ICK!

So Ms. Packratty arrived at The Very Conservative Corporation Friday morning to discover that the city water main up the road had broken again and the entire building was without water.

And not only does the plumbing not work, but because TVCC has a cooling system from the 1950s that relies on the water system for chilling power, the air conditioning is only working at about 1/4 strength.

Now, to Ms. P, the humane thing would be to send everybody possible home - especially since the main building houses a couple of hundred people and there are no working toilets. But TVCC did not ask Ms. P. Their solution? Four portapotties on the back loading deck, shared by men and women.

Ms. Packratty held it. She was unhappily reminded of the post-to-post treks in the station wagons of her youth, but the ... er ... fortitude acquired then stood her in good stead.

And, of course, by 8 p.m. it was uncomfortably warm and this was annoying too, since Ms. Packratty feels that some church somewhere should canonize Willis Carrier.

She is increasingly less impressed with TVCC's cheeseparing, uncaring ways. Ironically, it came the day after the annual United Way extortion session. She would have a higher opinion of TVCC if they skipped their United Way match and the endless hullabaloo and had an insurance plan that wasn't embarassingly bad. TVCC's biggest step into the second half of the 20th century was to start allowing women to wear open-toed shoes in the summer. With hosiery only.

Drying Out

The rain has stopped, and although the NWS warned us that we might have rain through this week, that has not come to pass. It's really terrible hearing about people who have lost loved ones or homes, but I suppose it is also a good warning that if you live ANYWHERE near a stream or at the bottom of a hill, you should have flood insurance. Of course, even The House At the Top of the Hill had water come in during the worst of it Monday, when the lower patio flooded into the kennel floor and the gutters on the east side of the house could not keep up with the sheer awful volume of rain. So really, anyone can get flood damage.
Fortunately, Chez Packratty mostly on the second, third floor and fourth floor of the building did not suffer any water problems except that pesky place in the upstairs bath where water comes in along the roof vent and drips near the exhaust fan. That happens about once a decade, so Ms. P really doesn't view it as an issue.

We are also waiting to hear about Miss Jill, who should be presenting Mar with a litter in the next few days - it will be nice to have little white polar bear pups around again.

Over the banks

By the time Ms. P left work on Monday, Peachtree Creek was over the banks and flooding the parking lot.

There is normally about a 20 foot drop from the edge of the parking lot to the creek. NWS said the creek crested at about 1 foot below its all time record, which is more than a century old. Wow.

Fortunately, the spigot seems to be turned off or turned way down. There has been no more rain today.

However, all this rain has led to some interesting new fauna on the grounds of Chez Packratty. While walking Charlie around the condo complex this morning, we observed:












Ms. P rather suspects that the variety and quantity of fungi sprouting will increase over the next week or so unless the weather predictions of off and on rain are completely wrong.

I suppose this is global warming too?

It's been raining - ranging from light to torrential - for almost a week. The remains of the old Civil War embankments behind my condo are full up for the first time in years and Peachtree Creek near my office (which flooded one of our buildings in 2004) is well over its banks - ironically as a construction crew has been trying to stabilize the banks and prevent future flooding. Here's the parking lot after my miserable 1:15 hour drive in:











Two hours later:



The building that flooded in 2004 is the one behind those picnic tables. Cars are usually parked down there where the water is covering them.







And why is this happening? Here's a precipitation map for the last 36-48 hours:
Atlanta is solidly covered by the 6-8 inch area, while the 12-16 inch area is just to the southwest. This is some major rain. To put this in perspective - when Hurricane Opal dumped significant rain on the area in 1995 (Ms. Packratty was visiting England at the time), N Georgia and the metro area got between 5 and 8.66 inches of rain. We have gotten close to double that in the last week in many areas. Ms. P suspects that many drought-weakened trees will come crashing down if there is the least little bit of rain in the next few weeks, because the ground is beyond sodden.

I'm pretty sure the drought is over

ATLANTA (AP) - A record rainfall has showered parts of the Atlanta metro area with more than five inches of water.

A new measuring station in East Point recorded 5.04 inches between midnight and 1 p.m. Saturday.

The National Weather Service said between daybreak and 1 p.m. nearly three and a half inches had fallen at Atlanta's airport. Meteorologist Kent McMullen said that crushes the previous record of 1.62 inches, set in 1953.

