Reconstruction

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The carpets are clean, and now we’re reconstructing the house. Our whole lives had been jammed into the upstairs bathroom. Now we want to use the bathroom.

The Geezer wanted new plastic chair mats for the computer room, and I wanted that charming, small, Victorian dresser out of the way. He had a very valid point as the old mats were split and crumbling, so now we have the new mats at an inflationary eighteen dollars more each than the last two we owned. I have a valid point as we are tripping over the dresser until it has begun to fall apart. Sometime today the dresser will go to the living room…somewhere.

And that’s us…always under construction. We have one too many pieces of furniture and far, far too much stuff, orts, and tchotchkes. I’m willing to part with a raku pot, but he likes his ducks, rooster, and fish. I’m willing to put the dining room table in the garage, but he is silent about the deco end table. Last night I brought home two beautifully painted wooden animals from Mexico that are missing their tails. Maybe it’s all my fault.

Did I say we were going to an estate sale or two this morning.

Friday Lite

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Thinking of mine.

• The carpet is so clean that it looks new. It was also still so wet by dinner time, the Geezer turned on the heater. Now I am in a state of appalledness over how much it is going to cost to get the carpet dry.


• Dinner out tonight. This is big stuff.


• Nope, while that Wednesday night Alanon meeting works for me, it doesn’t work for G. The AA meeting at the same church starts just as the other meeting ends. That isn’t functional for us as a pair. He says he will take me up the hill and pick me up afterwords. I’m very appreciative.


• Yup, he’s back to the gym at last. Hurrah.


• Couldn’t remember a common word Wednesday. A color. More bits of vanishing brain. You can’t look something up on Google if you can’t remember how to spell it. Google has those moments too.


• The antibiotic makes me very, very dingy. You should have seen me yesterday. I rushed home, rushed upstairs to the bathroom, came back down and changed out of my sweats into street clothes in front of the washing machine putting the clothes in to wash. When I turned around to leave, I couldn’t find the truck keys. Yes, I pulled all that wet clothing up and examined it all. Felt the bottom of the washer drum too. After it all spun dry, I was able to find the keys in my sweat pockets. I didn’t get at all upset, but it was a humbling experience that I can laugh about today.


• I’m wondering what humbling experience will happen today to make me laugh.

Looking Up

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LA Union Station main waiting room ceiling. Pretty clean…all of them.

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Today I will be looking down. While I watch the guys clean my carpet, I’ll be thinking about looking up too. My years as a custodian at Aztec Center taught me to look up as well as down. Dirt is everywhere.

Lately, I note that not only did my house have hanging chads with dust balls, everywhere I go sports layers of grime stuck on to ceiling apertures and additions. Check out the edges of fan blades. Look at the vent grills in anyone’s bathrooms or even our local post office. After you look at your favorite restaurant’s ceiling, do you want to eat there?

Maybe everyone who cleans ceilings are short. Not in LA at the Station though. Here I found remarkably clean ceilings….the photographs here are here to give you a smile. There’s not a hanging chad to be seen.

Writing It Down

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Bars.

Yesterday and Today Himself: Feeling good. Swamp’t with work yesterday tho. Stopped in time to watch NCIS and NCIS LA. At work now. I don’t think the new computer scheduling system is working well. Herself: Except for the morning coughs, I am doing a little better each day. At last. Hand healing too. Doing all my exercises but my knee hurts like ----.

I wake Wednesday morning’s thinking, “Books, books, books!” I’m like a little kid. The joy of the new Christmas toy, working with books at the store, hasn’t worn off yet.

Today we have a staff meeting before the store opens. What time? Do I remember? Not at all. I’m going to have to guess at nine am for the breakfast before the meeting. The store opens at ten. Yeah, I know. I should have written it down.

I did write down “7/9” yesterday. I wrote the same thing down for Monday too. I was home from seven to nine and nothing exciting or untoward happened. Not even a knock on the door. Then again, someone turned the water off. Seven to three isn’t seven to nine, so it couldn’t have been that.

I did write down that the money guy was calling at five thirty today. Discussing money a couple of times a year is good even when the markets are falling on their faces. I also wrote that the carpet cleaners are coming tomorrow. Unfortunately, so is Mary the housekeeper. I have enough dirt on one floor to keep her busy for four hours, but the upstairs bathroom will miss its cleaning. G and I will have jammed all the upstairs loose stuff in the bathroom.

I did write down the seven pm meeting I wanted to go to, but it would have been nice if I remembered to write down this morning’s staff meeting. Then again, even if I am late and have had breakfast, I bet there’s a donut waiting for me at the morning meeting. That bit of excitement doesn’t involve writing it down. It’s a given.

All Aboard

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Front view of the LA Union station. 2010.

Yesterday and Today Himself: Feeling great, loaded up and out of here for an eight thirty appointment. Herself: My goal today is to sit quietly while the Z-Pack works, and tomorrow be brave enough to start totals on the taxes. By tomorrow, I should be dingy but breathing better while coughing less. Today photographs are from both the 2003 and 2011 visits.

