The Stuff of Life

Spring is arriving in fits and starts.  We had more winter in March and more summer in April than I remember in a while.  Rain.  Lots of it, but none giving us danger as others are experiencing.  It replenishes the water table, so I'm not complaining.

There is much in the news these last two days. Everyday we read of regrettable acts and tragic consequences.  Sadly, it is the stuff of life.  A result of our DNA that is no less caustic now than in any other point in history.  We merely have more deadly tools in which to carry out misguided actions borne of irrational thought and unfettered anger.  Grist for the ever turning millstone of the news.

As I was driving to work, my thoughts turned to "Christmas Letters".  Long, and narrow margined to fit all that is possible to experience in a year on a single page, they communicate all that is good in their lives:  trips, grandchildren, promotions, new cars, new homes...the list is endless.

I've never written a Christmas letter--but understand that I do somewhat the same in this space--though my intent is not to espouse all that is good in my life, nor to is it to air my dirty laundry.  I do have occasional soapbox moments.  One must, afterall, keep the glutes in shape.

The only joyful news in tragic events is the heroic responses from ordinary people.  It is a reminder that the flex of that DNA muscle is quick and strong. It reacts reflexively to such events.  Would that we have a lower threshold to invoke such action.  It is after all the small acts everyday that add up to something big--kindness and exercise share that efficacy of results.

I often ask job applicants what they would want remembered of them when they die.  Some look at me as if I'm crazy to advance the premise that they will die.  That is a given.  But our crafting of our lives in the time between birth and death is uniquely ours to do.  Yes, I'm feeling reflective--not morose.  I have a spectrum of books that have fallen into my circle of intentional reading that are stirring latent feelings and thoughts.  Shipler's, The Working Poor:  Invisible in America.  Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save; K. Sri Dhammananda's Why Worry?; Swami Vivekananda's Bhakti Yoga, and from that my ordering all volumes of his work.  I suppose what I'm really grappling with is a larger, broader moral/ethical standard that transcends currently accepted standards. 

 If you want an 'overview' of Singer's The Life You Can Save, you can listen to him here.

So, I'm working on my epitaph--and processing things a bit differently than was is culturally accepted which means no one in my life would really understand this.  But ultimately, the only way to express this process is that I would like to raise an awareness that writing a Christmas letter filled with and centered on what has been accomplished, earned, enjoyed etc, but rather how did you sacrifice and who did you help--and with a real reflection on how more could be done.  And the test of having truly arrived is to not send the letter---as selfless acts cease to become selfless if we wish to garner praise for them.

We no more "deserve" the bounty of life than others "deserve" the parsimony of life.  I believe that is a fact and not an opinion, and accordingly I'm trying to do a little life recalibration to reflect that belief.


Motors and Mountains



Motors and mountains combine for great fun for male gladiators on dirt bikes. The men folk have gone to West VA for their spring-time Hatfield and McCoy dirt bike ride.  I always worry about injury and the like.  Phone calls from weary, but still excited husband allay concerns and then give the highlights.

Highlights are generally in the categories of (1) injuries; (2) near misses; (3) didn't miss but survived it; (4) the splendor of nature; (5) the demands of the trail.

This year, there is a 6th highlight--the first time husbando said in a voice that was weary from #5 on the list, "I'm not in very good shape."  Time to break out the mountain bikes.  His passion for meeting the demands of the trail without feeling like an old man (he will be 58 this year), will inspire his working out.  My jealousy in seeing the very fit and not-too-much-younger-than-me Helen Hunt in
"The Sessions" should inspire me!  The movie itself was an inspiration on many levels.  Not only was the film a reminder of the abundance and generosity of spirit that exists in all of us, but also how the most basic of human experiences--sexual intimacy--is taken for granted by those of us who have experienced it.  Of course we can add walking, talking, seeing, hearing, thinking, breathing, eating and elimination to that, as there are many who are deprived of the easy experience of these things if at all. 

There was a #3--my son's bike fell into some watery hole and water was sucked into the engine.  More than two hours later and mechanical wizardry on the part of several got the motor dried out.  It needed to be pulled to get started--a feat overzealously undertaken by a fellow rider on a four wheeler.  He was pulling far too fast than my son was comfortable with.  Son bailed; bike dropped. The singular casualty was a Bark Buster bolt was a casualty.  Sure sounds like fun to me!

