A Four Letter, Three Day Weekend

Hello:

I took last Friday off from work and spent my three day weekend cursing. I suppose that some time was spent preparing the old house to be sold, but it seemed like each project was just a precursor to more cursing. I did so creatively. I did so with vim, vigor and zeal. When I exhausted the old standards I resorted to inventing my own 4, 5 and even 6 letter explicatives.

Did you know that electrical boxes used in the 1920's were smaller in width and depth than the current standard? I did, but it's normally nothing but a mild inconvenience. Did you know that modern GFI outlets are larger than normal outlets and that that small small difference translates into a MAJOR pain in the ?!!!! What would normally take a screwdriver, a pair of plyers and 10 minutes; took a dremmel, a hammer and 2 HOURS! Oh and cursing, it took a steady torrent of language that threatened to peel off the fresh paint.

Most of Saturday and Sunday was spent in some variation of

1. Pull fuse in basement
2. Wire something in bathroom
3. Duck walk through attic and shimmey under eave to check connections to fixture
4. Hit head on attic roof
5. Curse
6. Return to basement, restore fuse
7. Check operation in bathroom
8. Curse
   

Change the order around as you will, but repeat those steps ad nauseum and you get the picture. To top it all off, my attic has vermiculite insulation. It's very effective, fire retardant, common in St Louis and .... oh yea was sometimes shipped in from Libby, Montana and can contain asbestos. The chances that it does are almost infinitesimally small but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little creeped out. All last week, I kept reading about how mesothelioma (a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos) is the most expensive Google adword .

For the most part, it's done and the house is ready to put on the market. I have to really question my laziness though. In the past few weeks I finished projects that I had been slowly creeping up on for the last 6 years. For 6 years, I'd been showering in the basement from a shower head hanging off an I-beam! Now there is a real shower in the bathroom that matches the period style of the house. For about the last 3 years, my hallway had a mechanic's drop light hanging from the ceiling and wired into the switch.

Now that it's over, I'm proud of my work. It all looks great. I might even, just a little bit, regret that I won't be living in the house long and have the chance to enjoy them. I wonder if I should advertise that someone with OCD did all the updates? My work is better than that of some contractors I've seen.

Earlier today they put the last coat of polyurethene on the refinished floors at the new house. I should be able to start living there in 36 hours! Hopefully, I've learned my lesson and won't put projects off at the new place. We'll see.

I'll leave you with a recommendation for a Liguori Publications title that's a little more positive than tales of my cursing talents. The Christ-Centered Heart: Peaceful Living in Difficult Times by Rick Mathis, Ph.D. Maybe it's time that I go back to yoga class?

Peace,

P. Del Ricci - Dark Glass