This is week 150 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 1043): Leather Vests & Stripping Poles

I went to the attic at 8 AM to finally patch the potential source of our leak the week before. I opened a tube of roofing tar, stuck it into my caulking gun, and hooked the gun on one of my back belt loops where it wouldn’t get in the way. I carefully climbed out the window onto the roof, and the first thing I heard was the canister tumbling off the roof and smacking the concrete below.

I stood there for a second holding onto the eave and looking down at the ground. I had forgotten to squeeze the trigger on the caulking gun a couple of times to lock the tube of tar in place. I couldn’t see the tube, so I assumed that it had exploded, leaving roofing tar all over the front walk. I also assumed that #1GF! was watching out the window would already be substituting the canister for my skull in her mind. I slumped my shoulders and climbed back into the attic.

I went downstairs, slipped out the back door, and picked up the canister. Luckily, not only was the tube in tact, but #1GF! was in another part of the house so she didn’t see (or require an explanation for) the fumble. I crept back up to the attic. I squeezed the trigger a few times on the reloaded canister to lock it in place, hooked it on my belt, and climbed back out onto the roof.

I don’t like working under eaves that draw me into awkward positions on roofs that are pitched toward a broken back, but that’s what I had to do. In what seemed like a very long five minutes, I sealed the loose shingle. I didn’t want to deal with the issue again, so I’m pretty confident that if a hurricane tears the roof off, there will still be one shingle left.

I stripped off my latex gloves, turned them inside out, and used them to cover my putty knife and caulking gun, which were black and gummy with tar. I stuck the putty knife in my back pocket and hooked the caulking gun on a back belt loop and stood up.

I felt like I had much better balance than when I was crouching under the eave, so I thought I’d walk up to the peak and look at the ocean. Before I could make a step upward, the logic centers in my brain sent through an emergency message that went something like, “Hold on, asshole. You’ve been lucky so far, no need to press it.” They did have a point. I nodded and made my way back through the attic window.

It was only 8:30 AM, so I went down to the front yard, and started digging up the six aluminum fence posts that still stood beautifying the front of my house. It took about a half hour a post to haul each post out of the ground, and as I went along, I cleared out the leaves from under the porch and around the bushes, mulched them, and threw them in the holes before covering them with dirt and grass. I should’ve been filling in the holes with extra dirt and rock, but fence post holes always end up settling later on no matter what you do. I wanted to get the fence out, and I’d worry about the lawn later.

I hauled each hundred pound post to the back of my property, and dropped them in a pile with the rusty rolls of chain link fence. My yard has never been pretty, but it was getting to look like Sanford & Son in the back and M.A.S.H. up front.

I had one post left, and it was planted in the concrete of the front walk. I would lift the post two inches and hear concrete hit concrete. I figured that I’d have to buy a Sawzall or tear up my walk to get it out of there. The walk wasn’t good-looking, but I didn’t want to make a bigger mess than I needed to. Then, it hit me: I grabbed a freshly sharpened masonry chisel and coaxed the final post out of the concrete with a few good whacks. I carried that post one-handed to the backyard. It was the easiest haul of the day.

I went in and asked what #1GF! thought of her front yard.

“It looks so weird.”

“Yea, I think so too.”

“But, I like it.”

“I’ll have to fill in those holes later.”

“It feels so…naked.”

“Well, it is. Any medieval seige engines show up, and there’s nothing to stop them.”

She gave me a kiss like she really thought that I was a big, strong man. “Thank you, honey.”

And that’s one of the reasons that men do the things we do: just to make the women think that we’re of burly stock. We’re quite simple really.

I showered, and we loaded the baby into the car, and went to an unfinished furniture store. We grabbed some coffee on the way, but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened at the drive-through, which made it a bit unusual. We took back roads to give us a chance to enjoy our coffee, and the baby fell asleep on the way. Rather than wake her once we got to the store, we sat in the parking lot waiting for her to wake up.

