The printed word is so loud even after I put the bookmark in and find myself doing other things, the words keep haunting me. "Take care of yourself." "I will." Seem to echo in my brain as I close my eyes to go back to sleep. How can one sleep when all this action is taking place?
Yes, I read mysteries to give my life interest. To find a reason to get up. To get lost in the world of somewhere else with someone else. The me that I am is no longer of interest to me. Some writers pull me into a tangle of people who are all involved with a world of their own and with words that are shared with me. One writer had me involved on a personal level of caring about four different people/families all at the same time. It was easy to see that each character had a life and problems keeping that life working, yet they were all involved in another scenario that none of them wanted to be involved in.
I have been reading a mystery for an hour and it is now 7:30am so I decided to go back to bed. When I climbed in and put my head on the same pillow that I had been on an hour before, I closed my eyes and was back into the book. The characters were real and conversing right in front of me.
This surely is not normal. What am I supposed to be learning from this? That we all live in a transient world? That our lives are written on paper somewhere and we are only playing out our script? So how thick is reality? Can someone put a bookmark in my story? Is that the only time that I can close my eyes and sleep without the interaction of others. Is someone reading my story so fast that I can't rest. Am I a 300 page book that can be read in a "twinkling of an eye"?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Laying Cement
It was decided that the area between our two houses should be cemented in to eliminate the mess that always came with the rain. Steve and Patty lived next door. By next door I mean that their garage was 7 feet away from ours. In between was a small picket fence standing in dirt.
We had teenagers and preteens but their children were much younger. Steve was a football coach at the local high school. It was midsummer and Steve and I were discussing the possibility of putting cement into that area between the garages. Not only would it make it easier for the kids to get their bikes into the patio area of our back yard but Steve could get his garbage cans around to the front of the garage without the mess.
Now laying cement is something that I have watched being done around my childhood home all my growing up years, so it was easy to know what steps needed to be done. I guess if I had never seen this being done, I could have gone to the library to learn how.
I told Steve that we had to take the fence down first but before this came down, I marked corresponding marks on his garage and mine to show where the posts had been set into the ground. Then I went to the hardware store and bought metal cleats for the posts to set in when we were finished. For the section that we were going to be working on, we only needed four cleats.
The next thing was to dig out and lay forms. Steve had decided that he wanted to do the area between the garages and would like to bring his section back around to his patio by the back door. It sounded like a great idea. So forms, it was.
Steve and Patty worked hard on putting their forms up. They wanted the walk in the back yard to curve so they had gotten some flexible wood. They were so proud of what they had done. I went over to see how it was going and had to explain that forms were like cookie cutters. They would have to take the small support posts out from inside the area and support it from the outside. So they tore their forms apart and did them again. This time they looked great.
As we were going to have Premix deliver our cement, I mentioned that no matter how you calculate the amount that you need, they always deliver more. So we each need to have another place for the extra. I dug out under my garbage cans that were sitting along the side of the house near the front, hidden by some very tall bushes from the street. I put a form in that area so I was ready for the overflow. Steve and Sandy decided to use some of their wood to make a flowerbed edging with the remaining.
Now we had to figure out how much cement we needed in volume. In various places you need a certain depth to compensate for freezing temperatures but in California that wasn't necessary. So we only decided on 3 inches of depth. After all our calculations, we decided that we needed 4 yards of cement. Now that is a lot of cement to work fast.
Steve had a shallow garden wheelbarrow but I had a deep one. I knew that I would never be able to carry mine full of cement so we exchanged. I showed Patty and my daughter Kathy, who was in High School at the time, what their job was going to be. As we dumped the cement into the area of the forms, it was their job to move it next to the edges and then "Chuck" it down to get the air bubbles out as much as possible. I gave Kathy a metal edger to do this with.
Next we called the Cement Company. Steve had decided that next Tuesday would be a good day to do this. So it was all set. Forms in, wheelbarrows exchanged, "chuckers" ready, cleats ready, trowels ready; we were all set. On Tuesday I called to see when they would be able to deliver our load and the guy wanted to know, "What time will your husband be home?" Knowing that most men think like that, I calmly told him that 2:00 o'clock would be the best time to do this.
At 2:00 the truck came and we went to work. Kathy is a very hard worker and as I didn't have as much cement in this garden wheelbarrow, she had it "Chucked" and ready for the next load as fast as I could move this.
