Author: peterb51

8th October 2022

It’s never a dull moment in West Michigan.

We had a appointment to meet up with Greer and Dylan to see their proposed new home in Allandale. But first, as always we had to collect a dresser that Kelli had bought. It was relatively close. When we got to the address it was a two story apartment with the dresser housed on the first floor. I have always thought that my demise would happen carrying a long dresser down some stairs, and guess what I was faced with ? Correct, a long dresser down some stairs.

The seller’s name was Mohammed, so it narrowed down his ethnic origin. He was in fact from Afghanistan. He was an interpreter working for the CIA and relocated when the Americans left. Needless to say he was a dead man if he and his family were ever to return.

We climbed the stairs and were led into the bedroom, there was the badass dresser covered in bottles and crap, all the drawers were full of stuff as well. So firstly he had to dump all the contents on to the bed before we could move the thing. Carefully we manoeuvred the piece down the stairs with Kelli supporting me as I descended, putting her own life at risk in case of a rapid re-entry.

With the piece safely loaded in the truck we were ready to head off to Allendale.

Mohammed offered us a cup of tea or coffee, which was kind and generous, and not what we would expect at all, but we had agreed time to meet Greer and Dylan so we had to decline.

We arrived at the mobile home a little before the others, but once they turned up we had a good chance to look over the place.

I was impressed, it was quite large with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, ideal as a first home, and a lot better than the apartment they currently have in Grand Rapids.

We had decided to get a bite to eat, we had to be back home by a certain time because someone was coming to view, and hopefully buy the small cabinet Kelli posted a couple of days ago. Kelli had found a cafe on line, that sounded good, so we set off in search of the establishment.

When we got there we were shocked, and amused at the same time. The Golden Grounds Coffee Co was in fact a small caravan inside a wooden shed. After a laugh, we decided to give a go. So with coffee in hand we stood in the car park with the wind whipping around our bodies, we bid farewell and headed back to Holland.

Not long after we got back our potential customer arrived. At first she said she thought the grey finish was more teal. “ it looks like teal on my phone” she said showing us the posting picture. It did look a different colour, but she also had a filter on her phone that changed all the colours.

She dithered for a while then said “Will you take less?”

I said not really because of all the work we put into it, and I was ready to inch punch her.

She continued her hesitation, and then repeated her question. This time Kelli jumped in and agreed a slightly lower price, and that sealed the deal.

I continued to seethe as they drove away

“Tight fisted old biddy ” I muttered to myself.

7th October 2022

Somehow I stepped in some chewing gum. It imbedded it in the heel of my shoe at some point. I knew something was wrong when we entered Goodwill, on a rare shopping expedition. The business had transferred to a new location, and it had one of those resin coated floors. As soon as we cleared the electric doors and passed the large mats, my heel made contact. The adhesion of the gum was significant, it almost tore my shoe off as I attempted to lift my foot. I tried to ignore it, but every step I took there was a “snick!” sound, and there was no point in trying to scuff it off because there was no friction on the floor.

I found a quiet part of the store, and lifted my foot to examine what was stuck on my heel.

Whoever spat the gum out must have had a bloody mouthful of the stuff, it was a big mound of grey sticky gunk.

I proceeded to try to remove the substance, but I could not pull it off my heel, it was well bonded. I must have looked odd to anyone watching me standing on one leg, frantically picking bits off my shoe. I managed to remove a small portion, but where should I put it? I certainly didn’t want to throw it on to the floor and cause some old lady to become permanently stuck to the floor.

In desperation I found a spot at the back of a shelf and deposited it there. I continued to remove bits, adding to the pile on the shelf.

I thought that I was clean of the goo, but as I walked off, the snicking continued.

I had only one option left and that was to go outside and scrape my foot around the car park, which is what I did.

I performed the “remove the gum from the shoe” dance by dragging the offending heel on the tarmac. This was successful, I didn’t mind looking like I had a walking impediment to rid myself of that awful muck.

6th October 2022

I was expecting a message from the builder thanking me for digging the new foundations, but I didn’t get one. It must have looked odd to them seeing all the trenches and holes that weren’t there yesterday morning.

Today it was getting back to business. The two matching side tables got a final sanding, ready for priming later.

I worked on the drawers, trying to scrape off the paint on the sides. They were so sloppily painted it looked a mess, and I couldn’t let it go.

