Weekend commuting

Last night we went to a dinner theater in Alexandria, VA called the Birchmere to see the Queer Queens of Comedy. This is the 2nd year for this show at the Birchmere, but the first time AJ and I have ever attended. If you have never seen this show I would recommend it. The comedians for our show were Poppy Chaplin, Julie Goldman and Vickie Shaw. All three comedians were hilarious. Julie Goldman explaining her trip to get fitted for a bra at Victoria’s Secret and Vickie Shaw’s stories about her granddaughter and her partner, Sgt Patch, were the funniest parts, I thought.

I am glad we went, but if this show hadn’t been a surprise for a dear friend's birthday, I don’t know if we would have made the trek. We have gotten into quite a rut on weekends, just hanging around the house and being lazy, and I know we should try and do more and seize the day, as the Marine’s say, but sometimes it seems to take so much effort.

Take this show in Alexandria, for example. Even with the show starting at 7:30 p.m., AJ would never be able to come home after work, shower and change, and then be able to travel back north to Alexandria to arrive in time… and that is assuming traffic cooperates… a big, big, big if.

So if we want to ride to and from the show together in one car, I have to get up early Saturday morning and drive AJ to work, (about an hour), drop her off, come back home (another hour), run normal weekend errands, return to pick AJ up from work in the afternoon (an hour), take her to a nearby friend’s house where she can shower and change, and then drive from our friend’s house to the theater (you guessed it… another hour). Lots of hours driving back and forth, which we do every day going back and forth to work. And it was raining, large heavy buckets, in the afternoon, thanks to Hurricane Bill. Ugh.

But I guess it is our fault for moving further south from where all of our friends are located and we do miss them all and enjoy seeing them. It is too easy to say maybe next weekend, or next month and soon we don’t see anyone because of traffic, weather, time, or any other excuse. And they all do make the effort to come down and see us when they can. So I guess I will stop my whining because I did enjoy myself once we got there. I will just have to keep that in mind the next time I am tempted to decline an invitation.

My week, or so, of reading - Aug 22, 2009

Even though my week of reading began with an unfortunate, and hopefully (visual: hands clasped, eyes raised heavenward) temporary technical difficulties :-) , I "galloped" through some other books that were on my reading wish list:

Teacher Man – Frank McCoart
This is a memoir about a man of Irish descent who teaches high school English in NYC for 30 years. I really enjoyed this book, although not as much as his first memoir, Angela’s Ashes. I listened to this book it an audible format, read by the author in his Irish Brogue was wonderful. I wonder how many people with an interest in becoming teachers are dissuaded from that profession after reading this book. If nothing else, it makes me appreciate all the more the important work that teachers do. I wonder what it would have been like to have had this man as an English teacher. Pretty amazing I bet.

After I finished this book, I looked the author up online and found out Mr. McCoart died on July 19th of this year. He was 78. If his books are any indication, he had an extraordinary life. I am glad he had a chance to write about it.

Wrong Turns by Jackie Calhoun
This was a story about a woman who has been divorced 8 years, has 2 teenaged children, and finds herself attracted to a woman while a different woman is attracted to her. I wasn’t sure while I was reading this book if I enjoyed it, but after I finished I realized I enjoyed the plot and the book but I wasn’t sure if I liked the main character. (See additional review ** Note Spoiler Alert ** below).

Secrets in the Stone by Radclyffe
When I first started reading this book I thought it was a sequel to Passion’s Bright Fury, which I really enjoyed, but it is not, although it briefly discusses some of the characters from that book. Radclyffe has written many books, and I generally enjoy her stories, even though they are generally more sexually explicit than most. Not that those descriptions are a bad thing! :-) This author is very good at building the romantic tension in the plot, and she doesn’t disappoint in this novel, however, there were vague, never quite explained psychic, supernatural? elements in the book. Even with that, though, the story kept me interested, until, towards the end, it seemed as if the author ran out of energy, which resulted, for me, in a disappointing ending.

Triplanetary by – E.E. "Doc" Smith
This is a science fiction classic that was originally written in 1934 for a science fiction magazine called Amazing. Later, the author revised this book and it became the first of a series of six books called the Lensmans series. According to Wikipedia, this 1934 version I read is quite a bit different that the revised version that was rewritten in 1948. I guess I will have to read that one to find out.

