Author: peterb51

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 36

19th April 2020

I needed a particular stain colour that Lowes didn’t carry, so against my better judgment I drove to Menards who I knew had it.

I put on my mask, and ventured into the store. Everything I needed was in one area so I went straight there. I collected a few things including the stain and headed to the checkout.

I was told by the cashier that he wasn’t allowed to sell it to me due to the quarantine regulations, I stood in amazement, not that anyone could tell with my mask on.

Apparently stores of a certain square footage are not allowed to sell certain things.

I have no understanding of why the restrictions (includes paint and seeds) exist, but it sure pissed me off.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 35

18th April 2020

Today was delivery day for the dining table.

I applied a coat of beeswax polish with a Scotchbright pad leaving the surface like a sheet of glass.

The customer was over the moon with the result. The next table was waiting for us in the driveway.

I was a little disappointed to find it was not the maple I was led to believe, but a stained soft wood. Now I have the problem of matching the colour so that it is the same as the legs.

Our evening game had to be tamed down a notch otherwise the wine rack that we just got would be empty, and that is not cool. We have to limit ourselves to half a bottle, otherwise we will be spending the rest of quarantine in the Betty Ford clinic.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 34

17th April 2020

I put the final coat of polyurethane on the dining table, this was coat number five and the surface is like glass.

It is due to be delivered tomorrow when I will pick up the second one.

It will get the final waxing in the morning then the drive to Hamilton.

It was a gritty day starting with freezing rain, made only enjoyable by the arrival of Kelli’s long awaited birthday present and the boxes from Imperfect Foods.

This is like receiving a gift from God, via FedEx.

The driver always looks the same whether he’s carrying on box or three, I guess we are helping to keep people in work.

We can now enjoy meals made from vegetables shaped like Gollum.

There have been a lot of protest in Lansing about the strict Coronavirus measures enforced on the people of Michigan. They were mainly Trump and NRC members, who basically don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. I was pleased to see someone had listed all the company trucks that took part in the “Gridlock”.

I guess many of those won’t be getting much work in the future.

The majority of people understand, and are prepared to stay at home, it’s just a few who spout the constitution, as if it is some document of immunity.

Funny though, as no other vehicles were involved in the Gridlock, all they actually did was create a traffic jam by themselves, dumb idiots.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 33

16th April 2020-

It was going to be a productive day, I was ready to apply more coats of polyurethane to the dining table. The was interrupted by Kelli returning from the mail box with an envelope containing my residency paperwork.

Apparently since the forms were sent in there had be a change to the document, so I had to reprint the new forms and copy them out again. There were a couple extra pages dealing in more detail with immigrants from Latin countries. This was time consuming just copying everything on to the new form. We then checked the other forms and discovered that the one Kelli had to file was also revised, but that hadn’t been noted, but we rewrote that one as well.

We had to deliver the tall Doctor Who unit, now looking so much different to a house in the well to do area close to Marigold lodge.

We posted the letter back to Chicago, hoping that it would now be processed.

It was a bloody cold day, no snow but it felt like it would at any time.

We have revised the rules to our penalty game to reduce the amount of wine we might consume in one evening. Now we have to draw the words from a hat at the beginning of each show, meaning one of us might pick a hand of continuous sipping and the other a drought.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 32

15th April 2020

We made a rare trip to the shops. Normally we order things on line to be delivered, but although our order on Aldi is due tomorrow, there was doubt that some of the flowers and scrubs that are sometimes in store, would not be in our box.

So equipped with our masks we set off.

“What if someone recognised me” asked Kelli, always wanting to look good whenever we are out.

“With that mask on no one will have a clue who you are” I responded.

There were a few cars in the car park, and the staff were only letting few people in at a time, so we waited in a short line for our turn.

A man with a very small fluffy dog walked towards us, and of course Kelli had to say something to the man about the animal. The man hesitated for a second, “Is that Kelli?”

How could he have known that? She wasn’t even sure who the man was, but he obviously knew her.

Of course Kelli was then concerned that she was wearing her old clothes, I just laughed at the whole situation.

We drove to Zeeland to deliver the chairs we had sold earlier in the week.

We have been pleasantly surprised that we have been able to sell stuff, although with everyone getting at least $1200 from the government, there is money out there. However Kelli has not got hers yet.

I made a start on applying the finish on the table, and Kelli finished painting the Doctor Who cabinet, ready to take pictures, and post on Marketplace.

We received our long awaited box of wine this morning. The FedEx man was at the door even before I had got out of bed, so there was a mad scrabble to get dressed and answer the door, I never look my best first thing, but he didn’t seem to notice, he must have seen worse.

Just before we settled down for the evening with our glass of newly delivered wine, she had someone buy the Doctor Who cabinet. Kelli remembered a person who failed to get the last one we sold, so with cunning, she contacted the person, and bingo! Another one in the bag.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 31

14th April Wednesday

Another cold day, I ventured out into the back garden to collect up some garden rubbish to pile up by the road to get picked up by the city.

I went to empty out the water from the wheelbarrow and there was a layer of ice on it, boy I didn’t think it got that cold.