I kid you not, I think we had at least 3 inches here in Sandy Springs, based on how many times I emptied the plant saucers. And three times during the night, I woke up to really loud thunder within a 2 miles range. None of it right overhead, but there was enough rain to produce an audible drumming on the roof. All is soaked.

Ms. Packratty is on call this weekend and can't stray too far from home and it is gloomy and humid and icky, so she is sorting through books and some knitting and bookbinding supplies and working on peeling away the rest of the blue tape. If the sun would come out just a little, she would go try to find the new dog park AND hang the new blind in the lower hall window, but it is too darned damp to paint, even with the a/c on as she is reluctant to put up the new blind until she has painted the window woodwork. Silly, considering it takes 30 seconds to remove the blind once it is properly installed ...

This says it all

Tired, tired, tired

Ugly weather moved in Tuesday night and brought a migraine and a two-day allergy attack. Ms. P is not a happy camper and cannot wait to get home tonight. Mar is marooned at the top of the House on the River of Mud - what a nightmare. Of course, the workers would still have encountered the Immense Boulder if they had started when promised, but then they would have had time to deal with it before the rains set in.

I like the rain, but since it was overcast most of last week and only finally commenced raining, it is starting to feel as though this has gone on forever. Time to go pick up my camera and go home to Charlie Rufus.

There's no place like home

As comfy as the guest accommodations at The House on the Hill were, it was nice to be home. The house was still stinky from paint, so I opened it up and turned off the air. Even if it is clammy tonight, it will be nice to have it thoroughly aired.

I left Charlie behind for one more night - there was a lot to carry and I was really, really tired. poor little guy - I bet he'll be glad to be home. And I'll bet Miss Snootypuss will be outraged that not only have I returned, but that I've brought that DOG back. Miss Packratty believes that Delilah thinks the house is hers and that Charlie and I are interlopers.

The next step is to finish the bottom 3 stairs and then clear the landings and foyer. Then we start painting stringers and risers and get back on that ladder and finish up the areas on the banisters that only got one coat. And hang the last 2 new blinds. And the new curtains. And get someone to haul the old green sofa out - not replacing it while Delilah can shred fabric. Lots of projects and lots of time. Just got to do it one bite at a time - we won't even start thinking about the remaining ugly wallpaper in the bathrooms and kitchen.

Monday, Monday

So after making a list of things that she needed to do to wind up her "artist in residence" at Maison au Sommet de la Colline (The House at the Top of the Hill), Ms. Packratty went to bed Sunday night. First light found her up and about, taking care of dogs and trying to leave the place reasonably neat and clean.

So, of course, right at about 8:15 a.m., the doorbell rang and sure enough, it was the driveway crew, finally arrived to begin their mayhem - just as Mar and Joe were leaving Boston to return home. So Ms. P drove down the hill and trudged back up (amazing how fast that driveway conditions the legs). She looked about to see if she could spot Mar's keys, but couldn't find them OR her phone (sitting in the car's console at the bottom of the hill) to call and ask where they were.

So Mar and Joe will have a wonderful treat awaiting them - her car stranded at the top of the hill and Joe's at the bottom.

Off to the right and out of frame is a dump truck, which was already half full of concrete chunks. The fellow running the little backhoe thing on the upper left was a real artist - he said he wasn't going to need to move any of Mar's plants and I honestly think he might have been telling the truth. The part of the driveway shown here is actually the part with the gentle slope.

This is a view from the top that shows where the steep part suddenly drops off. That's the hump part that is supposed to be regraded to something less taxing.

I doubt, however, that Mar and Joe are going to enjoy getting 4 suitcases and Jack up to the top with the driveway down to dirt and gravel. I'll get a look tonight, because I need to go back and fetch the rest of my stuff and Charlie. Poor Charlie - he is going to hate going home to being an only dog again.

It's going to be nice to be back in my own bed again though - although I wish I could kidnap Miss Joy to be my foot of the bed dog. Charlie is way too wiggly.

Finito - well almost

There are still 3 stairs to be done, but that's for another weekend. The other stairs? All three flights? Polyurethaned x 3 and they look gorgeous, I can really spot the two areas of the woodwork that only have their first coat of poly - somehow after that day I fell off the ladder, I never managed to get back up there to finish the job. That was scary.