I thought I would share just a few views of one of my favorite railroad stations with you this morning. It sits shining and restored in the warm sunshine of Los Angeles.



The Wikipedia Union Station entry says this about the building: “Union Station was partially designed by the father and son team of John Parkinson and Donald B. Parkinsons…..assisted by a group of supporting architects, including the famous Jan van der Linden. ….Their firm designed many landmark Los Angeles buildings from the late 19th century onward. Th(is) structure combines Dutch Colonial Revival Style architecture (the suggestion of the Dutch born Jan von der Linden), Mission Revival, and Streamline Moderne style, with architectural details such as eight-pointed stars.”



The voters approved replacing the original Chinatown with a station that would serve all the existing railroads plus the red line trolleys that came into Los Angeles.


Tile and cork walls of the waiting room.

Built in a T shape linked by Spanish style colonnades, the long main waiting room is flanked by gardens. Both the original ticketing area to the left and the Fred Harvey Restaurant to the right are now both empty used only for filming and bypassed by modern spaces further into the building.


The access tunnel under LA Union Stations 12 tracks.

After being a hub of transportation during WWII, slowly the station fell into disuse as the airplane took over. A major developer took over the station and 51 acres of the surrounding land and in 1992, the restoration of the building was finished. Now the building is heavily used by Amtrak, Metroliners, and the trolley lines that link all of LA.


A view of the waiting room from the tunnel, and looking into the South Gardens.


Wall tile with phone jack and small ceiling tile insert.


South patio fountain, and the North patio fountain.


In the fifties, you would stop for lunch at the Harvey House, now restored but empty, then check the board to see if your train was on time and ready to go.


Then down the tunnel, the red caps following with your bags, and up the ramp to the long train sheds and your waiting train.


Today the deep rumble of the diesels has overtaken the drama of steam. Still the excitement is there. That sense of adventure as you are welcomed to your car. The race to find just the right seat on just the right side of the train is still there, as is that moment when you first look out of your window after you settle in. All Aboard.

Bottom Line (EDIT)

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Grumpy and Myrtle in the garage. 2011.

• Well, considering the bottom line, if it is Grumpy’s valve guides, the cost will be $2000.00. It will be cheaper to buy an engine out of a box and have the dealer install it. If it is the pilot shaft bushing, then MKB didn’t put a new one in when they put the newest clutch in….Grumpy’s third at 30,000 miles. With a bushing, they only have to pull the transmission, and G wants a new clutch plate and throwout bearing installed too. “If we are going to do one,” he announces, “We are going to do all.” Corvette engines will fit, and they get 15 MPG more than we do now with our rebuilt valves. I will mount a permanent sign on the dash telling all valet drivers that “This is not a sports car.”



• A home must be found for the dresser by Thursday when the carpet cleaners come.



• G, with my assistance…shame on me, bought Girl Scout cookies. I will not tell you how many I ate. Nor he ate.



• The papers for the taxes are all neatly in order by subject, by date, and by subfolders within subjects. I feel rather heroic. Not that the piles have totals on them, mind you, but the first major step is done. Over the years, we have gone from my doing them alone to the taxes as a joint project. Maybe we can get the totals run before “Antiques Roadshow…San Diego.” ThomaS once asked if we had imagined living like this when we were hippies. We did live like this as proto-hippies, we just worked harder and watched different shows. Bottom line here, the sooner we get them done, the sooner we get our tax refunds.



• OKOK….I am still coughing. It’s been 21 days, and I slept for seven of those 21 days. I think I need to break down and call the doctor. My bottom line is that I need to get in the pool and exercise asap. I cannot exercise if I am spending all my time coughing up stuff.



• So I stopped in at the doctor's office and find I still have the bronchitis. Yes, I have been sleeping on a pile of pillows for 21 days. Yes, this hasn't gone over well with G, poor guy. And extended Z pack, 14 days of waiting, and we all hope that no prednisone is needed as it has been so over used. My hand looks pretty good tho. Progress.

It's Time

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The pile.

Yesterday and Today Himself: Nope, it wasn’t his birthday yesterday. He was cute yesterday tho. Herself: I never got to the books at the thrift store Friday. Yesterday I went in for a couple of hours and filled the shelves then later repriced all the Nancy Drew’s. There were one or two really good ones, but most were in the one buck range….said ABE Books. Dresser: Nope. I already have one in my closet and one in G’s. Nope, I’m keeping it…it was my grandmothers. No: Garage because it will grow mold. Arggggggggggg……

It’s time. That file folder on top of the bookcase has grown from neat and orderly to file by pile. The pile has reached the overwhelming stage just now when the first official DD’s, PP’s, quarterlies, and 10somethings have begun arriving.

Our CPA no longer sends us an organizer in snail mail instead now sends a complicated thing via email. One has to have the program installed to run it too. G could do it without me, but I don’t know if I could now do it without him.

For years I did the taxes by myself. Proudly, I may add. With no doctor’s stuff either. Now most of what I see is prescriptions and stuff for the hospitals and insurance. This year we have half a year of unemployment and taxes on my SS to add.

Sometimes I let it all overwhelm me. Sometimes I overwhelm it.