Residual Laughter

A Sweet Improvisation

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Something about the rainy weather and the falling leaves and the colder temperatures, made us crave foods we haven't had in ... well, about a year. I asked Leah to get out the big pot and make her very tasty homemade three-bean chili. It simmered for five hours and so far I've had at least five helpings. Don't worry, that's not five helpings in one day. I think that could be dangerous.

We've also enjoyed unwrapping dozens of Kraft caramels and watching them melt into a sugary goo on the stove. We've taken turns coating apples. And more than one recently, we've had sticky lips and fingers in need of a quick washing.

But it turns out our math is poor and we didn't buy enough caramel apple sticks. But if Leah is anything, she is resourceful.

Hanging Around Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:23:00 +0000

The shelf held big wooden spools loaded with all kinds of rope. Thick and thin, rough fibers and nylon, black, white and an ugly yellow. Leah was searching for just the right one. It had to be hefty but comfortable. And cheap, don’t forget that.

She picked a yellow nylon, pulled out a good five or six feet and wrapped it around her neck. Her left hand held the excess well above her head. “I think this will do it,” she said

“What do you think you are doing?” asked a Home Depot employee standing behind us.

I have to admit it looked bad. Me nodding approvingly, while Leah tries to determine exactly how much rope we needed to make a good noose.

“Uh… next week is Halloween,” Leah stammers. I just stand there.

“Oh, in that case, you don’t want that rope. This one over here would be much better for that,” he said, walking us to an even cheaper black nylon number. I gotta give it to that guy, he knew his stuff.

While this shouldn’t shock anybody, the Internet has all kinds of helpful sites for people looking to learn how to tie a noose. I don’t mean a simple slipknot either. We went for the full Wild West looking thick knot.

As you can tell, our costume was a bit morbid, and a bit political. We decided to go as dogs that Michael Vick tortured and killed. Leah painted our faces like cute puppies, except I was strung up by that bad bad football player and Leah was electrocuted (she wore jumper cables attached to her shoulders.) I was a little unsure how the party would respond, since Vick now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. But it turned out that I had nothing to worry about. People thought it was clever and I made sure to point out that I tied the noose myself.

Just About Done

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:56:00 +0000

We sledgehammered a wall and jackhammered the floor and used a .22 caliber shell to attach studs to the concrete. And that was just the beginning.

What a few weeks ago looked like this...

Now looks like this...

We finished tiling the shower and the bathroom floor this weekend. The toughie was the piece that surrounds the showerhead, but we managed. I have to say I kind of enjoyed sitting back and watching Leah grout the ceiling. I would guess 60 percent stayed up there, 35 percent hit the tarp below and 5 percent smacked Leah in the head.

Next week we get to seal the tile, attach the shower head and start working on the bathroom walls. Unfortunately that means back to drywallin.

Weekend Warriors Return

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:27:00 +0000

"Ahh... I got hit in the eye with a spacer!"

That's what happens when we tile the ceiling I guess. After a few weeks away from the home improvement biz, Leah and I were back at it this weekend. We worked long hours, got covered in grime and sweat and tile goop. We ate greasy fast food in between trips to the home improvement store for that one thing we forgot the last time we were there.

And after a full Saturday and Sunday of work, we pretty much finished tiling the new basement shower. We even stuck a few tiles on the bathroom floor just for good measure. It went better than I expected and took longer than I expected. It was particularly difficult to figure out how to tile the ceiling. The cuts were awkward and scraping the thinset up there was just dirty work. But probably the most annoying thing was trying to place the tile spacers, which had the tendency to stick just long enough to give you hope before they either bonked off your face or head.

Over all, I think it turned out pretty well. Next weekend I will finish it off and even grout those babies. Then I'll post a picture.

Attempting to Destroy Some Bright Orange Fake Birds

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:52:00 +0000

There I was, holding a shotgun in one hand and a box of shells in the other. Everyone staring at me in anticipation. And I wasn’t even sure how to fire the thing. I slipped a shot into the cylinder, snapped the gun closed and placed the stock against my shoulder. I closed my left eye, lightly put my finger on the trigger and breathed for a second.

