A Lasting Stain

I woke a couple of time after 5am but managed to go back to sleep until 630am when I decided to get up for good. I was excited about the prospect of the lovely summer weather and enjoying a couple hours alone. I had a pot of coffee started and was sitting at my PC by 640am. I poked my head out back briefly too. Wow, was it ever steamy.

I must have spent about an hour online, drinking coffee and watering flowers before heading out for a run sometime just before 8am. I ran the usual weekend mileage - just three miles. Once again I worked up quite a sweat. Even a short sleeved wicking shirt was a bit much. Felt like thick seal skin by the time I finished.

The irrigation system was running by the time I got back to the house. It’s amazing how much quieter the system is since we had the main meter replaced. From inside you’d never know it was running. At some point I realized the system stopped between zones 3 and 4, or the same intermittent failure we experienced last year. I headed out to check the solenoid box. And just like last year, all I had to do was tweak the wire cap that connects the DC voltage for each of the 6 zones when zone 4 kicked into action. At some point I’ll likely need to re-do all the connections in the main box.

I’m thinking it was near 930-10am when Mindy rolled out of bed. Said she woke earlier with a headache but felt better after taking some Advil. We had plans to attend Makayla Vidosh’s graduation brunch that was slated to run from 11am to 2pm. I figured we would head there near noon. We also planned to make an appearance at nephew Joe’s party later that evening. In between I hoped to take care of a handful of chores.

While Mindy showered for the graduation party I updated my blog. And once she was about ready I headed up for a shower of my own. I have it down to a science. That way we typically end up ready to go at roughly the same time. It was already approaching 90 when we left the house for the Vidosh’s. I haven’t been to John’s house for a number of years. I’m thinking at least ten years. He lives in a beautiful house near the Thornapple golf course.

Found it with little trouble. Of course we had to park a few houses down as there were a number of cars already there. Just like another couple who showed up just seconds before us, we opted to walk around to the back yard in lieu of walking through the house. We caught the eye of John’s wife, Sandy pretty quickly, who came over to say hello and offer hugs. We soon headed inside to see John and congratulate Makayla. Just as I expected, she didn’t have a clue who we were. But little wonder, I haven’t seen Makyala since well before she started school. Daughter Courtney used to babysit her. Wow! I’m getting old.

They had a full-on brunch set-up, complete with a manned pancake making machine and all the fixins, including sausage, baby quiche, fruit, juices, and bloody Mary’s. Mindy and I sat quietly under the rented tent in the backyard for about 20-30 minutes. We then engaged John’s older sister Janis’s daughter Liz in conversation. I remembered Liz from 14 – 15 years ago when she, her sister, and her mom moved in temporarily with John & Sandy. She turned out to be quite the young lady – smart, attractive, and confident. She graduated from an art college in the Philly area and still resides there with her older sister.

Talked with Liz’s mom, Janis some, too. John fixed me up with his sister Janis way back when, and she and I went on one date. She’s interesting too. Works at one of the Apple stores. She’s talking about moving to California one day soon. I asked if it was just talk. Said not. Will do it soon.

We probably weren’t there for too much more than an hour before begging off for home. But by then, aside from family, most others had already gone too. Mindy & I both had a number of things we wanted to get done. But by the time we arrived home it was so hot that it was hard to motivate for outdoors chores. We ended up taking about an hour long nap before doing anything else.

I’m thinking it was near 2pm when I finally headed out to stain the cedar lap siding. The staining went predictably well and one coat covered nicely, though I plan to add another soon. Didn’t take even an hour to do the staining part. I also fetched the trim paint to touch-up the wood trim just above and below where I got a little stain. They’re the same color, but the trim paint is a satin finish and the stain is flat. A discerning eye can see a difference. Even though it was hot and humid, I was warmed up and eager to keep busy. And after removing the English ivy a month prior and repainting the front trim, I wasn’t happy with a few areas of the wood trim where I could still see remnants of the sticky ‘ivy fingers’. I decided to fetch my palm sander and see if that would make a difference. Initially, I used a 220 grit paper. That took most of it off but left the trim smoother than I wanted. I then worked with an 80 grit paper, and that did an even better job. I was anxious to recoat it with trim paint and see if the effort did the trick. It did. No more ivy remnants.

