Friday, No More Days

It is done.

Back to work today.

Saturday, Day ???

Andy finished school in Cleveland and got to New York early Saturday morning. We were all glad to see him.

We went to the Central Park Zoo where Miles feed a hungry goat.

On the subway coming home.

Miles helping to feed himself.

Wednesday, Day ???

I have had two days of Miles care. We both have survived.  It has been very hot here in New York; over 100 on Tuesday and about 94 today. Fortunately, there has been low humidity.

Theresa's brother Peter is taking care of his six month son. Peter has joined me for lunch both days. Today, we went to a great Salvadorian restaurant. Miles liked some sweet corn tamale and a little plantains. He very much liked his Cheerios.

Miles and I went to Fort Tyron Park this morning. It was cooler up  the hill in the trees with a great view of the Hudson River.  Of course, we had to stop at the swings on the way.

I had an easier time getting Miles to nap today; it was a real struggle on Tuesday. I got him to sleep in a sling around my chest and then gave him a small bottle when I put him on the bed.

We walked down to the hospital, met Theresa after work, and walked home together. Miles was very happy to see Ma Ma and she was happy to see him!

Monday, Day ???

I am back in New York City. I am here for a week in order to take care of Miles while Theresa is at the hospital. I am so tired of plaster repair and painting. Miles is much more fun.

Today is care orientation. Linda, Theresa's mother was here until 3:30 PM. She gave me many tips. Theresa also had the day off. We decided that a 3 adult to 1 Miles was the best ratio for care. I know that is hard to believe when he looks like he does in the picture below,

I took a quick trip to the park with Miles so Theresa and Linda could work on wedding plans. It is over 95 today but not very humid. Miles loves to swing.

Tomorrow, Theresa goes back to work and Miles care begins in earnest.

Friday, Day 64

On Friday, I drove Barbara to Camp Millennium near Roseburg. This is a camp for kids who have cancer. Barbara has been a volunteer for the past 12 years.

The World Cup has slowed down my painting, etc. Matt noticed that the Malian referee for the US - Slovenia match was named Koman Coulibaly and wondered if he might be Andy's cousin. I am sure that the US players in this picture were offering him beans.

Monday, Day 60

Almost everything has been moved out of Andy's old room. The big event was moving the 55 gallon fish tank. The tank was moved to its new home downstairs. The only way to move it was to put the fish into buckets, and remove all of the water and gravel. Of course, I also cleaned it and bought a new pump / filter, etc. Here is a picture of the fish tank at its new location. Notice that Random is carefully guarding the fish.

Tomorrow, I will pull up the carpet and begin to prep the room for painting.

Sunday, Day 59

The primary writer (Barbara) has been too busy and tired from her work at the bookstore. You will have to be satisfied with my updates.


We finished painting (and repainting) Ted's old bedroom. The new carpet was installed on Friday. Here is a picture:

Friday also was the start of the World Cup. On Saturday, I went to Ron and Jill's to watch the US - England game.  We were all happy with the result. The British press was not kind regarding Robert Green's howler -

Another British headline was Shock and Draw and one comment was that this was "one spill that the Yanks would not complain about."

Today I gave blood platelets at the Red Cross.  It takes two to three hours but I was able to watch the Germany - Australia world Cup game.
 

We are now ready to start the last room upstairs - Andy's old room. One extra challenge is the 55 gallon fish tank. The tank is going to move downstairs. Since I have to empty it to move it, I am going to clean and replace much of the equipment. Here is a picture of a new pump, filter, heater, etc. that cost about $250.

In the upcoming week - more World Cup, cleaning, carpet removal, plaster repair, painting, and Barbara goes to camp.

Tuesday, Day 54

Tom made it back home, a little worse for the wear. He packed and tossed and packed and drove. He said his cold disappeared during the drive to New York. It's not as cheap as Dayquil, however. He played with Miles, who still laughs uproariously at the sound of "Kung-Kung," one of the Chinese words for grandfather and the one Andy chose for Tom.

