Fred Can Do It

Almonds On Toast

2012-02-10T09:03:00.001-05:00

I realize now that I have difficulty thinking outside the box and that this difficultly, considering my age, will never really go away. Even when the end wonderfulness of a thing is so simple and easy to see, I can't easily get beyond conventional wisdom, in particular today, about what should and should not be placed on top of toast.

Starting from an absolute, it's easy to set up a logical framework to reveal the possibilities because anything that can be eaten at all can also be eaten on top of toast. Eggs can go on toast. Milk can be poured on toast. And so on. Then it is just a matter of considering one possibility after another and not be held back by the traits of conventional and typical toast toppings, like stickiness, which is highly overrated in my opinion.

And yet, even though I eat toast almost daily, and even though I eat roasted almonds almost daily, I had not ever (until just moments ago this morning) put any roasted almonds on a dry piece of toast.

Of course, I had eaten toast and almonds before, in rapid succession, maybe even within a few seconds of the other, but I never knew the unexpectedly wonderful taste of almond toast, with both ingredients entering the mouth at once, in perfect harmony, like a pleasantly dry and crisp peanut butter sandwich but without that annoying gooey mess that glues tongue to teeth.

A negative person would complain about the tendency of almonds to fall off of the toast, but that person would not be me.

Entropy, On Holiday

2012-02-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

I'm officially on break from projects, but I see the need to fix things in all directions.

By looking closely at the doors and base boards, I've been able to reconstruct the mindset of the previous owners. We know that they were in a hurry to leave--a family emergency--and I can see evidence of what happened in those final days before we first came to see the house (and bought it a few days later), of what shortcuts they took, and the order in which those shortcuts were taken. The end result (and not the most serious one) is that almost everything needs to be repainted.

Coincidentally, in the meantime I'm reading a book about physics and the nature of the universe, which is thought to be in perfect symmetry and is considered to be in a permanent state of entropy, sometimes referred to as chaos.

So how can chaos be so symmetrical? I hadn't really considered this before.

Human beings have a common sense of what it means to be clean and orderly, to create things that are symmetrical in form and consistent in purpose. But order requires constant work. Things eventually need to be repaired or replaced or painted or varnished, clean floors will not stay clean, dishes will pile up in the sink, clothes will need to be washed again.

The universe likes disorder, and to get in sync Cheryl and I would need to move back into the woods, sleep in the trees, quit wearing clothes and eat beetles or whatever comes along. (I would consider it, but Cheryl probably would not.)

Even if I do a perfect job repainting the doors and base boards, it will last only a certain limited amount of time before someone needs to do it again. That's OK--there's no excuse for doing a crappy job. I'm not interested in how the universe feels about my projects.

The Evolving Project

2012-01-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

Projects don't end; they evolve and spread from one edge and surface to the next, from wall to door to wall, with new paint next to old and bright surfaces shining on dull. In particular, the bathroom door needs to be stripped and painted because whoever painted it white did not bother to clean it first. I didn't really notice this until I painted the door frames.

Years ago, mom came to see me in my old house. I had just put in a new kitchen counter top, and I can remember that she found something positive to say after I told her my plans to fix up the rest of the kitchen and to then fix up the small dining room that (I can see it now and shudder) had a portion of the ceiling eaten away from moisture damage. The truth was that nothing could be done to salvage that old house in Arkansas--it would benefit only from a bulldozer. Mom always tried to make things brighter.

Though our house now is not beyond repair, work needs to be done in every direction. The walls outside the bathroom are cracked, mostly from the demolition job and my repeated whacks with the sledge hammer. The floors in my office need repair and refinishing. The old attic fan lets daylight into the house (that can't be good). It goes on and on.

But I still linger at the bathroom door and admire the tile--not my tile-laying but the tile itself, at how it shines an emerald green. I'm on break.

Project Complete (So I'm Told)

2012-01-17T09:27:00.000-05:00

Two days to go.

I knew something was up when the upper management team, dressed in their Italian designer suits, showed up unannounced with some photographers.

For several days they've been in an undisclosed location, hiding and refusing to visit the project, hiding and strategorizing on how to distance themselves from the project in case it fails to meet the due date. But now, with two days to go, it appears that a decision has been made, though of course no one consulted me.

Jam, the junior assistant manager, was especially well-groomed and sharply dressed, inspecting and posing for the cameras with such a serious eye. He has a bright career ahead in butt-kissery.

Yes, it seems, a decision has been made. The project is complete, with 2 days to spare, and it was a success (according to management).

Complete??? There's much more to do: the bathroom door still needs to be stripped and painted, the hallway walls have cracked to be repaired, and the... But no one is listening to me. I am like a fly buzzing through an empty room.

You're just not management material, Jam seems to say to me with his eyes, shaking his head a little at how dense I can be.

Even the big boss was on hand for pictures.

Yes, the project is done, she says.

How long did it take? We ordered the tile one year and 4 days ago.

Turn On The Water Already

2012-01-12T08:01:00.000-05:00

One week to go...

It has become clear to me that a bathroom without plumbing is not much use and that I faced two hurdles in this regard: the drain system and the new faucet. Months ago I connected the water lines to an empty faucet box. I then promptly turned the water lines turned off just in case. So I was not really sure what would happen when it was time to test. Any single problem could be disastrous, meaning that I'd probably have to hire someone to fix it, leaving me with several philosophical conundrums to resolve.

With Cheryl's help I got the new drain piece and the overflow drain in place. And then I discovered that the tub, an older style tub, has a different slope at the front, so I couldn't use a standard pipe fitting to connect the overflow to the drain pipe below. Was this why they never fixed the overflow before? So I took my big box of plumbing stuff (now that it's organized) and fixed it. Cheryl poured in a pitcher of water while I watched with a flashlight from the other side. No leaks!

Then on to the faucet, which has been sitting on my desk for nearly a year. Naturally I lost the documentation for it in the meantime. I wonder what the old-timer plumbers would think about these new faucets, with their pressure correcting valves and other advanced technology?

Once I got it all in place, finally it was time to turn on the water. I could find no excuse for any more delay.

When the Hoover dam went on line there were cheering crowds, politicians, circus clowns and fireworks. But I turned on the water to the shower all alone, facing success or failure in the dark corner of our bathroom closet. Cheryl was downstairs feeding her Facebook so I didn't want to disturb her, and Willow and Jam were hidden as usual, waiting to see if this long-running project would end in disgrace, and if so, preparing to blame everything on me.

Cold water on, then hot.

More later...

The Drain

2012-01-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

12 days to go.

While waiting for the paint to dry I turned my attention to the hallway and the aftermath of that very unfortunate first day of the project when a pipe burst in an area under the floor behind the sink, in a spot almost impossible to get to, flooding the kitchen below with water and sending a clear message to me that disaster could strike at any time if I would be foolish enough to continue with this project.

I had to tear up the wall and the floor to fix the leak, and it's been torn up ever since, covered with cardboard to keep it out of sight and out of mind until now. Now I have three new floor boards in place--just need to stain and finish them.

Next I turned my attention to the tub drain, which I can access from the master bathroom closet.

But for this I very likely needed help from Cheryl, because no matter how hard my brain considered the situation, I could not devise a strategy for getting the drain piece screwed into the pipe under the tub by myself. Had I attempted this before I put in the shower wall, I could have simply reached through the opening with my right hand and held the pipe with my left.

And even with Cheryl's help, there's a possibility that the drain just won't work and I might need to tear a big hole into the kitchen ceiling (or worse). Predictably, in times like this when the project is at a critical point, Willow and her new assistant manager are absent, covering themselves from responsibility in the event of failure.

So, to punish myself, I struggled to do this by myself, with one hand in the very narrow space under the tub. Then I called Cheryl for help. More later...

What Does Management Do?

2012-01-03T16:15:00.003-05:00

What does management do when all the chips are on the table and the big deadline is approaching, like in the last few moments of a big game, with time ticking away and strategy is most important, when the right decision will win or lose the game?

What does management do when everything they've done so far amounts to nothing, when the various supervisors and consultants have come and gone in disgrace, each with a different style to motivate the workers (the people who actually do the work)?

What does management do to validate itself so that it can take credit for the project or, if the project fails, walk away in the end and take no responsibility at all?

What does management do? They send in a ringer.

The ringer is a supernatural creature--pure of heart, kind, sincere, earnest and lovable, the distilled essence of an inner child, a token from management that says please, please, get this job done on time, a sweet baby that must be fed and nurtured for the sake of the company (and don't forget the stockholders).

No more insults from snotty supervisors, no more smart-ass young consultants, no more threats at all. Now we have the ringer.

Yes, our ringer's name is Justice and she is here to make sure that the project ends on time or else, it seems, she may get sacrificed and thrown into a volcano or suffer some other tragedy--it's all in our hands now. We will do the job, because we love her.

Also, I've gathered up the remaining tile to see if I ordered too much. More later...

The Third Tank

2012-01-03T16:15:00.001-05:00

Now that the grout sealing is finished (pretty much--I still have some edges to do) and now that I don't have to reach the ceiling any more, I was able to remove the big piece of plywood from the tub. As I suspected, some of the dried mortar and grout had collected underneath. I really need to get the tub refinished but there's no time. I'm in warp drive mode now.

Next I put in the new toilet tank--it's the replacement tank that the company sent because the first tank had a crack, and the crack probably occurred because of my hubris in thinking that fate would not send me a brand new but defective toilet tank. How difficult is it to make a toilet tank?

So this time I turned the tables and actively predicted that things would go wrong. I convinced myself that the tank would leak or decompose or some crazy thing. Then I dared fate to let it happen. Go ahead, I said, and try it.

