That’s because it’s Friday.
Yesterday not so thrilling. Well, not as scintillating as usual.
Last night was Emily’s first day back in a new gym. She took a spin class. Which means Bill makes dinner. I was home before all, cleaned up the dog poop, turned on lights. Started to cook. I had stopped at the market to pick up something and decided on burgers. Love them. Could eat them every day but some people would complain.
Half way thru prep, Emily got home. Wow did she look ride hard and put away wet. I thought she might collapse. Sent her to the showers.
Returned to cooking. Found some sweet potato fries and some “chunks o carbs”? in the freezer and added those to the mix. Pulled the Asian salad leftovers too. And fresh made burgers. Love it. And a bottle of wine still good and open. I’m a chef.
That’s it guys. Ate and Emily was headed to bed. So me too
Friday morning the shed guy knocked on the door at 830 sharp. Ready to go. He says I gotta stay till they are done. I have been watching for an hour. They are fast as hell. Shed looks good. She will be thrilled. A sign of progress. And tomorrow, furniture!! arrives in the am!! We are moving along. We could get completely moved in.
This is a tough slog waiting on the guys. Boring. I want to go to work. Sort of. And get done there so I can start a weeks end. Where to eat dinner?
The morning was all about the shed. Since I was waiting for them to finish, I pretty much just watched them work. All morning. Fun to see it go up so quickly. I can tell Emily will love it. I love it.
The entire process took 2 1/2 hours to complete. I think that’s fast. The Russian shed crew was friendly and polite and very jovial in there work. I can’t speak Russian so it’s possible they were talking about me. Don’t care. They finished. I signed off and we all left. I went to work.
Do you mind if I skip work? There was very little going on, almost nothing worth talking about. Make that nothing.
By your silence I assume you all affirm. Thank you.
On the way home I had a phone discussion with Emily. The usual Friday talk – where to go for dinner. We could not decide and put it off till I got home.
Home. Said hello to the Mrs, kicked the dog, slapped the cats. Dropped my stuff. Friday. Just kidding on the dog and cats, sheesh. Emily does love the shed. A given. We are going to put up shelves and rods tomorrow, like a real closet. I am sure it’s a two day project, maybe longer. Lots going on tomorrow.
We did decide, finally, where to go. To Meadow Vista and the Tin Lantern. A favorite. I did text our houseguest, Randy, to join us. He is on his way back from work in Grass Valley. He responded with a “will meet you there” and Em and I left. Btw my text back, “we will be at the bar”. We have to meet at the bar, we have no reservation and this place is hopping on Friday nights.
Quick aside, our guest Randy. He is a PA, or at least finishing his PA training, and his rotation for work puts him in a hospital in GV. He called several weeks back and asked if he could bunk here for six weeks and we said sure. We have known Randy since he was 8 years old. Long time. He is 33. His sister is my sister in law, married to Emily’s ne’er do well brother. I would not let HIM stay here 6 minutes. Over the years I have seen Randy many times. Bought a house from him, distressed sale. Randy is the President of a corporation that does quite a few things. I consult in all projects, he gets paid and me too. Symbiotic relationship. Anyway, decent guy, he kind of fell into this family. I think he will be a fine PA.
Back to the Tin Lantern. The place is busy every night but Friday’s is more so. We arrived at 7 and I immediately made a reservation for 3. Randy is on his way. The next available res was 830. We had already found space at the bar for two so we had that.
Cocktail time. I ordered what I know is good which is their special Old Fashion. I call the booze, I think my choice is better. Emily ordered some crazy spicy pineapple margarita which I did not like so much. Good thing I’m not drinking it.
Tonight no one at the bar was really very outgoing. Kept to themselves. So, talked to bartender and each other. Randy got in a little after 730. I can’t remember what drink he had, might of been Emily’s concoction. Something I would never drink. I suggested to the two of them we eat at the bar. Thumbs down from the boss. We are waiting. I ordered a glass of red wine to carry to dinner. Our table was ready early, near 815.
I know the menu well. So all I asked of the waitress was a quick recitation of the specials. Nothing there, I ordered the filet. Comes with taters & veg. A personal favorite. Emily did not go far afield, she ordered her fave, ribeye with chimichurri sauce. Randy went rogue, salmon. Yuck. Though he said it was excellent. I still can’t stand it. Dinner was fantastic. Very nice.
No dessert, hope I did not disappoint. Coffee only.
Quick trip home and off to bed. Always whipped on Friday night.
