Housework

HOUSEWORK


Being a single parent (in my case a single grand dad) it makes for two kinds of housework..
The normal wear and tear stuff like doing dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning for my Grandson and our two dogs, three cats, and two goldfish...
It doesn't seem like much, compared to what my Mom did with the same amount of pets and four kids...
And she did it with a smile...
Some people you just can't live up too...
It's harder for me I think cuz.....Cuz I want it to be part-time I guess..
I don't find a lot of fulfillment in it as a top priority in my life..
It's what I got to do, being a 'grown up' and a 'model' of a productive individual in the eyes of my Grandson...The luggage of parenting.
Things are a little better now though...After two years of off and on again remodeling around here we now have a kitchen sink again..
Yeah, two years before the mast of doing dishes in the bathtub...No wonder my back is wack..
I just got done with this one part of the house Shane (Grandson) and I designated 'the jungle room'...Theme rooms, that's us...We got jungle room, ocean room, music room, and no room actually finished..
Jungle room is a kind of sitting room that you have to pass through to get just about anywhere else in the house..
Anyway I fixed up jungle room pretty nice..I thought it was pretty nice anyway...I had to let Shane start sleeping in there cuz school has started and he's too hard to get up in the morning out of his usual habitat...He has a 25 foot camper trailer he lives in on the side.
I have to get up at 5am to get his ass to school by 7:30, and I got tired off banging on his trailer every morning in my underwear trying to wake him up...
24 hours after I got done fixing up jungle room and presented it to Shane, it became apparent there was a gorilla living there..
It's overwhelming working on this house...It was a fixer upper when I purchased it
twenty years ago...
I put a little money and time into it as economics and work schedules allow...
I do the work on the house myself...
Not cuz I am special...Just cuz I can't afford anybody to do it for me..
Oh, I've hired 'handymen'...I guess I just haven't hired any 'handy' handymen..
The last guy's favorite saying was "I am not in the right 'frame' of mind to work today"..
I started with the foundation of the house and worked my way up..
It's a post and tier foundation which has both pros and cons..
The good part is there is no slab to bust up in earthquakes..
The foundation flexes during those scary times and this type of foundation works really well because of it..
The problem with post and tier is the foundation tends to sag in spots as time marches on...This house was built in 1950 and when I moved in the sub structure was original...
The term 'plumb' does not apply...It's a nightmare in that regard...
The first month I spent more time under the house adding support to the main frame than I care to remember...I got to know the spiders living there on a first name bases..

Today I am pulling out a window and creating a door...I rip off some wood and everything comes to a grinding halt...Wasps...
Lots of Wasps...Pissed off too...What? I didn't knock first?...
Was I suppose to call ahead?
I grab the closest weapon at hand...It's the propane torch I use to weld water pipe..
No mercy.
Shane, is coming unglued.."Don't kill em Dad!"...
"Get real" I comment to him never averting my eyes from my prey..
Shane and I share a common value when it comes to other life..
Neither of us find any enjoyment in the destruction of the living..
However, he wasn't nearly as close to the action as I.
My Zen Buddhist lent evaporated promptly leaving in it's wake a murdering pyromaniac..."Redrum"..."Redrum."
"Just goes ta' show ya' that it's always somethin'." (Roseann Roseanna Danna) Probably not spelt right but what the hell..
That's how it is working on the house..
Everything takes eight hours..
Three steps backwards to get one step forward..
Tools..Always vanishing, and when they reappear, always six inches out of reach..
Measuring...A tape measure is the 'model' Plato speaks of...
Once you transform the model onto a piece of wood and cut it , the imperfection of the 'real' world becomes excruciatingly apparent.
Fasteners: Nails...Just cuz I am paranoid doesn't mean their not all out to get me.
Drywall screws...I can't hold onto a drywall screw with a glove on...Even with the good gloves you can pick up a dime with..
Got to hold it with bare fingers...A the end of the day theres so much metal embedded in my fingers...Edward Scissorhands comes to mind..
I got to hold down the tendency to make 'short cuts'...Like drywall taping...It's a three step process and it's supposed to take three days to do it right..
This is where the practicing Zen really comes in handy...
I can't let my brain start thinking about all the stuff I'd rather be doing...
Got to 'be' the drywall mud...Got to 'be' the sander...
Trust me that's not the hard part...
After sanding that shit for 5 minutes there is so much drywall dust caked to my head and face 'I am' the drywall mud..
It gets complicated working on the place and living in it at the same time..While I am fixing up the bathroom the kid is shooting bee bee bullets into the ceiling of the bedroom I haven't done yet...
I guess he figures it's fine cuz dad has to redo this room anyway..
The dogs and cats...The spoiled dogs and cats..
Dogs have to lay down right where I am working, so I am tripping over them all day...
The cats think they are County Building Inspectors...
Always on the job..
I wish somebody would tell them they are suppose to wait till I call them to come out..
The phone is a constant interruption...
Honestly, doesn't anyone write letters anymore?
I don't know, I try to be rude, I try to tell em I am busy, they just keep calling back...
Ain't I the popular one....Too bad it's always bill collectors...
Then there is this...Blogging...It's like a fisherman's wife....Keeps bugging me..."You should be writing"..."You should be writing"...When I give up and start writing the other wife starts in..."You should be making music"..."You should be making music"..
So, yeah, I usually do three or four things at the same time..
That's a strength isn't it?...They call it able to perform multi-concurrent activities?
Whoops....I checked the spelling and there is no such word as muti-concurrent...
I guess it's just me then...