But this is what a fearful person does--puts on a mock display of courage, contempt and indifference, like some young kid daring a big bully to hit him, while on the inside he's all twisted with that sinking feeling, that sense of impending doom, the certain knowledge that this third tank will also be bad and that I will soak the house with water yet again.

It went in OK. The water slowly filled the cavity, and filled, and filled until it ran into the tank as if I flushed again and again. The water kept coming and would not stop. A broken valve. Really? But this time all I had to do is swap out the valve from the previous tank.

Now I walk by every 15 minutes or so, seriously, to see if the bathroom has filled with water or the tank has exploded for some reason. It's going to be a long night.

The One Percent

2011-12-31T09:39:00.001-05:00

On our tile wall, about 99% of the area is tile and the rest is grout. This particular ceramic tile has a glass-like finish that is completely non-absorptive. On the other hand, the grout (the one percent) is uncommonly thirsty and indiscriminate about its thirst.

But get this: Our tile is finished only on the top--its back and sides are red Mexican clay that has been baked in an oven and is as parched and thirsty as a desert lizard in July. A drop of water immediately disappears into this clay.

What does this mean? When we take a shower, water rolls off the tile and is sucked into the grout. The sides of the tile then begins to suck water away from the grout until the insides of the tile can get wet. (This is also called trickle-down, the effects of which are nearly impossible to measure.) So even after the shower is over and the walls are dry on the outside, some of the moisture remains trapped where it cannot be seen and from where it cannot easily evaporate and escape.

Over time this one percent provides the perfect breeding ground for ugly black mold, ruining things for the 99.

The best defense is to soak the grout with silicone sealer, an outrageously expensive substance that is difficult to apply to walls and especially to the ceiling, causing an unavoidable measure of waste. It seems that using a spray bottle and sponge may be the best approach. My Scottish side cannot help worry about the cost, but it must be done.

In any case, the one percent cannot be ignored. It has an insatiable appetite, consuming more than it possibly can use, and with no ability to control itself.

Painting the Trim

2011-12-30T14:13:00.000-05:00

I found some white paint in the garage, so I decided to give it a try as the first coat (after two coats of primer). It said vanilla-bean white on the can, which could mean anything, and which turned out to be almost the same color as the walls. I'll need to pick up some trim white at Home Depot.

I don't have any shelves yet and there's no time. To meet the deadline I've got to get back onto the shower and finish sealing the grout and then, finally, hook up the plumbing.

No time even to finish this post. Going to a wedding today...

Days Between

2011-12-27T10:40:00.002-05:00

The days between Christmas and New Years Day are a vanishing refuge for us corporate lackeys and peons who once could expect a few days of rest and who now are expected to work and compensate for all the missing employees, those poor souls who have been laid off and who also can't relax this week, due to the stress and worry.

Specifically, I'm not talking about our little Jam, who has shown no interest in helping me with the project or in helping Willow (as a corporate goon underling butt-kisser assistant manager type, whatever it is that they do) and who has shown no regret or anxiety whatsoever at being unemployed and unoccupied at this or any other time of year. The new drop-dead project date has no affect on Jam, nor does any event affect him that occurs within the considerable time and space that is not between him and his food bowl.

So, yes, I am working overtime during this vacation days, working to meet the deadline. I suppose I should give Jam some credit--he doesn't chew up everything in site anymore.

And I should account for the fact that Jam might be destined for an occupation that does not including home remodeling or business. Maybe he is more suited to an artistic life? Or maybe he might be suited for some personal service? I am afraid to get my hopes up too much...

I've got the detail and trim in place around the window, door and shelves. Just a little more carpentry and it will be ready to paint--two coats of primer and then some vanilla-bean white, two coats.

Once the white paint is on and the tape is removed from the tile, there should be an interesting reflection at this point.

Red Velvet Pancakes

2011-12-25T10:27:00.000-05:00

I admit being skeptical about the idea of having red velvet pancakes and bacon for breakfast, but I was determined to make the best of it and was even prepared to fabricate a more favorable than honest opinion of them if necessary, which seemed a very likely outcome because I am not a fan of bacon (though this was supposed to be some special sort of bacon) or pancakes, at least not early in the morning.

But we opened our presents early, while the red batter rested in the kitchen, and I was so pleased by all the surprises, including my new clay teapot and some monkey oolong (said to be picked by monkeys because the tea grows so high), that I was prepared to eat a dozen fat pancakes and not make a face no matter what.

And not to forget that on Friday I learned that I do not have cancer after all, and after a week of waiting for the test results, so that I could easily eat 2 dozen pancakes and not make a single face or fail to compliment them on any single bite.

The time came, and the pancakes sat a blistering crimson in the pan, big and fat and scary. Food for a vampire, possibly, but not for a person. And the bacon sizzled in the pan to the left. OMG, I thought.

But then we sat at the table and I reached for a pancake (reaching with both hands just in case) and was surprised by the feathery lightness and was surprised again when I tasted them--sweet but not too much. In fact, probably the best pancakes I've ever had.

Later we had tea on the porch (it's about 75 degrees today) and more pancakes for a snack. Excellent.

Corporate Euphemisms

2011-12-23T09:36:00.002-05:00

While the corporate world is usually very good with euphemisms such as outsourcing, outplacing, rightsizing, smartsizing, streamlining, etc., they occasionally can be pretty blunt with language. This morning, for example, Willow emerged from her meeting and announced that I had a drop-dead date: January 19.

The implication is that something very bad will happen if the bathroom project is not completed by that date and for now, she said with a cryptic smile, I can just use my imagination.

We have seen these tricks before, one thing after another, bringing in young, hard-nosed micro-managers and so on. But now I am left to wonder if the universe will implode on itself if it cannot shower at my house by January 19. Just what is about to drop dead?

Yesterday I tackled the most difficult carpentry task so far: getting the trim for the new cabinet area to wrap around multiple layers of wall, a task that dates back to the very beginning of demolition, when I was forced to make a difficult choice about whether to use the existing studs or remove the wall and start over, and I won't revisit that decision now except to remember that I was between a rock and hard place then and I remain similarly positioned now.

In short, the shower wall is not level with the wall behind the toilet--it's about 2 inches out. So I need to compensate with framing.

To do this I need two layers of framing and a special cut on the first layer (actually several cuts), the diagramming for which looks more like a football play than carpentry.

The toilet side of the frame was simpler, and finally the tile can be seen with smooth border. With some paint this should finally have a clean look.

January 19 seems both near and far away. Obviously, I can't rush the project now, but I do have to admit (privately and away from the management goons) that deadlines can sometimes have a positive effect.

Framed

2011-12-17T17:33:00.003-05:00

To frame in the window, I'd need to split some boards in half, like thin-sliced bread, and to do that I'd need to be in the proper frame of mind.

Interesting that the word frame has so many meanings and textures. Framing a picture or a window is a positive thing, while framing a person is not. An isolated picture from a movie is a frame. A mind has a frame, even though it has no edges or corners. And a mind can have a frame of reference and, when inspired, can frame an idea.

Because I'll be painting the window frame instead of letting the natural wood show, I am less careful about the process in general. I know I can fill the small cracks with caulk and no one will know.

Immediately I discovered that stapling up the plastic was a dumb idea. The staples stick up and don't let the thin boards sit flush. I stripped them all out.

Also this is my first opportunity to cover the tiles with wood--this requires some special cuts that also don't need to be perfect. I'll put some putty between the wood and tile, and then paint over the top.

Once I account for the many imperfections, I'll be ready to paint.

Not Breaking the Tank - Hyperbole

2011-12-08T10:38:00.001-05:00

Hyperbole is not my friend. After writing a post yesterday about my absurd fear that I might somehow break the new toilet tank (because I clearly broke the first one, though I still don't understand how), and after writing that the tank appeared to be OK, all with a foolish pretense that installing the tank was akin to defusing a bomb or splitting a big diamond, I discovered that, in fact, the new tank is NOT OK.

Water was dripping from the opening where the water supply goes into the tank. I took out the float valve, and there it was--a crack.

On closer inspection the crack is obvious, not all the way through the tank but just enough for the water to seep under the washer.

Oh, yes. The company should replace this tank, and they might. But I've read the fine print on their web site (not to mention the big print on the box), and I know what a pain this will be. I've already installed the tank, and I should have inspected it first. Most of the crack was hidden under a washer, but I could have seen it.

Sending it back means I spend the time to pack it up and ship it back and send them emails and bitch over the phone and then finally get another tank and install it again. On the other hand, I could fix it in 10 seconds and it most likely would be fine for the next 200 years.

Yes, hyperbole is not my friend. I know this from playing blackjack in Vegas and (after learning my lesson) from watching other people at the table, like the guy who says "Well, I can't possibly lose again." And that guy always loses again.

My two options: send it back or fix the crack. I am 99% sure about what to do. More later.

Not Breaking the Tank

2011-12-07T15:32:00.001-05:00

Today I handled my new toilet tank with all the care and tenderness that I might apply to a little puppy, resting the tank on a big Styrofoam pad that came in the shipping container. After watching it there for an hour or so, I got up the nerve to start with the first step: gentling nudging the big rubber gasket into place on the bottom of the tank.

Gently, more gently still, I slid the washers onto the two main bolts and threaded these through the little holes on the bottom of the tank--doing it this way despite my better judgement to insert the bolts later--doing it because the little instruction sheet demanded it.

Then on both knees I caressed the smooth porcelain sides of the tank, very cool to the touch and delicate, reluctant to pick it up for fear that that my fingers my bruise the surface or cause it to shatter due to my unbridled strength and ogre-like clumsiness.

