This is week 69 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 476): Sticky Birds and Milkweed

The day started with the tile guy calling and telling us that we had bought wall grout instead of floor grout for him to finish our bathroom floor. We didn’t know that there was a difference, so we had bought the same stuff the last contractor used. I guess the last contractor didn’t know the difference either. The tile guy let us know that we needed sanded grout because non-sanded grout cracks if you use it on the floor. This is mistake number 4,286 added to the last contractor’s fault list. The tile guy said that he wouldn’t be able to finish the job today, but if we got the grout, he’d be back on Monday morning to get it done.

We made a trip to the local home improvement store to get the right grout, and I was admittedly a little irritated that I was still finding major things that the last contractor did wrong. We were able to find a 25 lb bag of grout relatively quickly, and I wanted to get out of there and enjoy the rest of my Sunday with #1GF!. That idea sort of evaporated when #1GF! suggested that we look at lights and knobs.

I run around doing house stuff all week long, but the weekends are #1GF!’s only time to get involved in the process. That means she’s excited to look at house stuff when I’m sick of it. I understood her excitement, so I tried to play along, but ended up sort of standing back while she looked at things. I tried not to be irritated about doing house stuff, but I eventually just told her that I needed a break to hang out with her without thinking about house stuff. She understood, and got me out of there.

We dropped the grout off at the house and then went home. Instead of standing in some store trying to pick between knobs that we won’t even notice in six months, we went out to enjoy some of the last bits of nice weather. We took a walk along a different route than normal, and ended up on sitting on a rocky beach in the next town over. We spent some time just sitting on a large rock and listening to the ocean ebb and flow through its valleys.

An Australian family showed up, scampering and climbing over the rocks all around us. I smiled and tried to look as non-threatening as possible, but they never made eye contact, so we never said hello. It was more than a little weird, and a little like being invisible. Eventually, the kids lost interest in the rocks and moved on. We decided to do the same.

We walked along a hilly road that I traveled at high speeds so many times in my youth that it made me think that it might not be all that safe to walk on. We hopped up on a rock wall, and continued on out of harm’s way. I stopped to rip open a milkweed pod, wondering if they were the same things that we’d pop open in grade school. #1GF! had never seen milkweed, so I let her feel the silk before throwing it into the air and watching it float away like I did when I was a kid. I wanted to find some sticky birds for a sticky bird fight to continue the trip down memory lane, but couldn’t find any.

We went home and had pasta and I ended up with not so fun stomach issues. I don’t know what caused it, but the next time someone asks me if I want to finish off some coffee that has been sitting in a cold pot all day, I’m going to think twice about it.

Monday (Day 477): Grade School Games With the Pros

I went over to the house in the morning to let the painters and tile guy in, and when I got home, the new electrician called to be let into the house with the electrical inspector.

Him: It’s [name of electrician]
Me: Hey, [name of electrician].
Him: Is the house unlocked?
Me: Yep, the tile guy is there now.
Him: I’m going over there with the electrical inspector. You don’t need to be there [click].

Whoa whoa whoa. What? I stood there staring at the phone for a couple of seconds wondering what the hell just happened. This was the same guy who showed up in an unmarked van asking questions to make sure I didn’t have a habit of screwing over electricians, and now he asks me if my house is open, tells me not to show up, and then hangs up on me? I got a bad feeling about the guy, so I called him back and told him that I was sorry, but we needed to hold off on getting started until I could talk to the contractor about a few things.

I hung up and left a message for the contractor to find out if there was something wrong with the electrician. I then went over to the house to wait, just in case he showed up. I didn’t know this guy, but he was coming across as either an asshole or a nut. Either way, I wanted to confirm that he was ok with the contractor before he got started working on my house.

While I was sitting in the driveway like a paranoid freak, the contractor called me back and convinced me that the guy was fine, but that he tended to rub people the wrong way sometimes. As long as the contractor was definitely vouching for the electrician, I would let the guy’s strange behavior slide and give him the green light to move forward. I gave the guy a call back.