Here goes … “Pull!”

A bright orange disk shoots out of a wooden box, up and slightly to the left. I fire. It explodes, shards hitting a ragged grass field covered in “clay” pigeon chunks, which sure look like they’re made out of graphite to me.

I nailed my first ever attempt at trap shooting and it was all downhill from there. That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time, it’s just that I’m far from a natural. By the end of the day, I fired that shotgun 50 times. I think I only hit about eight clay pigeons, some I didn’t even kill, just maimed.

I went with three friends, all of whom performed better than I did. None of who rubbed it in much. We started with trap shooting, where the pigeon launches away from you at a random angle. After that we tried skeet, where the pigeon goes from one side to the other. I found both to be equally challenging, but I would say I liked skeet better because it was more social.

Trap was voice activated. You said “Pull!” into a speaker and the orange disk flew. That meant no talking in between shots. No joint celebrations or light ribbing. Just four guys, lined up taking turns shooting (and mostly missing) our flying targets.

But skeet was controlled by a remote. One guy pushed the button. One guy shot. Two guys cracked wise. Then we rotated.

It was harder than I thought it was going to be, but fun. And I sure hope I get to try it again some time.

Aches and Pains

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:54:00 +0000

I ran the length of the court, faked out an imaginary defender and then doinked the layup off the backboard. Oh well, it felt good to run a bit and test my gimpy knee. At the nearby community center, I spent about an hour shooting (badly), walking away only when my arm was tired.

Then I went grocery shopping, getting a couple weeks worth of goods that I lugged in bags on each shoulder and slung up each forearm. The last block was a bit tough, but I made it.

So why did I get up and take an ibuprofen at 5 in the morning?

My back hurt from slouching over this damned laptop for a few hours playing online poker.

Bravo Matt, bravo

A Respite at Wise Acres

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:07:00 +0000

We set down our law books and laptops, our drills and drywall for the weekend and we drove.

We drove on forest-lined highways where orange and yellow and red were making their first appearances and where the road twisted with the contours of the land. We left the city and then the state and entered the Poconos.

Just a few hours later we were at Wise Acres surrounded by friends and drinks and laughter and no work.

Leah and I just relaxed for two days without cell phones or computers. We threw darts, played 20 questions and ate well. We exhaled.

And it was only when we were about to leave that I remembered bringing our camera.So here is at least proof that we were there, even if you don’t get to see the nice people we shared this little respite with.

Lil' Matthew Gets Caught

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:51:00 +0000

There I was crouched behind a red Ford Taurus parked up the block from our house. I had no shirt on. My hands were wrapped around a scooter that Leah had given to me 10 years ago as a birthday gift. Just a few minutes ago, I had been zooming up the block and then riding the downhill back to our driveway on my swank Sharper Image scooter, the wind billowing in the hair — both on my head and on my chest.

But then I spotted my neighbor Kevin leaving his house. I ducked behind the Taurus. I would rather not be spotted by my tough manly neighbor riding my scooter shirtless.

I was hoping he was just getting something he left in his car. Nope.
Then I was hoping he was going to drive the other way down the street. Nope.
He came right toward me. I had to make a snap decision. I didn’t want to be caught, but worse I didn’t want to be caught hiding.

So I decided to own it.

I emerged from my hiding place jumped on my scooter and stood tall as I coasted home.

Kevin stopped the car, rolled down his window and waited…

I pulled to a stop. He leaned out of his window and with a big grin on his face said: “Time to go home lil' Matthew. Time to go home.”

A public plea

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:31:00 +0000

Dear Lafont eyeglasses,

It has been five months since we’ve been together. You resting fashionably on my face. Me looking fashionably through your lenses. I’m still missing you and think of you often, like the other day when I rifled through the couch cushions for the 50th time hoping to find you.

Many a night I have imagined with fear what might have happened to you. I have pictured your beautiful black titanium frame crushed to bits in the garbage man’s truck, your sparkly white, genuine Swarovski crystals trickling out of the broken plastic cat-eye cover like teardrops.