To me, this book was part Star Trek, part James Bond and part Wild Wild West (remember that TV show?), and yet, was written before all three. It was interesting to read what the author had imagined would be inventions in the future, after some of those inventions have sort of been created. This work is called a Space Opera, which is described by Wikipedia as a romantic science fiction saga, similar to Star Wars.

As a note, this was the first book that I downloaded from Project Gutenberg, which is a website that offers free classic books, most of which have expired copyrights in the United States- see the link on the sidebar. These books can be downloaded in .txt, ePub, Html, or Mobi formats and most have no restrictions on how you use them. I guess 20,000 should keep me reading for awhile :-)

Julie & Julia – Julie Powell
I listened to this as an audio book, which was narrated by the author. I really enjoyed this book, not because I have any interest in French cooking, but because I really enjoyed the author’s thought process. Her comparisons between life and cooking were very funny and really kept me interested, especially since I had no idea where she could possibly be heading. The author also created some interesting new cooking terms, like "bitch rice". Although I really want to see the movie, I rarely pay ripoff theater prices, so I will probably wait for it to come out as a rental. Besides, it is very rare that I will enjoy a movie as much as a book, so if I paid an exorbitant price for a movie I would feel even more disappointed.



*****SPOILER ALERT *******
Wrong Turns by Jackie Calhoun
As I said above, I wasn’t sure when I read the book if I liked the main character, Callie. She seemed selfish and that she used people, like Vicki, and she seems to also be used herself by Meg. But the other unusual thing about this book, though, was that it was written like the lesbian romances were written about 10 years ago. I had to look at the copyright date to make sure it was a recent work. Not that I think that is a bad thing. In fact the newer lesbian romances seem to completely ignore the fact that in most areas of this country being gay is considered by the majority to be unusual and worthy of ridicule. The comment by Callie’s father “Well, at least we got our grandkids first” was an example of a statement I expect to find in older lesbian romances than in recent novels. In the newer romances, it seems almost assumed that the new lesbian couple will have children as a couple, but in this work, this was not an considered as an option. In fact, Callie and Vicki, after they finally did get together, apparently never do tell Callie’s teenaged kids, for fear the children’s father, who has since remarried, will take at the younger child away. However, the couple assumes the children probably know something is up, since the girlfriend stays overnight at the house a lot. At the end of the book the two women discuss the purchase of a house. They decide that they will tell everyone, for now, that they are purchasing the house for economic reasons, as opposed to being a couple, until the children are older. How unlike the modern lesbian romance, but also, unfortunately, true in reality for many women, still, in 2009.

This story is a little more realistic and less idealistic, with respect to relationships, than most lesbian romances, but in the end, that is precisely what I most enjoyed about this book and why I plan to read more of this author’s works.

Eye Tricks

In the beginning of May, I went with AJ and some friends to NYC for the weekend. My friend took this photo, mostly because of the dog, while we were walking around one night but we didn't know any of the people in the picture. I really liked this photo, and so, for the past 4 months I have had it as the background picture on my computer.

Well last night I got to looking at my computer screen, and all of a sudden I realized that I never knew what I had been looking at.

You see, I thought this was a picture of a blond-haired woman sitting on a stool looking at someone to her left. But last night, I realized it is actually a dark- haired woman who is looking to her right and up, probably at a TV.

And I have been looking at this photo every day for the past 4 months! I can't believe it took me this long to really see what was in it.

But then again, I never was very good at those 3d picture puzzles that you have to stare at cross-eyed to make an image pop out from the background.

Is it just me?

89 years ago

89 years ago today, the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, which guaranteed women the right to vote.

The Presidential election held in November 1920 was the first election that all women in all states were allowed to go to the polls and vote.

When I was born, women had only had the right to vote for 41 years, and in fact, both of my grandmother’s were born before women had obtained that right.

Sometimes I think about how different my life would have been if I had only been born 2 generations earlier. In fact, 1 generation earlier probably wouldn’t have been much better.

I was born into a working class family that existed barely above the poverty level. When I was born, college was not considered important for working class families, even for boys and especially not an option worth the expense for a girl. In my family, women were expected to get married, have children and stay at home and attend to their husband’s every need, while the husband went off to “make a living”. I was born into a family where a stay at home mother was considered the norm, and a woman who worked outside the home was considered a disgrace, since it was assumed the husband could not properly support his family. A wife’s daily activities were considered lesser than the husbands and not as difficult as “going out in the world to work everyday”.

