Home Improvements

I am not skilled in home improvements. For forty-one years, I've been married to the best handyman, skilled mechanic, do-it-yourselfer anyone could ever ask for. It's due to Bill's skills that I've never honed any of my own. And maybe it took the luxury of retirement and all that spare time to try my hand. But two months ago, when I took up a paintbrush and started painting the master bedroom of the new house in AZ, it got to be fun. And it was getting intriguing when I began painting the walls of the Great Room in three color stripes. So it was starting to become 'natural' when I returned to the beach this summer and decided to do something about the thirty-seven year old wood paneled walls in the mobile home.

In the Seventies, we were "downtown brown", I'm sure. I felt we were fairly fashionable in 1972 when we moved in. And being a busy mother and working woman, I never found the time to try turning the walls anything other than the brown paneling with Seventies harvest yellow fixtures in them. But now... ah yes, now that I've found this new unused until now skill of painting and re-decorating, well, now the urge is upon me to turn my brown walls into anything but brown walls.

And because I'm a Gemini and we seek Instant Gratification, I decided to start on the smallest bathroom in the house, so that I wouldn't have to wait weeks for the room to be done. The first step after removing all the hardware was to primer the walls and the ceiling a nice matte white. But after the first thick coating of Kilz was spread upon all the surfaces, you could still see layers of brown paneling peeking through the paint. So Willy took a look at it and advised it needed a second coat of primer. I sighed. Apparently, this small bathroom was growing larger each day. It wasn't going to be done in a few days, or even a week. It took me ten days to get all the coats of primer put down on it.

In the meantime, I'd visited Home Depot and settled upon a pretty pale lime green for the walls. It was called "Spirit Whisper" and I think I picked it as much for its color as its name. Someday, when I get really famous, it would be fun to write names for paint. I found a very pale cousin of it in the same hue, only infinitesimally faint called "Green Shimmer" for the ceiling. So one evening while I was waiting for the inspiration to get the second coat of primer on the still dark walls, I gilded the ceiling with the "Green Shimmer". It moved me to continue onwards. My bathroom that I'd been accustomed to for the past thirty seven years appeared to belong to somebody else. It was growing bigger under its nice light coloring.

Over the course of the next ten days, the walls bloomed with the bright "Spirit Whisper" of green coloring. I'd found a pretty cantaloupe-y color called "Delicious Melon" that turned to be much paler than whatever was promised on the paint chip for the trim and the cupboards. Apparently, my cantaloupe was less ripe than the one on the paint chip, but I stuck with it and turned the mirror and door trims and the cupboard doors a pale melon color. The molding trim in the corners and on the floor were harder to paint. I had to locate one of the little boys' paintbrushes and paint tiny strokes on the molding so I didn't ruin the "Spirit Whisper" of the walls. Man... interior decorating was time consuming. I found my nightly sewing not happening and my shirt inventory dwindling while I labored each evening with my new found hobby. I was bordering on the obsessive - I had to finish my bathroom.

Finally, after three weeks, the walls were finished. The cupboards were painted and the doors rehung. (Yes, I'd learned to screw too.) The fixtures were either replaced or rehung. The bathroom was complete. That is-- er -- not exactly. The thirty-seven year old linoleum still glared back from the floor, a blatant harvest yellow pattern in a very Seventies pattern. It didn't exactly "flow" with the room. Pam advised me to check out some very inexpensive peel 'n'stick tiles at Lowe's. For a dollar a square foot (hey, I only had to buy twenty square feet for this tiny room), I got some vinyl tile that looked just like the Italian porcelain tile we'd laid in the AZ kitchen two years ago. It was a pretty cream marble color with a trace of pinkish-melon running through it.

I bought it and brought it home, determined on Tuesday to finish the project. Upon closer inspection, the first thing that needed to be done was to remove all the floor molding. Oh dear! All that time consuming work with the tiny paintbrush on my hands and knees kneeling behind the toilet, painting that melon color... done for! The molding when I finally got it up was in three or more pieces, so into the trash it went. Then I spent an hour giving the old floor a good onceover with sandpaper. Then (I am not proud of this part!) I spent, I kid you not!, the next two and a half hours on my hands and knees sticking tiles, measuring them, cutting them none too expertly with scissors and sticking them down in that tiny bathroom. Cutting around the toilet was not fun and far from perfect. It's a good thing I am NOT a perfectionist or I'd probably want it ripped up and re-done. But I know who would have to rip it up and Re-Do it and I'm not wanting to do that, thank you, so the less than perfect job will have to stand for now.

