Basement update

Luther M. Siler

I’m not showing you pictures of the actual basement until it’s done, but this is what we did to our garage today:

If, uh, you happen to spot a wedding present in there, I promise it’s just the box. Really. Honest. My car is also completely full of cardboard– any cardboard still in this picture is going to get dropped off on Tuesday– because my son is attending something called Cardboard Camp for the next week, unless it gets cancelled because the roads between here and Hogwarts have melted. The one really bad bit of decision making here is that since we’ve filled the garage with stuff we’re going to get rid of in the garage sale we can’t put our cars in there, and as a result my car is going to have to be outside during the impending heat wave, which means if the boy’s camps aren’t cancelled for those two days transporting him there and back is gonna be super fun. I’m psyched about it. Honest.

Also, my knees hate me right now, and there’s still more work to be done downstairs. My wife and son hit the pool for the first time since we put it up after we were done working, but I didn’t because I didn’t trust myself on the ladder. Two days of too much up-and-down on stairs have got me hobbling more than I’m comfortable with at the moment, so I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I’m gonna land on my ass. I think I’ll be living there for most of the next few days, though.

No basement talk tomorrow; there are books to be reviewed!

In which I am old and fat and out of shape

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

Spent a few hours cleaning out the basement again, and I’m ready to collapse into a puddle and die. In theory, some of the things that will be replacing the years of cruft we’re tearing out of the basement will help with that, and there’s probably going to be a garage sale next weekend, but … yeah, I’m unhealthy. To a degree that’s frankly kinda scary. My stairs aren’t the friendliest either, mind you– there ain’t a damn thing on ’em cushioning any of the shock to my knees when I go up or down– but today shouldn’t have been as hard as it was.

There will be more tomorrow, including a great amassing of cardboard for a camp the boy is going to next week. At least in theory. My understanding is that it is supposed to be about 700 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we may have some heat cancellations in our future, which apparently has to be a thing now.

Anyway, I’ll post some pictures of the basement when we’re done with it. And probably of the garage sale too, next weekend. We’ve been here 11 years and haven’t ever done one, so there ought to be a LOT of stuff to get rid of. And very possibly a big-ass dumpster in my driveway the week after. I may have said all of this yesterday; my apologies if I’m repeating myself. I’m fucking tired. 🙂

Don’t read this if you respect me

Luther M. Siler8 Comments

Is_it_can_be_hugs_tiem_now_spider

…I fully expect this to be my most popular post of all time, by the way.

Alongside this whole “don’t yell at kids” thing I’ve been doing lately I’ve been trying in general to become a gentler person.  At some point in the last few weeks I decided (possibly at the spirited urging of some internet people) that I wasn’t going to be automatically killing spiders any longer.  Seeing a spider no longer means trying to kill a spider.  They eat other bugs.  This is good, right?  We like spiders; we should keep them around.

There’s been a spider living in my bathroom for the last week or so.  Just a little house spider type of dude, one of the almost-transparent kinds, not like the black monstrosity I killed in the tub not too long ago (and, I think, blogged about, but I’m not gonna go looking right now.)  He’s been hanging out in the upper corners of the bathroom, so even if I were inclined to kill him, he’d be hard to reach and I’d have to stand on something– no real point, right?  So for several days every time I’ve gone into the bathroom I’ve spent a few seconds looking around to see if I could spot him.  The other day– Wednesday morning, maybe?– he happened to scuttle into the laundry room before I closed the door, and I’ve not seen him in the bathroom since.  Which, weirdly, was sorta sad.  I’d started thinking of him as a bit of a pet.  For all I know, the dog ate him.

My wife went down into our (more-or-less unfinished) basement tonight to go through some stuff and called me down; it rained like hell all day today and we had some water on the floor in the utility room and, as it turned out, some more– inexplicably in the middle of the damn room– in the main area down there.  I discovered the wet area in the main room by accident– by stepping in it, wearing socks.  Which led me to take my socks off and cuff my jeans a bit, as my jeans are generally a bit too long when I’m not wearing shoes.  Several times as we were poking around looking for wet spots (shut up, you’re gross) I walked through cobwebs.  They don’t freak me out like they do some people but they’re still kinda skeevy, y’know?  Nobody likes walking through cobwebs.

Being bald and walking through cobwebs is more unpleasant than usual, by the way.  Trust me.

Anyway, I’m brushing myself off every three seconds and my feet are cold and my pants and socks are wet and WHY THE HELL DOES EVERYTHING IN THIS HOUSE LEAK ALL THE SUDDEN JESUS CHRIST and suddenly it occurs to me that I have to use the bathroom.  There is no bathroom in the basement.  And, believe me, ordinary “have to use the bathroom” types of experiences get rather radically worse quickly when you have to use the bathroom while barefoot on a cold tile floor and wet.

“Gotta go,” I told my wife, and headed upstairs.

Where I entered the bathroom and, well, went.  This was, shall we say, a multiple event, necessitating a seated position, and because I’m like that I grabbed a book on the way into the bathroom.  (There’s a post coming about John Green, by the way.)  So I’m seated and reading my book and taking care of business… and my fucking pet spider drops onto the top of my head, scuttles off, lands on the book, and then drops into my underwear.

I will allow you to imagine the sequence of events that followed, as my skill as an author cannot do justice to what actually occurred.

I kill spiders on sight again, by the way.