Welcome home to a lawn that grew a foot because of all the rains Portland had. Welcome back to the bedroom that still isn't completely painted. Welcome home to the fish who might have gotten fed while you were gone ... and might not have. Are there fewer fish? Welcome home to a cat (Random) who missed you.

Now grab a paintbrush and mower!

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-14, Completed-13.7.

Sunday, Day 52

I have been to New York and back. The all night trip to NYC went as well as possible. I had some mist and fog but no bad weather. I navigated the George Washington Bridge and got to the apartment house at 10:15. The movers and Theresa were downstairs waiting. I double-parked the truck and stayed there to avoid tickets. Peter took some fragile stuff upstairs but the movers were pretty efficient given the limited elevator space. I got to view the street wash shuffle on the street outside. Everyone moves their car and double-parks on the other side of the street for 90 minutes while the street is cleaned.

Theresa and Andy's new apartment is pretty nice. They have a great view and a fair amount of space. Here is a picture during the early unpacking. (The Hudson river is in the background.)

Peter helped me return the U-Haul truck and let me sleep in their nice apartment that is one floor below Andy and Theresa's. Here is Miles sleeping in his new room.

On Saturday, I took Miles on a walk while Theresa continued to unpack. There were some challenges because the quality of the packing went downhill toward the end and some of the box labels were dubious. (The Ukranian movers wanted to know where to place the box labelled as "crap".) 

The neighborhood around the apartment is quite nice. There are shady streets, parks and playgrounds in one direction and restaurants, grocery stores, etc in the other. The subway stop is a short block away. Here is a picture of Miles on a swing at the playground. Miles is cutest and smartest kid ever.

I left NYC on an Amtrak train at 3:45 pm Saturday afternoon. That is, I should have left at that time. We got about 1/4 mile from the station and the engine quit. They unsuccessfully tried to fix it. Then we were towed back to the station for a new engine. We went through heavy rain on the way and had to slow down because of high water. We arrived at Cleveland at 6:00 am Sunday about 2 and one half hours late. Andy picked me up and immediately went on rounds. I went to his house for a couple of hours of sleep. Andy was done after a few hours and we went out to breakfast and just saw a movie.

Andy is finishing cleaning the house and we will move tonight to a friend's apartment. I guess a cleaning service and painters will be here tomorrow. 

Tomorrow I return to Portland for more furniture moving, carpet removal, and painting.

Thursday, Day 49

It's Barbara again.


I can only guess why Tom hasn't posted. He's tired.


He and Andy have probably been packing the van, and on Friday Tom has to drive into Manhattan. And he doesn't have me to entertain him while he drives.

Theresa and Miles flew to NYC and are already there. Andy has 15- to 18-hour shifts at the hospital. (I like to think that my future physician is learning how to doctor while exhausted and sleep deprived. Not.)

And then what happened? What a coincidinky! Tom called just as I finished this post. (It's actually Friday morning (8 a.m. PDT) and I've been in the dark about what has been going on.)

At 1 a.m. Friday morning, Cleveland time, Tom and Andy (after a mere 15-hour day) finished packing the truck, and Tom began his drive. (Say that again.) Tom started driving to Manhattan at 1:15 a.m. in order to meet the movers at 10 a.m. in Manhattan.

He made it successfully. (Without my nagging ... I mean, help.) Theresa and her brother, Peter, were there to greet him. Yay! And the movers showed up on time. Double-yay! He called as the movers were emptying the truck. A police car didn't even stop to ticket the double parking. Now all Tom has to do is stay awake long enough to deliver the truck to its final resting place.

A quick nap. A longer snooze on the train back to Cleveland. A last day spent with Andy (if he's awake). Then home again on Monday. Jiggety-jog.

Wednesday, Day 48

Today, I made another trip to Goodwill.

We picked up the U-Haul truck. We got a 10 foot truck which should be much easier to drive and hopefully will be big enough for the items to be moved. (Of course, the cost of the truck is many, many times $19.95!!!)

Miles and I played while Theresa packed.