And then, blindly now, because I can't actually see if the bolts align with the holes, I inch the tank down, inch by inch, over the toilet, not daring to breath or blink, until the gasket magically finds its way into the hole.

No time to relax though. The secret is in tightening the screws: too little and the tank will leak; too much and... but I can't stand the thought. So, small turn on the left screw, matching turn on the right, back and forth, gently rocking the tank to determine if mating has been achieved. And then not a scosh more, not a micro-inch more or Chaos might wrap its arms around me and never let go, throwing bits of porcelain into the air, blasting the roof off the house and leaving me as a blackened cinder on an otherwise pristine bathroom floor.

And then am I done? No. Gently, gently, I turn on the faucet and watch the water rise into the tank, but only a few inches so that I can watch for leaks.

Looks OK for now...

UPS, Good

2011-12-05T08:24:00.001-05:00

Not only did I find a replacement for the toilet tank that cracked, but the company (PlumbersPlus.com) delivered it in two days and with free shipping, even after their website estimated 2 weeks for delivery. UPS left the big box on my front porch.

Like usual, the UPS guy rang the doorbell, hurried back to his truck and drove off before I could get downstairs. The warning on the box reminded me of the catch-22 episode with my shipment of tile last year: I could not inspect the tile before signing for it; if I refused to sign, he promised, he would drive away with the tile. But that was a third party shipping company, not UPS.

Years ago I had some friends who played in another band, and I just happened to be with them when their guitar player quit. He stood in the doorway and refused to come in, stood there in his brown uniform with tears in his eyes, explaining how his wife and new daughter had changed his life and how he needed the security of a steady paycheck, etc. He wouldn't look anyone in the eye. "UPS is a good company," he said more than once, more to himself than to us.

My toilet tank, a very fragile thing, came in the box that says "Please inspect before signing...," but I didn't even get a chance to sign, so no inspection took place. Luckily the tank is fine. But what if it had been broken? I have no doubt that UPS would make it right. (Good company)

The tank still isn't installed--our Christmas party was this weekend. Very nice time.

Toast and Sardines

2011-11-30T11:20:00.001-05:00

What's life if not the opportunity to learn new things? The seconds tick away, and every moment rushes by with the same potential. But does this mean that I am ignoring the opportunity, that I am squandering the potential, if I engage in some repetitive task, like having toast with my coffee in the morning instead of, for example, toast with okra and coffee or toast with sardines and coffee?

I like my toast a certain way and my coffee a certain way, and the thought of going through every possible configuration of toast and coffee does not interest me. (Actually, I had toast with hot sauce the other morning and it was fine.)

Likewise, with the bathroom project I've had the oppotunity to learn many new things (some of which I will never do again). But now it is time to start the wood work, something that is as familiar to me as toast and coffee. In one way, the excitement is gone--I'm not really worried about making some catastrophic mistake, like watching the ceiling collapse or the pipes explode.

The first piece is the window sill. I have the rough opening now.

And here's the sill piece, just below where it will go.

It will slide into place here. Then I'll put in new side pieces and a new top. Then the frame.

But before I put in the place I will shorten and round off the side and the front edge so that the person doesn't get jabbed in the arm when standing up from the toilet.

Things work out for a reason. The final phase of this project is wood work, which is good because I'm not in the mood to learn anything new right now.

Toilet Cracks, Again

2011-11-25T10:01:00.000-05:00

Something very strange happened the other night, something that challenges my concept of the physical world in general and of toilets in particular.

It reminded me of an event about 30 years ago, back when I lived in an old civil-war era house in Arkansas, a house that had barely moved into the 20th century, still burning wood to provide heat for all the rooms except the master bath, which had a small gas space heater. The second bathroom had no heater at all, and it was the room that was farthest away from the wood stove in the living room. In the winter I would warn people not to use that bathroom because they risked getting stuck to the seat.

My landlord owned about 300 acres surrounding the house, and I was permitted to cut my own firewood. I remember those days very well, walking through the woods with my dog Matt to find a big tree that was dying or dead and then cut it down. I'd fill up my panel van with wood, sometimes even the passenger seat in front, so that Matt would run alongside the van on the way back home. He seemed to think that was great fun--I can still see him out there wagging his tail.

For several days in winter I had to wear a jacket inside the house day and night. The house had very little insulation, and the windows were so old and rickety that a strong breeze would rustle the curtains inside.

After one very cold night I found water puddled up on the floor in the second bathroom. The water in the toilet had frozen and cracked the porcelain bowl. OK, I thought, that probably doesn't happen every day but at least I understand how that could happen.

But when Cheryl woke me up at 4am the other morning and told me that the toilet in the guest bathroom had broken and that water was going everywhere, I could not, and still cannot, understand why this happened.

The crack starts at the top of the tank and runs down the side. This allowed water to spill out, causing the float to go down, causing the tank to fill again, then out through the crack again, over and over, until water had run into the master bath and then through the cracks in the wood floor to swamp the kitchen floor below. Thank goodness Cheryl woke up.

What made the tank crack in the middle of the night? I had stored it outside for a while during the project, and maybe I banged it and caused a microscopic crack at some point, like a small windshield crack that finally opens up when you hit a bump in the road. But there was no bump in the bathroom.

Now I need a new toilet...

My Aunt's Perfect Mirror

2011-11-23T16:26:00.001-05:00

As soon as the sawing and hammering and framing is done, I will be moving my aunt Helen's mirror into the guest bathroom. We have two of her mirrors--the bigger one is in the living room, but this smaller one is the perfect size and color for the bathroom, and I will be proud to have it on the wall.

(To my Aunt Helen: Thanks for sending me the get-well card. I'm feeling much better and will be back to work on the bathroom soon. I hope you all have a very nice Thanksgiving. But mostly, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!
Love, Fred)

The Prospect of Perfection, Foiled Again

2011-11-18T10:50:00.001-05:00

Imagine a pond on a summer day, a perfect plane of green glass, or pretty close to perfect, with no breezes and no ripples on the surface other than the tiny circles of light caused when a dragonfly or honey bee dips his butt into the water.

The watery surface tells a story with two certainties: what is smooth and what is straight. Not absolute certainties, because of the curvature of the earth and quirks of physics that I don't understand, but close enough for carpentry.

Of all of the project work up to this point--the demolition, the plumbing, the framing, the flooring, the tiling--nothing has more potential for success than the work that has finally arrived: the wood work. I'll be framing the window and the door. And I'll be creating a bookcase and shelves. And I enjoy working with wood most of all.

In a normal framing project, we would expect to see virtually flat, pond-like surfaces on the wall, and we'd find some entertainment is finding and compensating for minor imperfections, like a wall that veers off a few fractions of an inch to the east or west for no apparent reason. Ha, ha, we would say, I can fix that.

In this case (as has been the project theme to this point), the adjustments I'll need to take are anything but minor. It's as if the quiet pond had a sudden step in the middle, so that you have to get out of the boat and hoist it up to the higher water to continue on.

Of course, there's a good explanation, and I will place all the blame for this elsewhere. More later..

Hearing Again, and Feeling Better

2011-11-16T15:19:00.001-05:00

I am reminded of a night about 30 years ago--can it really be that long?--sitting under my baby grand piano in a stinky nightclub, sitting on some nasty shag carpet on the stage and trying to get a little piezo pickup to attach to the underside of the piano. The piezo, about half the size of a penny, had a wire that lead to my amplifier. I normally used the piezo to amplify my violin. The vibrations somehow get turned into an electric current inside of it (who knows how)...

When my ears finally cleared up yesterday, I was skeptical, but today my hearing is pretty much back to normal. In fact, I'm feeling better all around. In just a short time, no doubt, I will forget about the whole thing and take my health completely for granted again.

The trick to using a piezo on the big bridge of a grand piano is to attach it with just the right amount of pressure; too much and the sound is stifled, too little and the vibrations don't get captured. I sat on the dirty carpet for the longest time, tightening and loosening the piezo under a screw on the bottom side of the piano.

We started playing for the night but I just couldn't tell if it sounded OK. Coincidentally, another piano player was there that night, and I asked him to sit in for a song so I could go into the crowd and listen. For grins he put on my jacket.

I remember it all very clearly. We were the house band at this club, and we'd been there for probably about one year at that time. I had never actually heard the band from off the stage.
But now I could see the band, and I could see someone at the piano, someone wearing my jacket, not me but might as well be me, someone sitting on a stinky stage in a stinky club. And it all hit me.

Thanksgiving is coming soon. I will try to remember to say thanks every day. Thanks that I don't have to sit in that stinky club anymore. Thanks for my health and hearing. Thanks that I have a wonderful wife and family, good friends and happy dogs.

Patience is Hard

2011-11-16T13:16:00.006-05:00

I woke up this morning with a gentle ringing in both ears. Nothing new. I've been hearing this same tune for years now--a sound like crickets singing and whistling, and it's loudest in the morning when I haven't had enough sleep.

And lately the whistling is accompanied by a stuffy head, clogged-up ears and fatigue. If I do anything strenous, these symptoms and an extreme fatigue overtake me immediately and persist for the next few days. And then, if I rest, I start to feel myself again. So I've been resting since Sunday, studiously resting, planning my trips up and down the stairs, walking in slow motion. And today my ears have unclogged a little. What a weird illness this is.

As a result I'm just sitting here, staring at the bathroom project, staring at all the projects in the yard (with all this perfect weather), and doing pretty much nothing.

At least I've had time to plan the next step. I'll be putting a new frame on the window. The old frame had water damage and was one of the catalysts of the project--I just hated looking at that cracked and warped frame--so I be putting up some vapor barrier and then encasing the window in pine, overlapping the tile just as I'll do for the doorway and for the shelves I'll be making.