All that remains is to procure some new molding, measure it, cut it, paint it and nail it down. I'm not good at cutting, but then I wasn't good at measuring or painting or screwing either, was I? And it's getting done. So the next question is, what room shall I start on next?

Chuy the Performer

Charlie's Fourth grade had a Pet Day this week. Each child could bring his pet to school for a ten to fifteen minute time to greet the children and show their pet off. Charlie's cat, who is a grouchy thirteen year old, was less than thrilled to visit a classroom of students so he asked if Chuy could be his pet for the day. I was positive Chuy would appeal to the kids. He did. At first, Charlie had to rein him in, the puppy was so eager to dash into the crowd of kids and lick each and every one of them. So Charlie had his hands full trying to pull Chuy back and still tell his class a bit about Chuy and his breed. Then he took the bag of treats and shook it over his head and asked if anyone wanted to see tricks. There were unaminous shouts of agreement. First Chuy sat and shook paws, then Charlie took a small cup of butter out of his bag and immediately Chuy was up on his hind legs, walking across the room for the smell of butter, oblivious to the fact that he was on two legs and not four. He looked good. One little boy cried out, "He's the Best Trained Dog In The World!" The children cheered. The teacher voiced his approval. Grandma was proud. Chuy went on to do some "Up and Around"s and another big walk for the kids, now more interested in his treats than the many children cheering him on. Charlie finished up taking Chuy in the crowd so the kids could pet Chuy, then we had to go. A little girl appeared with her gray kitten, not more than eight weeks old and suddenly all the attention for the performing dog was centered on "Awwwww!" the cute little kitten.

I took Chuy and his bag of treats and bid Charlie and his class good-bye. Chuy left, but you could tell what he was thinking, "Dumb cat!"

How Do You Explain This?

Ninety-nine blogs ago, I started this Blog with the intent to show Life's Coincidents and what they might mean in our lives. I haven't always had coincidents to write about and have had to make do with the mundane, most of the time. But this is my 100th blog and I've got one of the darnedest, most unexplainable coincidents that's ever happened to me. Maybe one of you-all will have an explanation for it. If you do, by all means, let me hear it. I'm open to it.

Two days ago, I packed up the car and took the animals with me for our Summer Trek back to California. I had the Explorer stuffed with the two kitties in their carriers in the back seat, Sam Bird, the African Gray parrot in his carrier on the floor in the back seat, the trunk was stuffed with four boxes of shirts and fabric waiting to be made into shirts for SOMETHING FISHY and Chuy, the puppy, was snuggled into my lap for the better part of the trip. (Thank goodness he's not bigger than eighteen pounds or he wouldn't have fit behind the wheel!) We left Mr. Bill back in AZ to care for the houses.

I spent the night in Mojave, at a pet friendly motel, after ten hours on the road. Chuy was less than thrilled to share the bed with the cats so spent part of his night on the floor and Spooky the cat, who never shows herself to strangers, spent the better part of her night sitting in the window staring at the lit swimming pool, imagining she was in a Cat Version of Las Vegas, perhaps.

We started out the next morning at six thirty, getting up over the Tehachapis before the wind got very hard. I was trying to stop every hour and a half to two hours so Chuy and I could stretch our legs and he could pee (ditto for me). But there were places in both Arizona and California that the rest stops were closed, so sometimes our rest stops stretched to two hours or more. Well, that's the way it worked yesterday morning. Buttonwillow's rest stop was closed for repairs so we had to drive nearly two and a half hours before we could find a rest stop at Coalinga.

Now, while Chuy is finding the proper spot to expend his pee (believe me, this dog can be a connoisseur of Best Pee Spots!) I'm going to digress for a minute to fill you-all in on some background. One of our best friends in this whole world, named Tom, lives down the road in Apache Junction. Tom was one of our best Harley riding buddies in California and when we bought the house in Superior we convinced him to relocate there for his retirement too and he's been real happy with the riding and the climate down there. But this past year, for reasons not always explainable, we haven't seen too much of Tom. We've only had a couple of rides with him and we probably haven't seen him more than three times since Christmas. We had gotten together a couple of weeks ago to show him the new house and I mentioned that I'd be going back to the beach on the 19th. A week later, he said he was planning a ride to California but hadn't said when. And then, well, nothing. We got busy and that was that.

So now here I am in this rest stop in Coalinga. Chuy finally found a bush worthy to relieve himself in and I'd gone to stand in line at the Ladies. The rest stop was beginning to take more time than I wanted to spend, but since it was doubtful I'd find another rest stop open in the next hour, I decided to claim my place in line. When I finished, I spied a vending machine and spent a few minutes prying quarters out of my pocket to buy a Dr. Pepper.

