The Distinct Odor of a Tiny Electrical Fire

I had hit my groove, forgetting about the tightness in my back and my gimpy knees. I had a big belt sander in my hand and I was demolishing the old stain on our hardwood floors — one board at a time.

Then I demolished the sander's cord, heard a pop, saw a little smoke and smelled the distinct odor of a tiny electrical fire.

The big belt sander is dead.

It also happened to be the only tool that we borrowed from a neighbor. I couldn't have killed the Home Depot rentals, which we bought insurance for just in case I pulled a me and destroyed one.

Nope, I ruined Michael's nice Makita sander. Leah tried to make me feel better but was overwhelmed with the thought that we just sanded away a few hundred dollars. I didn't feel much at all except a tightness in my back and some knee pain.

We found a tool repair shop to take a look at Michael's sander, but we still haven't summoned the courage to walk next door and say "Remember that nice tool you lent us, yeah, about that..."

Like every other project, refinishing these hardwoods has taken more time, more patience and more effort than we had anticipated. The heavy sanding took two and a half days, we expected to finish in one. We are now touching up nail holes and the occasional warped board.

Tomorrow we plan to stain, which should bring a whole new set of challenges. Though if I ruin the rag we use to apply the stain it won't be that costly.

Excavating in the Kitchen

Leah let out an audible groan when she saw that I just sank our circular saw into some pretty white hardwood that was hidden beneath the ugly green linoleum in our kitchen.

I kinda felt bad about it too. But then we both looked at it again. The “wood” turned out to be linoleum. And under that was another reddish wood grain linoleum. And under that was a red brick linoleum. And under that … was finally the subfloor.



Leah and I excavated our kitchen as step 17 in our 9,670 part series called “Deuglifying our home.” We moved the air intake for the furnace from the hallway to the kitchen. Leah was tired of stubbing her toe on the grate and if we are going to redo these hardwoods, we might as well do it right.



I know I look weird in this photo, but the point was to show you how deep we had to cut into the kitchen floor to finally get to the ducts. We used the circular saw, the jig saw, the Rotozip, a hammer and some swear words, but we finally finished this part of the job. Then we had to fill the hole in the hallway.

Leah, a home improvement genius who also happens to have an environmental soft spot, suggested we mix new boards with some of the old ones we yanked out before.



I’m sure our neighbors loved hearing us sawing boards and hammering boards and setting the nails for a whole bunch of hours. Well they better get used to some noise, because as you read this, we are using a big drum sander to strip the old finish off of these boards so we can add a nice walnut stain. That‘s step 18 and 19 in our Deuglifying series.

Craving Satisfied. And Then Some.

Many thanks to Matt’s grandparents and his sister-in-law Tara for sending me bags and bags of the cookies I cannot seem to find anywhere in a city of 5.8 million people. My tummy sure appreciates your very thoughtful and totally unexpected act of charity.

We didn’t know that all we had to do was complain and then "poof!" it would appear in the mail. If you guys aren’t busy, we would like you to send us a Cafe Rio and Panda Express franchise next.

I will try to keep the many bags of Mother’s iced animal cookies on the downlow because A) I’m not sharing with anyone but Matt, and B) if word spreads about these, UPS and the post office will not have the manpower to handle the surge in crosscountry carepackages. Although perhaps these pink and white sprinkled delights could be the key to boosting the struggling economy.

Matt is especially grateful because for a good long while, he won’t be dragged down the cookie aisle of every new potential cookie carrier I run across. Although he claims he appreciates my determination, he looks exhausted.

Stores visited to date: Giant, Superfresh, Shop Rite, Acme (3 locations, just to be sure), Genuardis, the Fresh Grocer, CVS, DollarTree, Walgreens, RiteAid, Wal-mart.
None of them carry Mothers, Just the elf-backed nasty knock-offs.

Hey, that reminds me I haven’t checked Kmart yet…

AGAIN, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!

Absent-Minded Behaviors

It’s almost instinctual. The minute my cell phone rings, my feet start moving.

I’m a chronic pacer.

