Solstice Party Report

The Solstice Party has come and gone and we are calling it a success. I'm so beat from preparing for this that I have done nothing today. Susan is trying to be productive. She is working on wall paper removal right now.

Here is the party in pictures.

 This is layout of food.

 Cheesy Crustinis. Yum!

 Barbecued chicken on a stick. Double Yum and on a stick.

 Pot Stickers and Soy Juice.

 Veggie plate

 Breaded Salmon Bites. De-Lish

 Cheese

The Refreshment Center

 

The smokers had a good time.

We tried to figure out the total number of people that showed and we have it somewhere around 45. It seemed like more because everyone was inside.

Wetness Level

We have selected a crap day for a Solstice Party. It has been raining since about 11:00 AM and has continued steadily at a moderate pace of wetness.

We are progressing as one might expect and we will be ready to Solstice when the Se7en o'clock Solstice Hour arrives.

It doesn't look like we'll be having any Stump Fires tonight. Even if it clears, the wood will be mighty damp.

So I am expecting a huge crowd since nobody went to the lake, and we'll be crowded around the insides like sardines.

Yum!

Twenty-Two and Half Hours To Go

We both had the day off today and we put it to good use, starting with sleeping until almost ten. Very decadent.

Among the things I did today was to observe and record nature.

Perhaps I have a future with Wild Kingdom.

Here is another shot of the entryway with the mirror and the clock. This has nothing to do with anything other than content for me.

Okay, it is onward toward the Solstice. I hope to have pictures to share when I write again.

Two Days to Solstice Party

We seem to be on track to Solstice 2011. It's ahrd t tell from my perspective because I just do what I am told...with the occasional side track to whatever may catch my eye.

We shopped tonight and have acquired most of the food items we need. I have mopped the wood floors tonight and I have prepared the beer for the keggong of the beer. Last night I spent a good deal of time cleaning the Aquarial home of Norman the Large Fish. Norman is a constant and perpetual shitter. If he's not shitting he is eating which is futureshit. So, you can imagine how much fun that was.

We have Friday off so we are in good shape and I do not feel that Susan is experiencing a lot of swirling emotions known as Swirling Emotions.

The Whole Week Wrap Up

It seems incomprehensible to me that I haven't made any entries here all week until I remembered what kind of week it has been. In the last entry, I mentioned the Hoopfest skywalk challenge we faced. Well, I am now on the other side of that challenge and we finished it today. Wow! What a week. What a looooooong miserable effing week.

I went downtown on Tuesday and got the first skywalk lined out while Susan worked a Catering gig.

I had a neighborhood meeting to attend on Wednesday, so Susan went down to get started and I joined her after the meeting. We managed to finish half the skywalk before calling it a night.

On Thursday, we got downtown about 6:30 and finished up on the first skywalk. I even got a start on the next skywalk by getting everything lined out.

Friday night we worked until we finished the second skywalk.

Susan had another Catering gig on Saturday that took all day. I had my Farmers Market thing but that only lasted until one. That day, my buddy Ron worked the Market so I was able to get some crap to the dump.

I went downtown about 3:00 and got the third and final skywalk lined out.

All we had to do was wake up this morning at a reasonable hour and get down to complete the painting. We had to be finished by three because we had volunteered to take pledge calls at KSPS, the local PBS affiliate.

We did not rise at a reasonable time. It was reasonable once, when I was 15, to get up at 11:00AM. But it seems ridiculous to me now. All I can say is we needed and we enjoyed the sleep. Did I mention it has been a hell of a week.

We got down there at noon and we finished the job at 2:50. We were both very pleased. We did not want to have to come back.

Here are the fruits of our labor.

Now the battle begins to clean the house in preparation of the Solstice Event. Susan is going to go into Manic Cleaning Mode at any moment. I just hope it doesn't kick in at 2:57AM in the morning.

In other highlights of the week, we managed to do a little work on Monday night while we were awaiting the approval of our skywalk design.    