You are the fanciest and by far the most expensive pair of glasses I have ever owned...an impulse purchase really... bought with unused flex spending money on a deadline. I wasn’t looking for anything special, but as I browsed, there you were, all French design, imported and exotic on the shelf. I had to take a day to think about the investment, but when I chose you I went all out, even getting the special lenses for you that fade to dark when we would go out in the sun.

I walked past an eyeglasses store on my way home from school the other day and I considered buying another cheaper, more utilitarian pair, just to get by until you come home. You were my only pair with my recent prescription, and now seeing is a little bit more of an effort. But I decided to wait, because I still hold out hope that I will serendipitously discover you months or years from now in one of my many Tupperware storage containers. Maybe I set you in it by accident and you got covered over? Or worse, maybe a cat jumped on the table and bumped you into the nearby uncovered recycle bin where you tumbled to the bottom, unnoticed? Maybe you were clinging to the cabinet and fell in the bathroom garbage when no one was home? I shudder to think of the possibilities, but I hope that you are just hiding somewhere in the house, waiting for our reunion. Please show yourself. I miss you, Lafont eyeglasses. I really do.

Leah

Busted: A cat caught white pawed and how we thought we struck oil

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:50:00 +0000

A tiny pool of viscous brown liquid oozed up from beneath our basement floor. “It’s back,” I said. Leah was kneeling on the ground, working a trowel and laying tiles when she said: “What’s back?” I just pointed.

We had seen this before and we thought some bottle of some chemical must have leaked. But the room is now empty expect for us, a few loose tiles and a bucket of mortar. We ran through the options. Maybe it is ground water or maybe the sewer line is cracked. Then Leah said: “Maybe we're sitting on an oil field.”

We quickly devised a plan to secretly construct a tiny oil derrick in our basement to pump out the liquid gold before any of our neighbors caught on. Genius really. Step one: remove the nasty linoleum tile and see what we could see.

Turns out it wasn’t oil or sewage or ground water. It was floor cleaner mixed with old linoleum glue. Apparently this section of the floor was not secured to the concrete as well as the rest of the basement. This put a major crimp in our tiling plans. We had to stop everything and tear out about 10 tiles. Good thing we did too, because that nasty brown liquid was pooled under a few of them.

Then I had to mix up some mortar and use it to try to level out the floor. While I was at it, I thought I would spread a thin layer in the two closets we are planning to tile as well. With the patch made, Leah and I moved on to other projects like planting a few flowers and fixing our rickety garage door.

Afterward, we returned to the basement to inspect my work and see how well the patch was drying. Someone, or more appropriately, some animal had beaten us to it.

Leah went to investigate. It didn’t long to figure out which of our two cats was the culprit. We caught Georgette white pawed.

Our cat wasn't the only ones who had left their mark in the mortar. We are really glad she didn't mess up our own artistic addition. The plan is to return to tiling tomorrow once this stuff finally hardens up, until then Ralph and Georgette are banished from the basement.

Duffing in DC

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:27:00 +0000

I teed it up this morning with two friend at Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Golf Course, a beautiful patch of land that not only houses 18-holes but also a bunch of fearless deer that hang out in the trees. It really was a pretty sight.

But the place was covered in bugs. And the rental clubs were a mess. I was given a women’s driver. Peter had a left handed six iron. He had to actually ask for a putter. And don’t get me started on the tee boxes. They were hard packed dirt. You couldn’t even get a tee in there. Might as well have hit right off of a cement pad.

Then there was my play. I kept shanking it into the trees. I lost a bunch of golf balls. I couldn’t figure out these rental clubs. I never really hit it right, but the course sure didn’t help either. My ankles ached from standing in all sorts of weird positions on the little hills that dotted the place. There was not one flat piece of land anywhere.

The groundskeepers were really jerks too. They decided the best time to water the course was in the MIDDLE of our round. The greens were soggy. The cup filled with nasty green liquid.

Oh and don’t forget the sticky sweaty temperatures. I was soaked in sweat by the time I finally escaped. My hands were slippery, I couldn’t even keep a good grip on the clubs.

So in summary, I had a lot of fun and I really wish I could play again tomorrow.