I got some movement on once again editing out the stacks of books - I have a big box in my car and most of the keepers have been conveyed to the proper place. I do have a book problem. I read a lot and even if I only buy one book out of every 20 I read, that's a lot in the course of a year. I've been relying on the library and the online hold system - but there are always problems with books they don't have that I really, really want to read. I used to budget for bookstore spending. Now I don't.

I am so grateful that Marleen and Joe let me caretake this week which gave me the chance to tackle a REALLY BIG project and complete it. It's difficult to keep momentum going when you don't have real time to devote to something. Having this opportunity come when I had leave I could use and when I was relatively painfree was just a perfect intersection - without all three things coming together, it wouldn;t have been possible - and, in fact, when I hurt my hands last weekend, I was afraid I was going to stall out. I know I can do the risers and stringers in little bits that won't kill me and in latex paint which is easier to deal with all the way around. I'll be pumping up 3M's revenues some more though buying more blue tape.

Charlie has really had a great week too - he loves being here with Marleen's crew even though the girls pick on him. I'll feel guilty taking him home tomorrow night.

A testament to the role of sound sleep in resolving pain - I was sore as a boil last night and decided that if ever there was a night for a sleeping pill, it was then. I slept almost 6 hours straight and then 2 hours after an initial waking and when i got uup I was stiff, but not sore. Amazing.

Big day tomorrow. Got to buff this place up before I leave and then my first full day of work in 11 days.

Things I am thankful for

Kneepads. My brother-in-law Chris told me what kind to buy and I am deeply thankful. I think the stair project would have been a non-starter without them.

Blue tape. The stuff is amazing and worth every penny.

Polyurethane instead of varnish. Hardens so much faster and it's so much easier to get a good finish.

Good paintbrushes. Many thanks to my grandfather, Ralph M. Willard, for teaching me that painting with cheap brushes is a waste of time. Also for teaching me that prep time and effort is never wasted.

My little Mouse sander. Does a great job, doesn't hurt my hands or behave badly. Maybe not the tool for huge jobs, but definitely the ticket for almost everything I have tackled to date.

Aleve and hot showers. Just saying, you know?

Holy Carp, I'm sore

The second coat of varnish went on flight 2 Friday and flight 3 was prepped for taping. That and a third cost for flight 2 and the taping and first coats for flight 3 are the plan for Saturday. If Ms. P gets the first coat on flight 3 before 1 p.m., she plans to go back 8 hours later and do the second coat - with the third coat on Sunday, following the detaping of the other flights. Note, this plan leave fudge factor on Sunday if things do not go as planned.

The three steps at the entry? Next weekend, doing alternate stairs so that entry and exit remain possible.

And then Ms. P plans no further projects for at least a month. Please. She hurts in places she did not know she had places. There is still the matter of unrolling, mothproofing and rerolling the oriental carpets which Joe says they can store for me until the floors are done. But that's an afternoon's labor each, not the death march of this past week.

It's been an utter and complete blessing to stay at Marleen & Joe's - not only as a respite from CONSTRUCTION ZONE, but also because knowing that I need to go tend dogs has kept me from staying on too long and doing too much. About the time that I've really had it, the watch tells me it's time to go exercise dogs or such.

Time for a cuppa tea and an Aleve.

Never forget, never forgive until Islam is *gone*

Stranger and stranger

Well, when I got back from work, the first set of surveyors stakes were all gone and a different set in their place (in entirely different places). And a bunch of plate sized holes have punched in the concrete of the driveway. But nothing else.

Ms. P nonetheless left her chariot at the foot of the hill - it was a little late to be pulling into the neighbor's driveway, waking their 2 large dogs and clambering up through the ivy. Instead she parks across the street and did the buns and thigh workout by walking up the driveway.

At this rate, the driveway might be done by Christmas.

Now, Ms. P on the other hand? Third coat on the very top flight; first coat on the next flight down. Tomorrow morning the plan is to remove the tape from stage 1, put a second coat on stage 2 and start the prep on stage 3 - which is also the longest of all the flights. I need to move the bundle of quarter round and pull the covers and staples etc. But if I can get that part done Friday a.m. and tape it and first coat it Saturday before noon, I can get 2 coats on Sunday - early am and late pm and by Monday night? walkable. Meanwhile, stage 2 will get a third coat Saturday. Ms. P will not get home until 8:30 or later Friday, so she doubts she will have time or energy to start taping Friday night - but all things are possible.

