With Cat Towards Appomattox
One can argue, oh it's not that bad, the smell of your cat defecating in her carrier, first time about 10 minutes into your 4 hour trip and the second time, kind of a freshen up, at about the 3 hour mark.
I talk to myself, mostly just inside my head, and especially during extended periods of solitude.
You going to clean that up? Naw, I'll just breath through my mouth. Aren't you worried about the stink, that palpable stink--sticking to your tongue, coating the insides of your mouth, lining your lungs? Naw, not really man, I haven't kissed anyone in days, and haven't really spoken to anyone in days either, other than to grunt at cashiers in stores when sliding my card or handing over cash, so I'm not all that worried about the potential waft of cat dooky escaping through my mouth. What about your cat, don't you care about your cat? Yeah, I care about her, in proper proportion I think, but she hates traveling. She's not going to be happy inside or outside that cage, and she has the good sense not to roll around in her own shit. Me cleaning up that crap is not going to make her that much happier. What's going to make her immediately happy is when I pull into the driveway, open her cage, wipe the two inches of hanging viscous drool from her chin, and fill her food bowl. She'll be purring up next to me ten minutes later. If I ask her then, hey do you remember the last four hours being nauseous and stuck in a small cage with just your own extracted poop for company, she will only respond with a blank stare and maybe a lick to my hand. I will cup the entirety of her small head in my palm and with my fingers knead the back of her neck, and say, that's a good kitty.
I'm not sure what I'm daydreaming about while driving but I'm on my way to Appomattox, 20 miles off course, before I know it. There are no mountains in site and that is wrong. I'm traveling on an easterly road when I should be traveling on a...I have to pause and picture in my head N. Carolina and Virginia on a map and where they are in proportion to each other. I can't see it. I should be going north, or south, I am certain of that. But which one? I really am at this moment the definition of stupid. The next time someone calls me a stupid ass I will in all fairness have to nod, or shake my head, it doesn't really matter which, and just take it. I'll see a sign soon and it will have on it both a direction and a nearby town. Before veering off I had been outside of Lynchburg so I don't need to go back there. I am heading towards Charlottesville. It will be easy. I will get back on track. I really don't remember what I was thinking about for those twenty miles. It was as if I just woke up and I was 20 miles in the future. I follow the mountains back home, through Charlottesville to Madison county and follow 231 into Rappahannock. Stretches of 231 are fairly breathtaking. I can breath through my mouth for a little while longer.
...more recent posts
Take Back That Flange, Sir
Jeeesus Chriiist am I still in that bathroom? Oh, no, please, don't go on. But I have to tell you about the toilet flange. Please no, please no don't. Well, I ripped out half the floor down to the joists but there weren't enough joists present so I scabbed some treated 2X6s onto the existing hard as a rock pine 2X10s and did some boxing around the waste pipe (which in some future will piss off a plumber) so I could put in the "for rent" ad--toilet will support a hippopotamus-- and one support here and another there and one diagonal because I had to and then cut some treated three quarter inch plywood and drilled holes for the supply pipes and roto-zipped one around the flange and then added another layer of three quarter inch plywood, same drilling and roto-zipping and when that was done I took a breath and attended to the closet and got it up to level, I mean not really level because that would require tearing the house down and starting over, but level to the rest of it anyway. This whole bathroom is only 6X8, including the closet and I am only working, as far as this floor reconstruction part is concerned, in half of that space. And I've been at it for almost 6 days. What? No, I'm not smoking pot. I'm just flummoxed some of the time. So today I was thinking about laying down the final layer, some quarter inch oak plywood for the linoleum to go on top of, when I noticed the toilet flange was sticking up too high. Like way too high but I don't trust my eyes (yes I do) so I brought the toilet in from the kitchen and set it on top of the flange and no fucking way will this work. I had been online some days ago reading about flanges so I took a cold chisel to the oakum and beat the flange with a hammer and got it to break off. Then I went to the home improvement store and found a new cast iron flange that purportedly will go on without an oakum process (which I think is a joint packing material over which you pour molten lead) and it damn well better work because it cost 42 dollars. The next most expensive flange I saw was 18 dollars but it would not suit my needs. Oh I love a good flange story. Don't you?. I bought a cheap pedestal sink for 36 dollars because the sink I took out was crap and the two back up sinks out here in the junk pile that I considered using were, upon closer inspection, broken. And a faucet and some closet bolts. And another sheet of plywood because now, without the flange, I would be able to snug up to the waste pipe itself and have the flange rest over the floor, which is proper. And I got a sheet of green sheetrock because I need to do some of that too, after this floor. And some baseboard and some shoe molding.