Life on Hold

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

While Leah is in Utah taking care of her sick father, I'm twiddling my thumbs here on the East Coast. Actually, more accurately, I'm brushing her cats. Either way, our normal life full of power tools and sawdust and paint brushes is on hold for a bit.

Some have suggested that I'm probably glad for the break. But I have to say, after busting out the concrete in our basement, I'm ready to get cracking on that shower. I just realized I never included photos showing that we not only used a jackhammer, but we also framed our new shower and linen closet as well.

Take a peek.

The walls were no trouble at all, but the top of the shower was a bit of a challenge because of the heating vents. We got a little creative and made a narrow box to nail the plywood to. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense. But let me show you kind of what it looks like.

The next step is to get a plumber in there to set the drain and run the hot and cold water.

But as I said before, that is on hold. While I wait for my lovely Leah to return, I'm passing my time reading a nice book called 1776. Don't tell me the ending, but I must say I'm really rooting for the Americans to pull it out over the evil Red Coats.

I'm also doing a little work, catching a movie here and there, watching some poker on TV and brushing these gigantic fluffballs.

Get well soon Boyd!

Destruction and the Point of No Return

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:59:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I ripped down a wall with only a small sledge and my own brute force. It was manly work and I must say I enjoyed it thoroughly. Smashing and yanking and grunting. It was fun. Leah got in on the act too, destroying some old drywall and tearing out boards.

That was when we passed the point of no return -- where our constant talk about adding a shower to our basement half-bathroom went from a possibility to a commitment.

But, surprisingly, it wasn't the most enjoyable part of this ongoing project. Here is what the little bathroom looked like before the demolition began.

And here is what it looked like when I started JACKHAMMERING the concrete floor!

Who hasn't wanted to use one of these babies and inflict a little teeth-rattling destruction? The plan was to cut a trench in the cement so we can connect the shower drain to the toilet drain about five feet away.

It took me 30 seconds to hammer through the slab and then it was on! At least it was on until Leah pushed me out of the way and took over. "Nice work honey, now get the hell out of the way and let me show you how it's done."

I was impressed.

The job took all of 50 minutes but we rented the thing for four hours. We wanted our money's worth out of the thing. Leah tried to convince me that other things needed jackhammering, like tree stumps or the driveway. But then we calmed down a second, did the rational thing and hauled it back to the rental place.

Before the plumbers arrive, we have to dig down about a foot and a half. We decided to save that for another day. But if anyone needs five large buckets of busted up concrete and rocks, we have you covered.

The Grinding Noise of Doom

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:03:00 +0000

I've taken so many trips back and forth on the Chinatown bus that I have a pretty solid routine. I know when to hold my breath, what seats to avoid and how to shake off a weird person who is eying the spot next to me.

I also know when to pull out my computer, slide in a DVD and let the world around me drift away.

At least I used to. Last night something totally horrible happened. The disk drive on my laptop went out. Now when I put in a disk, instead of hearing the twirling noise that indicates my movie is about to begin, all I get are a few weird grinding sounds. Then the thing spits out my rejected flick.

I've spent a few hours trying to coax it back to life, but it's useless. It's broken and I'm now doomed. Doomed to sit on the bus, smelling the person eating the pungent Chinese food, listening to the guy loudly chatting on his cell, waiting for the nearly three hour drive to come to an end. I have to endure all of this when I could be finding out how the Mad Men will try to win the American Airlines account or how Dexter will beat the rap.

Doomed.

Or I guess I could haul around the portable DVD player I own until I figure out how to get my laptop repaired. Either way, I'm not happy.

A Little Pruning

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:19:00 +0000

I'm sure one day not too long ago our three-tiered backyard was beautiful, colorful, orderly, but now it goes something like this...

Five-foot weeds dominate the first tier, the second tier is vines and even taller weeds and the third tier is trash trees and other scary things. It's quite easily the most overgrown monstrosity in our nice little neighborhood.

It's so daunting that we have, for the most part, simply ignored it. Except when trying to spot our favorite groundhog Frank. But armed with the neighbor's pole saw, our own little hand saw and a whole lot of naivete, we decided to lop off a few dead branches.