With the men folk gone, I was able to have the house to myself, eat out of the fridge, and work.  I've been so busy and feeling underwater to the point of gurgling.  But I'm kicking hard, and I'm closer to breathing air.  At some point in my life I hope to find equilibrium.  I've certainly had little success with it except for a few glimpses.  I guess when you have a proclivity to immersing yourself into what you do, gurgling is going to be an expected result.  As I can gurgle and kick, I'm not complaining.  Perspective is everything (it really is not attitude, because if you have perspective, attitude will fall into its proper place)--so I'm not complaining.

Spring has been arriving in fits and starts---it seemed to arrive first in early January, and then retreated for three more months.  It is now starting to emerge again...this is the coolest and wettest Spring that I remember in a while.  My favorite point in spring is when the reclusive wood thrushes begin their calling.  I've seen them for the last three weeks, but they do not begin their beguiling songs until the 3rd week of April.  When they start, they are the first to song in the morning and the second to last in the evening.  This lasts for for about 90 days, and then they are silent.  And missed.

And, I miss the men folk, who will be returning soon. It will be 72, and I hope that Spring will stay around for a while.












Time goes by. . .

. .  .like a freight train.

I have been quite busy with my real life.  My SR project is on the market and I have a new project.  IN getting ready for the listing on a Sunday evening, I heard a great racket in the chimney.  I suspected that it was a raccoon, as I could see 'shimmy' prints up the gutter.  I delayed the listing and open house, and called Critter Control to evict. I lost several nights sleep thinking about the racoon's demise.  As a great animal lover, these things touch me with great sadness.

They do set live traps, but are unable to relocating them due to the risk of rabies.  They are euthanized.  The balance of the house was protected (chimney cap, re screened vents) from re-entry from another itinerant raccoon.

This one piece Toto toilet sits in perfect harmony with the beautiful marble in the master bath.  I'm really happy how the master bath turned out--small but opulent.

Though we listed on Monday, we only have had one showing.  On the FR property, we had 8 showings within the first week.  I'm at a different price point here.

I tiled the shower in Q-Seal, Berkshire 9" x 18" tiles.  The shower floor is in 1" x 1" format, and the main floor is 12" x 12".  We took it up to the height of the vanity (to provide a fireman protection behind the toilet).  The mirror was inset with pencil.  The shower was framed on the inside and the outside door with chair rail.  We ran a 1/2 sheet high of the glass/stone mosaic in the shower and put in a niche.




It is single person event space. 

After completing all of the work at Skipton, I had to take a hard look at the cabinets.  I had planned to just leave them.  But they looked to bad.  So the cabinets, quickly became my personal version  of  "Leisa's Last Stand" or my very own personal "Alamo". 

I removed the doors, stripped the face of the cabinets, and the doors.  Sanded, sanded, sanded.  Applied Waterlox Original, which was the perfect finish for these cabinets. 

I had to use surface mounted hinges as the holes were still there and could not be disguised.  I went with an H hinge from Acorn--that is a straight bar v. the spade end hinges that came off.  I found a lovely handle (after hours and hours of searching) that worked well.

Here they are in their splendor.  There is just no toning down cherry in a picture.  These are solid on the bottoms and the sides.  A neighbor came by to look and loved them.  He was rubbing the finish, and marveling at how smooth and beautiful it was.  I'm thrilled.

The cabinets were NOT a weekend project.  I'm glad that I tackled them.  I had ultimately had to solicit some help on some of it as my real job needed me.  However, I was not as satisfied with the quality of some of the work.  I'm picky, picky, picky--and I think that you need to be in projects where the end results matter.  These are cabinets whose quality cannot be duplicated affordably.  Of course if you want a nice white, light kitchen, this is not the kitchen for you.

My favorite room in the house is the den.


It is warm and inviting.  My staging items are from scrounging around.  I picked up the leather club chair and ottoman in the corner and the Chinese coffee table at the Salvation Army.  The sofa came from Diversity Thrift, and is in a perfect neutral to stage. The walnut sofa table was from an antique store (and it is one of my favorite pieces of furniture).  The English Setter statue and the metal mirror over the fireplace came from a consignment shop. 



The dining room is staged with a Pennsylvania House Set that I bought from the CHKD Thrift Store for $150.  I recovered the cushions which were green velvet in a former life.  The rattan furniture in the living room came from another consignment shop.