Leaves were starting to fall, there were gusts of wind sending them fluttering to the ground.

The sparrows in the holly bush, also known as the Death Star, were noisy, at any time there must be thirty birds all chirping at once.

There are particularly visual clues as to the season change, apart from the leaves, it the man across the street. Once he refits the doors to his Jeep, you know something is going to change. For the summer he leans them against the support post of his volleyball net.

5th October 2022

Kelli had a bad night waking at 3.30am and not being able to get back to sleep. As I have said before, that means I don’t sleep either, I am used to early mornings, Kelli isn’t.

What had been troubling her was the demolition of her old rented house. Her daughter Greer reminded her that Mazy, her miniature Schnauzer, a nasty mini bundle of hate was buried in the garden near a bush.

She wanted to try and find the grave and exhume the remains and rebury them somewhere in our garden.

As the work was moving at a fast pace I cycled alone to see what was happening.

When I got there nothing was left standing. The digger was pulling stuff out of the hole and dropping it into a large skip.

I got the driver’s attention, and explained the situation, he said he would finish removing the basement walls and timbers by mid afternoon, so it would be available for us to try to locate the grave.

So at the middle of the afternoon, with shovels in the back of the truck we headed off to the site.

By now the place was levelled except of a deep hole where the basement used to be. The bush had been torn up, so there was no reference point at all.

I was trying to understand the layout of the place to establish where this bush would have been. Kelli couldn’t remember exactly, so it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I tried to approach the dig like the time team, digging trenches parallel down to a depth of two feet. Digging was easy, the soil was sandy, and I must have moved a ton of the stuff. People would walk by and inquire what we were doing. Once it was explained to them they would walk away no doubt saying under their breath “ good luck with that buddy”.

I persevered, until I could barely hold the shovel, it was hopeless, we gave it our best shot, but the bones of Mazy eluded us.

4th October 2022

Finally finished the kitchen unit and sent pictures to the client, they were excited with the result, and we also blagged the painting for an additional cost.

Kelli also moved most of the plants around, the result? It looked like a minefield with all the holes left, but that should be it for this year.

I have been gradually reseeding small areas of the lawn, it looks a bit like a patchwork at the moment until the new grass colour blends in.

I am also growing grass in seed trays to give me some instant repair material.

It was a good day for a bike ride. I needed some small screws for the kitchen unit and Kelli needed bird seed so we headed to the Graafschap Hardware store which was the closest. It was a long slog uphill, but great on the way back. The store dates back to 1860, and I believe they still have stock from that time. The sort of place where you can buy single screws, and bird seed by the beak.

One of the homes that Kelli had rented many years back was being demolished today, and we couldn’t help but take a look.

The reason for its demolition was because it was collapsing in on itself. It was alway a dodgy construction

3rd October 2022

We had a lady coming to collect the children’s hutch this morning, so I had a quick adjustment to make to one of the doors. So before breakfast I was out there in the fresh autumnal air fiddling with some tiny screws. With the aid of a couple of small washers I was able to get the door to align better. This piece was obviously made by father or grandfather for a small child, and that is why the buyer wanted it. She was starting a small business selling children’s toys , and she wanted this piece as a prop.

I wanted to dedicate my day to finishing off the kitchen cabinet. I managed to do most of it with just the back panel to fit tomorrow.

Kelli was in the garden moving lilies around from one side of the garden to the other.

We managed to get a bike ride in and cycled round to the wonder garden that we found. The couple who lived there were outside so we chatted to them for a while before heading back home.

2nd September 2022

After a busy day in the back garden, I hardly had the strength to touch the screen to write this post.

The back garden is wild, it was intended to be, but there is wild and there is wild.

There was a patch of ground that became overgrown, grass had taken over, and I had to break out the strimmer.

After that, the area had to be dug over and all the roots had to be removed. That was a job and a half. Kelli wanted to move some of the plants around and give them more space the thrive.

We went to collect some round paving stones from Kim, Kelli’s ex- sister in law who had them in her garden, and didn’t want them any more.

I was planning to use them on some secret pathways in the top garden renovation.

I was happy how the reseeded area had become, the new grass is thick and dense, but there were a few thin patches that I had missed. I decided to start to extend the area, and while it’s still the growing time it’s the best time.