After the truck left, we smoothed it down with wood trowels. We had pitched it a bit toward the center between his building and mine and then set the cleats in. We let it set up a bit and did another trowel job while kneeling on wood that we floated to keep us from being in the cement and leaving marks.
When we were done, we stood back and admired out work. Steven and Patty had worked hard too so I went in the front of our house and got some beer along with a soda for Kathy. By the time my husband got home, we were in Steve's back yard drinking beer. (What time will your husband be home? Neanderthals!)
Before we finished this job, Kathy asked if she could put her initials into this cement. I thought it was a very good idea so she did. As far as I know they are still there 35 years later.
To finish this job, the fence went back up and by cutting the bottoms of the posts off, it sat very nicely into the cleats, where it was nailed solidly.
We had teenagers and preteens but their children were much younger. Steve was a football coach at the local high school. It was midsummer and Steve and I were discussing the possibility of putting cement into that area between the garages. Not only would it make it easier for the kids to get their bikes into the patio area of our back yard but Steve could get his garbage cans around to the front of the garage without the mess.
Now laying cement is something that I have watched being done around my childhood home all my growing up years, so it was easy to know what steps needed to be done. I guess if I had never seen this being done, I could have gone to the library to learn how.
I told Steve that we had to take the fence down first but before this came down, I marked corresponding marks on his garage and mine to show where the posts had been set into the ground. Then I went to the hardware store and bought metal cleats for the posts to set in when we were finished. For the section that we were going to be working on, we only needed four cleats.
The next thing was to dig out and lay forms. Steve had decided that he wanted to do the area between the garages and would like to bring his section back around to his patio by the back door. It sounded like a great idea. So forms, it was.
Steve and Patty worked hard on putting their forms up. They wanted the walk in the back yard to curve so they had gotten some flexible wood. They were so proud of what they had done. I went over to see how it was going and had to explain that forms were like cookie cutters. They would have to take the small support posts out from inside the area and support it from the outside. So they tore their forms apart and did them again. This time they looked great.
As we were going to have Premix deliver our cement, I mentioned that no matter how you calculate the amount that you need, they always deliver more. So we each need to have another place for the extra. I dug out under my garbage cans that were sitting along the side of the house near the front, hidden by some very tall bushes from the street. I put a form in that area so I was ready for the overflow. Steve and Sandy decided to use some of their wood to make a flowerbed edging with the remaining.
Now we had to figure out how much cement we needed in volume. In various places you need a certain depth to compensate for freezing temperatures but in California that wasn't necessary. So we only decided on 3 inches of depth. After all our calculations, we decided that we needed 4 yards of cement. Now that is a lot of cement to work fast.
Steve had a shallow garden wheelbarrow but I had a deep one. I knew that I would never be able to carry mine full of cement so we exchanged. I showed Patty and my daughter Kathy, who was in High School at the time, what their job was going to be. As we dumped the cement into the area of the forms, it was their job to move it next to the edges and then "Chuck" it down to get the air bubbles out as much as possible. I gave Kathy a metal edger to do this with.
Next we called the Cement Company. Steve had decided that next Tuesday would be a good day to do this. So it was all set. Forms in, wheelbarrows exchanged, "chuckers" ready, cleats ready, trowels ready; we were all set. On Tuesday I called to see when they would be able to deliver our load and the guy wanted to know, "What time will your husband be home?" Knowing that most men think like that, I calmly told him that 2:00 o'clock would be the best time to do this.
At 2:00 the truck came and we went to work. Kathy is a very hard worker and as I didn't have as much cement in this garden wheelbarrow, she had it "Chucked" and ready for the next load as fast as I could move this.
After the truck left, we smoothed it down with wood trowels. We had pitched it a bit toward the center between his building and mine and then set the cleats in. We let it set up a bit and did another trowel job while kneeling on wood that we floated to keep us from being in the cement and leaving marks.
When we were done, we stood back and admired out work. Steven and Patty had worked hard too so I went in the front of our house and got some beer along with a soda for Kathy. By the time my husband got home, we were in Steve's back yard drinking beer. (What time will your husband be home? Neanderthals!)
Before we finished this job, Kathy asked if she could put her initials into this cement. I thought it was a very good idea so she did. As far as I know they are still there 35 years later.
To finish this job, the fence went back up and by cutting the bottoms of the posts off, it sat very nicely into the cleats, where it was nailed solidly.
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