Two afternoons later our overgrown backyard looks, well, a lot like it did before. And we know this is most likely the project we will never finish. But one log at a time, we will try to make it a
little more presentable.

Finding New and Exotic Places for Cat Naps

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:21:00 +0000

What can I say? This is what happens when Leah leaves the drawers to her dresser open. Good thing she owns a dozen or so lint rollers.

Frank the Berry Thief

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:01:00 +0000

Meet Frank.

He's the groundhog who lives in our forest-like backyard. Or at the very least our yard is one of his favorite haunts. Leah has seen him numerous times and was able to snap these photos.

She's also the one who named him Frank. "I don't know. He just looked like a Frank," she says.

At first, we had no clue what it was. All we knew was that it was bigger than our cats, furry and Leah wanted to pet it. We described it to one of her law school friends who then asked us "When it runs, do you see the fat undulating down its back?"

Yeah!

"Groundhog," she says.

Groundhogs, aka woodchucks, are pretty common in these parts I take it. They are part of the rodent family, live in dens and are not fond of foxes or dogs. They eat mostly grasses and berries.

And that explains what happened to the three precious raspberries that were growing on our vine. Damn Frank! I really wanted to try one of those berries.

Last weekend, while I was working in our home office, I heard a rustling outside and was fast enough to see him dart under our fence and into the neighbors yard. Work-be-damned, I grabbed the camera, steadied myself and waited.

And waited. And then grew bored and went back to work.

A few minutes later the rustling kicked up and I saw Frank's fat ass running the other way up our terrace and into the bush. Frank is not only a berry thief that Leah wants to pet but he is also fast.

We will let you know if we snag any better pictures of our new backyard friend.

Torching the Toilet as Time Ticks

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:22:00 +0000

“IT’S ON FIRE!”

That’s Leah screaming from the room next to me, while I just sit here and try to come up with slightly moronic things to say like “That’s OK honey. Just keep going.” I’m hiding because I really can’t take the stress of all of this.

I have to jump on a bus to DC in a few hours and right now the water to the house is shut off. It’s a toilet removal gone bad. Let me start from the beginning.

As we continue to remodel the basement, my job today was to yank the toilet and sink out of the little half bath. Only problem is that unlike your fancy, updated toilet, ours doesn’t have a shut off valve that works or a little flexible hose that delivers the water to the commode.

Nope, ours has copper pipes that run from the wall right to the basin. Earlier in the day, I had to cut the pipe and removed the toilet. Only then did I realized that the valve I bought wouldn’t work.

Tick tock. The bussing hour approaches. We jumped into the car and rushed to the home improvement store to pick up some new supplies. I probably asked Leah what time it was on at least four occasions. She remained calm. I was jittery.

We got a valve that you solder or “sweat” on to the copper nub that is now protruding from the wall. We also got a little heat resistant blanket. We’ve tried this whole soldering thing before and you remember how well that worked out. But we remained confident.
I got the torch lit and Leah prepped the area with the flux. Then I gave it a go, but to be honest I panicked. I cut the heat too early meaning the solder didn’t melt and create a seal. What I did do was annoy Leah. That made me even more jittery or is that jitterier.

Anyway, after I told her she was right. I lit torch again, handed it too her and got the hell out of dodge. Meaning I stepped out of the half bath and turned my back to what she was doing.

That’s when she screamed that she caught the heat resistant blanket on fire. The blanket was wrapped around the other copper pipe connections and the wood paneling on the wall. But unlike me, Leah stuck with it. Melted the solder. Sealed the valve. Saved the day. And for awhile relished the victory.

She couldn’t savor it too much because the clock was still ticking and she wanted me to remove the sink. At least the sink had shut off valves. Just as Leah was complaining that whoever put this in was too lazy to update the toilet too, I was removing the cleaning supplies in the cupboard below the sink.

That’s where I found a toilet shut off valve identical to the one we raced to the store to get and a little flexible hose that would connect to the basin.

Damn. She was right. They were too lazy.

Making the Basement Less Gag Inducing

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:27:00 +0000

Some days you just wake up thinking that you need to lay about 300 square feet of tile in your basement to cover the pink and white vinyl squares that make your ladyfriend gag.