We hung the mirror and clock in the entry way. This was a very big deal because it involved putting a hole through wall paper. It had to be right the first time. Fortunately, it was and above is a lovely photo of the mirror AND the clock.

The house painting has been progressing during this time and Ronnie got all of the upper portion of the west side of the house completed. The lower portion will get done when she returns from whatever job has taken her from us.

We are very pleased with the results and very happy that this will soon be one less project to worry about.

There is other stuff to talk about concerning the events of the week but I have to go now. Susan wants me to clean something.

Crunch Time

We are down to crunch time with the Solstice Party Preparations and as usual, an Monkey Wrench has been thrown into the preparations.

I got the word yesterday from the Hoopfest people that they want three skywalks painted up for Hoopfest as soon as possible. That means we are in for a rough week of work, work and more work. And then we'll paint.

I'm not sure yet how we are going to do it. I'm hoping to get started by Tuesday night, although Susan has to work that night. I can get started on one by myself.

Then we will have to just slug it out through the week. I have a meeting on Wednesday night and Susan has some stuff going on...we'll just slug on. Or is that slogg on?

In any event, I'll detail it here.

Solstice Prep

I have finally gotten the invitation to our Solstice Party completed. I am printing invites as I write this. I should have had them out a week ago. It always seems to come down to the last second with me.

We've had a nice productive weekend and Ronnie is cruising on the house painting. If the weather holds out, she could be done this week.

The chances of the weather holding out are slim...and none. The whole week looks crappy.

Here are some pictures of how she is progressing.

Garage Cleaning Frydee

The forecast indicated that today would be a decent day as far as the weather goes and I was pretty caught up at work so I opted for a day off to do a project that was looooooooong overdue...cleaning the Garage.

I started the morning with a pot of coffee and added a little Bailey's Irish Cream to help accent the flavor. Here is what the garage looked like at 9AM.

And this is what it looked like three weeks later. That's a joke. I actually completed the task on the same day and here it is now.

I can put my car in thee now but just barely. It' a very tight fit.

One of the major space saving things i did was remove a drafting table that I bought last fall. It has been in the garage all this time and I have been worried about it. So I moved it upstairs to the back bedroom.

Unfortunately, Susan does not like it. She says it is waaaaaay too big and dwarfs everything else. It's only a temporary move I guess. Although I do not want to tell what was involved to get it up there.

I am well versed at dismantling it so I have that on my side.

Cloud Burst

It's June First and one of the things I'm trying to remember to do is zero out the AccuStan Weather Station 5000. I'm old and unfocused so remembering to do things is tough. Remembering to do things on a schedule is next to impossible.

And yet, I remembered my duty this morning. And it's a good thing because I can now report with accuracy about the major effing cloud burst we had at about 7:30 PM this evening in the night.

In a ten minute period, we got a half inch of rainfall. Well, it included hail which might skew the data but check out the pile of hail we got on the deck.

There was just about every kind of weather going on. There was thunder. There was lightning. There was torrential rain. There was hail the size of canned hams. The only weather we didn't have was tornadoes or earthquakes.

The steps on the deck were completed today so I can officially call that project complete.

Major Historical Unearthment

I forgot to report on my most interesting historical discovery that I historically discovered in an interesting way yesterday.

I was removing the trim around the doorway from the hall into the dining room. As I pulled the piece off the north side of the door, I found this business card behind the trim.

We have lots of questions and only a few answers. The main question is why was this card placed behind the trim?

The writing on the back is the most intriguing to me. I assume the number on the top line is the model number of a corset and the price. The next line is a phone number. The last line is the biggest question because we have found no record of a Tracy family owning the house.

Did Mrs. Byrd Tracy drop by for tea one day and stow this card behind the trim, hoping to retrieve it later? Is a 23TR-38 Corset a good one? Does Dr. Armmori make house calls?

These and other questions will likely go unanswered. But I'm glad to have asked them.

Okay, here is a brief update. I found this on-line, dated Feb. 11, 1933. I'll have to check out the microfilm at the library of the Spokesman-Review from around that time and see if I can find any ads for Bartlett's Corset Shop.