But no more relapses. Just planning for now. And maybe a little grout sealing, as long as I don't push it.

A Rocking Chair and Teapot

2011-11-13T16:41:00.004-05:00

On the weekends I sometimes bring my laptop downstairs to do a little work or some idle surfing. I have a long table next to my rocking chair, the same chair than my grandpa sat in years ago while we watched Tarzan movies and he smoked a pipe there in his living room, which was just a few steps away from the back door of our house. At that time he had a little table, too, populated with some items that captured my continued interest at the time--a mechanical nut cracker (we had some big pecan trees in the yard), a pecan bowl made from the cross-section of a pine trunk, hollowed out and still with the bark attached, the untensils for getting pecans from the shell, his pipe and pipe cleaners, a TV guide, a pencil, and probably a coffee cup. I remember him drinking something...

My side table was messy as usual, with several remote controls, a rag that I confescated from Jam and a stand for my teapot, and this morning it had a tangle of wire for my laptop, all coiled around in a chaotic manner, even though it would just take a minute to neaten things up. I'm not sure why I have such a problem being orderly.

Into the mix of this mess I put down a pot of hot tea and my cup, and not 2 minutes later I picked up the laptop, pulling the wires along and dragging the delicate Chinese purple clay Yishing teapot over the edge and onto the floor, crashing into a thousand pieces.

Cheryl and I drove to St. Pete for lunch and to get another teapot, but of course the store didn't have one. And even the short walk from the car to the store tired me out and caused my head to begin buzzing and my ears to stop up tight, a weird sort of fatigue. Hopefully tomorrow the blood tests will return and we can see what kind of virus I've got. Everything's fine as long as I rest, so the bathroom project sits on hold.

After we returned home Cheryl went back out to do some shopping while I took a nap, and she just returned with a teapot exactly like the one I broke. How cool is that? I'm a lucky guy.

I'm sitting back in the rocking chair writing this with a tangle of wires on the table and a hot pot of tea nearby. A detour, then back to normal.

Otitis Media

2011-11-09T14:16:00.003-05:00

We've been off work for so long that Willow could barely contain her excitement when I told her that I would be sealing some grout this afternoon.

I limited my work to the sink and to a section of the floor, keeping it small because I wasn't sure how quickly I'd run out of energy.

My ears appear to be clearing up a bit after my trip to the doctor yesterday--he gave me a big shot in my rear end and a prescription for same heavy-duty steroids. As I stated in my last post, I had already figured out what was wrong--a case of Otitis Media brought on by a viral infection--but I knew not to say anything to Dr. Stine. Better to let him figure it out on his own.

He suspected at first (as I had predicted he would) that this was probably a simple case of too much ear wax, so he started with my left ear, scraping and poking and pulling until the wax finally came out. And not very much wax, he agreed. I suppose it had been in there since Kennedy was president. His face fell a little when I said that my hearing did not improve as a result. Same on the other side.

"I can see you've got fluid in there," he said. "Looks like you might have a viral infection causing this condition, since the antibiotics haven't helped."

"And what condition is that," I asked.

"Otitis Media is the formal name," he said and probably wondered why I seemed so happy with the news.

So I sealed the sink. It's easy because it's flat. I squirted on the liquid on the grout until it would not absorb any more, waited 10 minutes, then wiped it off, and now it's returned to the original color.

Time for a break.

Say What?

2011-11-06T14:33:00.009-05:00

Nothing could be more perfect than this day, sitting on the back porch with the dogs and waiting for the next cool breeze to come along and rustle the big leatherleaf fern and cause the big bamboo culms to rustle and rub against each other.

At least I imagine they are rustling because my ears are stopped up, still. I can unstop my right ear by leaning my head to the right about 90 degrees, causing fluid to passing from one place to another in my head--I can hear it go glug, glug, glug, about 3 or 4 times--and my right ear hearing improves. But then it stops up again when I sit up straight.

And sitting here couldn't be more pleasant because sitting is about all I can do. Any kind of physical activity tires me out to such a degree that it reminds me of the time in Tucson when I was determined to chop down a tree with an ax and that I would do it from start to finish without stopping, one blow after another until it was finished, no matter what (even with a dull ax that I could have sharpened first), until after I'd finished about 200 blows of the ax (and tree still standing) I fell to my knees and nearly threw up (then I got out my chainsaw). That's how I felt this morning when I tried, for about 30 seconds, to put some seal on the grout.

I'm on my second round of antibiotics and have just finished taking some steroids and I'm not a bit better. I found the answer online:

Otitis media with effusion
Otitis media with effusion (uh-FEW-zhun), or OME, is a build up of fluid in the middle ear without signs and symptoms of acute infection (pain, redness of the eardrum, pus, and fever). OME is more common than AOM, and may be caused by viral upper respiratory infections, allergies, or exposure to irritants (such as cigarette smoke). The build up of fluid in the middle ear does not usually cause pain and almost always goes away on its own. OME will not usually benefit from antibiotic treatment.

The irritant, in my case, has been all the mortar and grout dust I've gotten in my nose over the past several weeks.

Yesterday Cheryl came down with the same fatigue symptoms, only her ears are fine. And she has to shout for me to hear, especially when I'm outside on a perfect day.

She's yelling something at me now, I think. Ha, ha...

Sealing and Calico

2011-11-01T21:06:00.004-04:00

Because grout is porous, it eagerly absorbs water. Over time, these damp little cracks between the tiles can become a home for microscopic molds and mildews, and these bastards mess up everything. So I'm soaking the grout in a sealer to help block them out. The down side: even if a do a perfect job, the seal is recommended to be applied every two years. (Are you kidding me?) Oh, and you have a use a brush that's the size of a pencil.

I did a little sealing last night on the walls. The goal is to get the seal to soak into the grout, which is no problem on the floor, but the sealer just wants to run down the wall. So I'll take my time and alternate this with the wood work, beginning with the new frame for the bathroom window.

Also, my favorite fish died yesterday. She was a sweet little fish, never fussing or complaining. I called her Calico because she was the cutest combination of red and white that you can imagine on a Koi (or any other creature for that matter).

Our tradition here is to hold a fish funeral each time one our wet little friends passes into the big pond. In this case the fish cemetery is our bamboo stand, because our bamboo are also very fond of fish. Next year a big bamboo shoot will jump up in this place.

I wasn't sure if the new management would allow me to have any time off for a fish funeral, so I didn't even ask. Facing my act of defiance, and in an attempt not to appear weak and unable to control the workers, the managers decided to actually come to the funeral, as if it was their idea to begin with, and then proceeded to cry and show out shamefully.

Is there no shame?

Home Alone

2011-10-28T14:04:00.003-04:00

My project manager, Willow, went to get her teeth cleaned yesterday, and I had no idea how empty the house would seem without her. Each movement I took--into my chair, out of it, to the kitchen and back, to the piano and back, outside for a walk, and back--was a reminder of how often I look for her and say little things that sound pretty silly and sad in a house all alone.

I did get a coat of paint on the wall using the rag technique to help give it a glow. I can't say that it does glow now or that I like the color, but I'm moving on--I can always change the paint later.

Who knew how serious a teeth-cleaning could be? She got a full anesthetic, a tube down her through, and she could barely get back into the car late yesterday. Even today she's very groggy and unsure, and I can't imagine that her clean teeth are much compensation.

People sometimes ask me how I can stand to work alone during the day. I didn't know until yesterday.

A Reliable Gadget

2011-10-23T10:06:00.004-04:00

After several days of antibiotics I feel pretty much normal except that my head is still filled with fluid, gurgling in my right ear as I tilt my head to the side, glug, glug, glug, and then my ear opens up and I can actually hear, and then glug, glug, glug as I straighten my head and my hearing goes away again.

We had company for dinner last night, giving me the incentive to finish off the bathroom wall prep work, remove the tape and clean up the incredible mess of my various texture attempts.
Now I'm ready to paint.

Also, I had a nice surprise when my aunt sent me something that I remember from childhood. I remember it sitting on my grandmother Mamie's kitchen table, capturing my attention as I waited for the breakfast of eggs and bacon and homemade bread, with the bacon cooked first and the eggs in the popping grease. Mamie would tilt the iron skillet and paddle the grease to cook the eggs on top. I see this all very clearly still today.

Mamie allowed me to play with the sand timer as much as I liked. I remember wondering why it worked. Why did the sand go through the tiny opening in such a consistent way? How could it know which grain of sand should go next?

And I still wonder. Today we would need to stop the sand and hold meetings at every 5th or 6th grain, produce a statistical analysis and discuss at length the dependability of gravity and the trustworthiness of sand.

So, being the adult that I've become, I had to measure the thing. My guess was 2 minutes but it finished at 3 minutes, 7 seconds. Had it grown slower with age? So I tried again, and again got 3 minutes and 7 seconds. Of all the gadgets that we've collected, I wonder which one will still be working 50 years from now?

Deja Vu

2011-10-19T13:25:00.004-04:00

It occurred to me that my symptoms today are very similar to symptoms that I had not too long ago--a stuffy head, popping ears, fatigue, flu-like nastiness--so I checked my blog and found an entry from last January titled Antibiotics.

Exactly the same.

There's no point in writing about it again. Once again, I'm on antibiotics, waiting to get better before returning to the project. What a baby.

A Big Head Cold

2011-10-14T21:30:00.007-04:00

I'm stuck in a blurry, stuffy world of muffled sounds, with the mother of all head colds that won't go away and that makes me tire out so quickly that I can't get any serious work done.

A few days ago I stumbled, literally, onto a solution for the ceiling and wall texture. Stumbled, because I was tired and depressed after my first, failed attempt but I didn't want to give up, so I tried something that would not have occurred to me had I been in my right mind.