We watched a motorcycle gang roll in, and even from a distance we could tell that they were all pretty old. I wondered how many of them were vice presidents.

“I don’t get buying Harley Davidson clothes,” I said to #1GF!.

“You’re not into labels.”

“Yea, I know, but why would you have to have a Harley Davidson patch on the back of your vest? I wouldn’t wear a Honda vest or a Nissan vest. Why would I want to advertise for them all the time?”

“You wear your North Face fleece everywhere.”

“It’s a good fleece.”

“But you’re advertising.”

“Well, with this outlaw beard, wearing a North Face fleece puts people more at ease.”

#1GF! leaned forward and almost spit out her coffee. “What?”

“Well, a North Face fleece with this beard says that I’m eccentric, not a panhandler.”

“So, you wear labels to make a statement.”

I looked at #1GF! sideways.

“You get my point then.”

The baby woke up, and the store ended up being a waste of time. We wandered up and down the aisles looking at crap we didn’t need, and I realized that it’s like a dollar store for cheap furniture.

We went home, and I took the baby to the bathroom doorway so that she could see her reflection in the mirror, but not mine. I would normally ask her where daddy is, and then move so that she could see my reflection. We had been playing this game for a while. This time, when asked, “Where’s Daddy,” the baby leaned sideways so that she could see me in the mirror. She was all smiles. The baby had leveled up. It was a minor bit of deduction, but having the opportunity to watch her piece things like that together is pretty cool.

I made ziti and broccoli alfredo for dinner, and it was average. I wasn’t sure whether I had lost my touch, or simply lost interest in the meal. #1GF! put the baby to bed, and I sat down at the PC to try to figure out what had happened over the last couple of days.

Once the baby was asleep, #1GF! and I watched Zombieland, a comedic zombie slaughter movie starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg. Even though the gore was graphic and plentiful, it wasn’t disturbing. It was almost video-game-like. There was a lot of CGI, and not all of it was done well, but there was enough comedy to keep the movie rolling right along. I mean, how do you beat a cameo by a zombie Bill Murray? Awesome.

Monday (Day 1044): (Not) Taking All The Metal

The baby got up at 3 AM and 4 AM to see if we wanted to party. We did not. Kids today.

It was typical baby care all morning until I picked up the mail. In it was a flyer for a company that would haul away metal for free. I had a decent sized pile of fence in the yard, so I called the number and the guy on the phone said that he could come by in the afternoon to pick it up. I told him that the posts all had concrete bottoms, but he said that wouldn’t be a problem. He said that he needed everything hauled to the curb and to call him back when it was ready. I was psyched. After I put the baby down for her next nap, I changed, went outside, and hauled all the metal to the front, including the nine hundred or so pounds of fence posts.

I went back inside a half hour later and called the guy to tell him that everything was on the curb and ready to go. Instead of saying, “Thanks, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” the guy told me that I shouldn’t put things on the curb because someone could come up and grab all the metal, causing him to waste a trip. I told him that the pile wasn’t literally on the curb, but on my property, and it wouldn’t be a problem. He decided to warn me again as if I gave a fuck who took a pile of rusty, old fence from my yard. You can tell that some people feel the need to make a fucking stink no matter what. Whatever. I just shook my head and refrained from telling him that if he was worried about it then he had better hang up and get on the road.

The guy showed up before one of those mysterious, roving gangs of rusty fence thieves , so I went outside, thinking that I could at least help him load all the posts onto his truck. He was going to make money off the scrap, but I figured I could lend a hand because it wasn’t costing me anything.

The guy got out of his truck, looked at the pile, and told me that he could take everything except the concrete.

“Listen, I told you about the concrete on the phone and you said it was no problem.”

He looked at the pile. “I guess I didn’t think.”

I knew that if I let him cherry pick what he wanted, there would be zero incentive for another scrap company to take the posts, so I stood firm. “Well, I need you to take it all.”

“Listen, I’m in the metal business, not the concrete business. I’ll just take everything else.” He called to the kid in the truck. “Bring the Sawzall.”