I was born into a culture in which alcohol and violence went hand in hand and were generally accepted, and regardless of the physical or emotional abuse, it was always considered better for a woman to be married than divorced. A woman with no job, no driver’s license, no higher education, and small children, was a man’s ticket to be whatever type of person he chose to be… the wife was never going to leave him.

Even worse was a daughter who did not get married at all. She was considered a burden, since she would never be able to earn enough to take care of herself and move out of her parents home. And to be a gay woman in a working class family just barely above the poverty level… incomprehensible.

I can’t fault my parents for their attitudes. That was the way it had been for their parents, and that was how it was in our neighborhood and in our social class. The public schools I attended did not offer much hope either. I remember when I met with the school guidance counselor, who happened to be a male, he took one look at me and acted as if my appointment with him was a waste of his time. He was a 30 something, cocky, I-know-all-you-high-school-girls-love-me, ladies man. He was not very hopeful about my chances for attending college. Full scholarships were not something offered to women very often, and with my grades and lack of athletic ability… well…. And since my parents refused to cosign a student loan because they didn’t want to be “on the hook for something I would never repay”, the counselor just didn’t see how college would be possible. He suggested I consider more realistic options. He never explained what those options would be, because we only had 30 minutes and his next appointment arrived early. I didn’t like him and I never went back. Unfortunately, he was the only guidance counselor in the school.

In spite of all that, or maybe because of all that, I found a way to get my degree anyway. I was extraordinarily lucky, even in my era, but it was only possible because I seized some of the opportunities offered to women beginning with my generation.

I shudder when I think about how close I came to living the life presumed to be my future. My parents have told me many times over the past several years how proud they are of me, and how they misjudged my determination. They honestly just couldn’t see how I could be happy any other way. In the end, I guess it all worked out.

But every year, on the anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, I remember how brave women (and some men, too) committed themselves for a woman’s right to vote, thus beginning that slow evolution that eventually culminated in educational and economic opportunities for me many years later. I have been truly blessed, many times in my life, to have had the opportunity to benefit from their struggle and commitment.

Drowning in Passwords

Today I spent another 15 minutes that I will never get back trying to find a password. This time it was to log onto my account with my medical provider to check the results of a routine medical test. Why can’t they just call and leave a message on my voice mail? No, instead they send an email with a link that I have to click and then it asks my password. Of course I couldn’t remember it.

Why?

Because I have a gazillion passwords, that’s why! At work alone I have to use at least 6 passwords. You would think I worked at a high security facility (NOT!!!). And then I have to change each one of them every 3 months. And the IT folks frown on making all 6 the same password! So every 3 months I have to create 6 new passwords just to have access to my work!

Then there are the passwords I have to remember for to access my salary and benefits info, a separate password for retirement balances, another to enter my time and attendance, yet another if I want to file a form with human resources, and two for online training courses. I need a password to request reimbursement for health care expenses and I need 3 passwords to file my taxes… one for the IRS, one to register and open the software that I have to use to file the taxes, and a third to actually buy the software itself!

Nowadays, I can’t check my bank balance without a password. I pay everything online – which I will admit is much more convenient that mailing, but still, another password. I can’t check my balance on my car, my house, my credit cards, or my utility bills without a password. Oh yeah, they will send you a statement by snail mail, but then you have to worry about identity theft so these companies convince you it is safer to do everything online. Maybe, but unfortunately, more passwords.

Then there are the email passwords, the personal and business related travel reservation passwords, and different passwords for each hotel, car rental and airline that I use. Each computer we own, as well as the anti-virus software on each, has a password. Our cable service provider and the secure wireless router have different passwords. Netflix and Itunes have passwords.

If I want to read most newspapers online, I need a password. If I want to order flowers, fruit or send a birthday greeting online, I need a password. If I want to buy clothing from a department store website I need a password.

If I want to check my credit score, order a book from the library, look up the score for a college football game, buy tickets to a concert, look up what classes are being offered this month at my gym, or make camping reservations, I need a password.

To order cheese danish, flower bulbs, photos, eBooks, stamps, work uniforms, or spa chemicals online, I need a password. To find out the results of our pet’s tests at the veterinarian, we have to log online with a password. I need a password to look up my reward points for purchases made with my credit card.