Sometimes Miles and Theresa played and I packed.

Tomorrow, Miles and Theresa will leave for New York from the Akron airport and I will drive them. Andy and I will finish packing the truck for the early Friday trip to New York.

Tuesday, Day 47

Today, I went to a going-away lunch with Theresa and Miles' parent group. I met one person who had spent a year in Portland as an intern at Outside/In. She said that she would have stayed and gone to graduate school at Portland State if not for meeting her husband. Another women is about to relocate to Eugene. They both liked talking about Oregon. We had a nice long walk to and from the restaurant.

We did a variety of errands. We sold books to a used bookstore. Theresa said that she wished she knew about it when Barbara visited. I agree that Barbara would have enjoyed it.

We went to Goodwill. (We will probably need to make another trip. Now that I know where it is, maybe I will drop off things by myself.)

Miles and I played while Theresa had a haircut. When Theresa went on other errands, Miles fell asleep in the sling for more than one hour. Kong Kong was pretty tired too.

Monday, Day 46

On Memorial Day, I went to Cleveland.

I was on a medium-sized plane and a small plane. 

Andy picked me up at the airport and we went home to Miles.

We went for  a short walk where Miles liked looking up at the trees.

We had to hurry home to avoid a Midwestern thunder shower. Miles spent his time inside helping to sort Mom and Dad's keys.

No projects today.

Sunday, Day 45

No painting today. A visit from Ted. Bookstore work for me. FOB* time for Tom.


I put about half of the books back on the bookshelves, and I'm almost out of room. Where am I going to put the rest?

I'm still weeding books -- trying to be good about it. I motivate myself by watching episodes of "Hoarders."


The best part of unpacking, according to Random, is the empty boxes.

 Random is looking up at Tom, as if to say, "Did I do a good job?"


Tom takes off for the wilds of Cleveland tomorrow morning at 6:45.

*FOB=flat on back -- a camp term!

Saturday, Day 44

Poor guy! Despite not feeling too well, Tom put the first coat of paint on the bedroom walls. He also carted a bunch of boxes to the sale place (so we could move around in the bookstore!).


He has mostly slept and looked pitiful so far.


Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: lost in ennui

Friday, Day 43

Although he struggled with a cold most of the day, Tom still did a little work in the room. Mostly the big accomplishment of the day was a carpenter putting plywood down to replace the soft boards.

I'm not sure what it means when the best part of the day revolves around plywood.

Tom has had to help me with carting stuff for the booksale. I say "stuff" instead of books for the booksale because of the donation we picked up this morning. Many people have seen the newspaper articles about Phil's fire and the fundraising booksale. One person didn't quite understand that "booksale" meant sale of books and tossed in a lamp and vase and other unidentifiable stuff. Oh, well, if it sells, that's more money for Phil!

This is more or less the constant state of our living room now: boxes of all sizes with contents spilling onto the floor.

Tom is playing poker right now. Biscuits and gravy tomorrow morning maybe. Yum!

Project count suspended for lack of energy.

Thursday, Day 42

"You have a cold?" I hollered. "How could you have a cold? You haven't been anywhere. You've been stuck in the upstairs bedroom painting!" Oh, wait. Phil Margolin's signing on Tuesday p.m.  Conclusion: Phil Margolin gave Tom a cold.

Despite the cold, Tom slogged on and is painting the ceiling of Ted's room. Of course, it will need two coats. Will there be more paint on the ceiling ... or Tom? I swear Tom had paint IN his nose. Where was my camera when I needed it?

Anyway, this is Tom succumbing to his cold. It looks remarkably like the picture from Day 1 or 2 or 3, in which Tom is enjoying his sabbatical. Since I know Tom well, I'll tell you what the difference is. When he's well, he leans on his left arm and puts his right behind his head. Now you know.

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started: 12, Completed: 11.24.

Wednesday, Day 41

It was a day of this-and-that. Tom did more patching. He did more carrying and hoisting, however.