If the conversation goes on long enough, I will wear a hole right through the industrial carpet in the building that houses my office. I will walk back and forth until I exhaust myself and my feet hurt.

You should try it. Phone pacing is fantastic exercise. That’s actually how I justify this quirk. Why should I stop pacing when I’m burning calories?

I’ve even found a nice little corner to pace in, away from my coworkers. I walk from the windows to the wall and back again. When that gets boring, I start walking in patterns.

The conversation ends, I hang up and shuffle back to my desk.

My pacing came up yesterday when the newspaper’s intern, Lindsey, asked us if we had any obsessive-compulsive type behaviors. She had a good one. She absent-mindedly counts her steps when she walks. My coworker repeatedly draws boxes. I have a habit of wrapping tape around one finger or turning a paperclip into a straight piece of wire.

What do you do?

My Bloodshot Eye (or The First Time I Was Ever Dumped)

Inflamed blood vessels surrounded a small off-white lump that protruded from the surface of my right eye.

So what did I do about it?

I ignored it, hoping that all it needed was a few days to clear itself up. I acted like it wasn’t there staring at me every time I crossed a mirror, so I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for my own health. And then Leah saw my bloodshot eye and scolded me.

The next morning I was at the ophthalmologist’s office.

It was sitting in that eye doctor chair facing the screen with its small black (and very blurry) letters that I really confronted why I had ignored my eye lump. I was afraid the doc would tell me to take out my contact lenses and wear glasses for a few days. Now, that may not sounds so horrible to you, but you haven’t been scarred like I’ve been scarred.

It all started when I was 6 years old. Back then, I was quite the ladies man. I had not one girlfriend, I had two. Samantha and Melissa. They would take turns holding my hand at recess. And both of them would give me love letters made with construction paper and crayons.

Life was good.

And then one day, I couldn’t read the chalkboard. A few days after that, I brought my first pair of glasses to show and tell. I proudly displayed the clunky frames that seemed to start at the top of my forehead and drop down to my lips. The suckers were huge, but they helped me see.

They helped me see that Samantha and Melissa were not attracted to boys who wore glasses. I no longer had two girlfriends. I had zero. No one held my hand at recess. No Crayola love letters. The rejection still stings.

My parents let me make the switch to contacts when I started junior high, and I’ve never gone back. My damaged ego can’t handle it. Even now, I’m half convinced Leah would politely suggest I spend more time in Washington if I started wearing glasses regularly.

But what about that off-white lump and my obviously aggravated eye? The eye doctor asked a bunch of questions. He went through the standard “Look up, look down” routine. He even put some dye in there and checked that out, counting to seven for reasons I still don’t understand.

And in the end, he tells me I have a fatty eyeball. Not a fatty gut or even a fatty liver. I have a fat deposit on my eyeball! I guess I shouldn’t make it sound so dramatic. It is actually called a “pinguecula.” They are quite common in people who are out in the sun often. I wouldn’t say that’s me. But then again…

My aversion to glasses goes beyond just the prescription variety. I have also shunned sunglasses much of my life and apparently that decision just bit me in the ass. The doc says the fatty eyeball should return to normal soon if I keep it moist and avoid UV rays. Now I just have to get over my hang-ups and get used to wearing these shades.

Ralph's New Look

He may not like it, but Ralph gets to wear this dandy collar for the next few days. He just won't leave a tiny cut on his paw alone. And we've tried everything.

Yelling "No!" really didn't work. He just stared at us for a second before resuming his overzealous grooming.

We made our own collar out of Styrofoam. It looked hilarious, but it only took him a second to shake it off.

We developed a cat cast out of a toilet paper roll, a sock, shoelaces and duct tape. He limped around for a bit, but it just didn't stick.

So we really went for it. Duct tape straight to the paw. He couldn't get it off, but it drove him absolutely mad. He hid in the corner and panted like he was in serious pain. He looked so pitiful we just couldn't take it anymore and removed the tape.

But we may have a winner. The classic Elizabethan collar seems to stop him from licking that paw and while he might not like it, he seems resigned to this great cat indignity.