In answer to your question what am I doing tonight?...pretty much this. I've never been one for Friday nights. Assuming it is in fact, Friday night.
And then I took a pair of channel locks and broke off in pieces the lip of the cast iron waste pipe until it was level with the floor. Hell, I should probably take that flange back and get a proper one and some oakum, and a torch, you know what I'm saying?
Jeeesus Chriiist am I still in that bathroom? Oh, no, please, don't go on. But I have to tell you about the toilet flange. Please no, please no don't. Well, I ripped out half the floor down to the joists but there weren't enough joists present so I scabbed some treated 2X6s onto the existing hard as a rock pine 2X10s and did some boxing around the waste pipe (which in some future will piss off a plumber) so I could put in the "for rent" ad--toilet will support a hippopotamus-- and one support here and another there and one diagonal because I had to and then cut some treated three quarter inch plywood and drilled holes for the supply pipes and roto-zipped one around the flange and then added another layer of three quarter inch plywood, same drilling and roto-zipping and when that was done I took a breath and attended to the closet and got it up to level, I mean not really level because that would require tearing the house down and starting over, but level to the rest of it anyway. This whole bathroom is only 6X8, including the closet and I am only working, as far as this floor reconstruction part is concerned, in half of that space. And I've been at it for almost 6 days. What? No, I'm not smoking pot. I'm just flummoxed some of the time. So today I was thinking about laying down the final layer, some quarter inch oak plywood for the linoleum to go on top of, when I noticed the toilet flange was sticking up too high. Like way too high but I don't trust my eyes (yes I do) so I brought the toilet in from the kitchen and set it on top of the flange and no fucking way will this work. I had been online some days ago reading about flanges so I took a cold chisel to the oakum and beat the flange with a hammer and got it to break off. Then I went to the home improvement store and found a new cast iron flange that purportedly will go on without an oakum process (which I think is a joint packing material over which you pour molten lead) and it damn well better work because it cost 42 dollars. The next most expensive flange I saw was 18 dollars but it would not suit my needs. Oh I love a good flange story. Don't you?. I bought a cheap pedestal sink for 36 dollars because the sink I took out was crap and the two back up sinks out here in the junk pile that I considered using were, upon closer inspection, broken. And a faucet and some closet bolts. And another sheet of plywood because now, without the flange, I would be able to snug up to the waste pipe itself and have the flange rest over the floor, which is proper. And I got a sheet of green sheetrock because I need to do some of that too, after this floor. And some baseboard and some shoe molding.
In answer to your question what am I doing tonight?...pretty much this. I've never been one for Friday nights. Assuming it is in fact, Friday night.
And then I took a pair of channel locks and broke off in pieces the lip of the cast iron waste pipe until it was level with the floor. Hell, I should probably take that flange back and get a proper one and some oakum, and a torch, you know what I'm saying?
Go For Silver
If I know I'm going to be engaging in high risk blue collar behavior I will sometimes pop a few non-steroidal anti-inflammatory devices before I start. Or other times I will pop them right after, before the pain starts. It's called beating the pain cycle. It works pretty well and I highly recommend it. I haven't been doing anything too challenging though and as it turns out I don't have any pills here anyway. Thought I did, but don't. Which is fine because I'm not in pain.
Funny thing happened on the drive down. Just driving along and out of nowhere--ping, crack, there goes my windshield again. Was not driving behind a gravel truck or on an especially beat up stretch of road, nothing really obvious that might have come up off the road, and I was for awhile thinking space debris or random bb gun firing or something, who knows? I honestly can't remember going a full year without getting a cracked windshield. If I can I will go through an inspection with a cracked windshield but at that point the crack grows big enough to not pass inspection I will get the windshield fixed. I had this one fixed, oh, about a year ago, maybe less. If I don't get a windshield fixed I won't get another ding. This trend has been going on for, it seems about the last five or six years. It was happening when I drove the Mazda truck and it has been happening with the Jeep. On the Jeep I have also had the back window repaired recently. Grass cutting accident at Mt. Pleasant, mower picked up a chunk of gravel from the driveway and knocked out the back glass real good.
I'm drinking a Red Stripe beer. Actually I am feeling a little pain. Or trying to beat a pain cycle. Guess ole Claypool figured if I said he didn't have to run his mowing tractor over my lawn, then he just wouldn't. And the yard was looking a little ragged. If my lawn were a head of hair and the dirt was the scalp, it would have a bad case of scabies or some similar skin disease which made hair/grass fall out in clumps. I was out with the weed eater just now trimming up the tufts and it picked up a piece of gravel and knocked the holy shit out of my back window on the Jeep. If bad luck with windshield glass was an Olympic sport I would be a gold medalist. There would be no one as good as me, not even close. I don't see any point in being modest about it. I am the best. If you want to compete with me in this arena you should shoot for no higher than silver.
