Of course it wasn't what I expected, which was to sit around drinking hot buttered rum and basking in the fact that I had no Christmas shopping to do, I had all the stuff ready for Christmas dinner tomorrow, finally got the cards out, and maybe in the early afternoon I'd go over to the gym and sit in the jacuzzi. Of course, that didn't happen. To back up about a week, it started like this:
Jeremy, who is a good carpenter and who rebuilt our rotted rafter tails for us last year, came by looking for work. we had thought of putting a gazebo in the backyard, because last year we bought a Japanese maple, but it gets way too much sun and fries in the summer. As the conversation went on, it kind of drifted over to an overhang on the other side of the yard, where the focal point is our neighbor's corrugated garage wall. We've tried various things to conceal it over the years, with various degrees of success. So now, we're trying again. This time, we had Jeremy build a fence near the wall, but god knows, not touching, because the woman who owns the property next door goes ballistic over just about anything. So before he put up the fence, he painted the corrugated wall. A nice dark green to fade into the background of anything we put there. Then he built the aforementioned fence, and then he built the sort of trellis thing over it. Don't quite know what to call it, but it will provide a little bit of shade on that side of the yard and maybe if we put shadecloth hanging down, we can move the poor Japanese maple over there and shield it during the summer.
Jeremy, who is a good carpenter and who rebuilt our rotted rafter tails for us last year, came by looking for work. we had thought of putting a gazebo in the backyard, because last year we bought a Japanese maple, but it gets way too much sun and fries in the summer. As the conversation went on, it kind of drifted over to an overhang on the other side of the yard, where the focal point is our neighbor's corrugated garage wall. We've tried various things to conceal it over the years, with various degrees of success. So now, we're trying again. This time, we had Jeremy build a fence near the wall, but god knows, not touching, because the woman who owns the property next door goes ballistic over just about anything. So before he put up the fence, he painted the corrugated wall. A nice dark green to fade into the background of anything we put there. Then he built the aforementioned fence, and then he built the sort of trellis thing over it. Don't quite know what to call it, but it will provide a little bit of shade on that side of the yard and maybe if we put shadecloth hanging down, we can move the poor Japanese maple over there and shield it during the summer.
Anyway, he finished it yesterday, and if you want to protect the wood, you have to put the oil finish on while it's dry and when there isn't going to be any rain for a couple of days. I'm not too sure that fog doesn't count in there or not, so, hoping there won't be any I decided to put the wood preservative on today. John complained to start with, that it was too cold out, but this was just because he wants to sit around and read the paper and have coffee and watch football, and then maybe meander out in his regular clothes and start thinking about painting it. Then, of course, he'll have to putz around for an hour getting organized, looking at the job, etc., and then he'll ruin everything he's wearing while he paints.
To make a long story short, I started at 9:30, in my professional painter's jumpsuit, because I am a professional, and didn't finish until about 4 pm. I think he went out and raked some leaves or something, but now it's about 5:30, and other than helping me pick up the tarps, he basically did nothing. He's still watching football, or the news, or whatever other important thing he has to watch on tv, and kind of hanging around wondering what I'm going to fix for dinner, which is going to be leftovers from my birthday dinner at P.F. Chang's last night, when I damn well get around to it.
We are going to go to St. Johns tonight because they have a wonderful christmas eve service at 10:30.
I guess I have this whole thing about Christmas, because since I don't consider myself a religious person, I shouldn't be into Christmas, but I am, in a big way. So I end up going to some kind of service on Christmas Eve, if I can ascertain that there's going to be a very high ratio of music to sermonizing (like about 20:1) But there's no Christmas music I don't like and by Christmas, I still haven't had enough. But we do nothing for Christmas with family, because Mike & Heather always go to Merced where there are lots of people who aren't weird, like we are. And we do nothing religious, because we are heathens. And we don't even exchange gifts because -- well, I don't actually know why, but we quit when we used to go to Hawaii for Christmas and never went back to it. So the runup to Christmas is really great, but Christmas itself is pretty much nothing. Except tomorrow we're going to have the gang over for Christmas dinner so I think that will be fun. They're actually the closest thing to family I have.
Next week I take my car into get repaired. Someone hit me doing VERY minor damage, but it's going to cost (him) $468 to fix it because they have to remove the bumper and bake it. Zoe, Dodie, John and I are going to SF to see Pissaro's People at the Legion of Honor and Masters of Venice at the DeYoung. Wednesday we're getting new kitchen cabinets.
I also hope to have an update on rockin' art. If you remember the story about the rocks in the fountain, I didn't like them, after I got them painted, so have decided to make pieces of art out of them and just leave them randomly around town.
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