Submitting online resumes for a new job requires lots and lots of passwords.

And now finally, I have a password for Blogger.

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SECRET QUESTIONS!!!! Ugh!!!

And I know you all probably know about all of this because if you are reading this you probably have a lot of passwords too.

I just had the need to vent.

And finally, the photo below…. we are not here yet, but soon….

Dental Question

Today I had to get my teeth cleaned and found out my dentist retired last month. I was introduced to my new dentist, who seemed very nice, and a woman, in fact, but she seemed so young.

Don't dentists have to graduate from high school anymore?

My Entertainment Week in Review - Aug 11, 2009

This past week had bad traffic and lots of overtime for AJ, which meant I got much more time to read than usual. This week I read 3 books and watched an excellent movie.

The first book, The Crown of Valencia by Catherine Friend was a sequel to The Spanish Pearl. I enjoy reading this author. Like all of her books, you never know in advance exactly how it will end, even if it is a romance. This book is about a woman who travels back in time to the 11th century in Spain. But, unfortunately, a good romance is a hard act to follow in a sequel. Because it was a sequel, the story seemed to slow down somewhat in the middle, but it was interesting, if not a little educational, since I never knew much about Spain during this time period. The story picked up towards the end for a nice finish. I enjoyed The Spanish Pearl more, though, than this book.

The second book I read was Stranded by Blayne Cooper. This is a very, very funny romantic comedy about two women stranded in a jungle with a third much younger woman. This is a very fast moving story and again, kept me guessing until the very end. This is the first book I have read by this author, but she has written many and I plan on reading more.

The third book was an audible book named Daddy’s Girl by Lisa Scottoline. This is a book about a law professor who is accused of a crime she did not commit. The heroine has had quite a few near death and violent experiences, which at times brings out my “aww, come on” voice, but it did have a bit of a surprise ending.

Finally, since we didn’t have much planned on Sunday, we watched a movie on Sunday that we rented from Netflix called The Station Agent. This is a 2003 movie about a friendship that develops between a dwarf, a woman artist whose son died, and a young boisterous hot-dog vendor. A chick flick, for sure, but I thought it was very well acted and a wonderful feel good story.

My ratings:
The Crown of Valencia by Catherine Friend – 3
Stranded by Blayne Cooper – 4
Daddy’s Girl by Lisa Scottoline - 3

Rating between 1-5 with 5 being the best. See more detailed description in sidebar.

New Toy

AJ wanted to go bike shopping yesterday. She said she was just going to look. As soon as she saw this bike though, and rode it around the parking lot, I knew we weren't shopping anymore. She made a valiant effort, almost walked out the door without buying, but then the salesman told her it was on sale, and the last one, and the bike shop was local...


It even has a bell, I joked with her, and it tinkles!

She said that is for when I want to ride it. :-)

It is a Trek lightweight hybrid. I had a hard enough time keeping up with her on her mountain bike. I'll never be able to keep up now...

Yard chores

Friday night we decided it was time to mow the yard. We hadn’t mowed for a couple weeks, but the Zoysia grass hadn’t been growing that fast in the summer’s heat so it really wasn’t that tall. However, since no one has disturbed the peace in our yard for awhile, Mother Nature’s creatures apparently decided our little slice of suburbia would be an excellent site for an extended stay. And a few came out to greet us.

Whenever we work on the yard, I mow and AJ weedwacks. I can’t ever get the weedeater to work right. It always seems to run out of the plastic string and even though I bounce it off the ground repeatedly, it always seems like the string either jams up on me or runs out too quick. Fortunately, AJ does not like mowing that much since the back yard is quite steep, so our lawn assignments are well established.

Our normal routine is that she edges the lawn before I mow, but she got a little behind (she had to respool the weedeater, of course). So I was trying to mow as close as I could to the house, flowerbeds, neighbors fence, etc., so she wouldn’t have as much to do.

As I started to mow down the hill on the west side of the house I noticed a small brown snake, about 6 inches long, not much larger around than a nightcrawler, slithering away. “Go down the hill, little fella”, I muttered. I was proud of myself because I wasn’t afraid of a snake. I congratulated myself on being so open to nature’s diversity, thinking that if my neighbor had been nearby that snake would have been a goner. I mowed for awhile, up and down the hill, and finally got close to the house. AJ had restarted the weedeater again, but still had not edged this side of the house.

