I have been electrified the last few days as the reality of changing this house into a home has brought a certain sense of ownership. Maybe even a sense of stewardship. It is a good lot, on a corner, most of which is set back from the street. A windstorm came through in January of 2007 and blew down three spruce trees, the smallest 75 feet in height and the largest 100 feet in height. It ended up being a lot of wood. I did not burn wood for heat and did not need the wood. My neighbor did so he took it all. Thank you. Eventually, I planted bamboo to replace the spruce. I wanted it to fill a large area. It is yet a work in progress. The bamboo is having a mild winter. There is still plenty of time for a hard freeze lasting a number of days. That would take out the bamboo but only to the ground. In the Spring, the shoots of bamboo pop up a little further than the year before. If the bamboo can make it through the winter without significant frost damage, they will be about twelve to fifteen feet tall. All that vibrant almost electric green mixed with a bit of yellow always produces a smile when I watch the wind blow through.
Yes, stewardship, I think. I'm not nailed to it. Or am I? For the time being? For a while? For...? Stewardship in a minimalist way. Get it in shape, keep it in shape. I have until April to execute this task. I did well this weekend, a three-day weekend. Martin Luther Gandhi Day or something...either way, I was rested by the third day and, as mentioned in the first paragraph`, "electrified." I started the weekend by working on a guitar project I had going for longer than I remember. I put tuning keys on the newest neck I was putting on this Telecaster styled guitar. I will be the first to admit I am a cocky dumb ass sometimes but I was stupid enough to drill holes through the original neck. Long story short (too late) I put the other neck on, soldered the volume, tone, and three-way control switch connections, crammed all the little teeny weeny wires into the cutout in the guitar body, drilled and screwed little, teeny weeny screws in the holes to hold everything together. The big question was: will it make sound? I didn't string it up just yet. I wired the output plug and plugged a guitar cord plug into it and turned on the amp. It buzzed a bit. Good sign. Then I tapped the bridge pickup. Click click click. Good sign. I switched the pickup control to the neck pickup. Click click click. Goood sign...put the switch in the middle. Click click click. Not a good sign. Only the neck pickup is working with the switch in that position. I strung up, tuned it, adjusted the neck rod, let it sit overnight to work its way into the adjustment and tension put on the guitar and the neck from the strings.
Got up the next morning at 6AM. BAM! I was awake. I felt as if a force were bombarding me with granules of energy. I sat up in bed, swung my legs down to the floor, went out, tuned that guitar, plugged it in and played it. Still needs work.
I then switched to Tim, the Fastidious Painter. I painted the room I sleep in, everything except the trim. I did very well in not getting any paint on the carpet or the bed. Ok, that's not true. In fact, it is a blatant falsehood. I did do well in containing the paint. I brought the vacuum in, snaking the electrical cord through the room to get toward the window. I vacuumed the debris left from my scraping loose paint from the sill. I finished and saw that some of the wood was wet. That has to dry. I'm still waiting. Almost all of the gallon of blue paint was used. I placed the lid on it, tapping it with the butt of the paintbrush. Time to let the paint dry. I went to the room with the big tv and started to move the love seat from in front of the tv in the room with the big tv to the wall just inside the entry way. That way you can sit in that seat, listen to music or the radio, and watch the sun go down, or up, for that matter. That opened up a big space and made it feel open.
Before planting the love seat, I wanted to vacuum. I had moved my drums to the basement which left a space with sawdust on the floor. I grabbed the vacuum and the cord and dragged the cord across the floor. Although I don't see any paint on the cord of the vacuum, dragging the cord under the paint can tipped it over so that the remaining blue paint pooled on the white close knit carpet of the bedroom and onto the rustic colored wool carpet. If that doesn't fly then it was the cat. I want to blame the cat. Ok? Here's why: because that's what cats do. They have built into their feline DNA a little twisty gene that makes them jump up and knock things over, like what's left of the paint in a can. To me, the cat is guilty. The lack of evidence is cause for concern. There are no paw prints leaving the scene, no sign of anything being dragged through the pooled paint. Just a kidney shaped puddle of Waterfront blue looking like the island of Hispañola, with the blue paint on the white carpet being Haiti and the blue paint on the rustic wool being the Dominican Republic.
How long had it been laying there? I just got off the phone with the person who makes my heart flutter. That was at least an hour, maybe two. The door from the room with the big tv to the hall that ends at the bathroom (can't miss it) was closed. I opened the door and looked down into a pool of latex congealing on my carpet. The can of paint had been knocked over. Yes, it was on the drop sheet but when it tipped, the lid fell off and it flowed onto the carpet. What to do? I went to the towel closet, grabbed a porous towel and began to sop it up. That wasn't working. I would eventually run out of towels. I broke out the carpet shampooer and tried to suck the paint up that way. Big mess. It was out to the studio to get the shop vac. I pulled that in the house. I grabbed a 2 quart pitcher and filled it with hot water. I then turned on the shop vac and, as I poured water on the carpet, would suck it up before the paint settled. Pitcher after pitcher, taking the shop vac outside to empty, spilling painted water, finally deciding enough had been done and to let it dry and assess the damage.
That's where I'm at now. I watched a movie called "Super 8." That's the third time I've watched it. In the middle of writing all this, I received a text message from a colleague. This colleague was instrumental, in my mind anyway, in getting me get my shit together as an online dater which ended when I met that someone. This friend insisted I rewrite my profile and get new photos posted. Ok, ok, I will. I did. In her text she told me her father had passed away this morning. She said it was ironic that he passed away on MLK Day as he was quite the racist. I have personal experience with his racism and I'm afraid I might have egged him on. Wentachee had terrible fires last summer and all locals looked for relief. The colleague and I drove to Kirkland, WA., to meet up with her friend who was escaping the smoke from Yakima. This smoke was killer. Thick as dust sometimes. We drove to Kirkland to her dad's house. He was supposed to be gone but showed up the day we were leaving. It was just he and I in the breakfast nook. I saw he was reading the sports page. I didn't know he was racist until I thought I would be funny and mention my cousin, Marshawn Lynch, of the Seattle Seahawks. A very black man with some good dreads. Yeah, I'm kidding...whoa, dude...and off he goes on the reasons, all black, that he CAN'T watch basketball anymore. No more white people in the game. Now, he's dead, just like that. He died in his sleep. I got to meet him. I hope people can say that about me.
We were just wondering what is under the carpet in this house. I guess I will have a chance to see if I can't get the paint out of the carpet. I'm a wood floor kind of guy anyway.
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