“What am I supposed to do with hundreds of pounds of concrete in my driveway?”

The guy smirked. “You’ll find a place for it.”

“Hold on, now. There’s no place for the concrete.”

He nodded to the hill at the back of our property. “What about that hill?”

“I can’t throw hundred pound blocks of concrete blocks down a steep hill. There are houses down there.”

“So…”

“So, take it all, or don’t.”

“I’ll take most of it.”

“No. Take it all, or don’t.”

“Then we’re not taking anything.”

“Okay. Have a good one.”

“So, I’m not taking anything?”

“I guess not.”

“Whatever. I’m a busy man.”

I nodded slowly, which is adult for “Go fuck yourself.” The guy got in his truck and I headed for my door. I wasn’t happy that he wasn’t taking the fence, but what really pissed me off was that I did everything the guy asked and told him exactly what he was dealing with, and he still tried to put one over on me. Fuck him. This is the reason that I don’t like contractors. I looked at the tangled eyesore of fence now sitting at the front of my property. I was pissed.

I went inside and called a couple of places, and neither would take the concrete. I called my trash company, and they said that they’d take it, but I’d have to pay them $150, and cut all the posts to three feet or less, AND break everything up so that nothing weighed more than forty pounds. My trash company seemed nice when I talked to them, but sometimes I get the feeling that they’re smoking crack.

I called another local company, and they couldn’t quote me a price until they saw the pile. The fastest that they could get to my house was the next day. Meanwhile, my yard, which verges on haunted ghetto anyway, had a rusty pile of metal sitting right in the front of it. I was happy that someone was coming, but I was not happy.

I put the fence issue aside, and went in to feed the baby. The phone rang halfway through, and the baby got distracted enough that she didn’t want to eat any more. She had eaten half of her normal meal. I then spent an hour trying to put her to sleep, and she refused to go. Fuck me. It was not my day. I put the baby down in the crib to give her one last chance to go to sleep on her own. I knew she wouldn’t, and she didn’t, but having her in the crib immobilized her for five minutes so that I could run out to the yard to tidy up the pile so that #1GF! wouldn’t scratch up her car on it when she got home.

#1GF! had taken her mother to an appointment, and then worked from home for the rest of the day. She brought me home a cup of coffee, and it was the highlight of my day.

Once #1GF! was done with work, she took over the baby, and I sat at my desk and pounded out the day as if the keyboard had somehow been involved.

“What are we having for dinner tonight,” #1GF! asked in an attempt to get me thinking about dinner.

“Kale soup,” I said without breaking the machine gun rhythm of the keys.

“What?”

“Kale soup.”

“But you didn’t…the wings…they’re probably still frozen, but…”

“Kale soup.”

“Since when did this happen?”

I stopped and turned toward the door. “Yesterday. I have too much sausage—”

“Hubba hubba.”

“and I need to use it up. I’ll be out in five minutes.”

I pounded out the thought that I was working on and went out and made the kale soup.

#1GF! sat with the baby. “Croutons?” she asked.

I eyed her and took out the pan. Goddamned croutons. “The lady of the house wants croutons, the lady gets croutons. This is what you get for going to work. Next time you’re having a shit day where people are breathing down your neck and dropping piles of crap in your lap, think to yourself, ‘Well, at least I get croutons.’”

“Nice. I will. They’re so good.”

After the baby went to bed, #1GF! and I watched the Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Throughout the movie, things would happen that didn’t make sense or needed more explanation, so I figured that the movie had to be based on a book where the screenwriter didn’t pull out enough material to make the movie interesting. The whole movie seemed like a pat on the back to assure an aging female population that they could still score a younger man and easily extricate themselves from the vapid lives that they’ve spent decades burrowing themselves into. It was for me for what Zombieland was for #1GF!.

During one dramatic moment in the movie, one of the characters asked, “When you pray, what do you pray for?” In the all-too-long dramatic pause that followed, I added my own answer.

“Ham,” I said.

“What?” asked #1GF!.