Memorial Weekend Roundup

Welcome to the Memorial Day Weekend Wrap Up. It is the traditional start of Summer, the end of rain and of course, it rained!

We did a bunch of stuff this weekend and none of it was in honor of those who died to bring us Liberty. For that, we are ashamed and we clearly do not deserve the freedoms we so cavalierly enjoy.

So now I will talk about how we used our freedom.

Saturday I started a new job which will last me for the summer. I am working a booth at the Farmers Market for my friend Brian. He is in the coffee game and wants a presence at this market. I will work from 7 to 1 and hopefully make around $75.00 to $100.00 a day.

We will see how that goes.

I returned home to find Phil hard at work on the deck. It is mostly done at this point with just some minor items to complete.

Susan had to work on Saturday night so our interaction together was very limited. I tried to do some stuff with the trim around the stairs but screwed up all the wood I bought. I'm having a very difficult time making this all come together properly.

On Sunday we did some yard work, concentrating on the Arbor Vitae. They needed some serious tending to. I'm going to have to call my trimming guy and have him give them a clip.

We ended the day with our first trip of the year to Arbor Crest Winery for some music and wine and picnicking. Our friend Mark joined us. It was a mostly nice evening but got cold when the sun went down. Below is a picture of the rebuilt Riblet Mansion on the grounds of the Winery.

 After we had our fill of Arbor Crest, we returned home and enjoyed a lovely Stump Fire. The stump is of course long gone but I managed to pile a lot of debris onto the stump fire area and we had a wonderful time.

Susan finally had to excuse herself about 10:30 and stagger to bed. Mark and I remained out for another hour or so and then squelched the fire and called it a night. We did a very good job of consuming the debris pile.

Today we got up and I went out to buy three more boards for the new decking. We were just short of having enough to finish the stairs.

Susan then did some work upstairs on the new bookshelf while I removed trim on the main floor in the start of the next phase in the continuing saga of completing the entryway.

I shall now conclude with a note saying that the Volley Ballers have returned. We have not approached them yet.

Neighborhood Problems

A group of neighbors got together last night to discuss a problem in the park. I will preface this discussion by saying that it will be easy to conclude that this is a bunch of complaining white people. I'll give you that. It does not diminish our right to complain.

The problem is this. There is a group of people who have been coming to the park nightly. I think they are essentially one family with it's various offshoots. They are from the Marshall Islands.

When the weather is nice, they start to arrive about 5:30 and they go to the same spot. They set up a Volleyball Net and they have a great time until about 8:30 when they shut it all down.

None of this is a problem. They certainly have every right to be there and enjoy the park like anyone.

The problem is that they are there every night. They are not very good at cleaning up after themselves. They leave small amounts of random garbage and scattered chicken bones. They are slightly loud. They sometimes tie their net to freshly planted trees. They often drape clothing over the freshly planted trees. Their shear number and repetitiveness is starting to show on the lawn.

As neighbors, we decided we are going to approach them and politely ask that they rotate their location. The neighbors who are most affected by this group, Erez and Diane cannot sit on their front porch and enjoy a peaceful evening. They don't want them to leave, they just don't want them in that spot every night.

All we can do is ask.

We all realize that we have not much ground to stand on. We live on a public park. People, any people, can come to the park. Frankly, we welcome them. It is really wonderful to watch what a good time this family has.

Anyone of the items listed above is not a problem...except the litter. Together, they are a concern and the meeting last night was a group of neighbors from all around the park who wanted to address it before it gets out of hand.

Anyway, a group of us will approach them at the next opportunity we have. Considering the weather and the forecast, that could be a while.

I checked my little weather station this morning and a quarter of an inch of rain fell over the night. It is raining pretty good right now. More is coming. It will be a FABulous Memorial Day Weekend.

I shall end this White Devil diatribe with what a fellow blogger I know calls a Cyber Tree.

This is a Dogwood Tree located at the east end of the park. It will only be in bloom like this for a couple days more. It stands out like a giant pink sore blooming thumb among the greenery around it. It is really quite stunning!

