We’re getting our money out of the pool membership so far this summer. We brought Christi and Glenn and the kids on Friday and had a hard time getting them out of the water. Finn went off and swam with her friends while Bear floated around the pool on a trio of noodles, and Ruby splashed in the baby pool for most of the morning.
In the late evening the skies finally darkened and we were chased out of the water by some thunder, but we hung around and got another 20 minutes in with the lights on until they started closing down. We were the last families out the door and had two very tired, very upset kids to say goodbye to in the parking lot.
Saturday morning my neighbor stopped over and we spent three hours sweating in the new bathroom; he got the rest of the electrical work completed and I hung the new closet door. At this point it’s roughed into place—I still need to drive the nails in all the way—but I need some more shims to make sure I’m not bending the casing halfway up the sides. I also got the floor heat computer initialized and programed for basic morning heat, and then copied that to the rest of the week. I can’t tell you what a big achievement that feels like; the door looks good in place (and when I get the casing installed it will look even better) and it’s lovely to have a working light in the shower.
After that was done we headed back to the pool and met up with a number of friends from the neighborhood. It was the perfect way to spend a brutally hot afternoon: floating in the deep end with a bunch of adults, listening to the kids splash around on their own, sipping on an illicit beer.
Jen and I binge-watched the first four episodes of Stranger Things last night until 1:30AM (!!!) and we are enjoying the new season immensely. The writers acknowledge that their characters are getting older and are using the idea that some aren’t growing up as fast as their friends in the storyline as well as some unusual character pairings to shake things up. And the 80’s fashion callbacks and music cues are spot-on. I think we would have stayed up later to watch more but wisely went to bed much later than either of us is used to.
Jen and Finley found this last year and shot a great Instagram picture of it. I figured I’d take a selfie while it’s still (mostly) visible.
As mentioned before, I took Friday off to drive Jen’s Dad up to Pennsylvania to have his driver’s license renewed, and the trip went as well as a daylong drive to the DMV could have gone. I was on the road early, we got through the northbound Baltimore traffic with little difficulty, and were sitting in the waiting area of the York PennDOT licensing center by 12:30. It should be noted that the caliber of humanity at the Maryland DMV is equal to that of the Pennsylvania DMV—it all resembles a methadone clinic. Two hours after arriving we walked out with a shiny new license and celebrated with a trip to the Cracker Barrel. Then, the ride home: I pulled into our driveway at about 8:30PM.
We were invited to be a part of our niece and nephew’s baptism this weekend, which was a great honor for Jen and I as the pseudo-godparents. The Catholics don’t want heathens in this role so we will pinch-hit when the Father, Son and Holy Ghost aren’t looking (which we’d be doing anyways). First up was Bear’s birthday on Saturday, where we gathered with a bunch of other parents and watched the kids play in a giant bouncy castle in their backyard. Thank god that was on Saturday, because Sunday just rained on and off all day.
Because I couldn’t be outside, I putzed around the house and cleaned the basement up a bit. I’m on the verge of a major cleanout and a trip to Goodwill sometime this week, and I’ve got a pile of stuff up in the hallway all ready to go. The tools are mostly organized but I’m not happy with how they’re all separated, so I’ll have to rethink that whole situation later. I also started piecing in components of Dad’s old surround system into our A/V setup, which is a revelation in technology for this house. I brought his HDMI-switching amplifier home and installed it, as well as a center channel speaker, and ran some speaker wire up the pole so that all the wiring is hidden. We watched Game of Thrones last night and could actually hear what people were saying!
Brian has been asking if we’ve used the shower yet since the day he left, so we finally gathered together and tried it out before the birthday party on Saturday. The verdict: it’s lovely. The river stones feel wonderful on my feet, and the shower itself is modern and warm. There’s a big difference standing in there vs. standing in the cast iron tub in the main bathroom; the cold seeps in under the tub and makes your feet chilly. This is a wonderful, modern new addition to our house and I’m energized to get more progress made in there. The next things to deal with are:
- The electrical: I’ve got my neighbor tentatively scheduled to drop by sometime this week to hook up the floor and some of the switches;
- The closet door: a new prehung door in the style we want will be about $500 plus delivery, so I’ve got to sit tight until the war chest refills to get that ordered.
- A toilet: there’s nothing stopping us from buying and installing one at this point.
- Cabinets: this is the BIG thing that we’ve got to save and plan for.
We took Finley out to get a long-overdue haircut on Saturday, which makes a huge difference. I really prefer her with a bob. It suits her face, and her hair looks healthy again. More importantly, I think she likes it as much as we do.
After the haircut we drove down to the LP City to go to pick up Jen’s father and take him to the Hollywood VFW Spring Dinner, featuring St. Mary’s stuffed ham, fried oysters, beans, and potatoes. It’s been a few years since we’ve been down there, and even more since we’ve been to the Hollywood dinner, but it was worth every delicious bite. I think Jen and I emptied one entire heating tray of oysters on our own.
I haven’t set a date to go up and begin cleaning out my parents’ basement yet, but I did find that LensRentals is offering all of the gear I’d need to properly digitize the family slides: the 40mm macro lens, slide digitizing kit, and a Nikon D500 would all be $288 for a 7 day rental as opposed to buying the digitizing kit for $150 and renting the rest. The D500 is seven years newer and has a higher resolution (if I wanted to be anal I’d go with a full-frame body, but whatever) which should be enough to get us the results we want.
I haven’t have a whole lot of time to write toward the end of this week, so I’ll place some oldies here for fun.
I saw this Pro Street Cougar in a parking lot the other night while Finn was at karate. Pro Street means you’ve made modifications to the engine and maybe the driveline, and most likely put a rollcage inside; everything else is supposed to be stock, which explains why this is still street-legal.