“Ham. Sorry. What is ham, Alex? Or bacon. Seriously, why mess around? At least go for the good stuff.”

#1GF! just shook her head.

After the movie, I added, “If I go brain-dead, you can get it on with whoever you want.”

“Thanks.”

“Except Keanu Reeves.”

“Come on. According to the movie, Keanu knows what he’s doing.”

I paused. “Okay, fine. One time. Any more and I’d question your taste in men.”

“Even though you’d be dead.”

“Yes, because it’s all about me.”

#1GF! smiled. “It always has been.”

Tuesday (Day 1045): Say Hello To My Little Friend

The baby was up at 3, 4, and 5 AM. I tried to handle the first issue, and failed. #1GF! took over and handled the rest. We were not energetic little sprites when the alarm clock demanded that we get out of bed at our usual time.

While #1GF! was getting ready for work, the baby twisted herself so that she was laying flat in my arms. Understanding what the baby wanted, I yelled out, “Say hello to my l’il fren,” before using her to spray the hallway with imaginary bullets. The baby laughed hysterically.

“Oh, no. Uh uh. That’s not right. Stop using my baby as a machine gun.”

I picked up the baby into an upright position. “You’re right.” I ran a fist down the baby’s belly. “Chk chk.”

“What are you—”

“Shot gun baby! Shkpwwwww. Shkpwwwww.”

The baby was laughing so hard that she was holding her breath and squeaking. I set her upright to allow her to catch her breath, and blew imaginary smoke off the top of her head.

“No. No, my baby is not a human gun. Come to mama, honey.”

And that’s how you lose your baby holding privileges for a while.

#1GF! went off to work, and I put the baby to bed. I tapped out the prior day’s events while she slept.

Once the baby was up, I gave her bath and fed her. I put her down on her play mat and went to the fridge to find a snack. I’d normally opt for any cookie or cookie related substance available, but I thought, “I’m going to go healthy today. I’m going to have a carrot.”

Well, fuck me naked if that carrot didn’t get stuck somewhere on its way down to my stomach. I winced. The damn thing was lodged somewhere mid chest. It hurt like hell and wouldn’t move. I punched my chest a couple of times thinking that might do the trick, and then jumped a couple of times when the pain intensified. I wasn’t choking, but it felt like something had seriously gone wrong. I tried to ignore the idea that I was having a heart attack. I grabbed a glass of water and tried to flush the carrot loose, but that only made it madder. I looked to see if the phone was near, in case something was really going wrong. Without warning, the carrot dislodged itself, leaving me relieved, but feeling stupid for eating goddamned vegetables instead of cookies like the good lord intended.

I spent twenty minutes putting the baby to sleep, and #1GF! called as soon as I made it outside of her bedroom door. The ring woke the baby up. I spent another twenty minutes putting her back to bed.

Once she was asleep, I had a piece of pie for lunch because pie doesn’t lodge itself in my esophagus and cause pain. Plus, the words “fuck it” came to mind after spending forty minutes rocking from foot to foot holding a baby who wouldn’t sleep.

It was late afternoon, and the trash company still hadn’t sent anyone to pick up the rusty rolls of fence from my yard, so I called to find out when someone was coming. They had no idea. I shook my head and went back to writing.

The baby was up forty minutes later, and was trying to pull herself up on everything. She scooted across the floor using her back legs to almost crawl. The baby is happiest when she’s walking, so I walked her around the house for a while. After reading a few books to her, I fed her and spent another forty-five minutes trying to get her to take a nap. There is sometimes payback for all the fun.

I went back to my desk at 4 PM, and I couldn’t believe the day was almost over. And I still didn’t know if the trash guys were actually coming to pick up the fence.

The baby got up again, and was in a rare, and unreasonable freakout mode. She wanted to stand when she was sitting and lay down when she was standing. It was a whine fest with no solution. Thankfully, #1GF! came home and took over.

