Saturday - well, it was a cold, overcast, and blustery day. The estate sale was not the crazed rush we hoped for. Not even close
to a crowd, essentially just low-rolling browsers, and the furniture was
completely ignored. Mostly elderly ladies and elderly men, almost
always as couples or groups, probably just doing the yard sales and
estate sales as a weekend hobby. We sold a few knick-knacks off the
dollar table, and a couple of $5 items, and that was about it.
Craigslist next, I guess.
Out of boredom we hooked up the old VHS to the TV (good for showing
that both worked) and watched movies most of the day. Raiders of the
Lost Ark (how young everybody looks!), Tombstone, etc.
The ending of Raiders reminded me to check to see if Warehouse 13 had been canceled. Apparently not.
Friday
19 February
2010
Friday
- cleaning up around the place, in preparation for an estate sale
tomorrow. Tiring. There is a lot of stuff to be moved about, and laid
out. More than I thought, after all this time.
My brother came by and helped, and we priced some stuff. I don't yard
sale enough, but we've both heard the horror stories about the buyer's
and earlybird's and wanted to be ahead of the game. Gah.
Still, getting rid of some of the old stuff would help the repair kitty
and make it easier to move about the place with tools and paint!
Phoebe, in a typical napping pose, with about only 1/3rd of his magnificent obese-ness in the sun...
Thursday 18 February
2010
Thursday
- the Winter Olympics have started, again. Occasionally in years past
I've watched, but it's lost my interest, and I haven't bothered to
watch anything this year. And, of course, I've no TV here at the old
house anyway.
The weather is cooling, with more fog and some high clouds. Mars is
shining redly, almost directly overhead in mid-evening, when not
obscured by fog.
My co-workers are wrapping up the big report. We'd hoped for an
extension, but didn't get it. I feel guilty about not being there, but
if I was there I'd be feeling guilty about not being here. No happy choices sometimes.
My cat sitter called. She found a kitten outside my house in Lancaster and fed it. Noooooooo.........
Wednesday 17 February
2010
Wednesday
- it's been clear at night, and early morning. Then, after sunrise the
fog get sucked up into the Alhambra Valley and sometimes moves over
here towards the Pacheco side. It's neat to see it move in, hesitate,
then roll across the valley towards the house. After an hour or so it
burns off, and it's a warm and sunny day.
The neighborhood has kids again. For about the last ten years it's been
almost free of youngster's but now you can see the riding their bikes,
skateboards, playing in the yards, and yelling and screaming like they
should. It's mid February but it feels and sounds like mid June.
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Tuesday
- I'm reasonably happy with the state of the dining room. It's clean
enough for paint to stick, and I've patched and plastered over the
small holes from the various iterations of window coverings and wall
decorations. The color will be the same light yellow - a professional
painter that happened to be at Home Depot asked me "Are you sure of
that color?". It is a lot of yellow, but in that room - it works.
I also crawled through the attic and under the house - no really major
damage. There is work to be done, but I don't expect the place to fall
down tomorrow.
Just a sliver of a new moon tonight.
Monday 15 February 2010
Monday
- This would have been my parents wedding anniversary. The story
is that they wanted to get married on Valentine's Day, but just
couldn't get a church. Ah well.
A wedding day picture is below. How happy Mom looks, though Dad
kind of has this "Oh what have I done" look on his face. It worked for
them, through thick and thin, bad times and good.
I have no idea of what the car behind them is - Dad had a penchant for odd vehicles and makes - same as his father. At one point he was actually a car repo man - though I doubt he took one of those to his own wedding!
It's quiet around here, in the old house. It's getting empty.
Cleaning means, essentially, scrubbing out all traces of the people
that meant the most to me. I could get maudlin, but won't. When I get
to feeling blue I think of them up in heaven, looking down. They are
both smoking Marlboro's in this vision, and chuckling at the effort
they are putting me through!
Sunday 14 February_2010
Sunday
- nice weather up here in Martinez, a change, so they tell me, from
the last few weeks.
Cleaning and prepping the
old house. Forty years of chain smoking have taken their toll. Even
"TSP" takes multiple passes to remove the stains. And drywall tape does
not
respond well to multiple passes of a liquid detergent...
A sister was here helping. She in painting the (reasonably) clean walls
with Zinsser Bin, which is an enamel that will stop (hopefully) the
bleed through of stains when we put the actual paint on. Another sister
stopped by, and my brother, but mostly it was the two of us.
