Also happening on April 15, 2010...
Ayize's godfather, Pete, came to visit. It was his first time at the new house, and we were happy to hear how much he loved it.
He has declared it the official chill spot of Evanston. And what Peter sayeth, beeth, so amen to that...summer hangout, here we come!
Peter gives the official Watson nod of approval.
It was also day # 2 of our gutter installation. Actually, it was supposed to be the final day of our gutter installation, until some major drama unfolded...
But let me begin at the beginning.
Hanson Roofers had come over the day before to start replacing all the gutters and downspouts. Unfortunately, the old ones were made out of some very cheap material and to make matters worse, they had deteriorated over the years to the point where they were hardly working. They needed to be ripped out and replaced, and given the assault they will face annually from the gazillion trees surrounding the house, I really wanted the best material I could afford.
Also, the front porch flooded with every rainfall and worse, every snowmelt, leaving either a swimming pool to wade through, or an ice skating rink to glide across, depending on the ambient temperature. So I decided to add gutters and downspouts to the small front entranceway as well.
All in all, not a huge job, given the small size of my house, but still, a fairly-involved one. Anyway, two guys showed up on the first day, three days earlier than expected. They surveyed the house for ages from the safety of their truck, which had me and my lunching electricians kind of giggling and wondering if they would ever actually emerge. They did, finally, and one introduced himself and gave me a quick overview of what they planned to do. (The other guy, a very nice dude the size of a linebacker, spoke only a little English).
They set to work tearing down the old gutter and got most of it down that afternoon, then left for the day. They were super efficient! But unfortunately, they left a few casualties in their wake -- my lovely garden plaque:
which they accidentally knocked down when they opened their ladder. I understand that it was an accident, but it pissed me off that they tried to play it off. I mean, me and Casey were standing right there! When it became apparent that they were going to try to look the other way, and as I stooped to pick up the pieces, heartbroken, Casey spoke up angrily with a, "Hey guys! That's not cool!" To their credit, they immediately ascertained that the jig was up and came down the ladder to apologize, which was truly appreciated, even if it was a bit late in coming. The linebacker guy, who was really, really sweet during all three days of the job, took my collected shards and promised to glue it back together and return it to me the next day.
The second casualty was a portion of my backyard's perimeter fence:
that I found lying in my plants after that side of the house was de-guttered. I picked it up and propped it against the house until I can figure out how to reattach it (still working on that a month later, BTW), but it was in crappy, rotting shape anyway, plus it had been manipulated by the trench digger when the garage was being wired underground the day before, so whatever.
I do wish that they had told me about my fenceless state before I brought Weeman over that afternoon, though -- it would have been very appreciated. On the other hand, that would have deprived Wee of his grand adventure, in which he left the yard while my back was turned and had a jolly time investigating the neighborhood for a few minutes until I noticed his disappearance and shouted for him to come back!
But even that was not the aforementioned major drama (sorry to go off on such a long tangent); the drama involved Really Sweet Linebacker Guy working alone on this day, day # 2, his supposedly-last day. He had shown up by himself that morning and I felt bad for him because it was hot as Hades out and he was sweating like crazy, up on a ladder, in the direct sun. I did make a Starbucks run around noon to get coffee for me, Pete and Eniz, plus iced teas for Casey and RSLG, but I don't know how much it helped.
At any rate, maybe it was the sun, or maybe it was something else, but he somehow managed to cut the hell out of his wrist while sawing a piece of gutter at this makeshift work table out in the yard:
(Note the almost-empty Starbucks iced tea sitting in the gutter forlornly).
So there was RSLG, alone, gushing blood from his wrist like he was on some sort of suicidal mission. I wasn't there when it happened -- I mean, I was at the house, but I was inside.
But at any rate, given the language barrier, it was an awkward situation. I had nothing but a towel and a single Spongebob Squarepants band-aid; Eniz and Casey were hunting frantically through their truck for a First-Aid Kit; and Peter was keeping an eye on Ayize who was nosily inspecting The Scene of the Crime out in the yard, despite the dangers that the sharp, half-cut gutter piece presented.
RSLG seemed to want to simply wrap my towel tightly around his wrist and continue working, spurting blood and all, despite the fact that this was clearly Not the Right Choice. Eniz, with much urging, finally convinced him to head to the hospital.
Amazingly enough, he actually returned to the house a few hours later after getting a bunch of stitches and being bandaged to the nines. His arm looked like it was in a cast, it was so thickly wrapped. And yet he picked up his saw and simply returned to work, yikes! But not for long, because the work day was just about over, so as he left, he waved out the truck's window with his big white bandage of an arm and called out cheerfully, "See tomorrow!"
I have already told you guys the wonderful tale of how Casey saved our garden, and here is what it looked like just after. He even filled in the trench partway and replaced a bunch of the stones at the appropriate depth (as much as time permitted). The ones he did are the nice ones that are the majority of this photo; those few, goofy, out-of-the-ground ones are my work, of course, after they'd left for the day, because I tried to dig small holes for them but ended up almost in tears because I kept hurting earthworms.
Sigh.
Ayize actually prefers my sitting-on-top-of-the-ground ones because they sort of weeble-wobble under your feet as you walk on them, and are therefore much more "exciting".
Course, it's all fun and games until somebody twists their ankle and sues the crap out of me! LOL
But the ones that Casey replaced mostly in the ground (accounting somewhat, of course, for their eventual sink), needed a bit of help -- excess soil left over from the dug trench needed to be put back around them and gaps filled.
This was a lot of fun, according to Ayize!
He scrabbled and pulled and filled...
...he dnagled and dribbled and dropped...