Got to get more varnish and more blue tape. But I'm really seeing that this can get finished before I go to bed Sunday night. The last flight of 4 steps? That's going to be harder because I'll probably have to do them while using them. But I had to do this top down or I wouldn't have been able to work on more than one section at a time, so ... However, this entire exercise does not fill Ms. Packratty's heart with joy thinking about the painting of the risers and the stringers. That will have to happen slowly and, Ms. P suspects will be just as painful as the varnishing, although it won't involve all the vacating of the premises. The taping will be much more critical, however.

Enough woodworking though - the big news at work, other than the VP shuffle, is that The Conservative Corporation that Ms. Packratty labors for has actually decided to allow women to wear open toed shoes - although not sandals of any sort. Ms. P doubts this will truly affect her much, as the shoes available for her large boats that are also not painful to wear are generally lacking in anything that might be termed "style". However, the dress code amendments came with some vigorous restating of other standards, including the requirement that skanky tattoos must be concealed, that earrings may not dangle to the shoulders and that clothing may not be skintight or see-through, all offenses by some of her co-workers that have made her shudder (and feel cranky about) in recent months. If Ms. P has to obey the rules, she expects everyone else to have to obey the same damn rules.

Progress Report

Well, the driveway at Joe and Marleen's had stayed completely untouched. Then a surveyor came. Then nothing. I was no longer getting up early and shifting the car down the hill. So of course, this is the day the heavy machinery started to arrive. But once again, that might have been a false start, because when i came back from taping stairs and going to the dentist (where a tooth cleaning uncovered yet another damaged filling that wants replacing), the heavy equipment was gone and the surveyors were back.

Joy.

Getting some real traction on the stair project, the second flight is taped and I'll third coat the first flight and first coat the second one tonight and move on to prepping the third flight tomorrow morning when I have an even longer morning - I don't go to work until 4 p.m. I think I may be done with everything but the first mini-flight (4 steps) by the time Mar and Joe return.
Please, I hope, hope, hope. I need to reroll and mothball the rugs and keep moving steadily toward getting the floors laid. We're getting there. It's slow, but Ms. P really feels, for the first time, that she has really finally got some traction on getting this project done.

House Pixie

The House Pixie put the crowbar back into the toolbucket. The toolbucket that Ms. Packratty moved twice while searching for the crowbar.

My House Pixie has an odd sense of humor. Ms. P wishes he or she would return my missing earring.

How do you misplace a crowbar?

I had it the other day. I used it to pry up tread covers. I had it in my hand Saturday and this morning? So missing.

I don't mind having multiple pliers. Or even having 2 hammers (they are different weights). Extra screwdrivers are a good thing. But I refuse to buy a second crowbar.

Holy carp, losing a CROWBAR? in a 1200 sf condo? I know I either leaned it against something or put it down someplace where it couldn't fall over and go bang and now it's just missing (and I may have just remembered where - since I brought in a box from Mark & Liana's house Saturday night ....)

In other notes, prep on the second flight? Every single staple came out - only two broke and had to be yanked with vise grips. No countersinking. Karmic payback for Saturday? Or will section 3 break my heart as I get overconfident? Perhaps it's the blood sacrifice. I knocked my head on one of the newel posts and have a 1/4 inch cut on my forehead. Section 2 is ready for taping - section one was sanded, wiped and got the second coat of varnish. Taping on section 2 begins this evening.

Painful Progress

I have some degree of victory. The second shortest flight of the four has been prepped, taped and gotten coat one of varnish. It's been quite a learning process that I am sure is not over and my blistered, cut and abused fingers bear testimony.

I learned that if staples won't pull out, yanking on them until your fingers are blistered is not smart. Also, take off your jewelry, as that only makes blisters worse.

There are pliers that can cut off the sharp bits very close to the woood, however, finding the sharp bits by running your hand over the tread is a good way to get cut.

Once the staples have been trimmed down as far as you can, a countersink is your best friend. So is wood filler that is color coordinated to the type of wood.

Blue tape is good stuff. So are kneepads. So are tack cloths.

