Monday, July 26, 2010

Home Improvement with my Homies

Crazy stuff happened in home improvement land this weekend.

1. The troops once again descended onto our homestead to help us with our shenanigans. Biogirl and Delium clocked in umpteen hours working on that mothereffer of a house of ours. Best. Friends. Ever. I really love those guys so much.

2. Delium, Biogirl and I went into the backyard to mess with the eaves of our house, which was one of the many projects underway. When we went back there, we left Nordic Boy with a big hole where the exterior wall of our house once was. A chunk had been taken out there, for reasons that are too long to explain. When we took a water break an hour later? There was a fricking wall there. A beautifully framed out, wall of perfection. Right there. That Nordic Boy effing made by hisself. SO FAST. The three of us had barely gotten ourselves set up at that point. It's good that he is so understated because that shit could start to get show-offy after a while.

3. Nordic Boy has a pair of vintage 50's safety glasses. I LOVE THEM. I am sort of jealous of them, actually. This weekend, I got to wear them. I felt like a cross between a mad scientist and Milton the Stapler Guy.



4. There were three ladders in use all weekend, plus one large bucket that was being used as a stepstool. The four of us were going up and down these ladders every five minutes like we were moles in that Whack a Mole game. At one point someone started to sing a background song, and we all agreed that we could pitch our ladder choreography to Cirque du Soleil as an addition to their show. Granted we were all punchy and semi-dehydrated at that point of the day, but at the time it seemed entertaining to us.

5. Delium did an unfortunate ladder dance (similar to a pole dance) on top of one of the ladders at one point, which my elderly neighbor Maggie just might have witnessed. Hopefully she was enticed, rather than weirded out.

6. When Nordic Boy and I first met when I was a teeny tiny teenager baby 19 years of age, he worked at a big fancy theatre. He was like the Doogie Howser of set carpentry then- this young guy in charge of making sets and in charge of crews of people twice his age. I was in awe of him and his talent and although I was totally intimidated by him, I hid it well (ACTING!) and confidently talked to him. As an intern, I was assigned to help him work for a time, and I remember the first thing he taught me how to do was to use a chalk line. This weekend, I was helping him at one point, and we busted out that chalk line again. He held one end and I held the other, and when he said "you want to snap it, or should I?" I looked across at him and my stomach flipped a little. It sort of blew my mind that we were here, so many years later, working on our home together. It really does seem like a few days ago that I was trying to get him to eat lunch with me at that theater.

Look at me, feeling the romance over a chalk line. Shut up, I'm tired, ok?

2 comments:

Claire said...

ah the chalk line, we still use that in our theatre group, an age old craft that only special people are allowed to know and understand :) I have to say though I am totally intrigued, you've knocked a wall down, built a new one, and doing something in the eaves...do we get to see the final result?

The Maiden Metallurgist said...

Aw shucks.