It made a change not to work on furniture, and we finally sold the children’s hutch, but we had a person cancel their order, so Kelli had to refund the deposit, not a thing we like to do.

1st October 2022

Today was gardening day, a day well planned in advance to move plants around in the new improved, enlarged bed.

What did I get instead? An hour long Skype call from my friend Martin. Not that I don’t enjoy chatting to him, but it’s always when I have things to do, and want to get on with them.

We had the returning customer from yesterday to collect her dresser, later another lady came to buy another, it was a good day for sales.

Kelli also wanted to finish a small cabinet that had a wood grain effect paint job on it that I lovingly scraped off revealing a beautiful oak carcass. We finally got to the gardening about four in the afternoon.

Oh I did join the league of grass cutters to trim the front lawn, the reseeded area seemed to take well hiding the ugly patch of bare soil with fresh green growth.

There are leaves falling now, soon the trees around will dump on us, and another year will soon come to an end.

30th September 2022

This is the day I remember Michael Elliot, it still saddens me to think that he was so alone that he chose today to end his life. Who carried the responsibility? I don’t know, maybe we all do, in a small way, especially when the signs are all around us but we often don’t know what they mean.

The only thing I can do is spend a little of my time with him in mind.

I had an appointment with the optometrist, I needed new lenses for my glasses as the surface had deteriorated badly and they ceased to function as an eye piece at all.

Kelli dropped me at the premises with the intension of going to Goodwill whilst I was going through all the procedure.

From the blank look of the receptionist I realised I was in the wrong branch. I should have been in the one across town. Luckily Kelli had called them to check how long I would be, so she quickly returned, and soon we were speeding to the other branch.

The place was bright, it was like a heavenly oasis, Kelli had to keep her sunglasses on.

The place was full of Herman Miller chairs and Eames storage units, so a bit of cash was spent on the furniture.

The receptionist asked for my old glasses, which, if she had some forceps she would have used them to take them.

Then it was off to room one to have my eyeballs photographed. All around there were large pictures of eyeballs in various degrees of seriousness, God I hope mine are not in the bottom row.

Gone were the strange frames where the optician would slot in the different lenses to find the correct focal length. In this place technology has overtaken and everything is done electronically, however the choices to be made are are down to the patient.

Finally she brought up the pictures of the back of my eyes, apart from looking weird were perfectly healthy and showed not abnormalities.

The next stage was the frame selection out in the showroom. A girl with strange symbols tattooed on her fingers attended to us. I wanted new lenses in my old frames, but she looked at them closely and said that it was not possible. That was a shock, but she pointed to the wide selection of frames on offer and invited me to choose new ones.

This was not an easy choice, some of my choices earned sniggers from Kelli, but eventually we settled on a couple of frames suitable for my face.

Then it was down to the hard facts, the price.

She tapped furiously on her keyboard announcing that there was a forty percent discount on the second pair the final bill was one thousand and eighty four dollars.

Now it sounded a lot, but actually for two pairs of glasses and the test I thought it was a fair price.

That done we headed home, and took a bike ride down to the park.

Later we had a customer arrive in a car hoping to fit a dresser in it. I think we tried every way to get it in short of cutting the roof off tomorrow avail, so she’s coming back tomorrow with a different vehicle.

29th September 2022

We were awoken by the sound of tree branches being fed into a chipper. It is a horrible noise that signals the death of a tree. It was a sunny morning, I hurriedly got dressed and rushed outside to put the bins out.

The wild turkeys were out in force pecking furiously at seeds in our wild flower garden.

They didn’t seemed bothered by the workers chewing up the poor tree as they gathered in larry’s front yard.

I continued working on my few projects, the kitchen cabinet, and a small oak dresser that I had stripped back to raw wood.

I had another distraction that I wanted to pursue. Dhama has began to dig in the asparagus bed, and since I removed the temporary fence there has been nothing to stop her.

It came to me in a dream, for some reason I was building a low fence out of some scrap timber. To most people it doesn’t sound very exciting or challenging, but I had to pursue it.

I found the timber around the side of the house. Funnily enough it was from a fence I removed a couple of years ago that was in the same area as the new one will go. So one could say “you should have left it there”.

I checked the quantity of wood pieces, and devised the cutting list, and it might be just enough.

So I set about cutting, notching and assembling a sample, and as far as I can remember it was pretty close to the one in my dream, now another three sections to make.