You Can Imagine

This is how the stairs looked when we moved in. And you remember, we reinforced the bottom step.


So we decided to paint the stairs the same color as the tool table.



It was a little hard to get up from the basement after painting, as you can imagine. We ran out of that nifty blue trim tape, so we couldn't finish the job (on the right side of the picture) last night.

Dumbfounded

Happy Monday, everyone!

It rained *all* weekend here. Still raining. Sue put in two long days working on a grant application. Poor me, I had a rough one. On Saturday, running errands in the afternoon, I clipped the passenger side mirror on the inside of the garage. Haven't done something like that since 2000.


Big bummer, but not too big of a deal. Then in the evening, we went to a party two doors down. A great Rosh Hashanah-prompted party - brisket and kasha, met some cool new people from Providence... but everyone brought wine, no beers. At 8PM, soon after we got there, they ran out of brew. I offered to go get some before dinner was served. Noelle grudgingly agreed.

I ran home through pouring rain, and as I pulled out of driveway, another accident! I hit my neighbor Julie's former-husband's little car on the driver side. It was parked right at the bottom of the driveway, annoyingly but legally, across the street. My gosh. I was dumbfounded. I left a note for him, ready to pay for the significant dent on his car. Our bumper has a crack in the corner.


Sunday morning, I wanted to go over to Brown's gym for the first time to shoot some hoops. Needless to say, I didn't want to drive. It was still raining, and wouldn't you know it... I go in the garage, and my bike's back tire is flat. Yay! So I walked the bike two miles in the rain to the gym, then another mile to the bike shop to get a new tube once it opened at noon.

We're both hoping my transportation-related bad luck was only momentary. Everything else this weekend was very nice. For the next two weekends, we're out of town, so we needed to get a bunch things done. We did a round of cleaning and laundry, preparing for our first occasion to host people on Wednesday evening - Sue's internship class. We got a fencing estimate - $1500 - for twenty feet of cedar including two swinging gates; we'll be postponing that work. Sue got a lot done. We went to that fun party Saturday night. The Redskins soundly beat the Cowboys.

Enjoy the week! October already. Whew.

Don't Make Haste

Happy Friday, everyone!

Last weekend I almost killed a praying mantis with Julie's push mower. The mantis was in the grass at the corner of the house, like over where Goliath used to be. Remember, Goliath was the young mantis that lived in the screened porch, then got fatally injured by Gustav and Hanna? Well, I was sure it wasn't Goliath back from the dead because this mantis had both front legs. I successfully avoided killing it, and the next morning, it was sunbathing.


It was strange that it didn't leave. These things have wings and can fly, if somewhat clumsily. That got me thinking, so I read up a little and found out that praying mantises can regenerate their raptorial limbs when they are young. I cannot believe that this creature is still hanging around! Here's a pic from last night...


So she has a front leg that regenerated, but it's bent and apparently not usable. I didn't notice before, but one of her antennae is missing. This poor thing. I wonder if I threw her in the air if she would realize she could fly. Anyway, I'm happy she's still alive. Hopefully she'll survive today's storm.

I came across some amusing artwork in the city yesterday.



This message appeared in three or four places (that I saw) in a high-foot-traffic part of the city. So let's all do our best to let art and artists shape our culture. Don't make haste this weekend.

Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.
Marshall McLuhan

PS
Here are two recent pieces that take an uncanny and revealing look at all this bailout talk. The first - a provocative one - was sent to me by Dr. W. Enjoy!

Bye, bye American pie as capitalism comes a cropper
(Irish Times opinion, SEP22)

Lots of People Could Use a Cash Infusion
(Tom Brokaw, SEP24 in WSJ)

This Little Gal

So I went for another downtown lunch walk. This time to send a card to Ann-marie (some of you know) who's getting married down south this weekend, and also, to pay the mortgage. I took two pictures under the bridge on Chestnut...



...and later on I came across some filming of Showtime's Brotherhood which I understand is set in Providence.



PS
Mrs. Murchie, surely we'll send some sort of prize. For the record, Dr. W also spotted our backyard critter unaided.

This little gal is the secret from the post script at the bottom of The Centennial. All you have to do is click on the top picture in that post to enlarge it. You'll see her climbing up our troubled tree.

Kitty

Happy Monday! Happy Fall!

Productive weekend... Deb was in town and helped us paint. Now the kitchen is the only thing we have left to paint on the main floor. We drove down to Bristol yesterday. Saw a "Harvest Festival", petted some angora rabbits, took some pics of poopy sheep, watched a puppet show, and so on. We capped it with a seafood lunch on the water.

Later in the day, Deb hopped a train, and we watched Monsters, Inc. I'd never seen it. Sue saw it once before. Both of us loved it - funny and uplifting. Kitty!

Time to shave. I think I look a little like Sulley at the moment.

PS
Random picture during a rainstorm.

Birdie Curtains

We completed our birdie curtains, and they turned out great!



PS
Did you know that Providence contains the largest population of Cape Verdeans in the world, next to Cape Verde itself? We are listening to the local Cape Verdean radio station now.

Rhode Island Hospital provides translation services for French, Spanish, Portuguese, Cambodian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Cape Verdean.

The Centennial

Today is a special day for us. Day 100! The centennial.