Me: [apologetic] Sorry about the false start today, [name of electrician]. I had to straighten a couple of things out with the contractor, so any time you want to come back and get started, that would be great.
Him: I can’t come back today.
Me: That’s no problem. If you can come back later in the week, that’s OK. Whenever you can.
Him: [getting belligerent] Why don’t you just call the electrical inspector? They’re open for a few more hours.
Me: [getting that same feeling back] What. Am I going to do with an electrical inspector?
Him: Look maybe I can come back tomorrow. If I can, I’ll call. Bye [click]

I then called my contractor back, dropped six or seven F bombs in the first 15 seconds, asked him to get another electrician, and may have said something about if I had to deal with that guy for more than five minutes in my house, it would take all my restraint to keep from punching him in the face. If the guy has enough work that he can act sketchy and play little games, then that’s great for him, but this isn’t fucking grade school, and I don’t have time for people who want to play hopscotch. The contractor laughed almost the whole time and agreed to get someone else on the job. I called the electrician back and left him a nice, professional message thanking him for his time and telling him that we wouldn’t be using him on the job.

I met a new electrician at the house at lunch time, but the price ended up being a lot higher than what I expected. I don’t know if it’s because the rough electrical was never finished or if it was because I had an unrealistic idea of what the finish electrical cost would be. Either way, we are quickly approaching the “porked” territory on this job.

While I was at the house, I checked on the tile grout, but it looked a little too dark. After the the last contractor’s using the wrong color grout, I was a little on edge about the grout color. I was assured that it was just wet and would lighten up as it dried, but at the time, the color looked like it leaped out of the 70′s and onto my floor. There was nothing that could really be done about it if it ended up too dark, so we’d just have to wait and see.

I went home and spent the rest of the day writing LOR.

Tuesday (Day 478): Chicken Vesuvio

I did the food shopping in the morning and wrote for a major portion of the day. I picked up the estimate from the electrician and realized that this job was going to go beyond what we slated for it and force me to dip into my hobo money just to finish the job. Good fucking times. I started looking up information on how to sue an incompetent contractor for walking away from a job. It doesn’t look like a fun process, but Massachusetts doesn’t look very kindly on contractors who abandon jobs. There are mistakes that we’re going to have to live with, but it sucks that I paid the original contractor so much for work that had to be torn out and redone. Shit.

To distract #1GF! from the fact that the house was dragging us down, I made Chicken Vesuvio for dinner. I got the recipe out of Cook’s Country, which is like a Bon Appetit for people who don’t have any idea where the fuck to find “creme fraiche” or “chile de arbol” in their local supermarkets. The magazine has no ads, and is full of very down home, old time New England recipes for Yankee guys like me who cook with butter and don’t have the money or patience to play private investigator to track down ingredients. #1GF! seemed to like the meal enough that she didn’t seem to notice that “Chicken Vesuvio” was simply a gussied up version of chicken and potatoes. Or at least she didn’t let on that she did.

Wednesday (Day 479): Interviews, Old Friends, Product Placements, And Death

I got a request for an interview that sounded like I’d be writing my own press release, and it almost seemed as if a person who had never seen my beard page wanted to do a story on it. I was put off for a good ten seconds until I remembered that newspaper people are busy and I’m a blip on the web whose major claim to fame is really just a joke gone awry. When I worked at Hyperglobalmega Corp., there were years that I essentially wrote my own reviews, and I learned it can be very beneficial for you to avoid getting pissy and paint the best picture you can, in the hopes that the person you’re writing it for uses a stroke or two of what you wrote. So, that’s what I did. Whether it gets used or not, I have no idea, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Once I was finished, I talked to a childhood friend who I haven’t spoken to for more than five minutes at a time in around twenty years. When we were kids, I used to go over the kid’s house and make him laugh until his nose bled. I didn’t do it on purpose (most of the time), but I can still see him at the kitchen table and his mother holding bloody tissues up to his nose while he shook with laughter. I would laugh like hell too, and I can remember times when his mom would shuffle me out early because my brand of humor had become an actual health hazard.

With some people, things don’t change. Sure, there was a little less Star Wars talk and a few more nonchalant F bombs tossed around than when we were kids, but it was all business as usual. It’s still all jokes, but with a little less blood.