With the cold soda in hand, I heard a motorcycle roll into the parking lot and I turned to look. I hadn't seen any bikes at all that morning, that I can remember. Pulling up to the curb, not ten feet away from me, just like we were in some dumb movie, is our old friend Tom on his big orange Road Glide.

I gawked, dumbfounded. "Tom! What in the world are you doing here?" I greeted.

"Nancy? Is that you?" He sounded equally surprised.

"Geez! We never get together in Arizona anymore, we have to meet at a rest stop in California?" I teased. But yes, I guess that's what was supposed to happen. I kept wanting to shake my head in wonder at all the coincidences that happened along that would result into us running into each other at the rest stop. What were the odds?

But Chuy's reaction was the best. After Tom and I chatted for a moment, he asked to see Chuy, so we walked over to the car and I let the puppy out. Frantically, he leaped out the car door and into Tom's waiting arms, licking his face thoroughly and squealing ecstatically, as though saying, "Gee, Mommy drove me all this way away from home to this hot place just so I could go potty and see my Uncle Tom and give him some kisses!" So because I don't have a better explanation for running into Tom, I'm going to use Chuy's and just enjoy it. Anybody got a better one?

A Sense of Community

We had a car show in Superior Saturday night. The Chamber put on its second annual "Cruisin' Main" and old cars and (mostly) old people turned up to look at them and get nostalgic. It was a hot day, 104 or so, and was taking a toll on folks. A lot gathered in the shade, but still lingered to check out the old cars. Every once in a while, a group would pull away from the curb and drive showily up Main Street, letting us all get a gawk at what Once Was.

We found Bert out in front of his Toast Bistro, preparing to grill some special bleu cheese and chorizo hamburgers for the supper hour. He'd been open since eight that morning and normally doesn't keep the restaurant open that late on a Saturday. But since this was a special Saturday, he was going to serve supper. We promised to return.

Since Bert opened Toast in December, he's been experimenting with his menu and times he's open. A good deal has to do with his own stamina but it's been a tough five months, opening his new restaurant right at the darkest economic times we've seen in decades. One of the things he's dreamed about was keeping the place open in the evenings for the locals to come in and enjoy some of his offerings and talk and catch up with each other.

Well, he achieved it Saturday night. When we got there at six thirty, all the tables save one were filled. And except for one table, all of them were filled with folks from the community. It was Party Time at Bert's Toast and a spontaneous, easy time was enjoyed by everybody, even the group that had only shown up for the car show. Folks were talking back and forth from the tables and chatting and carrying on, all the while enjoying these hot grilled chorizo burgers melting with bleu cheese and served on Bert's singular artisan rolls.

It was sublime. It was great fun. And it's what a lot of us have envisioned for Superior and thought maybe we'd never see again. A bustling downtown spirit, a place where the locals can dine and hang out and share their opinions and a great sense of community. And it looks like, at least at certain moments like these on Saturday night, that we can achieve that which some thought might never be again. Superior rising from the ashes of what Once Was and regaining her rightful place, as Main Street America.

I'm going to hang around for more!

A STRANGE STORY

Marilu came to visit us last week. She's the lady we purchased the new house from. She's 84 or 85 and we didn't know her well before we bought the house, but now that she's moved away, we keep in touch and it's almost like we gained an elderly aunt as well as a new house to fix up. During her visit, I took her inside to look at the paint and colors we were putting on her once white walls and she approved. She approved the roses and verbena blooming in her once empty flower beds. She told Bill and me she's real happy we bought the house. It feels like it's in good hands to her.

During the course of her visit, I showed her where I was moving aside hundreds of bricks to rebuild a brick patio that had become overrun with grass and weeds. "Watch out for scorpions!" she warned me.

"Scorpions? I haven't seen one, although I've been looking for them," I said. "I don't think there's any around."

"There are too!" She moved her hand in front of my face and massaged a finger on her right hand. "I got bit on this finger a few years ago. A big brown one! I called 9-1-1 and it was three days before I got feeling back in it. Ooohhh! I HATE scorpions!" She shuddered.

"Well, I'll keep my eyes open," I promised. "But I've moved that pile of bricks out there and haven't seen a one."

"Oh, it wasn't in the garden," Marilu exclaimed. "It was in the kitchen. I'd just gotten up and was standing by the sink, running some water for coffee. This big brown scorpion crawled out of the drain and bit my finger. I've ALWAYS checked the drain after that!"

"Strange," I muttered, wondering whether Marilu was mistaken or just telling 'an old lady's tale'. "But I've seen nothing in the drain. I haven't even seen a dead bug in the house."