...and then he cheered victoriously for his own hard efforts.
Way to go, kid! Nothing better than the sight of a two-year-old getting down and dirty! My little Mother Nature's son!!
That morning, I was still enthusing over my recently-blossomed boxwood (?) trees out front. Took this portrait of my two ladies LOL...
...and here they are on extreme close-up. A bit stinky, but I don't care. I love them!
And my peonies were really starting to shoot up at long last, hooray!
And my lone daffodil was bobbing prettily in the breeze.
Our backyard is turning into a true child's paradise. I could not be more thrilled!
Anyway, Peter headed out, and so did we. Ayize went down for a nice long nap and didn't wake up until almost 4. I handed him a PB & J and we were out the door and headed for Pirate Park to meet some pals to play.
Ashley was there and little baby Olivia was hitching a ride.
Eight weeks old already...sigh. Time flies.
Ayize, Lukey, and Brianna did some serious sliding. Brianna was really into the one-leg-forward thing that afternoon, if memory serves. LOL
After everyone else dispersed (Tamara and I are always the last men standing), Ayize walked Brianna to her car like a real gentleman.
Too cute!
Anyhow, we went our separate ways.
I got home and my dad needed some special screws from Home Depot. I actually needed some random stuff too, the most pressing on the agenda being extenders for my new front porch gutters. They were up now, and gorgeous...but they ended abruptly about a quarter-inch off the end of my front porch. Not a very ingenious design. I had assumed they would continue the spouts down along the porch and into the front yard (silly me), but this was not the case. And if it rained that night (as it was supposed to), they would drain out directly along the sides of my porch and dump water all along the foundation base. I have a root cellar that was long ago excavated from under the front porch and it's prone to light flooding with each rainfall; I was adding the gutter in part because I wanted to ease the problem. I certainly didn't want to add to it! So I needed to get flexible downspout extenders ASAP.
Anyhow, Dad needed stuff, and I needed stuff, and Mom was out of town so he also needed food. Ayize needed food too. How to do it all, when it was already seven at night?
I remembered that I had a microwavable Easy Mac in the pantry for just such emergencies, said a quick prayer of thanks to Gaia, and zapped it. Mixed in the cheesy radioactive-looking powder and added some peas and corn. And we were off, Dad driving and me helping Ayize eat in the car seat.
We were quick and dirty at Home Depot -- Dad couldn't find his screws but he did end up getting a downspout extender for his own gutter, too, so all in all, we were happy hunters. And the really nice elderly Korean guy who helped us was sweet as anything and really hit it off with my dad. He also helped me locate quarter-inch wire screen and flexible wire for tying for my childproofing job (more on that later).
Then, on the way home, we picked up Burger King for my dad's dinner.
Check. Check. And check.
Missions accomplished!
Did I mention that the sunset driving home from Home Depot was absolutely stunning??
Anyhow, now it was past eight. Ayize was in jammies and snoring a half-hour later.
Dad was watching a movie and with his blessing, I handed him the baby monitor and headed out the door to the new house.
Why?
Because earlier that day, I'd had to fish two small plastic hot dogs out of my heating vent with a pair of wooden chopsticks. And it was not an easy job. I was terrified that I would lose my grip and drop them further down the vent, to some unreachable area. I mean, who wants to spend all of next winter smelling overheated plastic fake food?? And small sausages were not all I had to worry about -- Ayize's deluxe kitchen came complete with a giant Ziplock bag FULL of fake food, lots of it tiny and perfect for air vent holes, like French Fries, skinny utensils, plastic sugar cubes. The hot dogs were just the beginning.
So, in order to prevent ever having to do THIS again:
...I assembled THIS assortment of items:
...and got right down to business.
Now...the job is waaaaay harder than it looks. There are eight of these vents in my house, most with an even trickier (i.e. more irregular) scalloped pattern. (There are also two intake vents, long and rectangular in shape, but since their cover is removable, they would be a piece of cake to child-proof):
For starters, let me tell you that each vent takes approximately two hours to cover. Also, the job is pretty tricky, so you can't wear gloves (too clumsy), and my hands bear testimony to the pain they endured when working with this sharp metal screening.
None of these eight vents have covers that can be removed without professional help. They were screwed into place decades ago and are really cemented on. Attempts at removing the faceplates produce immediate, BAD results -- i.e. you will break them off entirely and have to pay a ton of money, I'm sure, to have them replaced (luckily, I didn't find this out the hard way, but I came really close to doing so when I did some explorational screwdriving and cover-prying). Additionally, the screws and faceplates are all covered in decades of layers of paint, which has further sealed them into a single unit.
The flaps (note the small lever in the upper-left-hand corner) that could once be closed to restrict access to the vents are so far past being functional it is not even funny, and even if they worked, I would have no heat in any of the rooms once they were closed off.
So I was left with one final, dreaded option -- wiring them shut from the outside, by hand.
How I did it, was, I cut the wire to be the size of opening plus an extra inch all around. Then I cut out the four corners. Then I bent in all four edges by hand, strengthening my bends where needed with needle-nosed pliers. Next I used a wire cutter to alternately chop out and leave pieces that would accommodate every single square hole along the faceplate's border. Then I had to work my way around the faceplate holes, one by one, bending in each small piece (to reduce sharp edges) and cutting off, or bending out of harm's way with pliers, any of the small sharp wire pieces that were sticking out wherever you see white. Finally, I used flexible wire, fished through and retrieved with the pliers, to tie the whole thing on at every corner and midpoint.
Here's a close-up of the finished product.
My hands had a whole lot of healing to do after that evening, I can tell you that.
Yike-o-rama!
Anyway, one down. Seven to go.
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