I got a call right after talking to him, and it was another friend of mine who called to tell me that his grandfather died and giving me the service details. Actually, he prefaced the conversation by asking me if I had dreamed about anyone recently because on a few occasions that I’ve dreamed about someone a few days before they died. I hadn’t had a dream like that in a long time. The death was sudden and unexpected, which gives people little time to make peace with it.

After I got off the phone, I started writing and realized that I squandered my posting lead somehow. I was down to being only a single day ahead with no ideas ready for the following week. I wasn’t getting very far writing, so I took a break to check my e-mail. There, I found an e-mail from a trimmer company who was looking to work their product into my beard pages. I typically tell advertisers that I’m not accepting advertising, but a beard trimmer sort of does fit. Hell, if Matt can travel around the world dancing for Stride gum, then I figured that it couldn’t hurt to follow up and see if this would lead anywhere. It’s probably nothing, but I had to at least ask.

Thursday (Day 480): A Wake And a Wake Up

I checked my suit for the wake and dreaded putting on pants for the first time since the Spring, but it’s not like you can wear shorts to a wake without looking like a nut. I wrote CD reviews until about 2:30, which was a lot longer than I would’ve expected, considering how choppy they usually turn out. Expecting that everything be a masterpiece when you’re posting every day is something that I had to let go long ago, because it requires more talent and skill than I currently have at my disposal.

I picked up #1GF! in the late afternoon and headed over to the wake. I was wearing a suit, which only seems to happen at weddings and funerals these days, but I suddenly felt like I should conquer something or call someone into my office for a good berating. The suit made me want to get back into the workforce and become one of those guys who just doesn’t give a shit about anything except making a ton of money and getting ahead of the game. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because I don’t deal with suit type people much anymore and forget what they smell like. Or maybe I’m just tired of watching more go out than comes in. The feeling passed as soon as we got to the wake, and I remembered the real reason I had it on: to pay my respects.

I was standing around making small talk with a friend of mine, and he asked what I did all day. I said, “I write”.
“What, your posts?”
“Yea. Writing and editing take me forever.”

He then looked a little confused and there was a bit of awkward silence. For the first time in a while, I felt sort of stupid. The guy has been my friend for a thousand years, so he wasn’t trying to make me look bad or anything. It was the same reaction I probably gave my artist friends when they were drawing all day and I was pricing out mutual funds. He’s good with people, so he tried to save the situation. “Well, writing is really hard for me, and takes me forever, too.” #1GF! just sort of nodded. I had the sudden realization that blogging is not a valid thing to be doing all day during my prime earning years, and maybe this whole thing has been a pipe dream that has gone on a bit too long.

When we got home, I sat on the couch and tried to pick out some of the lights that #1GF! and I have yet to pick. Picking lights and paint are the adult male’s equivalent of being grounded, which I have to say, I deserved for forgetting a special birthday.

Friday (Day 481): Limitless Colors And Limited Fame

I wrote in the morning and then checked my stats once I needed a break. There was no one new who was linking to me, so I had no new people to add to my feed reader. It was raining like mad out thanks to a hurricane off the coast, so the weather and the blog were sort of striking out.

I couldn’t find the original paint colors that we picked for the house, and I knew that the painters would be looking for them soon, so I went hunting through our pile of house crap to try to figure out what colors our walls were supposed to be. I was willing to tear up the house rather than face that infinite color wall at the hardware store again, but I eventually had to drag #1GF! into the search because I was making no progress. She couldn’t find all of the colors, but managed to get a few leads that I would have to follow up on while she was at work. Dear infinite paint colors, you suck. Sincerely, Jon.

Once #1GF! was off to work, I wrote all morning, and stalled out by noon. I went back to the house with the notes that #1GF! had dug up to see if there were any leftover paint cans that might verify any of the colors on the sheet. I found the old paint cans, but only one or two actually matched. That’s when I wondered whether the sheet was wrong or whether the old contractor really used the colors we asked for. You’d think that would be something that I wouldn’t have to entertain, but after this process, it was a reasonable question. I couldn’t figure it out, so I made note of the cans, and put the project aside. Maybe #1GF! would know what color “innuendo” or “tender twilight” were, because I didn’t have a clue.

