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I spent my personal Day of Mourning wearing black and drinking a toast to the late President Gerald Ford. (A toast of low-carb cocoa, that is. I don’t think Betty would appreciate an alcoholic drink on this occasion. Or maybe Betty doesn’t give a shit what I drink. I don’t know; Betty and me, we were never all that close. She always was a cold fish.)
Good ol’ Jerry Ford. Remember when he… pardoned Nixon? Yep, them were the days.
Oh! And remember when he… pardoned Nixon? Yeah, that was a good one.
And then he… pardoned Nixon. Can’t forget that one!
Hey, give me a break. I was six when it happened. All I know is that I wanted Carter to win the presidency (and he DID, setting into motion my life-long belief that what I wants, I gets) because I wanted something new. That’s another life-long thing, always rooting for the new guy ’cause I’m bored with the old guy. I wanted Reagan ’cause I was bored with Carter (I vividly remember sitting in a history class next to my friend Patty. She was rooting for Carter, and was so incensed that I was rooting for Reagan that she wrote me an angry note consisting of “REAGAN WILL BRING US TO WAR!”, and then wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.).
Is it wrong that I just went and read the Wikipedia entry on Reagan and got all nostalgic for Iran-Contra? Oh Fawn Hall, where’d ya go?
Anyway. Ol’ Gerald Ford, we’ll miss you. You were so young! You died too soon! ::sob!:: Can we get another National Day of Mourning? I feel one day just isn’t enough to remember how he… Uh. Pardoned Nixon!
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I spent most of the day out at the house yesterday. Fred went to the house early in the morning to let the electricians in, but while he was there waiting, the head electrician (?) called and told him that he’d been double-booked and yadda yadda yadda “You’re not as important as this other guy, so it’s going to be a few weeks before we can get to you, mm’kay?” It ended up being okay that they couldn’t come out though, because Fred rethought what he wanted the electrician to do, and we’re going to end up paying about half of what we were going to pay the other guy (though we’re also having a little less work done, too). The cool thing is that Fred told him how we’re going to finish out the top floor of the garage to use as a foster room, and the guy’s putting outlets and light receptacles up there FOR FREE because he has two cats he adopted from the shelter.
Anyway, I had to be at the house by 10:30 to let the chimney guy in. He was a little late – I figured he would be, because that’s the way we roll, us country folk – and he was also a Chatty Cathy, god help me. I did my best to listen to everything he had to say (the fireplace in the dining room is well-constructed, but too deep to give out heat the way it should, for one) while pulling up coves and quarter-round from the front room. He and his helper (coworker? assistant chimney sweep?) took about an hour and a half to inspect both chimneys, clean the one in the front room (the one in the dining room didn’t need cleaning), install caps on both chimneys, and remove the woodstove and take it away.
It ended up costing about $100 less than I was expecting to pay.
After he left, I finished pulling up the coves and quarter-round in the front room, painted the current door I’m working on* and ate lunch.
Fred showed up at the house around 3 and the electrician showed up a while later (see above re: the country and how we roll), and then the electrician was there FOREVER because he was also afflicted with Cathy Chattyism, apparently more common amongst the men of the south than you’d expect (I myself suffer from Shut-Up-And-Go-Away-itis). I replaced plugs and switches (from the ugly off-white to the pretty blinding white we prefer) until it got too dark to do so, and then I walked around picking up trash and throwing it away.
After that, it was a matter of eating dinner, painting the door again, pulling nails from the quarter-round and coves I’d pulled up while Fred puttied the front room, and then we left.
I think it’s safe to say that I did far more work on the house yesterday than Fred did, and he’s a big SLACKER.
*It’s funny that I’m spending so much time on these doors, because once we’re living in the house, I fully intend to take down each and every door (one at a time), strip them down to the wood and paint them so they look decent. Maybe I’ll get to that in the Spring or the Fall.**
**Please. Like THAT little project will ever get past the talking-about-it stage.
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This is from one of the lights Fred took down in the front room. Do you see what happened here? Someone PAINTED the globe. With wall paint. Good lord.
The ditch running alongside (but doesn’t drain into) the pond. We had a bit of rain the other day.
The pond, which is as full as I’ve seen it yet. We’ll see if it stays this high.
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Miz Poo in one of the baskets I brought home from Pigeon Forge. We visited the
Smoky Mountain Cat House not once, but twice. I love the hell out of that store. I bought a ton of stuff, including this basket, and a bigger one. The cats are sniffing around it cautiously and haven’t quite decided whether they like it or not, but Miz Poo appeared to be enjoying it, at least for a few minutes.
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Previously
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: My God, I love Sam’s, have I mentioned?
2002: Why, that’s almost as exciting as the fact that my birthday’s in less than a week!
2001: Fred, being the man, is legally required to deal with all car-related crap and I, being the woman, am legally required to bitch at him until he does so.
2000: So we apparently had a 2.8 earthquake today about which I knew nothing. ]]>