It happens, I know.

But I would say recognize how big a project you are getting yourself into. Cause this doozy has cost us two weekends so far, we are still not done and this is only about half of the basement.

Here is what this beast looked like when we started.

I carefully laid out tiles to make sure I knew how they would run from end to end and side to side. (Turns out my math was way off and this was a waste of time, but at least I gave it a go)

Then I broke out the tile saw and got to work. I made most of the cuts, while Leah handled the trowel and thinset.

We started near the fireplace, since we thought people would likely look in that direction often and as you can tell we used spacers in a totally failed attempt to keep the grout lines kinda even.

That is two spacers for each side of a tile, four sides to a tile and we put in place a whole bunch of tile. Let me do the calculations, that adds up to exactly 1.6 s*%t loads of spacers.

And one cat. Damn Ralph couldn’t help but be all up in our business the whole time. He has to be the center of attention. Unless the job involves fire …. or the vacuum. He’s not a big fan of the vacuum.

This past weekend we mixed up 25 pounds of grout, stuffed it into a “grout bag” (which looks like something you would use to put a frosting on a cake) and gooped all the spaces between the tiles.

It went better than expected and that usually means disaster. Turns out the light brown grout dried a chalky white, which means we get to use some special acid to take off the excess minerals. But that is for another weekend. If we wet the whole thing, you can see what the final product will look like.

We think it is an improvement. At least Leah doesn’t gag when she sees it.

The Fall of Gotham

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:30:00 +0000

So I'm sitting on the Chinatown Bus doing my thing, which this week involved watching The Dark Knight special features. When all of a sudden an older woman in front of me pulled an ear of corn out of her bag, shucked it and started gnawing on the thing. Then when she got all the kernels off, she did it AGAIN with another ear of corn!!

Uh, that really wasn't the point of this story, but it was just too weird to pass up.

So I was watching The Dark Knight special features and I have to say they are quite underwhelming when compared with the cool stuff on Batman Begins. But probably one of the more interesting features is six episodes of Gotham Tonight, a fictional TV news show where the host is convinced Gotham city officials should hunt and arrest Batman.

Like any good fictional TV news show, it had a ticker running at the bottom of the screen that displayed headlines like "Harvey Dent promises to rid Gotham of organized crime" and "The Gotham Times revenue down 18 percent because of declining ad sales and sliding standards."

WHAT! The newspaper in Gotham is having a hard time selling ads and newspapers when a guy dressed like a bat is beating criminals to a pulp every night? Not to mention some creepy terrorist tried to release poisonous gas through the water system recently, all the nutjobs broke out of Arkham Asylum, the monorail crashed and now some guy with paint all over his face is killing people with no motive?

Damn it. I know newspapers are having a hard go of it right now, but this is just ridiculous.

Follow the Lines

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:25:00 +0000

I'm waiting for two tourists to figure out if they want a cappuccino or a lemonade and my eyes are darting around the floor.

Looks good, looks good, looks... wait a minute. That tile is totally crooked. What loser blew that one? Next thing I know the person behind me in the coffee line nudges my shoulder and says it's my turn to order.

---

Leah and I are in a dark and crowded theater watching Public Enemies, when I lean over and whisper in her ear "subway pattern, looks pretty good too" pointing out the wall tile in a bathroom in some 1930s era hotel. She responds "I was thinking the same thing."

---

What can I say, all I see are grout lines and tile patterns these days. Especially after we spent the entire July 4th weekend laying hundreds of ceramic squares in our basement. We haven't even hit the halfway point, but I gotta say it is already a big improvement over the white and pink linoleum. I promise to post pictures next week. I'm hoping to grout it by then.

I'm not about to brag though. If a skilled tile guru walked into our basement he or she would gag for sure. One section has perfect grout lines, the middle of the floor has tiny ones (probably half the size we hoped for) and the far end has mammoth spaces between the tiles. We tried to keep it perfect. We used spacers and the whole bit, but we are total amateurs. Hacks really. Amateur hacks who wing massive tile projects and hope they work out.