Shirt Phobia

My closet kind of resembles a rainbow (sorry, no pink) of dress shirts. I got brown and black and red and green and mustard (meaning yellow, but not ugly yellow) and purple and blue. I got about four blue shirts. I even have some with stripes.

And way in the back, past the suit that I will probably never dry clean again, past even the Hawaiian shirts, is a standard white button down. Not forgotten, just loathed.

I have a white shirt phobia.

It has taken me almost a year to confront this fear, irrational like so many fears can be. But yesterday, I delved into the dark recesses of my closet and came out wearing white. I felt insecure, even as I tightened my tie and especially as I entered the office. But no one said anything. No one even noticed. At the end of the day, I decided that this lone white shirt may be allowed into the rotation. It won’t be one of my regulars, but it can show up every couple of weeks.

My loathing of the white shirt has its roots in my upbringing. I was a non-Mormon kid in a Mormon world, which in most circumstances didn’t mean a thing to me. But in Utah, Mormons have a corner on dress clothes.

So as I entered the last years of high school and the first years of college, when I just started becoming a journalist, I strived to look a bit older, especially when I was interviewing people in powerful positions. I dressed up.

And without fail, I would be asked if I was a missionary by the end of the day. Or people would walk on the other side of the road fearing I may proselytize if they got too close. Or simply someone I know would tell me I looked like a missionary.

And I did.

I was young, with short-cropped hair. I wore black pants, black shoes, a white shirt, a simple tie and no jacket. All I was missing was the nametag.

I was a non-Mormon kid in a Mormon world who kinda looked like a Mormon. And while I didn’t grow up with any rebel angst or anything like that, I sure didn’t want to be mistaken for being part of the dominant religious group. I enjoyed my outsider status.

Missionaries don’t wear blue. They don’t wear brown or green or stripes either.

So I did.

And when I moved out of a Mormon dominated culture and came to Washington, I brought my rainbow closet with me. It served me pretty well, but there are a few occasions when feeling like an outsider may not be so desired. Like when I interview powerful people at the U.S. Capitol wearing a lime green dress shirt and a flashy tie.
Let’s just say, I don’t feel too stately.

That uncomfortable feeling forced me to confront my anti-white mentality. To get over whatever contrived hang up I created for myself. To realize that hundreds of people look like missionaries every day.

And in the end, I learned something too.

It is a lot easier to match ties to a white shirt. Just about anything goes.

Trading Trash for Better Trash

We own a nice patio. But what makes a patio really enjoyable are some swanky patio chairs. The kind of chairs that when you sit down your muscles instantly relax and your hand is forced into that perfect position to grip a cold glass of something refreshing. Your head rests on the back of the chair. Your eyes are only half open and you take a sip as you listen to crickets chirp and feel a breeze brush by.

Sounds nice, but we didn’t own any patio chairs. Meaning no iced tea, no crickets, no breezes.

That is, until Leah raided the garbage pile left by our creepy former neighbor. We hauled away his broken folding chairs all sneaky like, with Leah promising to make the necessary repairs.

Leah loved the idea of reusing someone's waste. I found the whole ordeal totally counter-intuitive. As I said just a few days ago, I’m in love with garbage day. I want to throw our junk away, not collect the junk of others. But in any good relationship, you have to compromise.

I get to sleep in my bed, she gets to rummage through the neighbor's trash. It’s a pretty fair deal, really.

But then she finds better patio chairs in a better trash pile and she can't resist. We upgraded to nicer, but still broken, patio chairs, solid ones, made of real wood. Sturdy and heavy and much more classy. Did I mention they are still broken?

Leah lugged them to the house and promised to make the necessary repairs. I rolled my eyes and she caught me. Then she placated me.

Next garbage day, I get to throw out the original trash chairs. EXCELLENT! I promised the garbage guys I would have something good to throw away this week, not just yard trimmings and kitchen waste.

If Leah keeps this up, I will get to throw away all kinds of chairs that other people have already tossed out.

Also, if we keep upgrading, like we did during this most recent exchange, sooner or later I will get the patio chairs of my dreams. I better go make some iced tea, just to be prepared.