"They come up through the drain from the sewer," she repeated ominously.

I didn't repeat the story to Bill. Again, I thought it was just a tale she was telling me.

The next day, I was doing some painting in the living room and came into the kitchen to use the sink to rinse out a brush. ( I LOVE water based paints!) As the water was running, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. At the mouth of the drain in the same sink Marilu had warned me about was a fair sized, two and a half inch brown scorpion. It was waving his tail menacingly at me. Like maybe he was trying to catch and sting my finger.

I drew back, sucking my breath in. Yep! Here was Marilu's scorpion, come out of the sewer and into the sink to take a bite of the new owner. Well, lucky for me, I rinsed him back down the sink before he had a chance to put his plan into effect. But I keep my eyes open now and realize it wasn't just a story Marilu was telling me!

Dear President Obama,

Dear President Obama,

I heard you were going to come to Phoenix next week to promote your Stimulus package and I wanted to give you a Heads Up for a Win-Win situation that will get people back to work here in Arizona, be good for both the Arizona and the Federal economy and not cost the government one red cent. Yep, that's the truth! You can use your influence to promote the Southeast Arizona Land Swap bill in Congress that's been kicked around for the past three or four years. What it does is grant some federal land to the Resolution Copper Company in return for them giving some of theirs farther south in Arizona to the Feds. What it will do for them is get the world's second biggest copper mine ready to go and bring in lots of bucks in revenue for both the state of Arizona (which badly needs it, as you know) and the federal government too (and at the rate the federal government is giving away money now, they could use it too!) It's a win-win situation for you because the federal government doesn't have to do a thing except collect the revenue since the mine will be owned and operated by a private company. Oh yes, it's a company that's owned in Great Britain, but aren't we all a global economy now? This is NO TIME to be petty about that! And yes, you're going to hear some grumblings from some left wing groups and whiney environmentalists who have been trying to stop this project for some time now, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, what's more important right now? Starving people in Arizona hoping for a chance to work and make their communities better or an elite group of "We've got ours, they don't need to have theirs!" bunch of whiners. Well, now, I know you fellows who get elected must listen to the Whiners since they fund your elections with their big checks. But I've got to tell you, if you could expedite this Land Exchange so that Resolution Copper can move forward on this thing and we can get people started back to work and striving to improve themselves and they can afford to stay in these small mountain towns east of Phoenix instead of moving back to the inner cities, then these folks are going to sing your praises, Mr. President and who knows how much that brings you in the next election?

I think it's time you started doing what's right for the Little People, Mr. President and move forward on some of these private industry bills that have been stalled too long by so-called "Do-Gooder" environmentalists. We need this copper company to help make things better here in Superior and I bet, if you'd help it get started, you'd see a trickle down effect in the rest of the Copper Corridor. So go ahead... step out and give it your seal of approval. Get those folks like Rep. Raul Grijalva behind it instead of opposing it. We need it NOW not LATER!

Thank you. Your constituent, Nancy Vogler

PS: The picture here is of a sunset of Apache Leap. The new copper mine would be located just east of there.

Setting The Stage

We 'set the stage' pretty good for the new Superior to emerge last week. We didn't get the thousands of people for the Home and Building Tour we thought we might, but we did draw upwards of a thousand over the week-end. The volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce did a real fine job of welcoming the folks and making them feel at home. People were staged in two areas, the Main Street area for the Home and Building Tour and south of town at the grammar school for the Art and Antique Fair. Bill and I spent most of our week-end at the Main Street end, greeting visitors. Tina hadn't given me a specific spot to be in, so I spent the better part of two days parked in front of the Chamber office on Main Street, showing folks where to get their tickets, then helping direct them to start their tour. It took a lot of talking but (ahem! if I do say so myself) I'm good at that!

Sometimes, the people would pull up to the curb and get out of their cars, looking around our old town sort of nervously, like they expected some old miner would ascend on them with a pick and shovel. And I would move toward them, exclaiming what a perfect day they'd picked to visit our town or wasn't that necklace she was wearing "just exquisite!" and show them where to go get their tickets and in that brief moment of me talking, you could just watch their hesitation and anxiety melt away and they'd stride into the Chamber office. Bill spent his days at the old high school directing traffic and helping oldsters ascend the two flights of steps into their bygone school days of a building. On Sunday, he manned a post at the old Magma Club, the social club for miners in the long ago days, answering myriad questions about the town's history.