And it worked--pretty much. By mixing less water with the sheet rock compound, I was able to roll it on and get a nice texture. I got part of the ceiling and wall finished, then I ran out of compound (and energy).

I need to get over this cold before doing any more work.

I've been fascinated by the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York--Cheryl and I were there when it first started, but we never went down to the park. It will be interesting to see where it all leads.

I've been thinking what it means to be an American, what it means to say we. Sometimes big changes grow out of a small beginning like this.

The texture is not exactly what I wanted but I'll get there.

Happy Anniversary

2011-10-11T14:50:00.005-04:00

Tomorrow is our 20th wedding anniversary. My memories of life before marriage are like random scenes from an old movie, while everything since that day is clear and connected with a common thread and a happiness that I never deserved: Cheryl, our homes, our dogs, our trips and our life.

Here's a picture of Jam looking up at Cheryl with the love that I also feel for her. Happy anniversary.

A Frog-Free Project

2011-10-09T08:39:00.007-04:00

All the grouting is done, leaving just one more tile-related step: sealing the grout. But I'll save that for later. The grout needs to be bone dry before getting soaked with the sealer. Sure, it feels dry now, but it's just trying to deceive me--underneath the grout it is as cold and damp as a frog's butt.

In fact, in the old days tile workers would hang up a frog and wait until its butt was dry before applying the sealer. And, no, they didn't use expensive silicone sealer. The human race wouldn't know how to do anything if it weren't for the old-timers.

We have no shortage of frogs in our backyard, but I'm not keen on the idea of hanging one by a string and letting it suffer and flop around. I could possibly use worms, but they dry out too quickly. Instead, I'll just wait for a long time.

So now I'm prepping the walls for painting, getting them ready to try another old-timer's trick (no animals are abused). I'm going to create an orange peel texture on the wall--the physical texture. Then I'll do some rag painting to get a textured affect with color.

But first I need to even out the drywall, and for some reason I've never had much patience with drywall.

Here's the project task description for this step: Earlier I installed a thin sheet of cement board on the ceiling above the shower and then tiled onto that board, so the tiles stick down a bit and the edge of the board would be visible (as in ceiling, board, tile). I'm filling in that area with compound to make it all smooth and level. On seeing these layers, the eye is tricked into believing that the tiles are applied right on the ceiling.

Except it take a little work to get it smooth. It all has to dry, of course, between layers. Fortunately it dries out much faster than a frog's butt, more like a worm's butt, though I can only guess.

Orchestra Pit

2011-10-06T20:46:00.005-04:00

We had a great weekend in New York with some friends, highlighted by the Book of Mormon play, which was hysterical. The music, one of the songs in particular, has been going through my head since we returned on Sunday.

As usual following a plane ride home, I've been fighting a cold this week. I'm making very little progress on the bathroom. I did finish the remaining grout work this afternoon. Tomorrow, or when the spirit moves me and I can get my brain focused, I'll start prepping the walls to be painted.

But part of me is still in New York.

I wonder what it's like to be a musician in New York, playing in the orchestra pit of the Book of Mormon. One of my favorite memories from college is playing violin for the school's production of The Music Man--I know, a corny play, but I loved being in the dark pit, with tiny lights below our sheet music, listening to the actors sing and to the audience laugh, playing my simple parts and getting some mean looks from the conductor because I was not a very good violinist at all.

After the Book of Mormon ended, we exited out a side walkway, and I could almost see down into the pit. The orchestra was rocking away, having a great time. What fun.

Grouting the Mirror

2011-09-29T14:05:00.004-04:00

Grouting the floor was no problem at all. What would have taken me hours on the Mexican tiles just took a few minutes on these nice, flat porcelain tiles. Being on the horizontal also made things much easier.

Like I had hoped, the grout lines have lightened up and blended in pretty nicely with the floor color.

Willow came in for an inspection, sniffed a few times, and then took a nap. I assume this means that she approves.

But I'm not quite done grouting. I've saved the mirror for last, assuming that I would be a world-class expert at grouting Mexican tile by this time.

Except I'm not at all happy with my first attempt. The grout is uneven, sometimes too shallow, sometimes uneven looking. We have a long weekend in New York, plenty of time for me to cuss myself for such a poor job.

By next week the grout should be plenty dry and ready to be sealed. At some point very soon, the tile portion of the project will end and it will be time to do the wall and ceiling prep for painting. I found a cool technique for doing orange peel finishes (manually, not with those stupid spray cans).

A Very Long Crack

2011-09-25T10:12:00.004-04:00

I've got one more section of wall to grout, then I can start on the floor, except I still need to finish prepping the floor, which means cleaning out the odd pieces of mortar and dirt that are stuck in the cracks, some of which are very hard and stubborn and reluctant to be vacuumed away.

By my calculation, I have about 2.3 miles of tile crack on the floor, enough crack that if I put it end to end it would stretch around the block 50 times until I can't walk any more. And I would still have more crack.

And once the cracks are clean, I will fill them with grout, and I'm drinking, breathing, eating and sleeping in grout these days. Grout salads and grout sandwiches. Grout movies, grout books, grout Internet. Enough grout for a lifetime of tile and more. Two lifetimes of tile and grout.

And then I have to seal it all.

After the Beep

2011-09-24T08:11:00.006-04:00

Cheryl is away on a school trip, so I have no distractions and no excuses for this weekend--I've got to get the grouting done. By my calculations, it will take 6 or 8 hours to finish the job. Very slow going, and I have a theory about why this is so.

Normal tile is pretty flat, and the edges of the tile naturally catch the grout as you wipe it over the surface. Our crazy Mexican tiles are unusually curved, bending back slightly at the edges and corners, so the grout just smears across the face instead of flowing into the cracks, and I have to really work it into the cracks.

Crack by crack. Corner by corner.

Once again I can deflect blame onto these tiles, and once again they deserve it.

Sometimes when Cheryl is out of town I like to talk to the navigation girl who lives in our car. She's got a cute voice but is nowhere near as much fun as Cheryl:

Dirty Hands, Brand New Flange

2011-09-22T13:01:00.008-04:00

1:01 p.m.
Our water heater has rusted out. The plumber, a surly dude and about my age, which is reason enough to have an attitude, is out in the garage installing the new heater. I'm especially surly right now. I can't have any lunch, not even a sandwich, because all the water is turned off and I can't wash my dirty hands (dirty from cleaning up the watery mess in the garage).

When he's finished with the water heater, I'm bringing him up to look at the toilet flange issue in the bathroom.

Right now there's just a hole in the bathroom floor. I need a new flange, which is the thing that connects the drain pipe to the toilet. Without a flange, the toilet become a feces distribution machine, a manure spreader, a crap-tossing device. The flange is not optional.

Because the floor is higher now (after leveling and adding the new tile), putting in a new flange may be difficult (or even impossible). I already know what the plumber will say when he sees the floor. He'll say that I should have done this and should have done that, etc., etc.

But I am ready for him.

2:23 p.m.
Still no lunch but the water heater is installed. The plumber was actually a nice guy. Yes, I got the speech about what I should have done. But when I told him that the floor has a 3-inch concrete slab underneath, he became quiet. We sat there on the tile, staring at the hole, and I told him how I leveled and raised the floor and how I removed the old flange and carefully bent the sleeve to receive one of the new flanges that are inserted with pressure rather that the old method of melting lead (I knew all this from the Internet), and he was impressed.

"OK, then," he said, "you did the right thing." I showed him the flange I had bought from Home Depot, and he installed it, for free. We shook hands goodbye--probably the least hygienic hand shake of my life.

Crazy Day

2011-09-17T08:22:00.007-04:00

8:22 a.m. I've just mixed up a batch of grout that is targeted for the shower ceiling tiles. The grout needs to sit in the bucket for about 5 minutes before I use it, giving me some additional time to consider what a mess I'm likely to make.

I remember back to the day we visited the tile store in Phoenix, standing in their demo tiled bathroom, and I told the sales guy that I was considering whether to tile the shower ceiling and he laughed. "If you do," he said, "be sure to wear a raincoat. And goggles."

The five minutes is up. I don't have a raincoat but I am wearing my work glasses and some big rubber gloves...

9:30 a.m. The grouting went pretty well. I just did half the ceiling--good thing, because it was pretty tricky. At one point a chuck of the stuff flew off in a perfect arc so that it went over my glasses and into my left eye, which is something that needed quick attention, otherwise my eye could be stuck forever. I had enough grout left over to do the section of wall under the sink--not bad.

12:36 p.m. After the grout was finished I went outside to mow the yard. About halfway through Cheryl comes screaming over to me. Our Jam got into something strange, something that turned out to be rat poison. He's fine, We got him to throw up and there were only a few tiny pieces of the blue stuff. But we were very upset. I found some additional packets of the stuff near a big plant in the back yard, and I'm guessing that some squirrels carried them here from somewhere else and stowed them away for safe keeping. I can't imagine any of our neighbors would do such a thing on purpose. I went and talked to some of them today, but the person who owns the house behind us wasn't home. More later...

Root Canal 2

2011-09-15T21:03:00.004-04:00

Today I got my root canal from a guy who does it for a living, a professional with such a cool set of tools: tiny prongy picks and pencil-sized drills and big plunger syringes full of tongue-numbing goo.

He knew exactly what to do and what not to do (cause me any pain). He made me laugh. He explained the procedure. And how many times has he said those same words to other patients?

It's nice to be reminded, from time to time, about the importance of a good doctor or dentist or plumber. They provide peace of mind and and a sense of trust, the ability to just breathe out and relax and let someone else take over for a while.

Tomorrow is a grout day.