As soon as the staining and painting was done, I got started installing the coach light fixture on the front stoop that matches our new post light. The old weathered brass fixture had seen its better days. Mindy returned from running several errands while I was busy fooling with the light fixture. I was struggling to get the fixture lined up correctly with the mounting hardware supplied. I was beyond frustrated and let it get the best of me. Not only was our installation a bit out of the ordinary, but I really needed four hands. Mindy offered to help but I declined, knowing that it would not likely end well. I eventually rigged up a wire to hold the fixture in place while I did the wiring and mounting. I’m guessing I spent about 90 minutes mounting the light fixture on the wall whereas the post light fixture took all of about ten minutes. And just like with the post light, I put in the coolest daylight CFL bulb they make. I really like that look. Much ‘whiter’ light.

Now about 5pm, I was more than eager for a shower. As it was, my black t-shirt was soaked to the core. However, as hot & sweaty as I was, I went for a quick snack first. To satisfy my hunger I woofed down a cheese stick. While enjoying the cheese stick I felt something unusually hard while chewing. I spit whatever it was into my hand. I was shocked to see that it was my bridge. Yikes! I showed Mindy. I cleaned it up and snapped it back into place even while knowing I’ll need to make an appointment with Dr March to have it fixed permanently early next week. It snapped in fine and it didn’t appear that the tooth substructure was damaged. Still, the bridge wouldn’t stay seated, at least where I could chew. Any movement at all would cause the bridge to lift. The good news is that the tooth sub structures weren’t painful even though they were exposed. I was grateful for that.

I asked Mindy if we could stop for some White Rajah on the way. She recommended we stop at the Lane Avenue Whole Foods. I packed the Jimindy 31 cooler with ice in a large Ziploc and we headed off to Joe’s but with a stop first at the Arlington Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is temporarily located in small store front in the new Lane Avenue mall while their new digs are under construction. Smart idea to keep a local foot print lest they might lose all their faithful clientele to the Market District. There we bought two six-packs of White Rajah. Off to Joe’s.

We headed back towards home thinking we might take 270 to the Georgesville exit, but as we progressed along I decided to take Fisher and Phillipi Rd so we could go by the new casino and see their progress. Casino is coming together but looks like a very aggressive schedule to get it finished and opened by autumn.

While sitting at the light at Alkire and Holt, we saw Jodie and Larry zoom by just in front of us. We pulled up at Joe’s seconds apart, parking out front along Holt Rd. It was still really hot in the sunshine. We headed inside where we greeted Joe and a number of his friends. They had quite a bit of food out and available. I found the pasta incredibly good, and also loved the black pepper Tostito brand artisan tortilla chips.

We sat outside on the patio where I cracked open a White Rajah. Mindy wasn’t drinking. Larry joined several others playing volleyball. But after spending 3 hours working in the hot sun earlier in the afternoon, I had no desire to sweat another drop. Mindy & I chatted with Jodie through most of our visit. Spent a little time chatting with Joe’s life-long pal, Chris too. He’s making a bold move to California next week. We only encouraged him to chase his dream while he’s got few ties in his life.

We hung at Joe’s until about 9pm. And once we arrived home we took our cooler and walked down to Chrissy’s place. She was home alone with Makayla. We didn’t stay there too long. Maybe an hour tops. While there, Makayla eagerly showed off all the clothes her momma bought her at Justice earlier in the day. They also both went for a pedicure.

Mindy was off to bed before 11pm. I made myself a burrito and played around online before heading to bed. I’m thinking it was near 1130pm when I joined Mindy in bed and asked if we could watch TV. She gave an emphatic no! Suggested I watch downstairs. I wasn’t yet tired, so I did just that. I headed to the kitchen, popped some popcorn, then tuned into SNL. I might’ve last about 20 minutes before falling asleep, but not before putting a serious dent in that bag of popcorn. I didn’t wake and head up for bed until almost 1am.