From then on, writing was pretty much dead for the day, so I read my feeds and added content to my social profiles. While I was trying to find a decent game (it’s not easy to find those replayable web games), my sister called to tell me a story.

She had been having problems with her [ mac | i | friend | whatever ] book and had to take it in to the Apple store to have someone look at it. While they were troubleshooting, the guy helping her asked her to bring up a web site to see if everything is working. The first site that she could think of off the top of her head was her dear brother’s, so she brought it up. The guy looked at it and then asked her if she had seen my beard pages. It was a big WTF? moment for my sister, and she immediately called to tell me about it. Fuckin’ A. A real human that I’ve never met who lives all the way across the country randomly has a conversation about this site with my sister. What are the odds of that? I think they’re pretty slim, so I’ve been telling that story like a lonely grandpa to anyone who will listen.

When she got home, I told #1GF! the story, too, and ended it with “peanut butter, motherfucker!” with the authority of slapping down a winning tile and shouting, “Domino!”. I really don’t know why I tacked on that last part because it made no sense at all, but #1GF! tends to let some of the strange things I say slide rather than having me explain them.

From there, she towed me back down to Earth to try to figure out those paint chips that I failed at earlier in the day. I tried to get out of it claiming that I had fame-lomatic immunity, but my claim was dismissed as my fame is not large enough to grant me an entourage, and thus, not large enough to exempt said me from said paint picking, hitherto, wheretofor, in perpetuum. She had me there. One guy in an Apple store across the country, although cool, is not the same as people I don’t like hanging around playing video games and eating all my store brand pop tarts.

Not even the two of us together could figure out exactly what paint colors we had, so we decided that we’d have to go get new paint chips on Saturday. Neither one of us was very excited about staring at the infinite color wall again, but I was even less than excited because that full box of store brand pop tarts in the pantry suddenly seemed to be mocking me.

Saturday (Day 482): House Stuff

In the morning, #1GF! and I went to check on the house, and the contractor asked us to run up the street to pick up a couple of pieces of baseboard for him. We went to a local hardware store, and I had to ask where the lumber yard was. I hate asking where things are in hardware stores, because I have this weird notion that, as a man, I should be able to instinctively know where things are thanks to an abundance of Y chromosomes. The lumber yard was in a separate building up the hill, and instinct or not, I never would’ve found it.

There were two buildings, so we took a shot at one, but it didn’t seem right because the building was a drive-through lumber warehouse. I had never seen anything like that before, and wasn’t sure if it was some sort of storage facility, a contractors only type place, or if it was where regular people get lumber. I walked over to the desk, but because I couldn’t seem to phrase my question, what came out of my mouth was “You have lumber?” The guy said he did, and told us that we should drive in and get what we needed.

I went back to the car, and told #1GF! where to drive, and we ended up taking a nice tour of the wrong part of the warehouse because my instincts weren’t telling me where the baseboard should be. I had to walk back to the desk and ask the guy a second time, which sucks if you’re a guy in a lumber yard. I told him what I was looking for, and he helpfully showed me a chart of all types of baseboards. I just stood there like an idiot, managing to get out, “No, I think I just need the square kind. One by six pre-primed. Plain square.” He told me exactly where that was, so I thanked him and walked back to the car that my instincts had instructed #1GF! to drive into the cement section.

As a man, I don’t want to ask about anything in a home improvement store. I want to walk in, sniff the air, and walk directly to the item I need. Maybe I scratch my nuts, maybe I don’t. If I have to ask anyone anything, it should be related to some obscurely sized flange, and I should be able to say exactly what I’m looking for, using the exact terminology required. I don’t want to resort to hand gestures, use the phrase “you know” or god forbid, use the word “thingy”. The second time in the office asking for help, I might as well have been carrying a tiny dog named Mr. Yappers under my arm because my testosterone was quickly evaporating.

We drove to where the guy said, grabbed the baseboard and ran it back to the contractor. As we stood there talking, the contractor mentioned that while we could do whatever we wanted, the paint that we were using was pretty much garbage. He suggested that we use Benjamin Moore because it was a better paint. The painters had suggested the same thing, but we didn’t listen because we didn’t think it mattered. Now, with two people telling us the same thing, it suddenly seemed like we should be listening. I stood there like a broken man because we already had to face the 4,285 colors on the paint wall to figure out what colors were missing, and if we switched brands, we were going to have to stand in front of yet another color wall to translate those colors to Benjamin Moore colors.