I hope the home sells quickly.  We are certainly hitting a better sales market and a good season.

I'll tell you about my next project in a different post.






TeamViewer

Gotomypc has been my 'go to' for accessing my computers (home and clients).  With the Java issues, I soon found that my paid GTMPC was not working properly.  Not being able to access my PC was a real problem.  The folks were helpful and after about 1/2 hour on each side of the screen, I still was not able to get in.

Enter....TeamViewer.  All I can say is wow!  It is free, and the screen resolution is outstanding.  My access falls into non-commercial use--and it makes my job so much easier.  And...I can see far better than the other access.

Looking for a free and most excellent way to keep your work life and home life sane?  Take a look.  You can find it here.

Wakeful Thinking

I awoke in the wee hours of the morning with heavy thoughts of the Illinois man and his two young sons (and 4 month old Lab puppy) who ventured out for a hike, but never made it back.  The puppy survived. The story is tragic, but that needle moved further to gaspingly tragic when a motorist said that he spied them in the afternoon, walking in the rain by the road.  He offered a ride, but it was declined.

A reminder that at junctures of time and space our choices have consequences that cannot be known.  As I lay in bed, wakeful, that juncture floated in my brain like a dark specter. I thought of the motorist and had the motorist not stopped and read the news, what dark specter would he be living with.  I thought of the wife informed of the motorist's intercession in the collective plight of her husband and sons, and the greater despair she must feel that a different outcome was in reach for her loved ones.

I'm not in the 'everything happens for a reason crowd'.  I just don't believe that life is that pat, or that there is an other worldly being that hovers over these junctures and waves a wand to dictate outcomes.  Rather, I believe that our choices have consequences, intended or otherwise. And that a large measure of life for many on this earth is a toil of everyday survival with endings that are not at all fairy tale--well perhaps for the victims before our beloved heroes and heroines step into the picture.

The Lance Armstrong scandal will likely hit a new level after the Oprah show, tomorrow.  I don't have any celebrity following genes in my body, so for the most part I don't get worked up about scandals for celebrities or for ordinary people.  We all share the same genes, and accordingly, our proclivities fueled by our human-ness are shared by all of us.  As social beings, we are as susceptible to the pressures that surround us whether we be gang members or elite cyclists or just suburbanites.  We run in packs, and pack rules get assimilated as our rules.  Best to be part of an enlightened pack.

It takes real courage and clear sightedness to cut through that social goo.  Slavery, women's rights, worker's rights, pollution, child labor are but a few social goo issues that have been assiduously scrubbed from the patina of our society--though many linger.  I don't get caught up in Lance Armstrong's fight with testicular cancer, because I have a colleague who shows up every day with liver cancer.  She fights her battle with courage and grace and is not in the spotlight of the world, but rather lives in the spotlight of her family and friends.  How is her battle less courageous. 

No, I don't excuse Armstrong's doping because he is a hero to many.  Heroes walk amongst us everyday:  parents caring for young children and aging/ill parents, workers cobbling together part time jobs to provide for their family and stave off homelessness, individuals of every color, age and gender trying to make the right choices in the face of those terrible junctures of time and space where 'shit happens'.

Armstrong could have made a different choice.  Winning at all costs is not winning--it is a phantom achievement where we have traded our integrity for an award.  That is not courage. That is not grace.  That is a choice that has a consequence if one is caught--or at the very least surrounded and implicated to the point of being caught.

The measure of a wo/man is how they comport themselves through that rabbit hole of perdition and the person s/he becomes when they emerge other side.

The measure of a society is how we allow an individual to be successful in their personal, redemptive transformation and allowing them the freedom to conduct themselves to repair the damages for their actions.




Cookbooks

I was weary from my cabinet work on Sunday.  Nevertheless, I stopped by the CHKD Thrift Store to scan the aisles for cool stuff.  I have bought several things there:  books, jeans, blazers and skirts and a dining set (cherry, queen anne for my property staging).

I love to cook...a passion that I somehow idled most of 2012.  And, I love to READ cookbooks.  I've picked up several cookbooks in odd nooks along the way:  antique stores, consignment shops, thrift stores.  My "Great Cooks Cookbook" is one of many that I've bought, read cover to cover, and found recipes to keep in my cooking repertoire.

