Another Lifetime to go

27th November Wednesday

Today is the memory of Dave Bulthouse who died five years ago. Dave was a larger than life character whose humour was dry but respectful.

I met him back in the nineties when I had to get support from the model shop at Herman Miller.

I was in conversation with the manager but was aware that Dave was circling me like a great white biding his time to strike. As soon as I had finished my discussion he pounced, and invited me to his home for dinner. That took me by surprise because that had never happened before. I was so shocked, that I accepted, and had a wonderful evening, and that is when I first met Kelli who was Dave’s daughter. I guess you could say that that changed the course of my life many years later.

So Dave has to take the credit, or blame, but I think he was happy with how things turned out, but not necessarily for him.

Thanks Dave.

As it was Thanksgiving Eve we had shopping to do, the store was not as busy as expected, and our list of items was not very long, it still took us time to gather everything we needed.

On the way back, Kelli stopped off at a flower shop to buy a bouquet for her mother, which caused tears to flow, but it was a touching moment.

She also had to fix some problem with her mother’s phone, that happened often.

By the time we actually got home it was past 5.00pm so nothing in the garage got touched.

I did have a craving for a cheese sandwich, but when we opened the cheese we had just bought from Natures Market it was covered in mould.

I then drove back to the store to exchange it.

There was not a problem, and I was able to get a replacement, so I was able to have my cheese sandwich when I returned.

26th November 2024

The beer tasting session was back, only a few days early because of thanksgiving.

I’m sure the bar staff thought we had died because of our absence from the place.

We sat at our favourite table, the closest to the bar, so we didn’t have to walk very far.

We quickly got into the quick fire round of just about everything, work history, politics and family issues. We agree on most things, but Lloyd has a better way of explaining things.

Although the subject of cricket came up, “ I can never understand that game” Lloyd admitted, “I prefer baseball “.

I then spent ten minutes explaining the basic rules of the game, and he spent fifteen minutes explaining the rules of baseball, which I’ve already forgotten.

The one thing we do disagree on are vaccines. He is proud that he is up to date on his flu and Covid doses. For someone who had been damaged by Agent Orange, and who was told it was harmless to humans, to then trust pharma to give you experimental genetically modified drugs, I could not get my head around his reasons.

I then backed off the subject, there are many more that follow, the conversations continue to flow, just like the beer.

25th November 2024

The loud Jeep man woke Kelli up at 5.30am again and also kept the engine running.

I was bloody annoyed, so quickly put some clothes on with the intention of confronting the driver. I got my shoes on and fumbled around for my torch. I grabbed what I thought was the torch only to find that it was a roll of dog poo bags. By the time I found it, he drove off, so I had to take my clothes off again, but this time there was no chance of both of us getting any more sleep.

Not feeling the best we drove to Menards to look for a new outside light fitting. Our original had crapped out, so it was a good opportunity to get something more modern.

The selection was vast,  but the choice was rubbish. They looked so old fashioned, more like something out of Charles Dickens. We settled on a lamp with metal and glass, made in the sweat shops of Shanghai.

I looked over the instructions, which is unusual for me, and set about taking the old fitting off.

Of course nothing was as straight forward as I first thought, and as the old fitting was as old as the house itself, it did fight me all the way.

Fitting the new was just as challenging. The mounting block in the wall could not be removed because it had the house siding over it, and I didn’t want to get involved in removing all that just to fit a lamp, so a bit of head scratching ensued.

After a cup of tea and a lot of alternative thoughts, I decided on a simple plan that didn’t involve cutting and butchering anything.

The lamp fitting was quite simple after that, although I hate the twist type connectors.

Now we had a functioning lamp which was just as well as the darkness was closing in.

24th November 2024

Very little was done today. We got up late, had a great breakfast of a German pancake with syrup on it, it was a treat.

Kelli had a bit of gardening to do whilst I finished scraping the last of the paint on the bureau. 

We noticed that the man across the road with the noisy Jeep was working on it. Was he fixing his exhaust? I guess we would find out.

Then it was up to Kelli’s mum’s for the ice cream feast.

When we returned, the guy was still working on it, as he did for the rest of the evening.

As I went for my shower he started it up, it didn’t seem any quieter, but he let it run for over half an hour. Kelli called the police and I was ready to walk over and complain, but I had to finish the washing up first. It was really annoying, but just as I finished the last dish, the engine stopped, luckily for him, he would have faced the wrath of a disgruntled Englishman in his pyjamas, and no American wants to face that.

23rd November 2024

We drove to Natures Market to collect the turkey breast that we ordered for thanksgiving. Last year we had a whole one, but it was massive and took a lot of space in the fridge.

Buying just the breast would take up less space, and there would be little waste.

When we saw it in the box, the turkey must have been working out, it was massive, it was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of turkeys.

The dresser was finally sold, after a few miss fires, we got a definite sale.

Like always there is the last minute rush to get it working properly. Kelli alway finds things she doesn’t like and I have to try to fix it. In this case it was the two bottom drawers that would sit right. After establishing that there was a bit of warpage and bowing, I set about trying to fix it.

Lifting it on to a pair of trestles I could see the issue, and decided on the best way to remedy it.

The dresser wasn’t a particularly well designed piece with only a central rail to support and guide the drawer, I notched out the back part of the rail to lower it, that made all the difference.

Kelli had arranged to deliver it to a house in Holland,  where the parents of the lady who bought it lived. The buyer was quite a distance away, so that seemed the best solution.