Ms. Packratty is estimating that she can get about half the prep work done on the next section of stairs tomorrow after her early appointment and before reporting for work at 3 p.m. That would be removing the tread covers, pulling all the staples possible, countersinking the ones she can't pull and putting woood putty in the resulting holes. She also hopes to do the light sand, tack cloth wipe and a second coat of varnish on section one before she goes to work

The worst part of the prep, the taping, she hopes to start tomorrow evening, after work and after exercising dogs. If Ms. P can spend so much as 45 minutes at it, she will be in far better trim on Friday morning, when her worktime is neatly bisected by a dental appointment.

Friday morning would be her chance to repeat the revarnish for coat 3 on the first section. If section two is taped and wiped down, a first coat could go on that Friday afternoon and a second on Saturday morning and the third Saturday evening.

Section 3, the longest run of stairs, would be the Saturday and Sunday project In between the varnishing on section 2. The plan would be to pull the covers and prep and start taping, with the hopes of getting 2 coats on the stairs Sunday. Since Ms. P won't be back home until Monday evening, two coats should be sufficient to make it through the week with a third coat applied on Saturday and the final 4 step section for later. If need be, the bottom section could be done in alternate steps so it could be used even though it was being worked on. Ms. P simply hopes she does not wake up tomorrow feeling as though she has been thrashed and pummelled.

Now, the pictures:

Before - tread covers off, no other work:

Taped and prepped:

And finally - first coat on - isn't that oak PRETTY?

A few complications

The Stair Project has hit some complications. First, the staples that had secured the temporary tread covers were coming out in pieces, leaving other sharp little pieces sticking up. Wrestling with them cost me several hours of sweating, a blister on my right index finger and about $22 in new pliers, to little avail.

I also managed to slice my left index finger in the same spot as the blister on my right - right on the pad of the middle section of the finger. Right where almost everything you do hurts. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

So back to Home Depot on the advice of a friend to get a countersink. So I will shortly go back to the house and simply countersink the sharp little buggers and wood putty the holes. But not until after I get Norman washed. It is not easy looking after a herd of terriers and those puppies poop like geese.

And, of course, the people who swore to Joe that they were starting work on the driveway this morning? So not here.

Ouch

I have blisters. Getting the staples that secured the covers to the treads out has been miserable. I cannot find the tool I used to do the job before nor my vise grip pliers. A stop at Home Depot is indicated if I am to get the sharp little spikes out.

However, I have some of the job done and an idea of what I am facing. I may not get the entire thing done this week. I am NOT going to try to paint the risers - only to do the varnishing. The risers can be done one or two at a time.

And I didn't get to devote a great deal of time to the house today. There were two dogs dropped off this morning, so I waited around for that to happen. And I am due for dinner with Mark & Liana shortly, so I am flying out of here, wine bottles clanking in a cooler!

Hoarding lightbulbs

Ms. Packratty has a serious issue with the push to force people to use compact fluorescent bulbs. There's a light quality - to her they are sort of the processed cheese food of light bulbs - but they also contain mercury. And people are not going to recycle them, they are going to throw them in the trash.

So anyway, she's been stuffing light bulbs by the box into the tall space at the top of the linen closet and today, when she was picking up some wood putty and sandpaper for the coming stair finishing festivities, her local Home Depot had a special. Boxes of 4 60 watt bulbs for 25 cents a BOX. Ms. Packratty bought $5 worth - 80 bulbs. They are some weird offbrand, but Ms. P suspects she will nonetheless get more than 6.25 cents worth of use out of each of them.

And speaking of energy, Ms. Packratty had commented on a friend's Facebook that she was desirous of purchasing a bottom freezer fridge unit as she is tall and tired of bending over to see the contents of the fridge and having to kneel on the floor when the fridge needs a thorough cleaning. Another friend of her friend posted a reply pompously informing her that a bottom freezer was less efficient than a top freezer and that Consumer Reports blah blah blah. So when Ms. Packratty was in the Home Depot, she compared the energy estimates on a GE bottom freezer fridge of 22 CF and one for a top freezer of 21.8 (close enough, in other words). The big energy savings that Ms. Packratty should sacrifice her back and knees for? FIVE dollars a YEAR. Five hundred pennies 41.6 CENTS a month. Yes, indeedy. That's advice from Consumer Reports on the par with their ridiculous advice on dog and cat food, in which they posited that corn and starch-laden cheap foods were a better value than meat protein based foods. Which is when CR basically lost most of their credibility with Ms. Packratty.