If I know I'm going to be engaging in high risk blue collar behavior I will sometimes pop a few non-steroidal anti-inflammatory devices before I start. Or other times I will pop them right after, before the pain starts. It's called beating the pain cycle. It works pretty well and I highly recommend it. I haven't been doing anything too challenging though and as it turns out I don't have any pills here anyway. Thought I did, but don't. Which is fine because I'm not in pain.
Funny thing happened on the drive down. Just driving along and out of nowhere--ping, crack, there goes my windshield again. Was not driving behind a gravel truck or on an especially beat up stretch of road, nothing really obvious that might have come up off the road, and I was for awhile thinking space debris or random bb gun firing or something, who knows? I honestly can't remember going a full year without getting a cracked windshield. If I can I will go through an inspection with a cracked windshield but at that point the crack grows big enough to not pass inspection I will get the windshield fixed. I had this one fixed, oh, about a year ago, maybe less. If I don't get a windshield fixed I won't get another ding. This trend has been going on for, it seems about the last five or six years. It was happening when I drove the Mazda truck and it has been happening with the Jeep. On the Jeep I have also had the back window repaired recently. Grass cutting accident at Mt. Pleasant, mower picked up a chunk of gravel from the driveway and knocked out the back glass real good.
I'm drinking a Red Stripe beer. Actually I am feeling a little pain. Or trying to beat a pain cycle. Guess ole Claypool figured if I said he didn't have to run his mowing tractor over my lawn, then he just wouldn't. And the yard was looking a little ragged. If my lawn were a head of hair and the dirt was the scalp, it would have a bad case of scabies or some similar skin disease which made hair/grass fall out in clumps. I was out with the weed eater just now trimming up the tufts and it picked up a piece of gravel and knocked the holy shit out of my back window on the Jeep. If bad luck with windshield glass was an Olympic sport I would be a gold medalist. There would be no one as good as me, not even close. I don't see any point in being modest about it. I am the best. If you want to compete with me in this arena you should shoot for no higher than silver.
Olympic Bedwetting
Well I didn't come down here to NC to sit around and watch the Japanese women take on the Vietnamese in field hockey or the Bulgarians to beat up on the Sri Lankans in badminton or to lose Internet connection while trying to see a round of men's water polo. The Iran v. Russian men's basketball was part of my reason for coming here though, scouting is a sideline, and while in the background the US men's soccer team goes up 2-1 on the Netherlands I write this certainly not waiting for the 10 a.m. start of China v. US, or Kobe and Co. v. that big Chinese guy that plays American basketball but whose name I cannot look up for spelling because often while streaming these Olympics I lose all other Internet connection beyond the sport I can hear playing in the background. I accept this trade off. There is no announcing for these streaming Olympics, just the crowd and player noise and the stadium announcer, which is an interesting model. So while I know just from watching for a few minutes that there is some fancy footwork going on, I don't know who's doing it while I watch nor certainly while I write with it playing in the background, uh oh, crowd is cheering (can't tell if they are cheering in Dutch or English), let me check that...looks like the Netherlands just tied it up 2-2. And now, a minute later, the game is over. Personally, I am against games that end in ties.
There is a wet spot on my bed. Which gets to my real reason for being here. To work on my adult bed wetting problem? To consider the pros and cons of nocturnal emission? Good guesses but no, I am here--to borrow the words of Bill Macy--for a Fence Post resurrection, and towards that goal I have located another roof leak. During the heavy rain of this morning there came a dripping from above and I now feel, just by the effort of that diagnosis (a diagnosis because it did require that I rule out bedwetting and nocturnal emission as culprits) vindicated against any guilt I might have experienced for not ripping apart the bathroom right away, which at some point eons ago, was my primary reason for being here. I'm going to go out on a limb and spell it Xaio Ming.
Well I didn't come down here to NC to sit around and watch the Japanese women take on the Vietnamese in field hockey or the Bulgarians to beat up on the Sri Lankans in badminton or to lose Internet connection while trying to see a round of men's water polo. The Iran v. Russian men's basketball was part of my reason for coming here though, scouting is a sideline, and while in the background the US men's soccer team goes up 2-1 on the Netherlands I write this certainly not waiting for the 10 a.m. start of China v. US, or Kobe and Co. v. that big Chinese guy that plays American basketball but whose name I cannot look up for spelling because often while streaming these Olympics I lose all other Internet connection beyond the sport I can hear playing in the background. I accept this trade off. There is no announcing for these streaming Olympics, just the crowd and player noise and the stadium announcer, which is an interesting model. So while I know just from watching for a few minutes that there is some fancy footwork going on, I don't know who's doing it while I watch nor certainly while I write with it playing in the background, uh oh, crowd is cheering (can't tell if they are cheering in Dutch or English), let me check that...looks like the Netherlands just tied it up 2-2. And now, a minute later, the game is over. Personally, I am against games that end in ties.