We use green plastic gutter guards to channel the water away from the house. They sit on the ground underneath the gutters and we pick them up as we mow, and then replace them when we are finished. We are pretty careful when we pick these up (I always try to wear gloves), because we tend to have a lot of black widow or brown recluse spiders that like to make a home underneath. Knowing that, I usually try to make sure there are no spiders on the bottom of the plastic.


So, while holding the lawnmower handle with my right hand (it was still running), I bent over to pick up the gutter guard with my left. As I picked it up I was looking for spiders, but something didn’t look right. There was a lot of black. I bent down to look closer. The lawnmower still running. AJ was coming up behind me. All I could make out was lot of black, and it was shiny, and coiled and oh shit!!! It was a frickin’ snake!! I let go of the lawnmower, which has a safety feature that makes it stop as soon as the handle is released, and I jumped back. AJ stopped edging and let go of the trigger for the weedeater, and that stopped too. And then everything seemed really quiet, except my heartbeat in my ear, which was beating as fast as the 1960's Surfaris' Wipeout drum solo. AJ and I both looked at the snake and none of us moved (including the snake) in what seemed like forever.

I have learned since living in Virginia, and this house in particular, that black snakes are not poisonous and they eat a lot of mice. So I do not mind if they are in the yard, but preferably out of my sight. So this snake scared me initially because it was so unexpected, but after I settled down, which I admit took more than a few minutes, I just wanted him to move so I could mow. Well he, the snake, (I am randomly assigning him a gender), decided in order to escape he was going to climb up the foundation of the house. “Oh no,” I think, “don’t do that.” To me, a snake climbing up the house is really creepy. I step towards him, and that makes him come off the house and then slither to the left, towards the street. Well, I didn’t want him to go in that direction either and get run over by the traffic. If he would just turn right he could go down the hill into the woods. So I stepped forward again and tried to coax him down the hill. Here I was, shooing a snake, something I never would have considered before moving into this house. Anyway, he rears up and acts like he is not very happy with my shooing and I think, “OK buddy, have it your way.” But then, fortunately, he turns around, and slithers along the side of the house down the hill. Please don’t go under the hot tub.

But that was the last I saw of him. AJ said he was only about 3 feet long, but coiled up he sure looked much larger than that to me.

So I finished mowing with no more major wildlife encounters. But later, when we were getting ready for bed, AJ mentioned she saw a third snake while she was edging. This snake fled into one of the flower beds near the deck. She said it was brown and possibly had Copperhead markings, so if I planned on pulling weeds in that area this weekend I should be careful in case the snake was still there.

Great.

Ever have one of those kind of days?

In our local newspaper there was an article about a 45 year old guy who was taking his very first kayaking lesson down a river. During the lesson, the weather turned nasty and it started to rain. The trainee and his instructor moved to the shore, trying to beat the storm, but just as the trainee was getting out of the kayak he got hit by lightning on his hip. The lightning traveled through his body and out his legs and one arm, paralyzing those limbs, and burning his swim shorts right off. It burned everything but the elastic waistband! Yikes!! Fortunately he had on his life preserver. The instructor was not hurt.

The instructor pulls the trainee up onto the muddy bank and then leaves to go get help. The poor guy starts slipping back into the water, so he has to use his one good arm (imagine one good arm!!!) to pull himself back up, grabbing onto anything he can to get back up on shore. Eventually, he pulls himself back up and waits for help, but later finds out he has been dragging himself through poison ivy. Damn! Help soon arrives and the paralysis in his legs and arm eventually subsides. After several weeks he fully recovers.

The man told the reporter that the worst part of the whole experience was the rash from the poison ivy. I’ll bet!

I love this story. It reminds me that no matter what kind of absolutely crummy day I am having, I could be stranded with only one working limb on a slippery bank of poison ivy, hopefully in my underwear, and not just a charred elastic band of rubber around my waist.




Note to Self: Never wear a thong while kayaking.

>Full Article

The Screamer

Ok. So my theory about vigorous exercise is not working, but I refuse to take pills, so something else has gotta give. I feel like such an old woman fanning myself all of the time. It could have something to do with today's outside temperature – 97 degrees with what felt like 100% humidity. I went to the gym at lunch just to take a cold shower. That’s one way to get to the gym, eh? Of course I felt foolish not exercising first.