Deck Work and the Rain

Thankfully the rain has returned. We went almost TWO DAYS without any and we were all becoming concerned. If it had not rained, we surely would have had to sacrifice a virgin or something.

The rain has been especially good if you are a fan of the Spokane River. The falls are unbelievable right now.

This picture is from the lower footbridge in Riverfront Park. The rapids are so strong that they are spraying up onto the bridge.

This picture shows the view of the river from the bridge. The power of the water is quite impressive.



Let us return now to what this blog is supposed to be about...the house.

I arrived home from work today to find my Yard Monkey, Phil busy at work on the deck. He had been working for quite some time trying to get everything lined out and lined up before starting to screw anything into place. That took him a couple of hours. He has had to do far more prep work on the frame of the deck than I had anticipated. I hoped it would be a pretty simple matter of removing the old decking and putting down the new stuff.  But that kind of luck has never been the case with anything we do here.

One of the things we discovered was that part of the deck had joists that were 2x4's. That might have worked in the olden days but not in these modern times. We used some 2x8's I had here and then I purchased a couple of 2x6's yesterday to complete the joisting.

We got an indication of how old the original deck is because those 2x4's actually measured two by four...what a concept!

Here is a nice before and start of the after picture of the decking going down. I know it is going to look fan-effing-tastic and it is clear that the cats like it.

Do the Hustle

One of my true strengths is accomplishing tasks after the fact. In that regard, I rode my bike to work today. Sure, "Ride your Bike to Work Week" ended on Friday but that did not dissuade me in riding my bike today.

I almost didn't make it this morning but decided to go for it. I over slept and knew that I really had to hustle if I was going to make the bus. I really made an effort to get downtown as fast as I could and I am still feeling a little shaky in my well honed legs. Well honed for sitting that is.

The one factor that really persuaded me to ride was the weather forecast. It does not look promising for the rest of the week and I really need to ride the bike more...perhaps turning the mythology of my well honed legs into somewhat of a factology.

I made it to the Bus Plaza with minutes to spare so now I know I can sleep as late as 6:10 and still make the bus at 6:42, but there will be "hustle" involved. That is not a word commonly associated with Stan.

A Grand Sunday

Susan was determined to complete her wall papering today and she won. I helped her but all I did was what I was told to do. The picture below shows the wall paper on the angled ceiling below the staircase. She did that in three pieces. There is one full width piece in the middle that runs to the top of the arch. The pieces on either side run from the top of the angled ceiling all the way to the floor.

Before Susan got started on the paper hanging, we took a trip to Windsor Plywood and purchased our decking. We have decided on a synthetic material called Rhino Deck. We spent just over a grand and it will be delivered on Monday or Tuesday.

I was able to pull up two large pieces of plywood that were secured securely to the framing. The rest of the plywood shown in the picture will come up easily because they are long thin strips. I already popped out a couple but decided to leave them until later in the week.



I am hoping that by weeks end, there will be new decking to show off.

My Armageddon Tired

You're reading this and I'm writing it so we are both still here. What does the dumb ass Ass Wipe Preacher Harold Camping have to say for himself now?

It has been an exciting day of much activity and accomplishment. So much so that we are going to celebrate and drink semi-heavily.

The day started with a bit of rain. But it was only a threat to remind everyone of the coming apocalypse.

We had our neighborhood Garbage dump day over at a nearby church with a huge parking lot. We filled 7 eight yard dumpsters before the scheduled time ran out. We had one dumpster filled by 8:45 and we weren't scheduled to start until nine.

We all thought it was very successful and we were amazed at the turn out. When you think about it though, OF COURSE it was successful. Free dumping right in your neighborhood. It would only get better if we gave away beer...and we'll think about that for next year.

It was great for Susan and I because I cleaned up a lot of crap that was starting to build up around the house. Now I can start all over again.

After the dump party, I hauled some stuff to the Habitat store and then borrowed an edger to...well, do some edging duh!