There is a wet spot on my bed. Which gets to my real reason for being here. To work on my adult bed wetting problem? To consider the pros and cons of nocturnal emission? Good guesses but no, I am here--to borrow the words of Bill Macy--for a Fence Post resurrection, and towards that goal I have located another roof leak. During the heavy rain of this morning there came a dripping from above and I now feel, just by the effort of that diagnosis (a diagnosis because it did require that I rule out bedwetting and nocturnal emission as culprits) vindicated against any guilt I might have experienced for not ripping apart the bathroom right away, which at some point eons ago, was my primary reason for being here. I'm going to go out on a limb and spell it Xaio Ming.
Is He Kidding, Or What?
I would like to thank everyone who took me literally regarding the post, The Preacher and the Piano Player. I have been almost exclusively about the verite on my blogs, except for those highly unlikely things like me having dates with boxes of chicken (The Pill, email from NOLA) and other posts of that nature. For the record, I have never dated a box of chicken. Also, Bernadette and I did not actually attend that church. The preacher and the church are real, however, and excluding that post, and allowing for the changes of place and people's names, everything from Fence Post up to this date has been actual. I have for awhile been wanting to blur truth and fiction so there could be more of that in the future. When in doubt, believe what you read. Or at the very least, read more about those things you would doubt. Again, thanks to everyone for taking me at my word, and believing that Bernadette would not put me out on the road after she got made to wear a dress by the preacher's wife. I am not getting in as much time as I would like out in Fence Post, but the Jeep is packed and I wait on arriving guests so I can say high and bye before hitting the road for that very real place to the south of here. And don't think Bernadette wouldn't look good in a flower print dress, because she would, or does, although I have not yet seen it, unless I did once, briefly, before she changed out of it. If anyone is thinking that I too would look good in a flower print dress, well thank you for that as well. I will however probably just stick to the paisley shirts. And shorts with suspenders and a wide belt and cowboy boots with white knee highs and a bolo tie and a bowler hat and a fake bushy mustache.
I would like to thank everyone who took me literally regarding the post, The Preacher and the Piano Player. I have been almost exclusively about the verite on my blogs, except for those highly unlikely things like me having dates with boxes of chicken (The Pill, email from NOLA) and other posts of that nature. For the record, I have never dated a box of chicken. Also, Bernadette and I did not actually attend that church. The preacher and the church are real, however, and excluding that post, and allowing for the changes of place and people's names, everything from Fence Post up to this date has been actual. I have for awhile been wanting to blur truth and fiction so there could be more of that in the future. When in doubt, believe what you read. Or at the very least, read more about those things you would doubt. Again, thanks to everyone for taking me at my word, and believing that Bernadette would not put me out on the road after she got made to wear a dress by the preacher's wife. I am not getting in as much time as I would like out in Fence Post, but the Jeep is packed and I wait on arriving guests so I can say high and bye before hitting the road for that very real place to the south of here. And don't think Bernadette wouldn't look good in a flower print dress, because she would, or does, although I have not yet seen it, unless I did once, briefly, before she changed out of it. If anyone is thinking that I too would look good in a flower print dress, well thank you for that as well. I will however probably just stick to the paisley shirts. And shorts with suspenders and a wide belt and cowboy boots with white knee highs and a bolo tie and a bowler hat and a fake bushy mustache.
Roadside America
We left Mt. Pleasant yesterday to have dinner four and a half hours north, in Bucks County, Pa., at the farm of Hector Bilby's brother, Adman. Hector is driving back into Jersey this afternoon and will drop Bernadette at Journal Square so she can catch the PATH into Manhattan. I will drive back to Mt. Pleasant, see how the landscape supercrew is getting along, then tomorrow head south to Fence Post, NC, to continue with the job there. There won't be much to look forward to on the way back south because yesterday on the way up we stopped at Roadside America, and, what else is there?
We left Mt. Pleasant yesterday to have dinner four and a half hours north, in Bucks County, Pa., at the farm of Hector Bilby's brother, Adman. Hector is driving back into Jersey this afternoon and will drop Bernadette at Journal Square so she can catch the PATH into Manhattan. I will drive back to Mt. Pleasant, see how the landscape supercrew is getting along, then tomorrow head south to Fence Post, NC, to continue with the job there. There won't be much to look forward to on the way back south because yesterday on the way up we stopped at Roadside America, and, what else is there?