Leah tells me our work is "good enough." I'm sure it will be fine, but I need a little more reassurance than that. So I scan every tiled surface I come upon, looking for imperfections. Every uneven grout line, every crooked square makes me feel a little better about our own attempt and all the work that lies before us.

Biting the Hand That Pets You

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:42:00 +0000

It starts all nice and cute. Ralph rubs his big fat cat body against my leg in the morning as I lumber into the kitchen to start the coffee. He wants a little attention. I want caffeine.

But then his ears start going back and his pupils dilate. He gets closer to the floor and starts stalking my ankles. Moving back and forth, looking for a sign of weakness before he attacks!

DAMN IT, RALPH!

He wraps his clawless paws around my leg and bites me. Nothing too hard, but enough that I swat him good. But then he doesn't stop. He wants more. I'm trapped in the kitchen holding a cup of coffee by a manic ankle biting cat.

I try to explain that I'm not a supersized t-shirt wearing rat. He doesn't seem to care much though. I try to tell him that the reason we got another cat is so he would have someone to attack. He lunges again.

He will bite Leah's hand if she pets him longer than he wants, but he doesn't go for her legs. It has to be the fact that mine are covered in hair. He also stops once I put on socks and shoes.

So my options are wear pants all the time. Sleep in socks and shoes. Shave my legs. Or have gnaw marks on my ankles.

Hmm... I will have to think this over as I sip my coffee.

Aging in Different Cities

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Birthdays are sure not what they used to be.

I spent mine at work and then I made a failed attempt at catching a baseball game. The rain came down so hard that a few thousand people tried in vain to hide in the Metro station. An hour later, I gave it up and went back to my apartment. No cake. No celebration. No Leah. Ah well, it happens.

It's Leah's birthday today. She got up early and worked on her paper. Then went to her summer job. Then school. Soon she will come home to eat a slice of cold pizza and fresh watermelon. Then she will work on her paper some more.

We like to think that some time in the future it will be different. We will live in the same place. The weather will cooperate. The pizza will be hot. And Leah won't have any homework. Sounds nice, huh.

Taking Do it Yourself Just a Stitch Too Far

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Leah's convinced that we can do just about everything ourselves. Electrical, plumbing, carpentry. She's now trying to convince me that we can replace our own windows.

And heck, why not handle our own medical care while we are at it.

She recently had an odd shaped birthmark carved out of her arm, requiring a half dozen stitches or so. Just last night, despite my protests, she yanked them out herself.

Why? Because she didn't want to go pay some lousy doc a $25 co-pay to do it for her.

Maybe I recoiled at the idea because blood and cuts and stitches make me a little bit woozy. Not Leah. I'm sure she would have taken the birthmark off herself if she wasn't worried about leaving a scar.

Movin Out

noreply@blogger.com (MattC) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:26:00 +0000

I walked through the eerily empty house slowly, taking soft steps and small shallow breaths. I didn't blink much. I stared at the walls, then the floor. Then I leaned down and REALLY stared at the floor.

If someone walking by saw me they would have to think I was nuts. And I wouldn't blame them.

Our tenants moved out of our Salt Lake City house and that meant I had to do a thorough walk through. But since they were our first ever tenants in our first ever rental property then logically this was my first ever inspection.

A few days ago Leah called to run down all of the things I had to look at and I scoffed and blew her off with some brilliant comment like "Right, you want me to look at everything. Got it. Let's move on."

But now I'm inching my way through the kitchen trying to remember what she said, knowing she's going to ask me about it later. Check the lights, check the appliances. Are the cabinets clean? Is the refrigerator clea... hey they left butter and a few cans of beer! Sweet!

All in all, Leah and I got really lucky. We rented to nice people. The worst thing they did is ding a wall or two, but in my book that falls into the "normal wear and tear" section.

I wish they would have spent a little more time cleaning the joint. The bedroom has a bunch of dog hair on the floor. But I understand they were operating under some serious time restraints at the end there.

A few weeks from now our new tenants will move in. I hope our luck continues to hold and the next time I'm staring way too intently on our hardwood floor I fail to find a dent or scratch.