♫It's A Beautiful Awning, Ahhhhh,....♫
May. 23rd, 2021 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblog(Spoiler alert: it's not.)
Today was filled with ups and downs.
Up and down these, mainly:
When we first toured this house, more or less this very weekend 27 years ago, the realtor had these stairs down in the garage so we could see the beautiful storage area up above it. It was almost all cleared out of the previous owners' junk, and with the natural wood exposed from inside the outer brick, we envisioned it as a place that Emily would eventually claim as her own and adopt for scary sleepovers with her friends. Teen Heaven, we called it....
and still do, even though the kid never brought a single friend up there in the ensuing decades and was probably up there herself less than a dozen times. Who did go up there? Assorted birds and bees getting in through the eaves, and other occasional tiny livestock to drive the cats crazy. As for the what of it all, it was mostly junk that we hadn't yet committed to throw out, and files. I am my own Uncle Bob, and files not in active-inactive status (like the ones you see above) go up there to die.
But also, one reminder of our original owner. The only exception to "almost all cleared out" was a heavy cloth awning, that had been on a metal frame on the patio behind the house. That patio has been essentially ignored in all our time here: it was too dark with the awning, too hot without it, and within a few years Eleanor had covered much of it with the greenhouse that now takes up most of the space between the garage and dining room doors in the back. We took the frame down years ago, but the awning itself went up to Teen Heaven, until today.
The good news? It wasn't terribly heavy. It was bulky, and covered with the assorted leavings of all those Whos we'd heard up there over the years. Job One of the day was to get it down and then out.
Achievement unlocked:
Job Two was to finish the mowing in the back that I'd begun yesterday. It was rough going, especially behind a berm in the back yard where the adjacent former swamp had dried but left the wild grass with plenty of moisture to grow as high as an elephant's eye. I wound up doing it in two halves, giving the battery, and me, time to recharge in between. But it's done.
There's still crap up in Heaven to be banished to the Bad Place: old Halloween decorations, chaise lounge chairs, and a hammock Eleanor got me one longago Father's Day in a fit of Robert Young Disease. As with the mowing, it will go in stages, and most of the files up there are well past statutes of limitations and can also go.
Yet the sweetest moment of the day was one of the stupidest. Teen Heaven is lit by a single light bulb on a cord, something out of a Booth cartoon-
- yeah, one of those, minus the 27 cats.
Eleanor made sure I brought a flashlight up there, because she suspected the bulb had burned out. I seemed to remember it being okay last time I went file-diving up there, maybe in March, but I agreed, yeah, it's been too long, so while I'm up there I'll replace it with a fresh one.
Sure enough, it came right on as soon as I plugged it in. First thing up there, I crawled over with the new bulb in hand and unscrewed the one in the socket.... which promptly dissolved in my hand, leaving the screw part in the bottom.
Oops.
I came back down to unplug the cord and get some tools to wrestle the bottom part out. Eleanor insisted I go back up wearing gloves, saying, You're the only husband I have, and you're the only one I want to have.
That might be the nicest thing anyone said to me all year:)
The old came out, the new went in, I checked it after hauling everything else out and a few things up, and we should be good to go for another 20 years or so. Maybe someday grandkids will want to play up there.
Today was filled with ups and downs.
Up and down these, mainly:
When we first toured this house, more or less this very weekend 27 years ago, the realtor had these stairs down in the garage so we could see the beautiful storage area up above it. It was almost all cleared out of the previous owners' junk, and with the natural wood exposed from inside the outer brick, we envisioned it as a place that Emily would eventually claim as her own and adopt for scary sleepovers with her friends. Teen Heaven, we called it....
and still do, even though the kid never brought a single friend up there in the ensuing decades and was probably up there herself less than a dozen times. Who did go up there? Assorted birds and bees getting in through the eaves, and other occasional tiny livestock to drive the cats crazy. As for the what of it all, it was mostly junk that we hadn't yet committed to throw out, and files. I am my own Uncle Bob, and files not in active-inactive status (like the ones you see above) go up there to die.
But also, one reminder of our original owner. The only exception to "almost all cleared out" was a heavy cloth awning, that had been on a metal frame on the patio behind the house. That patio has been essentially ignored in all our time here: it was too dark with the awning, too hot without it, and within a few years Eleanor had covered much of it with the greenhouse that now takes up most of the space between the garage and dining room doors in the back. We took the frame down years ago, but the awning itself went up to Teen Heaven, until today.
The good news? It wasn't terribly heavy. It was bulky, and covered with the assorted leavings of all those Whos we'd heard up there over the years. Job One of the day was to get it down and then out.
Achievement unlocked:
Job Two was to finish the mowing in the back that I'd begun yesterday. It was rough going, especially behind a berm in the back yard where the adjacent former swamp had dried but left the wild grass with plenty of moisture to grow as high as an elephant's eye. I wound up doing it in two halves, giving the battery, and me, time to recharge in between. But it's done.
There's still crap up in Heaven to be banished to the Bad Place: old Halloween decorations, chaise lounge chairs, and a hammock Eleanor got me one longago Father's Day in a fit of Robert Young Disease. As with the mowing, it will go in stages, and most of the files up there are well past statutes of limitations and can also go.
Yet the sweetest moment of the day was one of the stupidest. Teen Heaven is lit by a single light bulb on a cord, something out of a Booth cartoon-
- yeah, one of those, minus the 27 cats.
Eleanor made sure I brought a flashlight up there, because she suspected the bulb had burned out. I seemed to remember it being okay last time I went file-diving up there, maybe in March, but I agreed, yeah, it's been too long, so while I'm up there I'll replace it with a fresh one.
Sure enough, it came right on as soon as I plugged it in. First thing up there, I crawled over with the new bulb in hand and unscrewed the one in the socket.... which promptly dissolved in my hand, leaving the screw part in the bottom.
Oops.
I came back down to unplug the cord and get some tools to wrestle the bottom part out. Eleanor insisted I go back up wearing gloves, saying, You're the only husband I have, and you're the only one I want to have.
That might be the nicest thing anyone said to me all year:)
The old came out, the new went in, I checked it after hauling everything else out and a few things up, and we should be good to go for another 20 years or so. Maybe someday grandkids will want to play up there.
Gotta remember this....
Date: 2021-05-24 12:15 pm (UTC)...next time Dave is about to do something chancey. :D
Re: Gotta remember this....
Date: 2021-05-27 04:47 pm (UTC)Re: Gotta remember this....
Date: 2021-05-28 10:02 am (UTC)