sat jul 4
It is the fourth of July, for God’s sake, and the Creemee stand in town is closed.
What is the world coming to?
tue jul 7
It had been a hot day and I’d gotten a lot accomplished and, by golly, I deserved a Creemee.
So I fired up the Suzuki and headed for Cajun’s Snack Bar in Lowell, just south of Canada.
It was closed. What is the world coming to?
I’ve been building door fronts for the kitchen cabinets and it’s turned out to be quite the project. There’s been a lot of trim-and-fit involved, plus several mistakes, so it’s been slow.
It will be nice not to have to look at the garbage can and the box of backup sponges under the sink any more.
Drilling the holes for the handles was a tedious affair and, on the very last set of holes, I drilled them all exactly 1/2” too low, so three handles droop to one side. I decided to tell nobody about my boo boo and see if anyone noticed it.
Who knew that crooked re-bar could look so good!
We usually go out on the back porch after dinner and watch the stars come out, but Celia pointed out that there is a lot more sky on the other deck. We don’t sit out there, though, because we don’t have any deck furniture that can survive the winds that gust on by.
Well that’s just embarrassing.
So I’m on a mission to make a set of deck furniture out of re-bar (to match my roof gutters, fan hood, drawer pulls, spiral staircase, and deck railings).
I haven’t made a chair in 20 years, and they’re hard to get right, so I’ve been making prototypes, sitting in them, and asking myself what part of my body isn’t happy. Here are a few:
Not comfortable, unless you’re basically lying down.
Much better!
Even better. And better looking, too!
Easy on the butt, but lining up the screws with the holes was really, really hard.
As it turns out, this is the best way to build a deck chair designed to stay put in a windstorm.
I got my truck back from Toyota yesterday. They replaced my 11 year old frame with a brand new one, free of charge. Some kind of a safety recall.
When they said they wanted to do this, I thought to myself: if they totally disassemble my vehicle and then put it back together, then something – something! – is bound to break, and it’s going to cost me money and time to straighten it out. You just wait.
I got myself talked into it, though, and right off the bat, the bill was for $1100, instead of $zero. Gotta have good brakes, after all. And remind me to google what a ‘strut’ is, because they’re $250 apiece. I drove it home, and it seemed to be fine.
Today was the hottest day of the hottest hot spell of the summer, and I took the truck to Montpelier to get more re-bar for my deck chairs. And on the way back, my air conditioning conked out. Toyota is going to be hearing about this.
Celia and Mary report that there are so many raspberries that the Japanese beetles can’t keep up.
I’ve been picking seeds out of my teeth all week.
Fun fact: When assembling a GL1000, the gas tank goes on FIRST.
Every other bike on the planet: gas tank goes on LAST.
mon jul 27
Last night, it was hot and humid, so Mary had all the windows in the bedroom open for air circulation. Overnight, a weather front moved in, and it got quite gusty outside. The wind whipped in through one window and out another, and it knocked over a picture on the headboard. It fell two feet, conked me on the head, and I woke up cussing.
Ouch!
thu jul 30.
It was lunch time, and Mary was making 3 sandwiches.
To save time, she put 6 pieces of bread in the little toaster oven. And of course, they didn’t all fit, and one fell through the grate, and landed right on top of the heating element, and it filled the house with smoke, and we made a hell of a mess shaking the toaster oven to dislodge the burnt toast. I cleaned up the mess and then went back outside to await my sandwich. She always makes good sandwiches, and this one had an earthy, crispy crunch I couldn’t quite place, so I started poking at it and …
Under the ham… Under the lettuce… Under the mayo…
Was a big black burn mark, like a brand burned into the bread.
It tasted better than it looked.