ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

I took a shower and then went upstairs, where Karen had made coffee, and got a cup and went in to check my e-mail. She had cautioned me to be careful, there was some water on the floor.

Just as I hit the "receive" button, I heard a thump and a yell from the kitchen.

Karen had slipped on the wet floor, dammit.

She got a nasty bump on her head just above the hairline on the left side... she hadn't been knocked unconscious, I was sure of that by the constant yelling from the time that I heard the thump until I got there... about four seconds, I reckon.

I think that she probably hit her head on the wall, grazingly. And I'm sure that she'll be sore all over tomorrow, but as of today, the only problem is a bump on her head.

And the hematoma wasn't all that big, luckily, and there's not bruising, which means that no major vessels were ruptured.

And that was the main thing that she was worried about, of course. The last time that she fell her whole face was black and blue and some lovely shades of green... I think that was before she retired. I have that all documented somewhere in the archives.

So, after all of that, I went out to Lowes to spend my fathers'-day money.

And I couldn't find a thing to buy. Every time that I would look at something, I'd think, "I need to look that up on the web" which is exactly what Lowes doesn't want me to do, of course.

I will probably go out again tomorrow, though. I've looked some stuff up on the web... and I still have to spen the card at Lowes....

After that I went back over to the old house. We have decided to bite the bullet and fix the place up... after six months of our realtor assuring us that she can sell it as is.

So I went over to Kim's to get the ladder and Patrick and I went over there... the first order of business was to clean the gutters and to get the stuff out of the basement.

Mom had a gutter-cleaning device, but it didn't work, so Patrick got up on the ladder and began fling the gutter-poop out onto the lawn.

While he was doing that, I started taking down the ceiling fans in the front room.

I brought a load of crap back to the shop and returned with a few more tools and a spray end for the hose to wash the deck off. When I got back, Matt and Brian had arrived and they were hauling the remaing stuff out of the basement. I told them to put the old dresser/hutch in the truck and I continued working on the ceiling fans.

Before long, I'd had about all of the physical stuff that I could handle, and I secured the hutch-thing in the truck... I thanked the guys and took off for home, where it was cool and I didn't really have to do too much more work.

And I took my first right-hand turn onto Gage from 25th... and the shelving unit flew off onto the center of Gage, as very busy street.

I immediately put on my flashers and went back to get it... and a cop pulled up just in time to help me load it up.

This time I roped it down and gave my sincere thanx to the officer... he was really quite nice and helpful... as have been most of that cops that I have any experience with.

If you're not screwing up, they're nice and helpful. If you are, I've found, if you're nice and contrite, they're still nice. Sometimes, in that case, helpful involves a ticket, though. And I've usually been lucky just getting by with that.

So, I got home, and Matt had called Karen telling her that I didn't really look very good when I'd left, and the extra delay didn't help her any... when I left I was hot and sweaty and really tired, and I probably *did* look like shit.

So, after I convinced Karen that I was OK, I unloaded the dresser/hutch... the shelving part didn't sustain much damage when it hit the pavement. I took the drawers out and started looking at the wood. The shelving part was for sure pine... but the lower cabinetry... is chestnut.

Which makes it 100-150 years old.

Which means that I'm for sure not gonna break it up for scrap.

And no, I'm not 100% sure about that, about 75%.

It's got eleventeen coats of paint on the outside, that's gonna be fun to remove. And it was originally built with the right-hand third of it with shelving, so there's a break in the top. Somewhere along the way the original top got busted off and someone put a full-length pine book-case-like structure on it... the part that hit the pavement.

So, while I was trying to figger out where I'm a-gonna put the damned thing, I decided to shred some old tax returns.

And, as I'm doing that, two cats come streaking in... it's raining cats and dogs.

Well, a little rain never hurt the chestnut tree... that was something else entirely that killed those vast forests.....

So I've almost got a place to put it... I need about another two hours re-arranging the shop, though.

As I was shredding the old tax papers, I came across a few things... a poem that I'd written for Karen in 1994 and the reciept from the Grand Canyon in 1998. And a dollar bill with six aces on it... meaningless for anyone who's never played pocket poker... you play the best poker hand that you have on the serial numbers of the bills in your pocket, and the high hand takes everyone else's bills of that denomination. Did that a lot in the army....

Eh, I've gotta get a move on if I'm getting to bed early tonight....