Speaking of consumer issues - have you ever felt like screaming at the television over an advertisement? This morning, Ms. Packratty was running around preparing for work when an ad appeared on the television. In the ad, this purported mother was talking about how her child - who appeared to be four or five years old - would not eat - "anything green" or this or that, "until it finally began to affect her growth" when "mom" consulted the doctor, who "told" her to feed the kid a canned vitamin-enhanced milkshake called Pediasure. Excuse me? What is happening to parents? Do they not have the sense to deal with their own children? Letting a child pull something like that over eating to the extent they were worried about their health is insane. Absolutely, totally insane. And any doctor who would prescribe fortified milkshakes as an alternative to real food for an otherwise healthy child ought to be defrocked.

Someone Ms. Packratty knows was confronted with a grandchild who was using eating as a way to control his parents. The Wise Grandmother invited the parents to leave the grandchild with her at the beach and for the parents to go off and have a vacation of their own. The first time grandson declined what was offered at a meal as well as the proffered leftovers from a prior meal and demanded something not on the menu, the Wise Grandmother looked calmly at the Picky Grandson and said "You must be ill, if you can't eat this nice whatever. Let's get you into bed for the afternoon." So while other children were with their Wise Grandfather at the beach and tennis court, the Picky Grandson spent the afternoon in bed. At dinner, the PG again declined the offered dinner or a chicken sandwich and demanded a hamburger and french fries. The Wise Grandmother again looked at him and said "That isn't what we have tonight. If you can't eat the ham or a chicken sandwich, you must still be feeling ill. Off to bed with you." And the PG spent the evening in bed while the other grandchildren had ice cream, played Monopoly and went to the movies at the Beach Club.

The next morning, the PG threw a temper tantrum at breakfast, refusing scrambled eggs, oatmeal or Cherrios and demanding some chocolate flavored cereal. The WG put him right back in bed and so it went for another entire day. On the evening of the second day, the PG actually ate some of his boiled shrimp, but refused salad, rice and the other parts of the dinner, so he got no dessert and had to go to bed early. But lo and behold, on the next morning, the PG came out of the young boys' bunkroom at the beach house early and found his Grandfather making some oatmeal and marched up and said "Grandpa, may I please have some oatmeal with brown sugar?" And that was that. Ever after, all his mother or father had to do if he started playing food games was to put him to bed because a boy who won't eat "must be feeling ill". You can't cater to those sorts of games with children. Pediasure - for a perfectly healthy child? The problem there isn't the child's nutrition, but a lack of calcium in the parental spines.

And now, if you will excuse her, Ms. Packratty really is going to the dogs. She needs to head out of here and go tend the pooches and collect her overnight bag.

So much for cash for clunkers

Observed this Sunday at a local parking lot. Seriously, folks, if the cops pull people over for a burned out brake light, exactly how does this thing make it even a mile down the road?

This is sheer insanity that something like this is allowed to move on the public streets. But there it is.

As I was walking into the store this was parked in front off, I saw a man coming out with a very odd expression on his face. I turned and watched, and it was the owner of this hunk of junk. He struck me as having ... problems deeper than the condition of his ride.




The monthly death march of month end close has started and, off course, GA 400 did me in this morning. I left the house with a 15 minute margin of error and ended up late - not only did I use up the margin, but another 18 minutes besides. One disabled car and a 4 car fender-bender caused the road to back up for close to 20 miles and 40 minutes. Go figure. Imagine if it had happened during real rush hour instead of between 9 and 10 a.m.?

I'm also very pleased - I used a Tuesday Morning gift certificate that was about to expire to snag an Outward Hound dog booster seat for the PU's pup who likes to see out and tries to ride in laps. Now I just have to get it all mailed. I have about a crate of stuff to send down there.

I am still trying to make sense of the new camera, but perhaps I'll have a chance to study it in the evenings at Marleen's next week. Turns out there will be three pups in residence rather than two, but my feeling is - what's 50% more poop? You''re cleaning up after two, might as well clean up after three. And there's the fun factor - watching three puppies is about 500% more amusing than two. Pictures, I hope, to follow. Along with pictures of the work on the house. I hope.