The major improvements we've made to or overseen for the house are many, and we've got a lot of folks to thank for helping us make all of it possible. How cool! It's been pretty crazy, and it's great that family and friends have been involved in a lot of it.

-Replaced 75% of the plumbing in the house.
-Replaced 75% of the electrical in the house.
-Updated electrical service from 100amps to 200amps.
-Changed all the locks in the house, including the garage.
-Replaced the hot water heater.
-Removed old stone-lined boiler tank from the basement.
-Removed corroded oil-heated hot water tank from the boiler.
-Installed fire switch for the boiler.
-Cleared longstanding main drainpipe clog.
-Removed moldy wash room walls in the basement.
-Installed peg board in the basement.
-Demolished and removed concrete basin.
-Replaced washer and drier.
-Landscaped front yard.
-Retiled half-bathroom floor.
-Made curtains (see next post).
-Painted living and dining rooms, half-bathroom, half the basement, stairwells.
-Installed overhead fan in master bedroom.
-Replaced four screens.
-Removed front screen door and fireplace cover.
-Removed and covered attic skylight.
-Installed vent for upstairs bathroom.

Thanks so much to everyone for your continued support! Today we finished some interior painting and made some additions to the firewood storage area.







It may not seem like such a job, but we did have to dig up a bunch of mostly buried bricks from the side of the house.


On top of that, we began pondering the location of the backyard compost pile and garden. Maybe the compost pile will go against the concrete behind these mocked-up garden beds. Still scratching our heads a little, but we'll get there, since having this garden will be a dream come true.




Happy Saturday!

PS
There's a secret surprise in one of these pictures. Can you find it?

Arrrrrrrrrr

Happy Friday, everyone! Today is national Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrrrrrrr.

Last night was the first night of actual chilliness here. It's currently 48 outside, and it was 45 late last night apparently. We need to think of a name for our boiler...



...so that we can talk about him or her with reverence and respect throughout this cold winter. Earnest? Virgil? Momar? Help us think of a name.

In other news, we watched a movie about suicide last night. It was called "The Bridge", in reference to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was homework for Sue. Of course, not at all uplifting, but it certainly exposed many aspects of the subject. We both appreciated the way it was put together - the how, because the what is so utterly wrenching.

Ah well... tomorrow is a big day for us. I'll be online tomorrow to tell you all about it. Hoist sail, mates! Thus! Thus! Arrrrrrrrrr.

Socket Man

The electrician's visit prompted us to revisit some remnants of the electrician's previous visits. We dug through the trash to rescue these, but we didn't know what exactly we'd do with them until this evening. We created Socket Man.

Boo Boo

So since the bathroom is almost totally done, tonight we started working on the curtains.




After measuring, cutting, and pinning, the directions suggested ironing the fabric before sewing. Unfortunately we had a little boo boo. The carpet's acrylic, and now bears a scar.

Not a Mistake

BEFORE


AFTER


No that's not a mistake. The electrician didn't stay long. He threw his back out last week, so he couldn't replace the fan in the living room. He did, however, install our light in the bathroom.


We need to pick up another light bulb.

Lunch Breaks

This is the stuff of my lunch breaks.

Redacted Road

Good morning, Friends at the City Council,

My wife and I moved onto Redacted Road in Providence in mid-June. Everything is going pretty well, but several times in the past couple weeks, the Armory across the street has had its very loud alarm activated in the middle of the night. Last night the alarm went off three times for a total of about 90 minutes between 3AM and 6AM. As far as we can tell, no police showed up, and no National Guard personnel showed up.

Please ensure that this does not happen again by requesting immediately that the Guard change its alarm to a silent version or deactivate it. My phone number is redacted if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Rob Redacted

cc: Kevin Jackson, Ward 3

Safety Dance

So, last week we had a pretty quiet one. We took a break from doing stuff around the house, finished up John Adams, did some reading and that sort of thing.

We left midday on Friday to hightail it to DC for a wedding on Saturday. The 9 1/2 hours on the way down in the rain was a bit much, but driving back this morning/afternoon was a lightning fast 7 hours. DC is so dang hot!

Jed and Tara, congratulations! Fun times indeed. Here's a picture of the Safety Dance in action...


We saw a bunch of good friends and spent some limited time at Marge's with the familia. Everyone seems to be doing well, which is great.

We also listened to way too much political talk radio on the way up and back. What a fascinating race this is!

Electrician coming Thursday. Considering digging up the backyard to prepare it to start a garden in the spring. Going to fashion a compost pile. Still have a bunch of interior painting to do. Gotta make curtains for the bathroom (thanks for the sewing machine, ma!). Grading. Fencing. Exterior painting... ah well... time to rest up.

Cheers, all!

Previous Pertinent Post

A) Previous Pertinent Post: Within the Screens

The heavy rains claimed a victim. Goliath.



The picture below shows Goliath last week. Both her front arms looked healthy. (Clicking the picture will enlarge it.)


B) Previous Pertinent Post: ProPil Pop Quiz #3



Added 10/17/08: Don't know if you can tell, but the color red of these remaining leaves is at the very end of our color-sensing spectrum. "Burning bush" indeed. It looks fake. In fact, it is probably a much different color, but our eyes and minds can't process the actual hue.