Craving Denied

Damn those cookie-making Elves and their market dominance. Damn them for their commercial success, squeezing out every other cookiemaker who just wants a little shelf space at the grocery store.

For weeks now, Leah has craved those frosted animal cookies, the pink and white ones dotted with sprinkles. But not just any frosted cookie will do. She wants the originals, the ones she fell in love with when she was a little girl. She wants Mother’s Cookies.



But so far, we have been to four different supermarket chains and a plethora of convenience stories and all we can find is the rather lame Keebler brand knock-offs. We held our nose and bought a bag. We ate them all, but we were not very happy about it.

Do you hear that Elves? You make a rather mediocre substitute to Mother’s cookies? Stick to what you do best, which is … ripping people off, apparently. I didn’t realize it until I visited the Keebler web site. They make “Chips Deluxe,” not the far superior “Chips Ahoy.” They make “Vanilla Wafers,” which are obviously not the classic “Nilla Wafers.”

I bet these Elves use their diminutive statures to invade Nabisco’s secret kitchens, stealing all the recipes. Then they go back to their tree, take off their really small black ski masks, cackle like the evil beings they are and make slightly worse versions.

Leah, being a little more rational, thinks that Mother’s just doesn’t distribute in Philly.

Either way, she’s left with a craving unfulfilled.

Stinky Garbage Day

I have a new crush and it is really quite pathetic. I get all excited, running around with a big goofy grin. I hide in the living room and peak out the window hoping to get just a glimpse of my new love in action.

I love you garbage day. That means you, you sweaty exhausted looking garbage guys. Keep up the good work. And you look fabulous in those blue coveralls and leather gloves.

I am in total shock of how Philly runs garbage pickup. They take anything. Period.

The day we got the keys to our new house, Leah and I ripped up the carpets, rolling them into 4-foot sections. We priced out a Dumpster ($350) and decided against that. Then we looked into taking a load to the dump before Leah had the novel idea of stacking the carpet on the curb.

We made a nasty carpet pyramid and were stunned when the garbage gods took it away.

The next week we threw out loads of paneling. Totally sweet.

But this week? The coolest thing we are throwing away is some yard trimmings. Kind of a downer.

I got off the Chinatown bus last night, gave Leah a smooch and said "What do I get to throw away this week?" I had dreams of leaving her old dresser on the curb or maybe the ugly "bar" that came with the joint. She was not as excited as I was.

I couldn't even get rid of the microwave box. She wants the cardboard for one of her projects. Sigh.

Don't worry garbage guys, I will find something really special for you next week. I promise.

Job-cation

There is nothing so relaxing as going to the office. I get to unwind by interviewing politicians and writing news stories. How sweet is that?! And get this, after work, I don’t have to do anything. I can sit around watching TV, eating raspberry sorbet and playing a little online poker.

My workweek is a breeze compared to my weekends — at least my weekends for the foreseeable future.

I spent almost two weeks in Philly, moving us in to our house and tearing out all the stuff we don’t want. Next up we get to refinish hardwood floors, spackle plaster walls, scrape the popcorn texture off of the ceilings, paint and hang molding. I get exhausted just writing all that down.

This Monday I returned to DC and the office. I was a little sad, I have to admit. I didn’t want to leave Leah. But my knees were happy to get back to our nation’s capital and so was my sore shoulder and beat up right hand.

I know I don’t have to get all of the work done immediately, but I can’t live in a construction zone. I will work every minute I can to get some sense of normalcy back. So work feels like time off and my time off is consumed with work.

In honor of this topsy-turvy world I’m not living in, I’m coining a new term.

Job-cation: When your job is less work and less stress than your off-hours responsibilities.

Job-cation is a play off of the new buzz word “staycation,” which means taking a vacation close to home because gas is so expensive and the economy stinks.

I hate that phrase. Staycation sounds like some word corporations came up with to make you feel better about being so broke you can’t afford an actual vacation.

At least Job-cation is kinda self imposed.

How Many Idiots Does it Take to Do a Load of Laundry?