I focused on dinner, and made buffalo chicken wings. Everything was going pretty well until I spilled an entire tray of fries all over the kitchen floor. Sometimes, payback is a lengthy process. I ran out to the store to get another package of fries.

“Sorry you’re unhappy,” said #1GF!.

I shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s just she’s been like Sybil most of the day, and the multiple personalities wear me down after a while.” I opened the door and stopped. “You know what the real problem is?” I pointed to the pile of fence in the yard that was supposed to be picked up. “No. You know what the real problem is? I can’t stand it when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do.”

I called the trash company to see if they were coming by the next day, and the company was closed. The answering service had no idea what I was talking about. I shook my head.

#1GF! got the baby to bed and we sat down to eat. Somehow, the buffalo wings weren’t as hot as they normally are. I didn’t know what happened. We watched The Big Bang Theory, which guest-starred Wil Wheaton, playing an evil version of himself. I wondered if the irony was lost for people who didn’t read his blog. His blog’s byline is “Don’t be a dick.”

Wednesday (Day 1046): Wolfman Jon

The baby was pretty normal all day, except that she wasn’t happy unless she was standing or trying to stand. She was doing her best to pull herself up on the couch, but she wasn’t quite there.

A guy called from another trash company and said that he had been referred by the company that said that they’d be by the day before. He said he’d pick up the fence, posts and all, for $50. I told him that I’d see him in the afternoon. He showed up in the late afternoon as promised, and hauled everything away.

I worked on LOR once #1GF! got home, and finished LOR 146. As I wrote, I thought that blogging might have to stop. I was coming up on three years out of work and I hadn’t achieved a single thing. All my spare time was being plowed into the blog, and I felt like I wasn’t pulling my weight around the house. I needed to get a book published, and I needed to be realistic about it, or spend my spare time on something that has better earning potential.

While #1GF! fed the baby, I opened the mail. My cousin had sent a couple of neck warmers with a mustaches sewn into them. They were slightly out of season, sure, but how awesome is that?

#1GF! was standing outside the house with the baby, and I went out to join her. The neighborhood kids were out playing. One neighbor has a baby that’s a few months older than ours, and I managed to scare her into a crying fit just by looking at her. That never happens. Kids usually love me. She looked at me for two seconds and burst into tears. “Aww, I’m sorry, honey,” I said. “Did the wolf man scare you?”

“It’s coming off soon,” added #1GF!. “Don’t worry.”

I went inside and talked to my sister on the phone. She had seen some Easter pictures, and said that my beard was longer than she’d ever seen. Actually, it’s the same length. I just let the mustache go this year. Note to self: A big mustache makes a beard look bigger.

#1GF! had a hell of a time putting the baby to bed. We ate leftovers at 9 PM, and I quickly wrote down the events from the day.

Thursday (Day 1047): At Least Ke$ha Likes My Beard

The baby was up at midnight, 4 AM, and who knows when else. I found #1GF! on the couch with her at 6 AM. The baby went back to bed, and I sat reading some feeds, figuring that she’d be up within the hour. She didn’t get up until 8AM, and #1GF! fed her before going to work.

The baby had just woken up, so there was no way that she was going in for her usual nap. I kept her up until her next feedings and put her to bed around noon. The baby slept for a couple of hours and I spent that time writing. I thought I was making good progress until I realized that I was editing a draft that was already complete. That killed some time and momentum.

I made a pot of coffee and had a cup and a half. That seemed to bring the momentum back. I thought about cleaning the house, learning Japanese, or doing jumping jacks, but the baby woke up before I could decide.

The baby was really entertaining. First off, she was only interested in standing up. If she wasn’t standing, she was trying to. Second, I noticed that she was imitating me. I would say “sock” and she would look at my mouth and say “sss.” I would say “da” and she would parrot it back to me. And she seemed to know where daddy’s nose was when she was in the mood to answer.

I switched from oldies to pop on the radio because if I heard “American Pie” one more fucking time, I was going to lose my mind. Pop radio’s song repetition was much tighter, but I didn’t know the songs, so they didn’t get stuck in my head even after the fifteenth listen of the day.

