A Wooden Tale

Friday, 24 February 2012

 Today, while sitting at the ice cream counter at the local soda shop (as Owen and I often do on Friday afternoons), he asked what we’d be doing tomorrow.

“Well,” I said, “I think you should guess.”

He just kind of looked off into space with a glazed six year-old look on his face. Predictably, he said he had no idea what we’d be doing.

“It’s something that we’ve done before on Saturday mornings,” I said.

He scratched the side of his face, but was still stumped.

“Do you want me to give you a clue?”

He jumped at this offer.

I thought for a second. “Goggles,” I said.

He looked me in the eyes as if to say, “I’m sorry but that’s just too cryptic.” He tried to think of an answer, but still came up empty-handed.

“Want another clue?”

He did.

“Apron,” I said.

He thought for a second, then said, “we’re gonna make pancakes!”

I laughed. “When have I ever made pancakes with you?” I told him I didn’t even know how to make pancakes, and then added, “And what in the world would we need goggles for?”

Owen realized the humor in this, and he laughed, too.

Then I gave him a final clue. “Lowe’s.”

That time, he got it.

Saturday, 25 February 2012

Before participating in the above activity this morning, Owen and I ran around the store collecting goods: a space heater, a circular saw, door hinges, and seven bolts of insulation. I planned to also purchase a humidifier, but they didn’t have the one we wanted.

So then, about an hour later, I needed to shove all of that stuff into my two-door Cavalier, while still allowing room for Owen and I to fit inside and drive safely.

Well, thanks to help from a friend who – along with his two sons – joined us at Lowe’s, I managed to squeeze everything in. This meant barely giving Owen the room he needed to shoehorn into the back seat, sitting on the trunk to get it closed, and foregoing any sort of ability to see out the left side of the vehicle. Fortunately, I routed a way home that necessitated only one non-controlled intersection left-hand turn.

In what was probably the most surprising moment of the weekend, Owen and I arrived home safely. I spent the next six hours cutting wood pieces for the ceiling in our workshop and subsequently installing insulation.

Man, that sucked.

Thankfully, the space heated performed excellently, so I wasn’t cold. Otherwise, though, I was miserable. Turns out, it’s best to have three hands when installing heavy wood sheets above my head. But I only have two. My in-laws suggested placing the wood pieces about the studs, but that only worked for a small portion of the garage, then the crossbeams got in the way. There was saw dust all over my face and clothing, and I had to recut a couple of pieces. Even worse, I sometimes had to remove a piece after installing it because I discovered I had nailed it in at a bad angle (and it’s tough to judge this while balancing it on my head and doing the nailing). Later, I rolled out the insulation, and this meant that nasty crap was bothering my eyes, nostrils, and hands all evening. I even tore open a three day-old wound in my left hand, so that was a nice touch.

Owen stayed out in the workshop with me most of the time. He kept me company and “helped.”

Sunday, 26 February 2012

Yeah, more of the same today.

At about 9:00 this morning, I drove to Home Depot to pick up the rest of the wood sheets I needed. I loaded them into my Cavalier and, while doing so, some lady woman walked by and laughed at me. She must’ve been thinking, “You’ll never fit those wood sheets in your little car.” Ha! Boy, if she only knew.

From 10:00 – 5:30 I was in the workshop. Owen again kept me company for most of the time. In the afternoon, Jennifer brought out a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich + a bottle of water. I brushed off the sawdust and fiberglass and gobbled up the comestibles. Jennifer also took a couple of BEFORE and AFTER pictures, to show how bad I am at installing a wood ceiling.

Sore and bruised, I hobbled into the house and took a shower, then gorged on dinner, and sat down to watch the Oscars.  As I predicted, The Tree of Life didn’t win anything, so that’s good.