Then we went off to The Boatverks restaurant for my belated birthday dinner.

The car park was packed, and this was at 5.00pm, so we weren’t sure even if we could get a table. Fortunately most of the cars belonged to people attending a wedding reception in an adjacent hall, so we got a table easily.

I started on a glass of Cabernet, that got me going, by the second, I was giggling. Kelli wanted to take a picture of us together, so I sat next to her, she took a number of frames, but decided none were good enough. I suggested that she sits next to me on my side of the table, she took several frames before it dawned on us that the pictures were exactly the same, this started the giggling even louder. Finally we worked out the seating arrangement that would give us the picture we wanted, but that didn’t stop the laughter.

22nd November 2024

Today was installing the doors and drawers into Lloyd and Nancy’s kitchen.

Kelli had to drive to Grandville to meet Greer at 9.00am. This meant the alarm was set for 7.00am, ironically the sort of time we class as a bad night, oh well.

Whilst She was away, I worked on fitting the hinges to the doors.

There were a few quality issues I had to rectify, this meant repainting a couple of drawer fronts.

Once they were dry, and when Kelli returned, I carefully loaded everything into the back of the truck, covered everything with blankets and set off.

The installation took a while, the hinges were not the fully adjustable type, in fact the only adjustment was up and down, but we did the best we could. After an hour everything was back in place and looking better than it ever was, much to Nancy’s delight.

Once we were back home I had to work on the dresser that we had just sold.

There were a few parts to replace on the drawers to make them run smoother.

Stopping for petrol, it was amazing that it has now dropped to under three bucks a gallon, but as it changes daily, I’m sure it will be back up tomorrow.

21st November 2024

Memories are amazing things.

I was reading that the original drummer from the Bee Gees Colin(smiley)Peterson had died on the 18th aged 78. This was sad enough, but it triggered a memory,  because he was a child actor. He starred in an Australian film called Smiley, hence his nickname. I remember seeing that film when I was five. Mum and Dad took me to see it and it has remained in my memory ever since.

I did know that this drummer was a child actor and how he got his nickname, but it stopped there.

I expect it was his passing that rekindled that thought, so it was in my thoughts when I woke up, and I was determined to search out that film to see if I remembered what it was about.

Well I did find the film on YouTube, and I have saved it to watch at some later time.

It was a cold day, it was raining and not at all good to be out in.

We had a dresser to post, and because of the weather we could do it outside, so we made an impromptu area in the house to take the pictures.

We also finished painted the drawer fronts ready for delivery and installation tomorrow.

There was no beer tasting today, that was disappointing.

20th November Wednesday

So another year has passed, although I don’t take any notice of the number anymore, I was looking forward to taking Kelli out to dinner. A birthday is as good as any excuse to do that, but it didn’t happen.

Kelli had a bad night and we didn’t mange to drop off until 4.30am, waking at 9.00am. Four and a half hours is not enough for her.

Unfortunately I did let my disappointment show, and I acted like a petulant child, something I was not proud of.

As soon as we got back from our shopping trip, which, without a good sleep is not much fun, I started on the drawers for the kitchen commission. I took out my frustration on those, and gradually came to my senses. I had blamed Kelli for something that was out of her control, and we cleared the air, taking the dogs for a walk, and getting cold.

The birthday dinner can wait.

19th November 2024

I drove over to Lloyd and Nancy’s to work on their kitchen cabinets. I had all my materials and brushes at the ready.

To avoid my accidental paint spillage episode I kept the paint tin in a bucket, there was no way that would be kicked over.

I carefully masked up all the areas that had to be paint free, then started on the task.

My mind was wandering, because my hands knew what they had to do. I was earwiging on what they were discussing. They wanted the flooring replaced with laminate strips, and had a quote in excess of ten thousand dollars. They asked me what I thought, and I told them.

The home interior business is in recession at the moment, mainly because people use their income to buy petrol and food. So these businesses are chasing what ever inquiries they get, and when they visit older people, those with a higher disposable income, they inflate the prices disproportionately. The material costs about four thousand dollars, and they said it would be done in a day and a half, I would certainly like to be earning the remaining six for doing it.

The salesperson was desperate to get the order, she sat with them for over an hour trying to get them to sign a contract, that’s how it works over here.

I advised them to look for a self employed flooring contractor who could do the job much cheaper.

The only reason I didn’t offer my services was because I don’t like laminate flooring, but also it would take me longer to do. Doing the floor at home played havoc with my knees, but I might price the job up anyway, out of interest.

18th November 2024

Oh there was a lot to do, first I wanted to paint the front face of the kitchen doors and Kelli wanted to finish painting the dresser she had been working on. I checked the weather and the was a forecast of some rain, but then I forgot about it. 

Sixteen doors later, with them laying on every conceivable place outside to dry, I stopped to have some lunch.

I took off my work jacket and checked my weather app on my phone. It informed me that rain was due to start in ten minutes.

That would give me time to move the doors inside, but as I went outside it had started already, not hard, but drops were falling, and landed on my newly painted items.

I shook my fist at the sky in anger as I rushed to rescue the pieces. Some were nearly dry, but some were still wet and had rain marks on them, so tomorrow I will have to sand them back.

The rain had now set in for the day, although Kelli finished her project. By the end of the day I had deposited all the doors in different parts of the house, ready for inspection tomorrow.