So meandering through the CHKD store I picked up 4 cookbooks that I'm just thrilled about--one of which was "The Best of Gourmet--65 years and 65 Favorite Recipes".  I subscribed years ago for exactly one year to Gourmet.  In general, I found the recipes fussy, so I abandoned my subscription.  I went with Bon Appetit, the sister magazine, and I've been a subscriber for 25 or so years.  As part of my decluttering, I threw out old issues that I had been harboring like fugitives in every nook and cranny of bookcases and closets.  It was like throwing out children---difficult and emotional.  Now that they are gone, I don't give them a second thought.

Recipes are abundant, to be sure.  Excellent recipes are not.  The joy of reading a cookbook is recognizing immediately that a recipe is going to work for your style of eating/entertaining.  The hallmark of a good cook book, to me at least, is that I walk away inspired and eager to make a recipe.  Visiting a cookbook is much like going to a restaurant, there are only going to be one or two dishes that truly captivate you (well, at least it is that way for me!).  Rare is the time that I go to a restaurant and find more than two things that I'm just dying to try.  But it happens.

I know that when I threw out my BA issues, that there were recipes forever lost.  No, they don't all make it to the website.  The maple pecan chocolate tart is not there.  It is one of the most divine desserts that I've ever made--and it is a staple at Thanksgiving.  There is another great recipe:  Harricorts with goat cheese and cranberries....lost it and can find no trace of it anywhere.  Best to read the magazine, rip out the recipes and put them in plastic sheet covers and commit them to a 3 ring binder.  Of course you have to MAKE the recipe...and that ought to be a resolution for any home chef to try new things:  new techniques, combinations, ingredients, cooking methods.  That way when you leave this plane of existence, your progeny will have in hand the wonderful recipes that left a gastronomical imprint on them.  Those are always the most lasting memories.

And throw out the recipes that just don't work for you....along with any other detritus in your life.

My sister is coming this weekend from Bedford.  She  recently received a well deserved promotion. I want to have a special dinner for her.  Though I'm not shy to try new things, she loves crabcakes, and I have JUST dish for her:  Crabcakes with spicy Avocado sauce (you can find it on Epicurious.com) .  It is basically a baked crabcake because there is no filler.  You shape it, press panko crumbs that have been browned in garlic and butter and press the into the crabcake.  The avocado sauce is as spicy as you care to make it with serrano/jalapeno chiles.  It is silky with a hidden bite. I think some roasted asparagus will go well with it.

I'll save the 4 cheese macaroni in the Gourmet cookbook for another time....but there are at least 6 recipes from that cookbook that I'm eager to tackle.  I also picked up Food and Wine cookbook (Best of the Best from 25 cookbooks),  and  Lidia's Italian American Kitchen.  I bought two other, non cooking books during my CHKD visit.  The total:  $13.64...I rounded up to $15.  ON another jaunt I picked up hardback Joy of Cooking--two.

Yes, that is the way to shop for cookbooks.




Week's End

The end of the year (and the beginning of the next) has always been my busiest time of year.  I worked quite a bit over the holidays to get some things nailed down, so I feel as if I'm in pretty good shape.  I also have a new client.  People I know from my past (former colleagues) that needed some help.  I was able to meet with them and quickly give them some solutions--not the least of which is hooking them up with another former colleague.  She is now on their payroll on a limited part time basis.  She is exactly what they need, and they are exactly what she needs.  I guess I'm a maven at heart.

Today was a great milestone!  I put the first coat of Waterlox on the cherry base cabinets at my SR project. Here's what I started with. 



I had planned to leave the cabinets except for cleaning them.  Unfortunately, cleaning them could not undo 'this' which was unacceptable.


So all doors removed, hardware removed and all wood stripped and assiduously sanded from 150-320 grit.

I found the following updated hardware, which I think will look cool:

This is Schaub's 'Stonehenge' in Ancient Bronze.  I am using 4" "H" Hinges in black...I"m hoping that this ancient bronze  is going to be pretty close to black with just enough accent to accentuate the cabinet color.  I'm having some reservations that these pulls my be too 'taste specific'; however, there are four key points to these:
  1. The shape will cover the existing holes
  2. The length will cover any carryover darkness from the spade ends of the original hardware.  
  3. The color will look terrific with the cherry cabinets.
  4. The design will 'echo' the backsplash.
The simple fact of the matter is that the 3.25" hole spacing in these cabinets limits my choices.  If these don't work out, I can send them back within 20 days.

I can finally see the finish line.