Root Canal

2011-09-14T19:38:00.005-04:00

It's 7:30 pm and I'm sitting on the porch with the dogs, my iPhone and my cracked tooth that I didn't get fixed today because my dentist doesn't do root canals; I need to see a separate dentist for that. Tomorrow.

So no grouting today, because I feel like crap, and probably none tomorrow. Everything I put into my mouth hurts. Miserable.

Now I've walked up to my office because it is difficult to type a blog post into the iPhone. And now I can see the bathroom, waiting to be grouted.

Yesterday I did some corner grouting--where the ceiling meets the walls and where one wall meets another--with a special type of grout that is flexible and less likely to crack when the house expands and contracts. Crap. When my mouth hurts I find it difficult to get very excited about grout.

My cracked tooth has a filling that I got years ago, when I was about 14. Since then every dentist who has poked around in my mouth has criticized my small-town dentist and his filling, that it is too big and that the tooth will surely crack as a result. But the filling has lasted pretty well.

I don't remember actually getting the filling but I vividly remember closing the door to the dentist's office and then happily walking home on a summer day and over a gravelly road. Maybe it was the Novocaine.

Grouting as an Art Form

2011-09-11T17:03:00.014-04:00

On Friday night I cut and mortared the very last piece of tile for this project, an angular piece of rope tile in the upper left corner of the shower trim. I ran downstairs to let Cheryl know about the stupendous milestone, but more about that later.

Yesterday I started grouting. And though I was prepared to be careful, slow, methodical and precise, my nature runs in the opposite direction, and soon I had bitten off more than I could comfortably chew.

Grout goes into the joints and begins to set up immediately, turning into a gray haze. After about 15 minutes a damp sponge is used to wipe off the excess and get the grout into its final shape, just so, between the tiles. Then it becomes as hard as stone.

If a grouter is not meticulous, if he doesn't look at every single corner, the grout might harden up over a corner of the tile face. If the grouter is too meticulous he might overwork the grout and weaken it. If the grouter is too slow, if he starts at the top and takes too long to get to the bottom (certainly not me, even though getting the grout into those irregular cracks was very tricky), the grout at the top will become stiff and difficult to shape.

Of course the Renaissance fresco painters faced this same dilemma, the clock tick-tocking as the wet plaster canvas dried.

I could have been someone like Michelangelo but I'm not, and I'm not sure why. For several years I practiced the piano many hours a day--hours and hours and hours. I believed that if a person wanted something enough and tried hard enough, a person could do anything, like becoming a good pianist. At least that's what we tell children. Instead we should teach children how to tile and grout.

Then, after a few hours, it's time to wipe off the haze and see the tile shine again. I've been looking into the depth and shadows of the cracks between the tiles for several months, and now the surface is flat, more or less.

Now I have to figure out how to grout the shower ceiling. I guess if Michelangelo could paint the Sistine chapel ceiling I should be able to get some grout into upside-down little cracks. And be very proud when I'm done.

Minor Imperfections

2011-09-08T07:40:00.000-04:00

Finally it was time to cut the bottom row of green wall tiles, each one a custom cut to account for the slight roller coaster rides on the floor, the wall and on the edges of the tiles themselves, angling this way and that. I see imperfection everywhere I look, and it pleases me.

Here they are installed but not yet cleaned up.

The news today was full of bad stuff about all the unemployed people out there, about how people are staying unemployed longer than ever. Computer programmers (sigh!) continue to do management's bidding, which is to create a personnel-free environment wherever possible. Consider that a jet's autopilot can take off, fly, and land on its own--the human pilots are there just in case. Maybe airports someday will be completely self-serve: automated tickets, automated baggage, automated security, no flight attendants etc. Just wait for the doors to open and get on the plane. Maybe all places will look like that someday, like a Lowes store at 8pm on a Sunday night, full of confused people and no employees.

Isn't that management's dream, to drive up the stock price by sending the human workers home? It's called Free Market, and things will probably continue in this direction our shrewd managers (the humans) discover that their great thinking skills are no longer required. But as long as everyone owns stock, who needs a job, right?

I'm sure I know why Jam has been giving me such strange looks; his worth to the company will double when he figures out how to replace me with a do-it-your-selfer robot.

Meanwhile I keep my head down. I enjoy working with my hands and with the oddly-shaped hand-made Mexican tiles, and I enjoy seeing the imperfections that I create. I will be very difficult to get rid of...

Floor Tiles, Luck and Providence

2011-09-03T08:20:00.007-04:00

The new bathroom floor tiles come in 12-inch square sheets, with 36 small tiles on each. I wanted the tile to butt up nicely to the tub, so I started installing the tiles at the tub.

It's about six feet from the edge of the tub to the opposite wall, and in perfect world--which is a world that is kind to me, that looks out for me like a mother duck looks out for her ducklings, a world in which my coffee is always fresh and the dogs are happy to be with me and Cheryl is laughing, a world in which my mistakes are minor and I can correct them without anyone noticing, a world not free from tragedy (because that would be asking too much) but one in which tragedy always seems to skip past me--in such a world, the six sheets of tile would set down perfectly to the opposite wall with no necessary cuts on the tile saw.

The sheets of tile are not exactly 12 inches, and it's not exactly 6 feet to the wall, so I couldn't be sure if my guardian angel would be there for me. The floor tiles must fit under the wall tiles, which stick out about 1/4 inch from the wall. And since the little tiles on the sheet are about 2 inches wide, my chances of having a good fit, one arranged for me by providence, were about 12%. But to get a perfect fit, one in which the tile almost but not quite touches the wall, would be almost impossibly lucky.

And yet it happened.

Because I was tiling from right to left, I couldn't get to the section under the sink. I guess I could have suspended from the ceiling like spiderman, but I didn't want to push my luck.

Then I'll cut the final row of green wall tiles and it should look pretty nice. I'm a lucky guy.

One Job, Then the Tile

2011-09-02T11:01:00.006-04:00

The orange Ditra is down, set now and into perpetuity onto the bathroom floor where it has one job--to keep the floor stable so that cracks do not appear, even in the face of Armageddon.

Cheryl and I have adopted the phrase "one job" as a way of shoveling scorn on people who fail to pay attention, in particular to those people who are first in line at a turn light and who sit for several seconds and fail to act after the light turns green, causing us (who are sitting in line) to get stuck when the light turns red again.

We say at that evil person, with a loud voice, "You have one job! One job!" And the person drives away in shame, but there's no hope for people like this, and we shouldn't yell at them.

Or if we are first in line at the light and Cheryl is driving, I turn to her and (in jest) say "one job" as a reminder to watch the light instead of playing with her fingernails or admiring her curly hair in the mirror, to which she replies negatively.

Soon the Ditra membrane will disappear under the new tile, which comes in 12-inch sheets and is not orange. Because the stupid orange sheeting was so expensive (I am embarrassed to say how much), I am probably being more verbally abusive toward it than is necessary. "One job, you asshole," I may have said to it earlier...

A Pedicure in Brazil

2011-08-30T14:00:00.010-04:00

I got a pedicure once in Brazil. From what I could tell (because I don't understand much Portuguese), the pedicurist was impressed with my feet. She would squeeze my toes and hold them up for the other girls to see, like they were cute little puppies. And because I was in Brazil, this all seemed to be OK.

Of course, I wouldn't dream of getting a pedicure or manicure here, nor would I wear cuff links or cologne, and I try to avoid dressing in a way that distinguishes me from anyone you might meet in WalMart.

So naturally I was surprised when Jam came to inspect the job site today, complete with his new pedicure, buffed charcoal black paw pads, a hint of mascara around the eyes.

And like most bad-boy corporate-climbers and style-setters, he spent most of the day napping, recovering from the crazy night before, or so I suppose.

In the meantime, I've been leveling out the floor and preparing to put down a layer of Ditra, a waffle-like fabric stuff that goes between the old floor and the new tile and that should help keep the crack from returning and causing my new floor to crack.

Because Jam is so very cool, I hoped to impress him with my flooring details. But unlike Willow, who can listen for hours and who cares about the work (mostly), Jam can't even pretend to care. He is shopping for a Lexus now, which I'm told can be very draining.

Toilet Flange Passion

2011-08-27T08:32:00.007-04:00

To continue on with the floor tile removal, I purchased some manly chisels and set back to work.

Yes, the new chisels were an improvement. Even so, I calculate that it would take another 12 hours or so of work to do the whole floor, so I've got a plan B (to be discussed later).

My main goal was to remove the tile from around the toilet flange and then assess how the flange intends to torment me. Success.

The toilet flange is what connects the toilet to the floor, and like most things in nature it has a following of devoted fans who have found common purpose on the Internet and who do not tire of arguing over the best ways to respect and care for it, not unlike the two churches that Cheryl and I discovered in a small town in Spain that compete over their respective Madonnas, each Madonna statue with it signature color dress (one was scarlet) and makeup.

Having little else to distract me, I am easily caught up into new avocations, and finding like-minded people on the web, I can be drawn along by the passion of others, even when the subject of this passion is a metal ring that sits under a toilet--a metal (or plastic, remember) ring and the different ways it can be configured because, make no mistake, this subject has caused more than one fist fight among drunken plumbers.

It is not necessary to go into the details here because I had a long discussion about toilet flanges with Willow who, despite her shortcomings as a project leader, is usually a good listener.

But in this case, I have been drawn into a conflict--some competing ways of solving the toilet flange issue--and then pulled along toward the mental anguish of having to commit my loyalty to a particular flange approach.