And then there were the hot flashes when I was on the commuter bus. But that could be partially explained by the big guy sitting next to me leaning sideways, almost into my lap, as he nodded off to sleep...

But this morning I had a terrible thought that it is possible, Goddess help me, that caffeine may be triggering these internal heat waves. Could that be it? Should I give up caffeine? Could I survive no morning coffee? Ever again? (Insert big gulp here.) Could AJ survive me with no morning coffee? Hmmm... are there patches for kicking the caffeine habit?

And then last night AJ mentioned that she was hot and sweaty and then cold the night before, and she didn’t sleep very well. That is very unusual for her. Holy Mother of the Sun Goddess, this cannot be happening! I want to be finished with all my hot flash drama before hers kicked in. I thought it was a deal I made with our bodies: I would go through this first, learn all the ins and outs, suffer, be shitty and AJ would be calm and listen to me rant and put up with my sweating and moods, but eventually I would be done with it, ready to help her get through it herself. It was a good plan. It still is my plan. Have I mentioned I am a planner?

What are the flippin’ chances that we both start perimenopause at 47? No frickin’ way. I think something freaky is in the water.

I am praying our thrill ride, “The Screamer”, has not just pulled away from the gate. I haven’t had the chance to secure all of my loose items…

Unintended Consequences

I never look forward to Mondays, but I thought today would probably be a fairly light traffic day since the Governor of Virginia designated today as Telecommuting Day. Although neither one of us could do it, I thought a lot of other commuters would decide to take advantage of the opportunity to work from home. Mondays are usually the lightest traffic day of the week, but that is not saying much for Northern Virginia. But with everyone working at home, and it being a Monday, I was planning for smooth sailing up I95.

Well… it didn’t turn out that way, at least for the first 25 miles from our house to the nearest commuter bus stop. It wasn't the worst, but a lot more traffic than we expected. Fortunately there were no accidents. But then the bus was standing room only, even in the morning, which usually only happens on Friday afternoons or the day before a holiday. Then I realized there were probably more people that had to drive themselves into work today than usual since their riding buddies (fellow carpoolers or vanpoolers) were staying home. A vanpool can hold up to 15 people. It takes 3 people to get on the High Occupancy Vehicle (faster) lanes. So if most of the people in the van (particularly the drivers) decided they were going to telecommute, there still may have been a few people on the van that had to find their own way to work. So taking 1 van off the road may have put 2 or more vehicles back on, and in the slower lanes! Of course, once these displaced riders traveled the 25 miles to the nearest commuter lot they could ride the bus, but that would make the bus more crowded than usual.

The bus I rode this morning seemed to be as crowded today as when the price of gas cost over $4 per gallon. To save money, more people started using public transportation. The buses, subways and trains were jam- packed and really couldn’t handle the extra demand. Just when it seemed like everything was going to collapse, the price of gas started to go down. So now that gas prices are down to around $2.30, the buses are not so crowded. Except for today. But the difference is that those people that rode the bus today probably were already in a vanpool or carpool; people that ride the bus because of a spike in the gas prices usually drive to work alone if they can afford it.

I enthusiastically support telecommuting and public transportation. I just wish the public transportation system could handle the demand when commuters actually use it. And I am not sure that a statewide Telecommuting Day resulted in a net reduction in the number of vehicles on the road today.

Now where did I put that soapbox ladder… I need to get down…

Nice Legs, Lady

That is what I was thinking as I was bike riding behind AJ this morning. Must be all that walking she does every day. It doesn’t matter how much running I do, I will never have legs that look like that. I am so jealous. But at least I get to look at them, which may be better than having them myself. I made sure she stayed in front, even though she has the rear-view mirror on her bike. She usually wants to stay in the back so she can announce if a car is behind us getting ready to pass, but the road wasn’t too busy this morning, and we could ride on bike trails part of the time. The route we rode today had more hills than our usual route. Our initial plan had been to transport the bikes to the county forest, which is about 15 miles away, and ride the mostly level trails there. That was what we did last Sunday. We had a picnic brunch after our ride and we really enjoyed ourselves. But the weather service was calling for thunderstorms and severe weather by midmorning today, so we decided to ride closer to the house. It was fun, and, like I said, watching those calf muscles powering up the hills was quite motivating. :-) We timed it perfectly, too, because we rode for about an hour and then as soon as we got home it started to rain. A hard soaking rain. We ate breakfast and since it was still raining we decided it would be a good day to clean the house. But first, a midmorning nap. So that is what we did.