A local bookstore burned down a few weeks ago. There's a fundraising booksale for Phil, the owner, mostly organized by other bookstore people. He was uninsured and lost 90,000 books. He needs the money for demolition of his building.  :(


So, Tom carried box after box of books to where the sale is being held.


There was another fun (not) trip to the dump. Good-bye 24-year-old handmade drapes. (Good riddance.)


We both had to have massages yesterday after all that carrying and hoisting.


Our evening's entertainment was the finale (and after-show dish) of "Ru Paul's Drag Race." Here's Ru watching with us from the fireplace.

It's time to sashay away!


Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-12, Completed-11.2355

Tuesday, Day 40

What to do, what to do? French Open, finals of "Dancing With the Stars," or tape and slather Ted's bedroom? I choose ...


We're still waiting for the asbestos report. Probably won't get it until Thursday. But we have a plastic dropcloth on the floor, so Tom has started to tape the cracks and slather joint compound on it. Ted's bedroom is like Frankenstein's monster. Look at all the cracks!

There were so many cracks and leak spots!

And this is the color (the green on the left) we're painting the room.

Tom came to the signing at the bookstore tonight. I'm sure he was thinking the whole time, "Gee, I wish I were taping and slathering." Not.

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-12, Completed-11.235.

Monday, Day 39

Random has taken the opportunity of the chaos in the house to re-establish the chain of command. He used to stay mostly downstairs. He slept in the downstairs bedroom at night, rarely making it upstairs until the early morning when he got hungry. Now all that has changed. This is what I found Tuesday morning -- I know the blog heading says "Monday" -- when I went up to take a picture of what we (meaning Tom) did on Monday.

This looks like Random is declaring open warfare on Hobbes. Who will reign supreme?

You can see the curtains Tom was putting up at midnight. I, the lovely assistant and tool fetcher, fell asleep leaning against the door.

Earlier we had unboxed the shelves at the sides of the bed and they were the wrong ones. We had to go back to the store and exchange them. Aargh. Up the stairs and back down the stairs. Who needs Stairmasters. We've climbed up and down our stairs hundreds of times -- no, thousands of times -- over the past couple of weeks.

Dave, our general contractor, came to look at the soft floorboards in Ted's old room. Since the house is over a hundred years old, it's anybody's guess why the boards were cut so many times. The apparent flood from the shower at some point didn't help, I'm sure. He also took a patch of the floor covering to see if there's any asbestos in it. We are soooo hoping for a cheap fix: no asbestos and a quick slap of plywood on the weak spots. Cross your fingers!

"Our" general contractor makes us sound rich, doesn't it? It just means we have an old house that has needed way too many fixes over the years.

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-12, Completed-11.231.

Sunday, Day 38

It was mostly cosmetic work today.


We got a flatscreen TV to replace the monster we sent to the Goodwill graveyard. We had lots of fun (not) figuring out how to get the danged thing to see the channels. (Yes, we do work a lot with computers and machines. We will not let this defeat us, no we will NOT!)


Two small bookshelves have replaced our yucky nightstands.


Our thousands of books are still in the basement, however. It seems a shame to sully our clean bookshelves with the books. Maybe we'll just have empty bookshelves in our bedroom.


Ted came over to have dinner with us and (inadvertently) watch "Holmes on Homes."

And yay! the French Open has started. See you in two weeks, Tom!


Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-12, Completed-11.23.

Saturday, Day 37

Uh, oh! We thought the floors would all be the same: ugly but solid. Tom took off the carpet in Ted's old room and it didn't look anything like the floor in our bedroom. There was some cardboard-y thing covering the wood. Some of the wood had been slashed to add electrical lines. Some of the boards were creepily soft and bendable. We're probably going to have to call someone to come and look at it. More delays ...

And there's a big stain that we think must have been from a prior shower problem. The shower is just on the other side of that wall. The soft boards are right near the stain, so, I repeat, uh, oh.


Most of the furniture is moved back into our bedroom, but the smell of the new carpet is still stinky, so we'll abide downstairs a mite longer.