This morning the matter consumed my interest to the point that I felt compelled to discuss it with Cheryl, complete with a illustrated discussion (using my hands to represent floor, flange, toilet and fecal matter) and a demonstration of how, over time, some unfortunate material from the toilet might slip out and ooze down onto the kitchen ceiling if I have committed myself to the wrong school of toilet thought.

She also is a very good listener.

Zen and Tile Removal

2011-08-24T13:51:00.007-04:00

A journey of a thousand miles
Starts with a single step.

As you are well aware, the Tao Te Ching encourages the reader to stay put in the present moment and not worry so much about the past or the future, particularly when working on a project that's taking much too #@$&#!# long. Otherwise, that person's mind is stuck in some far-away future place instead of in the real, present world.

I have to admit that I enjoy working with a hammer and chisel. I like the rhythmic ping, ping, ping. Our little porcelain tiles are deceptively tough, and they have the most determined grip on the slab underneath. Most of them shatter into razor sharp pieces, one of which just cut my lip. I'm wearing the safety goggles for sure.

I know I'm using the wrong chisel--they make special chisels just for this purpose. Of course, I could buy or rent a power tool to finish up quickly.

And there's the rub.

From one perspective, the tile-removal job is coming right along. But from a wider perspective I'm not close to being finished. At my current rate, I probably have another 15 or 20 hours of chiseling. If I buy a good chisel, things would go faster, and I enjoy the ping, ping, ping. A power tool would probably get it down to less than an hour, but no ping.

I don't need to consult with a Zen master about what to do--I already know the answer.

Zen masters really aren't much help anyway. They say things like:
The man who knows, cannot tell
The man who tells, doesn't know

I'm leaning toward a new chisel.

Feng Shui

2011-08-22T10:52:00.004-04:00

In 1926 our guest bathroom (the one I have been violating for the past few months) was the master bath. Our bedroom didn't exist yet--our current bathroom was the original bedroom, which explains why it has french doors and a balcony and a clear Feng Shui view of the front sidewalk if I ever care to pee standing up, which has lost its appeal as a result.

During the remodel (probably in the 50s) the workers replaced the original bathroom door with a solid panel. I punched it out last night. This will be a big wall of shelves when I'm done.

Opening a closed doorway has a certain mystery and charm, as if the forces of Feng Shui are restored to the original intent of the house and spirits are allowed to travel as before, and I did feel a sudden rush of cool air hit me as the panel opened up. Then I realized it was the air conditioner.

As I predicted, Willow was reluctant to walk through this opening. It took some repeated reassurance and demonstrations from me, walking back and forth through the opening, until I could not help wonder how she became my supervisor.

The toilet is out again. Time to do the floor, which has a big crack down the center. On close inspection I can see that the crack is about 3/8 inch lower than the rest of the floor, and I believe the crack and dip happened when the kitchen downstairs was remodeled and a wall was taken out.

Willow continues to waffle about the crack and what it means and how to address it. Will the floor continue to dip? More on this to come.

I finished tiling the mirror yesterday. Like the rest of the tile, it still needs to be grouted. Once the door frames and windows frames are in place and the walls are painted, it should look better.

My flunky assistant, Hector, wanted to take a picture so I said OK. What a dork.

Rocket Science

2011-08-20T07:10:00.005-04:00

It's time for the bottom row of tile around the tub. Each one of these tiles will need to be trimmed a little--some more than others because the tub itself is not level--on the wet saw so that I get an 1/8 inch gap between tile and tub. Because I started out with a nice level row, these cuts will be easy. I'll do the same on the walls next to the toilet and sink but only after I get the new floor down so that the wall tiles overlap the floor.

For the past few weeks I've been waking up at about 4:30am, and I spend the next hour or so in bed planning out the day. I see myself measuring the tiles, cutting the tiles, setting the tiles, almost one at a time. I walk through the order of events: when to remove the toilet, when to set the floor, when to do the grout, when to start on the door frames. I mentally organize things: where to put the toilet while I do the floor, where to move the wet saw because it is now in the way, where to put the plywood. Morning after morning, over and over, these details go through my head.

In the meantime I've started on the mirror frame using the small tiles bordered with the rope tiles, which will snake around the mirror and continue on the wall. I've cut the angles of the rope tiles countless times in my head.

It's not rocket science, is it?

My aunt Helen likes to make mirrors using sea shells. Mine won't be as nice as hers.

Tiling the Ceiling: Gravity and Magic

2011-08-14T14:49:00.016-04:00

Einstein struggled with the nature of gravity most of his life, and he never was able to fully explain it.

Here's what I think about gravity: Matter expands and continues to expand at a relative rate. What we feel as gravity--something pulling us back to earth--is actually inertia. The earth is like a balloon that is swelling bigger and bigger. We jump up, and the earth swells up and smacks us in the butt. We're swelling, too, but not as fast as the earth because we are much smaller.

When you put tile on a wall, you need to use spacers or gravity will pull the tile down the wall, or rather, the floor will catch up to the tile. This slipperiness persists until the mortar dries. The ceiling is even more slippery.

First, I put a burn coat (a thin layer) of mortar on the ceiling--I did this days ago so that the coat would be very dry by today. Then Cheryl helped me snap some red chalk lines on the ceiling so I could keep the rows in line, which is really important here because the tiles need to line up on all three walls.

But like everything in science, there are exceptions that work because of magic or witchcraft. I needed some magic to make the tiles stick immediately and hold on tight to the ceiling for no reason at all. I found the answer online, at the Floor Elf.

Then finally this morning I was ready for a test. I mixed up some mortar just so--very thick but not too thick. Then I put a heavy layer on the back of a tile so that it completely filled the curve of these weird hand-made tiles. And then I drew a circular pattern into the mortar, careful to get some on my third finger and my thumb (that's the magic part).

I pushed the tile onto the ceiling and gave it a good shove to cause the extra mortar to ooze out the sides. It makes that gritty sound that you get from biting into a sandwich at the beach.

Of course, I was afraid to let go of the first tile . If the magic didn't work I'd have to go to plan B, and there wasn't a plan B. After setting a few I realized that I could let go immediately. And later, when I needed to pull one of the tiles off to replace it, I found that I could not even get it off with my hands, so I had to pry it off with a screwdriver.

Now that I think about it, my ideas about gravity are pretty stupid. I'm rethinking that whole subject.

Using the grid lines made things go pretty quickly. I finished half the ceiling today. More later.

A Tea Pot

2011-08-11T08:43:00.005-04:00

Cheryl and I found a tea shop in St Pete this weekend, and I picked up some new tea--some Silver Needle and some Oolong--and this purple clay teapot from China, just big enough for one cup of tea.

I didn't really expect to use it because I am addicted to morning coffee and already get more caffeine that I can stand. The tea is easier, though. Just a pinch of tea into the pot and some not-quite-boiling water (around 175 degrees), because boiling water poured directly on the leaves will make tea bitter.

Several years ago I made tea for Cheryl and Gisah, our friend who is a chef and who (I could tell) wanted to stop me from using boiling water but did not, to spare my masculine feelings I suppose, and then later said the tea was very good, even though it was bitter.

Anyway, I haven't had any coffee since Sunday. I thought I would make a record of it here, in case I never drink coffee again.

Yesterday, I took the first step to prepare for the ceiling tiles--putting a burn coat of thinset on the ceiling. I'll do one more coat today, plus get the sink area ready for the mirror.

The burn coat is the key to hanging tile upside down, or at least that's what the Floor Elf says. If things don't go well, I can always blame him.

The Debt Crisis

2011-08-07T16:32:00.005-04:00

While unfortunate events like the recent debt crisis and the ping to the U.S. credit rating are bad news for our economy as a whole, they tend to rearrange corporate deck chairs so that some individuals profit at the expense of others. In particular it's a time for the hungry young executives to make a move (and for the old timers to hunker down).

When Willow came to see me today, with a bright face and an odd interest in the project and in me, I knew (even though worker bees like me don't hear things first hand) that the shake-ups at the top of our corporate ladder didn't trickle down favorably to her. And I could guess that Jam, who has been absent from the work site for a few days, has fared better.

At a certain point, when a manager reaches a certain age, after climbing and climbing, like a baseball smacked into the outfield until the arc of possibility and trajectory flattens out and starts to descend, and even when the manager is the last person to realize it, at last the truth sinks in. Willow had that look today, hunkered down with me in the bathroom.

So we had a nice talk and I cheered her up. I asked for her advice about the project, about how to prepare the ceiling and so on, and suddenly she was her old self, immersed in a simple project again.

So where is Jam? I didn't ask, but I expect that he is moving up the organization chart.

The side wall if finished now. Sometime during the next few days, I will be trying a technique for putting tiles on the ceiling. It sounds too good to be true, but it must be true because I read about it on some guy's website.

Fitting In

2011-08-06T10:07:00.007-04:00

Somewhere in Mexico a tile-maker is tossing back a shot of tequila. He is a big guy with big clay-red hands, sitting with a pot of coffee to his left and, even though it's only 10 am, a bottle of Mescal to the right. Like the other tile workers in his group, including the woman who occupies his thoughts, he sits at a wooden bench under a tin roof, looking out onto a stream and a coconut palm forest, while children scamper up and down the hillside to fetch buckets of wet clay.

The tile-maker slaps a handful of clay into the 4-inch square metal mold, pats it flat, then removes the metal, carefully at this point or the tile can become misshapen, and puts the red tile aside, while his partner, the silent woman of his dreams, adds layers of glazing on one side, starting with a milky white, and then several thin layers of green, so that as the tile dries it curves a bit (because the bare side dries faster than the painted side). And when the tile emerges from the kiln, its convex surface has a shimmering depth of color.

These batches are done with 120 tiles at a time and then packed into a box so that each box has a distinctive color and quality, though often very different from other batches of the same tile.