We headed out to the local home improvement store to see if we could at least figure out what colors were currently splashed all over the walls and crown moldings. It took a solid half hour of staring at a color wall to find most of the colors that we were missing, and that’s with an active defense shield up to keep #1GF! from looking at other colors and changing her mind. We searched and searched for the last color we needed, and eventually figured out that it wasn’t on the wall, but in one of the booklets next to it. Why would you have a color in a booklet, but not on the wall? It made no sense. Frig. That was a lucky, but irritating break.

It was only about 9:30, so we headed over to a Benjamin Moore paint store that was near a diner, figuring that by the time we were done, it would be time for lunch. We started looking, and again, I tried to reel #1GF! in because she was straying into all kinds of different colors. At one point a guy came in bitching that he needed to return something because his wife had bought the wrong stuff. “Never send a woman in to do a man’s job,” he seethed a little too loudly to a female cashier who was still at an age where confidence is pretty elusive. “What a dick”, #1GF! said to me. I agreed. I’m pro being manly, but not to the point that I’m going to pretend that a whole gender is useless in terms of building or fixing. I don’t know if it was being sick of looking at colors, or sheer luck, but we managed to match all the paints up to the new brand within an hour.

With the paint done so early, we headed to Newcomb Farms so that I could have lunch and #1GF! could have breakfast. The line was out the door, so I made a quick phone call so that #1GF! and I could sing “Happy Birthday” to a friend of mine. On our birthdays, #1GF! and I get some of the best versions of “Happy Birthday” on our answering machine (some with electric guitar accompaniment no less), and they always makes us smile, so on other people’s birthdays, that’s what we do. We call and we sing to at least show that we’re willing to look like morons for you on your birthday. As stupid as you feel singing happy birthday over the phone to someone who isn’t seven, it’s usually corny enough to make the person at least smile and shake their heads. Even if you’re way out of tune or feel the need to sing “Happy birthday dear ass haaaat…”, it’s still worth it.

By the time I was done with the call, the line was gone and we got right in for some required refueling. From there, we headed to pick out the last few lights that we needed for the house. We didn’t actually buy the last few lights, but at least we got a handful of them priced out. We were home by 3, and feeling like we got some things accomplished in record time.

We went out to dinner (even though we had gone out to lunch) and #1GF! tried to get me to go to Fascination afterward. There were only eight people in there, and there was no way that I was going to spend a dollar a game to play against a bunch of pros for a lousy $4 payout. I’d be better off throwing $20 out the car window into the parking lot in the hopes of giving the old man who finds it a story to tell. I coaxed #1GF! out of the parking lot and we headed home.

I thought about making lemon squares, which was odd because I’ve never made them and I don’t even really like them all that much. Then, I thought about making a batch of cookies before giving up and sitting down to read the rules of Carcassonne, a game I stole from my parents’ house. It was a lot simpler than I had thought, but by the time I thought I had it figured out, I was ready for bed.

What I Learned

• I learned to play Carcassonne.
• When spell checking Bon Appetit, my spell checker will suggest “ape tit”, which I find a lot funnier than my age should allow.
• Drinking coffee that has been sitting cold in the pot for a day runs the risk of riding out that caffeine jolt glued to the toilet.
• I learned to make Chicken Vesuvio.
• Translating colors between paint companies is a pain in the ass.
• Lines at Newcomb Farms fly.
• I feel like a rock star because one person who works in an Apple store on the West Coast recognized my site and told my sister about it. On paper it’s not all that impressive, but I think it’s awesome.
• “Peanut butter, motherfucker!” is an addictive phrase that is extremely difficult, if not impossible to work in to conversation that is not about lunch. Even then, it’s pretty difficult to work in with the force in which it should be said.
• That Tragedy take being called “the two girls, one cup of hard rock” as being a compliment (as it was intended).

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Posted in Life of Riley, Philosophical BS