While I was playing with the baby, a Ke$ha song on the radio. At the end of the song, she very clearly says, “I like your beard.” It was completely random, and there was no one that I could tell that Ke$ha liked my beard. I told the baby, but she was like, “Yea, no kidding. That things awesome!” She has no idea that women are supposed to hate beards.

When #1GF! got home, she took over the baby and I started dinner. I was making another attempt to pin down the perfect mac and cheese. After cooking the bacon, grating the cheese, and draining the pasta, I stood over the stove stirring the cheese sauce waiting for it to thicken. After about twenty minutes, it was still as thin as milk. After going over the steps in my head, I realized that I had put in half the flour that I should’ve when I doubled the recipe.

I knew it wouldn’t work, but I tried to add the extra flour to the sauce and ended up with floating flour chunks. I dumped the sauce down the sink and started over. The hour-long dinner took me two hours to make, and it was nobody’s fault but mine. I was not what a casual observer would’ve called happy.

I finished making dinner and cleaning up by 8:30 PM. I wasn’t even close to finishing my first pass on my second LOR post of the week, so the possibility of getting three posts out was slipping toward the horizon.

Friday (Day 1048): Where’s Daddy’s Nose?

The baby refused her midday nap, so I entertained her for a while. She was a lot of fun. She was still imitating words, and did pretty well at pointing out daddy’s nose, hair, forehead and chin. She was working on mustache and beard, which she only located fifty percent of the time.

The baby took a long afternoon nap, and I had a cup of leftover coffee that I had stashed in the fridge. It seemed to help me get a few words on the screen while she slept.

The baby was fussy after her nap, so I walked her around the house. I couldn’t seem to get the really bad Ke$ha song from the day before out of my head, even though it was really bad. Did I mention that it was really bad? It was.

Once #1GF! got home, I called a friend and congratulated him on his new baby. He sounded tired. I vaguely remember those days. A six month old isn’t easy, but those first three months of baby ownership are really tough.

I intended to go out and get the food shopping done once #1GF! got home, but we ate leftovers and sat down to finish off my second post of the week. The odds of me going out got lower and lower until they vanished at around 9 PM.

Saturday (Day 1049): The Helpful Neighborhood Creep

Toilet, tub, sink and sill, woodwork and walls: I cleaned the bathroom. When that was done, I showered and went out to do the food shopping. I think it was “Your Age Is Your Discount Day”, because every old lady in the store was tottering around with someone even older. By the time I got through the store, got home, and put the groceries away, it was already 1 PM. How was your Saturday morning?

The baby wasn’t interested in her afternoon nap, but we gave her a little leeway because she sat up from laying on her stomach for the first time. You don’t think little things like that are going to be a big deal, but they are.

We went out in the afternoon and wandered around the home megastore for a while. We ended up buying a lawnmower that wasn’t human-powered. In the buying frenzy, we were late getting the baby home to eat.

I made sausages, peppers and onions for dinner and returned a few phone calls that were long overdue. While we were standing in the kitchen, we noticed that the neighbor’s car door was open. I wanted to be neighborly and call to let them know, but somehow, I ended up feeling a little creepy about it. I don’t want people to think I’m some sort of weirdo with his eyes in a spyglass and his finger on the pulse of the neighborhood. I called anyway.

Once the baby was in bed, #1GF! and I watched Up In The Air. The movie had good acting, good characters, and good points, although I saw a couple of the plot twists coming long before I should’ve.

What I Learned

• A tube of roof tar will survive a fall off of the roof.
• Fine, I sort of understand labels a little.
• Cement fence posts are hard to get rid of.
• Some companies that say they’ll take all your metal, won’t.
• #1GF! can do whoever she wants if I’m dead, except Keanu Reeves.
• #1GF! and the baby have differing opinions on whether it is good pretend the baby is a machine gun.
• Pie is safer to eat than a carrot.
• My face scares some kids.
• The baby imitates me.

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Posted in Life of Riley