I did the staining and sealing of the table, plus finished off some shelves for the unit Kelli is painting.

Early afternoon and she announced that we were to collect another cabinet that she had bought.

I know this is a good time to buy, as some people are desperate for money, but we have a garage full of stuff, and not much room for anything new.

We got down to our last toilet roll, with still no chance of getting more. Kelli told the story to a friend who immediately sent us an eight pack in the post. It arrived today, and with current usage should last us until the next pandemic.

The bidet has been very successful. Once I got used to gritting my teeth and clamping my legs to the bowl. My voice has improved a lot and those high notes are much easier to reach now, so it’s been a blessing in disguise.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 30

13th April 2020

We took a drive deep into Trump country to collect a table that needed refinishing.

We had been approached to quote for two tables that needed work. Learning from my last experience of staining a table, we sent back a more realistic price for both that was duly accepted.

The table was a mahogany drop-leaf with a wonky leg. The top was badly marked, but I looked forward to working on this one.

Once we got home I set to work scraping the old finish off. Within three hours, I had stripped the top and repaired the leg, the floor was covers in fine brown dust, but I was ahead, and I can do the staining tomorrow.

Due to the lack of wine, we had to use ice cream for our penalty game, not too successful because it melted before we got into our stride.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 29

12th April 2020

When we moved into the house just under a year ago we inherited a shack of old paint pots. We kept them, not sure why, but today Kelli decided, deep in a pandemic, to get rid of them.

I opened each one, stirring them well to get the correct colour, and marking them on the lid.

There were a pile of stuff we couldn’t sell, or lost patience with, so that was piled up at the side of the road.

Kelli took some pictures and posted them on Facebook, within seconds of it going live her phone went crazy. It was pinging almost constantly, and her fingers were busy answering queries. Soon a car would arrive and things would start to disappear, within a short time, items were set aside with peoples names attached.

One guy drove from Grand Rapids for a tin of white paint, this was the draw of free stuff.

We also were attracted by the offer of free perennials in Saugatuck. Armed with our face masks we drove down to meet the lady who gave us a box of mixed plants, these will help to bring some colour to our freshly dug mud.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 28

11th April 2020

I felt exhausted, it had been a busy day, and all I wanted was a hot cup of tea and a sit down.

The day started with a mad scrabble to get the items that were due for collection ready and moved out into the driveway.

I had to fit the top to the large dresser, Kelli was rushing around with a paint brush touching up areas she had missed. It’s not until the garage doors are open when you see the places where you find these.

Halfway though, she found a post for a free entertainment unit in West Olive, that we had to drop everything to collect.

It was a heavy bastard with textured glass doors, one of which was cracked. With great effort we loaded it into the truck and drove home with the glass rattling like a milk float.

As we pulled into the drive, the person with our Aldi order had just pulled up, we could eat again.

The furniture was collected and the money was in the bank.

Kelli managed to sell the Trump chairs to a repeat customer, to be delivered on Friday.

I did some dismantling to the Doctor Who cabinet, I’m sure a simple job will turn into a monster.

Kelli suggested that we replace the old mail box with a new one that we bought months ago.

I had bought a bag of ready mix concrete, not a small one, a bloody eighty pound bag that came with its own hernia cream.

Getting the old one out was a lesson in persistence. I dug down as far as I could, then tried to wiggled it, but it was stuck solid. A bit more digging, and there was slight movement. I put my shoulder under the old mailbox an pushed upwards, to my surprise it started to lift. A bit more effort and it lifted out completely. It had been buried nearly as deep as it was tall, and it was only because the soil was so sandy that I was able to pull it out.

The new one had an aluminium post, which I planned to concrete in.

The mix was ready, Kelli poured, I damped it down, and soon the new post was in position.

Kelli decided to stencil the house number on the side in white spray paint. She only had two sizes, so she chose the largest, now the number can be read by people over the other side of the lake, and also from space.

The sad note of the day was that our box of wine did not arrive, this meant that we had nothing for our penalty game except the remaining cheesecake, not very impressed.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 27

10th April 2020

We were rushing to finish the dresser and deliver it to the next street over. We lived so close that we could throw a stone and hit their roof. With a customer living that close we were desperate to make a good impression for the second time.

I needed to pick up more stuff at lowes, including a large sheet of plywood.

We waited by the outside collection point for the staff member to wheel it out.

With a little effort I squeezed it into the truck and bungeed the back door shut.

There was a bit of work left to do on the dresser and side tables that were to be collected tomorrow. It feels like I’ve working on them for ages, and it turned out that I had.

I fitted new belts to an old cassette tape machine that I had bought on eBay. I bought it cheap as a non runner, but I knew what it needed to get it working again. It was pure nostalgia buying it, as I had an identical one in the nineteen eighties.

I may be sub-consciously trying to re-create the same equipment at that time, I will also be looking for wine coloured corded flares to go with them.

As we had no wine left, and our deliver was not due until tomorrow, we had to substitute a slice of cheesecake to play our penalty game.

It was not the same.