Timelines Traffic Jam

Frosty the Horse.
Lunch stop in Lone Pine, CA.

We're in LA for the next couple of days. It's a turn around trip. We drove down this morning and are returning home on Tuesday and that night I'm reading at a Jazz & Poetry event at Comma Coffee in Carson City. Then, in the next two days we have to try to get all the furniture put together and make the house presentable because Kristiana and Thea Belle arrive on Saturday. We'll barely be ready and I certainly wouldn't have planned it this way. It's just that the various plans for the week suddenly and unavoidably got mashed together.

Now that the new floor is in, we are replacing our plastic desks and milk crate office furniture with IKEA modules. We thought we'd be able to pick everything up at the Sacramento store last week but it turned out to be an older, smaller store with a reduced inventory.

When M. Lee began this massive, monumental paper floor project a couple of months ago, their visit marked the absolute must finish by date. At the time it seemed like a purely academic deadline because, after all, how could tearing up every inch of flooring in the house and redoing it one square of paper at a time possibly take that long? Did I say crazy? But no. Really. It's beautiful and totally worth it. It's a huge improvement. I've already gotten my office half put back together because of the new shelving we got last week and it's great. It really makes a difference. I do believe I'm going to end up with an actually working work space? Christ, that sounds pathetic.

Froggie lullabies

There aren't many benefits to insomnia but last night around 2 AM as I lay awake wondering if the wind was going to blow the tool shed over again, Michigan H. Frog began holding forth against the storm raging down from the Sierra. Little Henry. Damn! Whether or not he's an endangered Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog is still up for debate but how in the world does any frog make his way to my desert backyard and survive winter? But he did and he is and last night this plucky little fellow's storm watch nocturne put me to sleep. Thanks, Froggie. 

Paper Floor, the final coat

Tonight, just after 9 PM, M. Lee finished laying down the last coat of poly on the last floor in the house, the laundry room. What a trip it's been. More later.

That is all.

Poly-wolly-doodle all day news update

M. Lee sent me this hilarious link to the Beast's annual 50 Most Loathsome Americans list. I am not on it.

Monster-size casino bling

I spent the weekend at the Circus Circus hotel in Reno attending a conference. Naturally, I managed to squeeze in a photo safari.

Midway wild things eyes on you.

I'm not without a certain amount of guilt as M. Lee was home working on the floors. Hey, I'm not a total flake. He won't let me help. Trust me. I've offered but before I left, I did manage to get my office emptied out (miracle) and when I was gone M. Lee put the refrigerator back in the kitchen and the toilet back in the bathroom.

Office in parts

Now all the crap from our offices is in the middle of the living room and today he's applying the last four coats of polyurethane to those floors so they should be done by tomorrow.

All work

All play.
You don't have to rub it in.
I am already suffering monstrous guilt.

Ps. Roy, you mentioned putting a joke penny in the floor so M. Lee passed this along for your viewing pleasure. Crazy ass penny floors.

M Day

"M" is for moving. "Day" is for TODAY!!!

Red Dragon and Alien Rock protest this disturbance mightily.

Yikes! This is it. Today I dismantle my office. Better that I do it than the job be done in the style of one of those postmortem clean outs where, in one afternoon, your kids come in and dump your lifetime of treasures into 20 or 51 big black lawn bags and take everything to the landfill. But there is so much stuff...special rocks, candles, photos, bags, note pads, little boxes, bottles, sort later piles, brief cases oh, and the entire cast of the Invisible Theatre has to move as does the stage itself along with the printers, chairs, tables, book shelves, file cabinets, cables and oh god...

After I've got the room emptied out, M. Lee will come in and tear out the filthy, coffee stained rug and put in the new ...TA DA.... PAPER FLOOR!!!! Can't wait. This is the last phase. Woo-hoo. And then in 10 weeks, just after we get kind of settled into the new studio, formerly known as the living room, we leave for the rest of the year. Crazy.

Paper floor update #2

It's a slow go but the paper floor is progressing brilliantly. Last night at about 10 pm, M. Lee applied the last of 10 coats of polyurethane to the kitchen and guest bathroom. It's not without problems. Some edges will need redoing where the glue is not adhering to the sub-floor, but he'll figure that out.Anyway, the house is still in shambles. The dishwasher and refrigerator are in the living room with tools, bags, buckets, mops...you get the idea. Chaos. But the chaos, the real chaos has yet to begin. That happens when I start dismantling my office. That's next and the last phase. The final frontier. The Day always finally arrives, doesn't it?

Who said?

Yesterday my daughter sent me this photo of Thea "reading" the newspaper. Who said she could grow up so fast? Yes. Yes. It's all good. It's what you want them to do but come on!

Thea at three. And no. She doesn't really wear glasses.

Reading at this point is identifying letters of the alphabet but she is definitely on her way!

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