While all this was going on, the Wall Paper Master spun her web of paste and completed two very difficult paper installations, one of them (probably the most difficult) by herself.

Pretty impressive, if you ask me. And even if you're not asking, I'm telling you.

We ended the day with a jaunt downtown to enjoy the Lilac Parade. We were joined by friends Ron, Kelly and Mark.

What I find most enjoyable about the parade is that you can walk right into the Olive Garden without having to wait. They seated us right next to a window were we could look out and see what was going on.

After dinner, we went out and actually watched the parade from the sidewalk. I figure we are now good for a couple of years. Susan doesn't seem to figure the same as I.

Finally, I would like to extol the virtues of a good pair of work boots. The boots pictured below have been with me for over 30 years. I first bought them at a store called the Two Swabbies when I got a summer job working at a lumber mill in Coeur d'Alene.

I wore them everyday of that summer while I suffered through that miserable job. Miserable because it was hard work, and at 21, that was not something I was interested in. The mill is now a business mall, hotel and apartments.

Anyway, I have somehow managed to keep these boots with me through all that time and they still fit and feel great. They are not even close to wearing out.

That fact that I have worn them about 30 times over those 30 years is not really relevant.

Bike to Work Week - Or Not!

I am a huge disappointment to myself, my community, the country and yes, God. Well, the God one we all knew about. That will be rectified tomorrow when the world ends. Some nut ball preacher has figured out all the Bible code and declared that the world ends tomorrow. I'm glad I'm getting paid today. I don't think I'll be making out any bills quite yet.

The main reason I am such a giant failure is I failed to roll out of bed this morning in time to ride my bike to work. The Bedroom Gravity Well is a tough nut to crack. But you know what? I'm over it!

I am ready for a big weekend of activity. I have borrowed the truck from my buddy Rob and am ready to haul. There is a Neighborhood Trash Day Event tomorrow and I am taking advantage of the free dumping. I expect to make two trips.

I will gather up the copious amounts of feral debris, crap and rubbish inundating the estate and haul it the three blocks to the dump site. Then I will return and re-fill with the extensive earthen carnage (known jokingly as "Clean Green") I have created over the winter months and off load that bundle.

Then I will spend the rest of my morning helping to run the show at the Neighborhood Trash Day.

Once the afternoon arrives and becomes my own, I have a donation run to make to the Habitat for Humanity store. I'm sure I'll find a couple of other errands to run involving the truck.

The day will end with a hostage taking. Susan does not have to work Saturday night as she had anticipated and so I am required to attend the 109th running of the Lilac Interstate Parade and Jubilee in the downtown area of the Spokaloo.

it's probably not the 109th year of the parade, but it will seem like it. I'm sure the 109th will look exactly like the one tomorrow. I'm sorry for not being a huge parade booster, but if you've seen one...yadda yadda yadda.

Hops Growth

The nice weather has returned after a couple of torrential days. It rained over three quarters of an inch from Monday through Tuesday. It's nice to not have to water but it would also be nice to be outside. I have a deck to resurface for crying out loud!

I took a specific measurement on the hops yesterday in order to get an accurate reading for one day of growth. It grew four inches.

It's pretty amazing to watch this stuff grow. It seems you can actually watch it, which must be a huge part of down time in the Columbia Valley.

I realized (again) that it can be a mistake to fertilize. The lawn is really growing. All the rain has helped, I'm sure but the fertilizer contributed greatly as well. I'm close to having to mow every five days...which will be a drag if that comes to pass. I have a deck to resurface for the Love of Pete!

It's Bike to Work Week and I haven't taken part yet. I'll get it in tomorrow for sure. I tried today but realized I had too much to do at lunch time.

There is just so little time and so much deck to resurface for the sake of Christ, who died on the cross for our sins!

I am currently playing with my settings to see if I can fix the date problem I have been having.

I may have it solved. Let's see!

Yes! I just published it and saved it and it had the correct date of May 18th applied to it. I am an genious! I'm like a Blogging Savant!

Unfortunately, that's all I have for today.