Matt came over and helped Tom move some of the heavier pieces out of Ted's room. Moral of the story: always live near people with strong backs. (And if you have a strong back, don't have neighbors!)


Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started: 12, Completed 11.2.

Friday, Day 36

Well, the color in Ted's room was sort of ewwww-y, so it's back to the drawing board. We picked up a greenish color. Maybe ...


I forgot to post this photo of Tom loading the pickup truck on our way to the dump.

It was a nice sunny day then. But that was then, and today it rained like a son-of-a-gun.


The carpet guy came this morning. Yay! He put in the carpet. Double yay! We snuck a peek at the padding, and even that was vast improvement over the crappy floor.

It's so nice and clean in this picture, isn't it?


This is later, after we had started to move stuff back in ... and then some, because now it's time to do Ted's old room. Chaos rules.

Tomorrow we are going to try to move out all the furniture which we had cleaned out of the other two rooms and moved into Ted's old room. We must have a 1000 books!


Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-12, Completed-11(!).

Thursday, Day 35

Late last night we went to see the daughter of a friend sing in a club. We were -- by far -- the oldest people there. This is Autry:

People over 21 got in free. We were so far over 21 that I think they should have paid us.

We packed up more of Ted's room. It wasn't as tough as our bedroom, because it has gotten cleaned as Ted left, then left again, and yet again. But there were still things like lots of Nerf war weapons. OMG, what kind of parents were we that we let Andy and Ted have so many weapons of destruction? On the other hand, they are soft ...

It rained, it hailed, the sun shone, the wind blew big gusty sighs, then it rained some more. At work I heard drumming, and it took a while for me to realize it was big hailstones falling on our skylight.

Tomorrow we test the paint color I picked for Ted's room. It better not be ewwwww ...

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-11, Completed-9.726.

Tuesday, Day 33

There was a little more packing. Very. Little. I brought home more boxes from work. More boxes. More boxes! Ever more boxes! Nya, ha, ha!

Tom painted our bedroom door on the hallway side -- the first two coats, at least. (Tom had to put four coats on the doors in the bedroom.)


What else did Tom do? Mumble, mumble, ran, mumble, mumble, poker, mumble, mumble, breakfast smoothie. Rinse. Repeat. (He leaves for Cleveland on Memorial Day, so that should break the pattern.)

We left some things outside marked "free" and they were gone in no time. It's like the earth had a giant vacuum cleaner and it sucked everything up while our backs were turned. Yikes!

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Count: Started-11, Completed-9.724

Monday, Day 32

 Ow, ow, ow! We got rid of our two heavy televisions, gave them to Goodwill. They still work -- actually, they work pretty well -- but this is our last chance to get them down the stairs while Tom is still manly enough  ... ahem, I mean physically capable. I tried to help and just wound up slightly straining my back. Oh, Tom, I'm helpless. Would you peel me a grape?

We also picked up a pick-up truck, took the ratty carpet from our bedroom to the dump -- along with various broken things we'd accumulated over the years -- returned the truck, signed a carpet contract (carpet probably coming on Friday -- yay!), trips to two banks and then -- finally -- food. Thank you, Lunch Fairy!

See picture of the Lunch Fairy:

Who feels like working after lunch, but we forced ourselves. More junk -- I mean, vital and important stuff -- to the basement. And we sunned and watered the seedling tomato plants.

Then a signing for a blood spatter expert -- he testified at O.J.'s and Robert Blake's trials -- and the nice Chinese dinner that came with it. Fortunately, the presentation was after dinner.

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-11, Completed-9.72

Sunday, Day 31

 There was no packing or shuffling today.

Tom played pool. I played mah jong and went to work.


A day of rest.

What are we doing this evening? Gave up on the season finale of "Survivor." It doesn't help that we hadn't seen any of the other episodes. Watching season finale of "The Pacific," the HBO series about WWII in the Pacific.  And staring off into space.

Sabbatical Useful Projects Running Total: Started-10, Completed-Happily still at 8.7.