Saturday was a big day. Furniture is coming today. 3 months wait. Over. Sposed to be in at 830. Except, no. I got a call. The driver says they have a semi trailer and can’t make it up to my house. Not good. Auburn is not a city for big trucks. Unless turning around is not important. Anyhow, driver says he is going to rent a U haul and make 3 trips. And call when he is on the way. Great. My morning is getting shot to hell.
The furniture guys did finally show up, an hour after scheduled time. Guys are friendly, but direct. They got some stuff unloaded on first go. Brought the coffee table in. Uber cool coffee table. A Teak root cut into a square with a glass top. Nice. They left the nightstands, boxed up, outside and left to bring another load.
Turnaround was about an hour, what happens when you screw up. They came back a second time and unloaded the credenza and dresser. All looks good. So far. One of the guys, Mike, stayed behind to put the credenza together while the other two went for the last load. Turns out, Mike had no tools with him, left in semi truck. So he sat around and waited for the guys to get back and hoped they brought the tools with them.
In about 45 mins, the other two showed up with the last piece, our new couch. They had the tools. A win. They got the couch off loaded, put the doors on the credenza and were ready to leave. Which is when I discovered damage on the sofa. The frame was gouged and the finish was applied very poorly. The delivery guys said not our problem. I had to call seller. So I took pics of all, texted them to owner of furniture store and now it’s his problem.
It was close to noon when they finally finished the delivery. About 3 hours. I wish they had known what the hell was going on. It would have sped things up a fair piece.
Now a start to our day. Today is the day we outfit our new shed and make it a closet. Em and I headed off to Home Depot, only game in Auburn, to get shelves and closet rods. The shed needs to be a closet. Clothes and shoes go in the closet. So shelves and rods are de riguer. Fortunately, HD has all this crap in their closet organizer aisle. Sadly, they have far too much to choose from which makes figuring it out very difficult. And neither of us is a magician of closet space. My magic comes elsewhere.
Well, after staring at this overwhelming assortment of Konmari-like organizers, we bought four large wire shelf units and one short, one long closet rod with all the hardware you need to install. Now all I need is a day and a half to put it all in place. Oh yeah, one more thing, when my Russian friend nailed the shingles to the roof sheathing, their nails intruded about a quarter inch through the sheathing. So I had about 100 “shiners” going through the radiant barrier. Seems counter productive. There is a foam backed metal tape available to ameliorate this. Negative is how long it takes to stick it up. That’s the half day extra in the remod process. I mean, I am excited about improvements, but the time and energy I have to put in it sucks.
I was able to get the shelves up by dinner time Saturday evening. I did start mid afternoon after furniture and hardware store so there was not much time left in the day. See, I have a good excuse.
I left my closet party and went to light the bbq. We have pork loin steaks to grill up. I had marinated them earlier in the day. Mixture of bourbon, maple sugar, soy sauce and spices. I thought it quite tasty. Of course I am a big fan of both bourbon and maple. I don’t remember what else we had. Today is Tuesday and that was Saturday so maybe there is room to forgive my memory.
After dinner we snoozed in front of the TV before going to bed and snoozing there.
Sunday and plenty of work. I spent a good portion of the day coming close to finishing the shed closet. The metal backed foam tape is a pain in the ass to install. Quite the time eater. Hanging the brackets for the closet rods was a pain in the ass as well just not as time consuming. Had one serious problem – no drill/driver. Mine is still buried in storage somewhere. What to do? Go to the hardware store and buy a new cheap model for today’s job. Glad I did because it would be a lot of work without one. I had also bought one in Vacaville when we last moved for the same reason. So I have two temporary drills and the permanent one. Permanently lost perhaps.
Did manage the bracket install, for tall and short hanging clothes. The screws provided were cheap as hell and easily stripped. Always fun getting those out of the wood. I had purchased extra screws just for this reason. In spite of all these issues, rods are up. Shelf up top of brackets in place.
Once done with rods, only ceiling cover left to do. Tedious work, cutting tape to size and fitting over each shiner as I go. I realized, quite quickly, that this job stinks and I hate it. So I decided to quit and go do something else. Like folding clothes the Konmari way into my brand new dresser. That works.
I spent some time folding my clothes. Just like famous clothing folder Marie Kondo. Got all the way through my underwear and a few other things. Folding her way is difficult. And I can’t say it is saving any space. But I am trying it.
It was near dinnertime when I quit for the day. No more folds. No more shed.
We fried up some chopped pork and threw it on a very robust garden salad for our dinner. Add in. A little wine and we were done. Nice slow dinner, mostly drinking wine.
After such a long day, we went to bed pretty quickly after dinner. I was worn out. Folding does that.