The water ran all over the basement floor, surrounding boxes holding Leah’s hair stuff and cat toys and Christmas decorations. The water rushed toward the back door and into closets and near the stairs.

It pooled in the floor’s low spots where it patiently waited for me to finish picking some weeds. Done with my yard work, I bounded down the stairs to move my laundry to the dryer.

Two steps in, my shoes filled with water. My eyes rolled back in my head. My mouth opened and I groaned. My first thought was that a pipe had burst.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what had really happened. We have a washing machine that drains into the sink next to it, but in the move we had inadvertently knocked the drainage pipe out of position. So when the machine was done cleaning my jeans, it dumped the water on the floor. Then the machine rinsed my jeans and dumped that water all over the ground as well.

Leah was in a law class, so the clean up fell to me.

Being the incredibly bright and capable person that I am, I rushed upstairs and grabbed the mop and a bucket. My plan was to use the mop to soak up the water and then wring it out, which would have been about as time efficient as emptying a tub with a dry hand towel.

My next attempt wasn’t much better. I tipped over a bucket and tried to sweep the water inside. The water really didn’t cooperate.

Luckily, the day before the flood we purchased a wimpy 2-galllon Shopvac (because when do you really ever need to vac up more than two gallons?) It took me more than two hours to clean the joint, but I learned my lesson. Leah should do the laundry from now on. I can’t be trusted.

Actually, Leah was very nice about the whole thing, claiming responsibility for the dislodged the drainage pipe and volunteering to oversee the next load.

Then she flooded the basement too.

Leah made sure the pipe was pointed at the sink, but the basin drain was plugged.
The basin overflowed and water was once again all over the laundry room.

It wasn’t a bad as what I am now calling my “thorough floor rinsing,” but it still was a mess of Shopvac proportions.

Here’s hoping that third time’s the charm.

God Bless America, POW!

This sweet baby is a leftover from the previous owners of our new Philly house. Over the next few weeks, I will share some of the other items they left behind, but this patriotic pop gun is by far my favorite.

Not only is it totally bad ass, but it is also a GUN WITH THE AMERICAN FLAG PAINTED ON IT!

SCORE!

How perfect for the Fourth of July. The only thing that would make it more American is if it was an automatic weapon that shot machetes and was used by Rambo to kill terrorist scum.

Instead it shoots a tiny cork connected to a string.

Here is a little demonstration video:

The Tools and the Talent

I’ve been hugging the porcelain for hours, but it isn’t what you think. I’m not sick or hung over. I don’t need Pepto Bismol or any other medication.

The reason I’m sitting here isn’t much better though.

I have a very small black hacksaw blade in my hands. I’m working it back and forth under a rusted screw attached to an old wooden toilet seat that refuses to leave this throne. The blade is dull. The space between the screw and the porcelain is small. I can’t use the saw handle. I have the blade pinched between my fingers.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

My fingers seem to be wearing out far faster than the rusted screw, which is forever connected to the rusted bolt holding it in place. I have sat on this bathroom floor working this tiny blade far longer than it took Leah and me to remove the carpets or the wall paneling. Longer than it took us to unload a truck full of boxes. Longer than any credible handyman would ever take to remove a stubborn toilet seat.
I’ve cut the pad of my thumb in two places. I’ve worn a groove in one of my nails. I’ve only got half way through the rusted screw.

In this state of prolonged agony my mind wanders out of the bathroom, down the stairs, through the basement, out the back door and into our garage, where the former owners left a whole mess of tools -- including a box of normal sized hacksaw blades. Sharp ones. Beautiful old hacksaw blades, brown like rust, but new and unused.

I go grab the blade in my sore hands and trudge back to the bathroom, where I take my familiar seat and resume my work. Three minutes later the screw bounces off the bathroom tile. Five minutes after that, I attach the new toilet seat.

I just about kiss that hacksaw blade, except I know where it’s been. And as I sit there admiring my handiwork two thoughts hit me almost simultaneously:

1. One minor project down, 500 to go.
2. There is a tool for every job. The trick is identifying when to abandon what you are trying to do and go find it.