Just an aside here, yes, I kept my ears open and I learned a lot about the history too. More than I knew before. That during the Teens, Twenties and Thirties and possibly even into the Fifties, there were three (yes, sir... THREE!) houses of ill repute in our Main Street. The most popular one seemed to be the one the town hall is housed in now, because it had two upstairs bedrooms that looked out over Main Street (one room looking east toward Apache Leap and the other looking west toward Pickett Post) and the married men liked this whore house the best because that way they could look out and see if the Little Woman was wandering the streets looking for her man. This is the same building, by the way, that does have an active spirit in it, she's been photographed by some ghosthunters, a grim looking lady dressed in black lace scowling over at the photographer. But gee, now that I know the story, I'm wondering if that grim looking lady might not be one of the cuckolded wives, scowling about the state of affairs she found herself in. Sounds good to me!

Anyway, back to the Home Tour... I digress. After a busy Saturday morning greeting visitors, at one, I hustled over to the bakery/bistro to help out. Bert was short handed and very busy! The brunt of the visitors looked like they had picked his cafe to lunch in. As I headed in, Bert was out in front grilling chicken and sausage and said there'd be no baking but that I could pitch in and wait tables and help make sandwiches.

Now... that's flattering, but let me tell you a secret. For all of my almost sixty years, I have never actually got to wait tables for a living. I've always thought this would be a pretty nifty way to make your keep. Moving around a crowded room of folks eating, feeding them and making them happy. What's not to like about that? Well, as this seems to be my year for making my dreams come true... I got this wish too! The tables were all full, but only half were actually eating. The order taker was also the only waitress and as she flashed her wild eyes at me as I entered to wash up, I could tell this wasn't going to be a 'piece of cake'. Sandwich Girl was up to her elbows slicing rolls and avocado for sandwiches. She looked at me and gasped, "Thank God you're here!" and I looked blankly back, and said simply, "You'll have to tell me what to do. I only bake. I haven't done sandwiches." Waitress Girl came back in and slapped a sheaf of orders at Sandwich Girl and barked, "Get out there and take some orders. Help me out!" I nodded. (I can do this! How hard can this be?) as Pizza Girl came careening out of the back kitchen, barking for a platter for a hot pizza out of the oven.

I approached the first table, a huge smile on my face. There were four ladies sitting there. I remembered them from the morning. They were from Mesa. One of them was wearing a little rhinestone hat with valentines on it. They'd been so cheery and happy when they'd arrived for the Home Tour. "How are you ladies doing?" I cooed, standing at their table. "We want our lunch," Rhinestone Valentine said through clenched teeth. "We've waited an hour for it!" "Oh, my, I'm sorry!" (I was too. I can't fake these things!) "Let me see what the hold up is!" I fled back to the kitchen. Sandwich Girl was slicing through bread and she'd been joined by Pizza Girl who was heaping salad on plates, as Waitress Girl buzzed in and out barking orders and generally looking like she'd rather be anywhere else than where she was. Dishwasher Girl (turns out, it was her first day on the job) stolidly stood at the sink, back to us, washing pots and pans. "There's a group of ladies who said they've waited an hour for their lunch," I told Sandwich Girl. "I know!" she moaned, checking a pan of sandwiches being toasted. "We ran out of bacon and their order got lost. They're nearly done." "Okay," I turned and went back out to the Rhinestone ladies from Mesa. "I'm sorry," I greeted, still smiling, but it wasn't that huge easy to come by smile, I can usually muster. "Your orders are nearly ready. The girls got swamped. It's busy... you know?" "We're not staying!" Rhinestone Valentine stood up, nearly upsetting the table. The other three ladies struggled to their feet. "Waiting an hour for lunch is unforgivable!" "I'm sorry," I repeated. I wondered if she cared to know that I'd now been on my feet for the past five hours and hadn't had a moment all day to even take a sip of water or go pee, let alone sit down. No, I doubted that she'd care about that either. Still, sitting on one's fanny for a whole hour sounded pretty dreamy to me at that point!

So eventually, we got through the lunch crowd. They dwindled off and by two pm, there was only one elderly couple left in the cafe finishing up their lunch. The girls found time to sit at the staff table and share one of Pizza Girl's creations. "I like it better like this!" Waitress Girl announced happily. I looked around the nearly deserted restaurant and the elderly man caught my eye and smiled. I shook my head, "No, you shouldn't," I told her. "It doesn't pay the bills!"

Later on Saturday afternoon, I found Bert, resting his aching back and asked him what he thought of the crowds. "What if we did a really good job getting folks to visit our town, Bert? And this is only the beginning. What if they hit you like this each and every day you were open? Is this how you want to spend the rest of your days?" He grinned and shook his head. "I guess we have to be careful what we ask for, don't we?"