Fits & Starts

If I had the verve I’d be having fits right now. The starts keep trying to come, but the fits take over, and they aren’t mine. The fits seem to have enough inertia to come of their own accord--none on my part are necessary.

What has this past week wrought? Let’s see, all the house doors are now on site. They forgot to give Steve the doorknobs for the interior doors when he picked ‘em up last week. Another trip for me, and bill to pay. To quote a friend, “it’s not like there’s anything to go home to, you may as well go do something.” Too true.

Fireplace shopping went nowhere. That’s at least on other trip to Abq for me this week. The exterior color coat was applied. Cement grey, or as I called it: Still Alive& Kicking Grey, is gone.

It’s now two-toned--Ash (a hint of blue/purple) and Navajo White. Under certain lighting conditions you can hardly tell the difference, but when you can, it’s nice. I like it well enough, anyway. I should, I picked the colors. I think once aging and flying dirt has seasoned the colors they will stand out against each other better. If not—I really don’t care. (See? NO raging fit!)

The backhoe operator who has done most all of my backhoe work was here yesterday and buried the septic tank and leach line. It’s nice not having what appears to be giant ant piles or gopher mounds marring the view to the southwest. He also dug the trench for the propane line. That line should get run this week, inspected afore and aft and then $1,000 worth of propane into the tank and I should be good through the winter. (Here’s hoping, anyway.)

With the propane line in I can go gangbusters with showers and baths everyday if I want. I can also get the gas stove installed, well when the cabinets are in. They’re being manufactured and should be starting to be installed in the next two weeks. I can finally start doing laundry at the house, too.

I just heard a bunch of you roll your eyes, like you’re thinking that I don’t do things like cook and clean. And you are right. I’m not fond of those activities, mostly because I hate repetitive tasks that are nothing but trying to keep up with where you were last week or the week before. But I have come to a new level of understanding after 400+ days living in The Tin Can. Granted, this new consciousness may be short lived, but it will be lived. Actually, I like to cook. It’s the cleaning up part that bugs. Cleaning just bugs by definition.

All the packed adobe floors are poured and drying except for the hallway in the guest wing. The guest bathroom needs to get finished with tiling and plastering and once it is, then the hall will be done and the rest of the floors should be dry enough to start walking around inside the house. As it stands now, the garage and master suite are the only areas we can walk in. I spend a lot of time walking around outside the house to get INto the house. Something ain’t right about that, somehow.

The rest of the floors are all in varying states of drying as they were all done this past week or so. There’s a hell of a lot of dirt in my house! Heh heh heh. I LOVE the idea of having dirt floors. When Armageddon comes I won’t be one of the ones blasted back to the 1st Century—I’ll be there with my dirt walled and floored house. Kind of. Maybe I’ll take up broom making and make myself straw brooms and practice ‘ancient’ arts of stove heating/cooking, ‘shooting up’ my dinner, skinning and drying skins of critters that were dinner, going off the grid. The way this country is going it may be more of a necessity than the addlement of my brain living out here in the middle of nowhere.

And that’s all I’m saying about THAT!

I managed to wrestle the washer and dryer, bed and a few other immediate necessities, from storage and got them up to the house where Ed helped me unload them last Thursday. I seemingly have no friends, as no one who offered to help was able to. Whatever. That much I could handle on my own. I’ll go buy some friends if I have to to get the bulk of the rest of my possessions up here when the time comes. Or, make many, many trips with Booger’s trailer.

As I was setting the bed up and drawing a bath yesterday—work always interferes, don’t it?—I heard the water stop running. SHIT! The lights wouldn’t go on. Double shit! I was going to have a fit and call the electrician about his shoddy work when I decided to check the power availability first. Good thing I did. The power had gone out for over 30 square miles. This was at 4:43 pm Saturday. OK, no water (electrical pump, damnit anyway), no light soon (the sun was still up), can’t putter ‘cause I have power tools, no DVD entertainment, no computer use (except via IPhone). What the hell, I took a nap. Then went to bed after some reading by headlamp lighting.

A very boring story about a very long night made short: 17 hrs and 2 mins after the power went out it was restored. Hurricane Norbert—yes, named-the-same as my contractor--and its residual effects brought stormy weather to central NM. I told Norbert-the-Contractor that I’d be blaming any bad occurrences on HIM. He thought I was joking. I confronted Norbert-the-Contractor with the facts today. He was still laughing. As was I.

So we wait for the floors to dry. The cabinets and countertops to be fabricated and installed; the lighting fixtures, too, the boiler for the radiant heat to come in (correct power source, unlike the one that the plumber brought up this week), the propane line run, inspected, the tank filled and connected; the doors and knobs to be installed, the garage door opener bought and installed, the bathrooms to be plastered, toilets and sinks installed, and about another only 40 or 50 other details and we can ask for the Certificate of Occupancy to be issued.

So, in about A MONTH (that infernal, eternal, perpetual length of time that defines my life) I should be fully moved into The House. Which will bring it’s own fits and starts. Ain’t life grand?

Hang in there, everybody. The end is nigh. And I’m not just referring to The House. But let’s pretend I am.

With rain clouds looming, and the winds sure to kick up--manana, Y’all!