - i managed to get the cat out of the house.
i turned the lights off in the living room immdiately and retired to bed with my current read ("the plague" by camus). it was 10:40 pm. my bed very rarely has the privilege of my company at such an early hour of the night.
this is it for me and halloween. as it is, i never dress up because i fail to see the point. On the one hand - i don't understand why one would need to pretend to be something or someone else even if it is for one day. and on the other hand, it is a pagan ritual possibly having to do with ethnic cleansing for all we know. as you can tell, i am wary of these celebrations (like columbus day, april fool's day for instance). western cultural practices with a murky, unclear past are rarely palatable in their approproate historical context.