Yesterday morning two compact men of Central American descent pulled up in front of the house and unloaded several thousand dollars worth of new appliances. At first we were worried when they took the boxes off the units in the truck, but they treated our shiny new children with care as they hefted them up the front steps and into the front porch. I stood back with my coffee, amazed, when the smaller of the two men carried our dishwasher up our front walk and into the house on his back. (Note to Sears: Send your deliverymen out with a Johnni-Lift or something next time.)
And then, it was time to say goodbye to the legacy range. The two men strapped it to the cart, carefully navigated through the hallway, and then practically threw it down the front stairs. Goodbye, lousy electric range: may you never spatter grease, burn cookies, collect hair, or stink up our house again.
B. the electrician came back and finished roughing in the electrical work as well. As with the rest of the house, we’ll have several dozen outlets and dedicated circuits for all the appliances instead of two ungrounded plugs and an extension cord—halleleujah, amen.
I followed B. last night by patching up various holes in the plaster, insulating the weight channels in the window sash (which were empty, no wonder it cooled off in that room so quickly) and slapped a coat of Kilz on the Pepto-pink walls. In one way, I’m glad I was laid off, because this room needs a lot more work than I expected to get it ready for cabinets.
Y’know, There’s something pretty cool about being able to wake up, make coffee, and walk aross the hall to the guest room to have a two-hour concept meeting with your wife. Especially when you like working with your wife.
I posted an update to the houseblog about kitchen progress this morning—I’ll follow it up with some pictures later in the day. I’m going to do some freelance logo work, and then run out to rent a floor sander to take advantage of the 75°weather.
How’s everybody doing out there?
Electronics Recycling Oct. 22
Baltimore County recycling. I have an iMac and a pair of monitors that need to be disposed of properly.
I filed for unemployemnt insurance this morning, something I probably should have done last week. At least the food bills will get paid while I hustle up some more freelance work. Theoretically, I should be getting a final paycheck in the mail this week, but I haven’t seen one yet….
Friday was the last day of the first week of my new career, which I’m calling Do Anything To Keep The Gas Bill Paid. It didn’t go off as bad as the last time this happened. That time I ran around freaking out over how to make a tiny mortgage payment, sure that I’d never work in the industry again. This time has been better, mainly because I was already doing freelance work on the side, and also because the market is a lot stronger.
I was, however, without my cellphone for a week. We stopped down into the old neighborhood to drop off some shower gifts to some old friends on Sunday. When I got out of the car, my cellphone did a kamikaze leap off my lap onto a pile of wet leaves and stayed there for several hours until I got home and called about it. They rescued it for me, wiped off the water, dried it out (the battery was dead) and kept it for me until today.
Canton has changed even more in the past two years than in the six that I lived there. Pretty much anything that could have been called “local flavor” has been bulldozed to the ground to make way for 3-floor garage townhomes starting in the $400’s. At the foot of Lakewood avenue a year ago, I spotted a beautiful painted sign on the side of a renovation project house. It was the size of the whole building, and it had been exposed when they pulled formstone siding from the brick. I stopped to take pictures in the darkness, and found it hard to get a decent shot in the sodium-arc lamplight.
This afternoon, after picking up my phone, I looked for the sign and found it had been covered by glistening gray paint and fake vinyl shutters. Several windows had been cut into the middle, and a rooftop deck had been added with a spiral staircase. Anything original about the house had been wiped out in an attempt to make it as homogenous as the next one. Why would anybody cover that piece of history willingly? Why not seal it with silicone spray (repoint the brick, if you have to) and tell everybody you’re in the Sealtest House? It would be a huge selling point to your house, in my opinion.
I stopped recognizing that neighborhood as my own when the Outback steakhouse went in (right before I sold), and the new swoopy metal building in the Safeway parking lot (soon to house a Starbuck’s) sealed my contempt for what it’s become. With my cellphone safely in hand, I got out of there and headed back home.
Our electrician B. stopped by in the evening and began roughing in the wiring. It’s halfway done (he was here until 9PM) but already it’s looking like progress is being made. Sears called about our appliance delivery this morning, and our kitchen planner told me the cabinets came in yesterday. Everything is hurtling along, and I have to say, the excitement and activity helps me keep from suffering panic attacks whenever I consider our impending mortgage payment. My wife has been a rock through all this, continually telling me we’re going to be OK and not to worry. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I should be getting a final paycheck in the mail this week, and then I start drawing unemployment until I my accounts recievable checks start coming in.
So i guess I’m not freaking out too badly right now. Should I be?
iCalShare Links
A good repository of iCal links.
Monster Island.
Yummy zombie goodness. (via)
I’d have to say the last four days have been as busy as we’ve ever been, and I guess that’s a very good thing. Instead of sitting around drinking beer and listening to blues records in my underwear, I’ve been keeping busy with updates to my portfolio site, getting in touch with contacts in the outside world, juggling the housing demolition with finishing up the upstairs rooms, and trying to stay sane. I have a table full of lists, lists of lists, piles of paper, reciepts, and ideas, and I don’t feel like I’ve been able to begin anything yet.
It’s too early to have any kind of set schedule at this point (especially as the rest of the house is in total chaos) but my plan is to start doing weekly illustration again, for real, and have a portfolio of new work built by the end of the year. Sometime in early 2006 I’d like to buy some pages in the big directories and try to solicit work. I’ll be posting new work on my portfolio site weekly starting next Monday (If I can move my fingers after sanding the floor in the kitchen), so keep an eye out for me.
Speaking of, follow the link to a series of pictures of our bombed-out kitchen. We’re now washing our dishes in the bathtub. Whoopee!
In the wake of some bad news last Friday, we did what most Americans often do when faced with potential financial crisis: We spent lots of money. Returning to Sears on Saturday for the Columbus Day sale, we ordered a range, dishwasher and refrigerator for delivery next Monday. The range is a different model and make from the one we first chose-it’s a Kenmore Elite gas range, and it turned out to be more expensive than the original, but it’s got a bunch of features we wanted. Convection gas oven, a warming drawer, a simmer burner, Check the bullet list on that first link there—six bullets down. See at the end there? We’ve got Sabbath Mode. Ozzy Fucking Osbourne is going to cook the crap out of our Thanksgiving turkey while “Crazy Train” pipes out of the recessed Bose flush-mount speakers. Not that shaky Ozzy you see on the MTV these days-no sir. Sears got the circa 1980, bat-eating, Stoli-guzzling Ozzy our parents warned us about to saute the vegetables.
Crib Candy
Just in time for me to not be able to afford any of it. Nice stuff, tho.