It was a wonderful Sunday. A little exercise, a nice clean house, a nap. Now we are ready for Monday.

Caution! This book will self destruct.

I finished reading the book Hit by a Farm, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn, by Catherine Friend. I really enjoyed this book which is a true story about two lesbians who have been together about 12 years when they decide to start a sheep farm. It is told from the point of view of the author, who agreed to help her partner start a farm, even though she would rather write children's books and novels. Although the book is about the couple’s creation of the farm, it was the relationship and interaction between the women that I found the most interesting.

AJ hasn’t read this book yet, but I am not looking forward to it when she does. In the book, the author mentions that when the couple built their farmhouse, they did not finish the basement. The couple planned on finishing it themselves, at less cost, as time permitted. Every so often in the book the author mentions work on the basement, but never gives any details. It is assumed, I guess, that the basement turned out all right and did, in fact, cost much less to do themselves. I suppose if you are raising sheep, chickens, geese and starting a vineyard, refinishing a basement would be no big deal.

We too had our house built, and at the time made the same decision that someday we would finish the basement ourselves, thinking that overall it would be cheaper. I agreed at the time, but that was over 7 years ago, before we embarked on several exhausting, back-breaking, need more tools/equipment/machinery, nothing ever goes right the first time, home improvement projects.

First it is the tools. We have a lot of tools and they fill our garage, but I know, as soon as this project starts, none of them will suffice. Our neighbors come to us if they need tools. "Why don’t we borrow from them," I asked AJ once. Apparently no one buys tools but us.

And then there is the time. Not the time you plan, the time you don’t plan. Because no project, no matter how small, will only take a few minutes. 30 minute projects generally take no less than 2 hours, and the time for larger projects tends to increase exponentially. Do I sound cynical? Sorry but I have fallen into the: this won’t be that hard or take very long, lets just take a self-help class at Home Depot, anyone can do it, home improvement project trap more than once.

But the biggest obstacle I see is the county home inspections. At least 3, if not more, inspections. As soon as the inspectors find out the homeowner is doing the work themselves, (and not hiring a contractor), the inspections get more intense. And, if the inspectors learn that 2 women are doing most of the work, I suspect even more scrutiny. And the construction code is difficult to follow and changes from year to year. Even if your neighbors installed something a certain way in their basement last year, this year installation in that manner may not be accepted by the inspectors. For example, when our sunroom needed to be replaced last year after a tornado (maybe a future blog post), we had to have an inspection of the wood deck before the sunroom could be reinstalled back onto it. This deck comes off the kitchen, and is about 9 feet above ground level. It was bolted to the house on a ledger board and then had four 6x6 inch posts to support it. It was built in 2003 and passed inspection. When the F2 tornado came through in 2008 it never budged. Everything else flew away, including the sunroom and all the furniture inside, but the deck remained standing rock solid. Well... according to the inspector, before we could replace the sunroom, we would now need to install 2 more 6x6 inch posts to support the deck, in addition to the 4 posts that were already installed because the deck had never been bolted correctly to the ledger board on the house the first time. And this was the same inspector that passed the deck back in 2003! We were fortunate in 2 ways: (1) I wasn't there when the inspector came up with this bit of insight, and (2) the insurance policy covered the additional cost.

I agree in principle with county inspections and the need for safety, but sometimes it seems like such a racket.

Besides, neither tools, time or inspectors will likely deter AJ. Once she reads the part about the basement, she will insist that if they could do it, then we can do it. I will counter that they did a lot of things that surely she would never attempt, like lifting a 9 foot tall fuel tank into the air with a bucket-loader just to turn it around. I suspect she will look at me over her glasses and smile dreamily. She has fantasies about owning a small bucket-loader, riding lawn mower, snow-blower (in Virginia?), and other gasoline-powered, preferably sit-and-ride types of machinery. Fortunately none of them will fit in the overstuffed garage. Oh yeah, and we don't need them. But given the opportunity, she would have tried lifting that tank in a mid-western minute. And I would have been her nervous assistant.

I thank the Sun Goddess that we don’t live closer to that sheep farm in Minnesota.

And I need to hide the book.