The woman had dreamed of being a great painter some day, and the man, well, he just makes clay tiles and dreams about his partner instead of his work. It is beautiful.

Salvador Dali Tiles

2011-08-03T15:14:00.005-04:00

The big boss, Willow, came by to see me today, coincidentally (she says) just after I got my new camera charged up for its initial testing. Cheryl has the same camera, not expensive but takes very nice pictures, and I cannot be outdone by Cheryl on such things.

Willow poses for the camera like she expects every picture will make it to the cover of Business Weekly or Forbes or whatever crap she's reading these days to satisfy her passion for money and power. Then she starts talking in some weird formal voice, like I'm interviewing her for the magazine, and she's humbly taking credit for the project, all made possibly because of her hands-on, dynamic management style that complements a synergistic, etc., etc... On and on she goes because she can't resist the camera lens and that dense forest of corporate ladders in her mind, dangling there just within her reach if only somehow she could grab someone's attention--someone important.

Meanwhile (not that Willow cares), I just finished (except for the edges) the main portion of the faucet wall. To my endless frustration, I discovered that the last unopened box of light green tile (handwritten in Spanish as Liso on the box) was a much lighter green than the others. Lighter, and bigger on the average, and even more misshapen than the other Liso tiles, some apparently designed by Salvador Dali (during the period when he was too drunk to paint).

So now I'm mixing the tiles from the boxes to distribute the shades of green, and the effect is OK. Not bad at all. But now I have to measure and rotate and place each tile because of the weird shapes. Progress is slow.

Anyway, one more wall to go, then to the ceiling. The ceiling will be very cool.

Encountering the Real World

2011-07-31T12:34:00.010-04:00

We live in 3-dimensional space, or at least that's what our eyes and brains make out for us, considering that we are biologically designed to perceive only a particularly narrow spectrum of energy called light, which provides us with just enough information to survive, just enough so that we have the necessary depth perception to chase after wild animals and to spot different colored fruit in the trees. Yes, I've been reading a book about the brain--Cheryl is sick of me talking about it (and she's been giving me other books to read, hoping that I will shut up).

So, even though we believe that we are fantastically intelligent creatures, only a few very of us (and certainly I am not in the group) can comprehend quantum mechanics and multiple dimensions and all the fantastical truths of the universe. Most of us only see the X, Y and Z--like two walls and a ceiling--and that is challenging enough, apparently, for someone with my level of intelligence.

Due to a miscalculation, my top row of tile is about 5/8 inch from the ceiling--too far if I just intended to put tile on the ceiling. No, that would leave a wide gap between the ceiling tile and the wall tile. How does an adult make such a miscalculation, considering that I learned about these basic math concepts in the second or third grade? Did I think that my positive attitude and good nature and Zen concentration would correct for a few fractions of an inch? (I don't have a better explanation.)

So while some people are, at this moment, working feverishly to cure cancer, I am pondering how to solve my tile gap problem. Bigger still, I'm wondering how I will ever set tiles upside down on the ceiling without them crashing to the floor.

Then yesterday I found the answer on-line. More later...

Special Cuts

2011-07-29T10:00:00.013-04:00

I've rounded a corner in the shower, and I've made the special cuts for the tiles around the shower faucet, taping them in place because each tile is snowflake-unique, with its own angles and dimensions.

Jam, my corporate motivational coach, is a constant presence at the job site, making notes for the bosses and sipping espresso and surfing the web while I work, sticking his shiny nose into the bathroom every few minutes to sniff around, as if the quality of my work had some particular odor.

His friendly and casual manner rubs against me like a wet stone. And yet I am glad when he gives me a lick or the slightest bit of attention. Obviously I am not management material, because I still don't understand this mystery--why do we feel the need to please some people more than others?

This weekend I should be finished with the faucet wall and the back wall. Then it's time for the ceiling--tiling upside down...

Relatively Good Progress

2011-07-22T15:37:00.007-04:00

Despite my attempts to resist the pressures coming from the new consultant, I find myself working with some efficiency on the bathroom project. Jam (that's the consultant's name--he thinks he is so cool) is at the work site bright and early each morning, and his sole mission in life is to motivate me to finish the bathroom project in a timely manner.

So I take my sweet time fixing the coffee and having breakfast and checking my email, determined not to let him get under my skin. But there he is, unflapped, and before long I'm lulled back into the bathroom to do work. Boy, he's good.

I've got half the big shower wall done, leaving for now the three-dimensional issues (where the ceiling tiles meet the wall tiles) on hold until the walls are done. I've put a batten board down the middle of the wall to keep me completely centered, and it's a good thing, considering how the lop-sided tiles are so irregular. I'm doing the right side, then the left.

I thought I was making some good progress until Cheryl popped in (accompanied by Jam) and said "Gee, I thought you would be further along by now."

For most people such a statement would have some clear intent, a more-than-mild rebuke for being so slow, but from Cheryl I took it as a statement of fact; she simply thought I would be further along, and she did not consider it necessary to edit her feelings before letting them pop out. I love her very much.

But, in fact, I am making remarkable progress, though with an unfortunate setback Wednesday when, in the middle of setting tiles, I could not remember how many rows of dark green should be on the wall. My notes, it turned out, were not as clear as they should have been. More later...

Jam, the Consultant

2011-07-17T09:03:00.013-04:00

After a project founders for a few weeks or months, the management team will often get together to consider how best to assign blame. When multiple layers of management exist, each upper layer will look to the next layer below and affix the blame there, calling it a crisis of leadership, a failure to inspire, as if all work springs forth from a desire to please the boss man. And this pile of blame tumbles down hill until it lands on the immediate supervisor, in this case, Willow, who has no to blame except me, and that excuse is now worn out.

In such cases, the immediate supervisor will, if she is smart, bring in a consultant to prove that the problems are technical in nature (and deceptively difficult) and certainly not due to a failure of leadership. Such consultants are usually young, energetic and devious. And so, this morning, Jam the consultant came to visit the work site.

Oh yes, Jam was friendly and polite to me, like a good son eager for some advice from his good old dad. I showed him the bathroom and explained how we have been so busy for the past few months and how not much has gotten done. But he just stared at me with big eyes and peppered me with questions, one after another, and of course I knew what he was doing, playing with me like I was the child, like I was a spoiled kid who needed to quit stalling and clean his bedroom.

So I explained about how the tiles will be set on the wall so that they are level and so that the bottom row will fit in above the bathtub in all places, nicely and with no awkward gaps.

And yes, I answered, we could put up the first batten piece now--there's no reason to wait...

The CEO Decides, Part 2

2011-07-14T09:02:00.006-04:00

In just a few minutes a roofing contractor will arrive, and all because I was unable to repair or to even diagnose the problem that developed during the heavy rainstorms last week and that caused part of the ceiling to swell and drip and swell some more until it finally broke free and fell to the floor. I've covered the open area with a scrap of plywood.

This won't be the first roofing contractor to come out, so I don't have high expectations. The other guys have just held up their hands and walked away without even estimating the job, as though rain water was some supernatural and magical force better left alone. Even a completely new roof, one guy told me, might not solve the problem. How crazy is that?

So this weekend I decided to solve the mystery for myself, to climb up on the roof with a water hose and squirt here and there while Cheryl watched from inside for a drip--a dumb idea because water moves from the roof to the ceiling by slowly wicking through the rafters, like a sponge. I knew this. It moves sideways, all ways, through the wood. I knew this. Or at least part of my brain knew this.

Another part of my brain told me that I should definitely not climb up on the roof. It has very strong feelings about high places.

The CEO (my conscious mind) ignored all this advise and decided to climb up and squirt. I can only guess that he was motivated by the thought of saving a few bucks, which is what you might expect from the CEO. Sad.

I took the small step ladder onto our balcony and climbed to the top step. Even so, I would have to jump, or squirm a little, to get up over the edge, which meant that I would have to do the opposite on the way down. Once committed to the top, I would have no choice than to come down or call for a helicopter to get me. So I hopped up and it was done.

I squirted and squirted in the area above the leak, probably for 15 minutes (probably longer, just to avoid the thought of coming down), but nothing happened inside. Time to get down.

More later.

The CEO Decides, Part 1

2011-07-11T07:14:00.008-04:00

It's been almost three months since the kitchen fire. Three months, and yesterday I finally got the small set of cabinets cleaned up and put back in place. One of our kitchen bar stools was the perfect size to hold the cabinet while I placed it.

Sometime this week I'll do the remaining touch-up to the cabinet finish, yet another distraction and postponement of the bathroom project.

In the meantime we've sprung a new ceiling leak near the top of the stairs. The leak is situated is such a way that suggests its origin, which is never a sure thing, especially with older houses like this. So I got the bright idea, despite my intense fear of heights, to crawl up on the roof with a water hose and spray one place and then another while Cheryl waited and watched from inside. We settled on the strategy that she would shout the word "Nothing" again and again until some drops appeared.

My acrophobia extends back into early childhood, back to some event that wired my baby brain with a life-time warning about falling. I suspect I fell off a table and whacked my baby head on the floor, and because this theory serves to explain other aspects of my behavior, I have no reason to suspect otherwise.

Anyway, I've been reading a book about the brain. One interesting notion is that the conscious mind is like a corporate CEO, just there to make the big decisions while the vast array of specialized employees (the unconscious mind) do the real work (like breathing and seeing) in anonymity. As a result, the CEO thinks that he makes everything happen. When there is an internal conflict, like when one part of the brain wants to climb up on the roof and another one does not, the CEO steps in to make the decision. When you are unsure about whether to have another piece of pie, the CEO makes the call. Otherwise, he mostly naps.

At the top of the ladder I hesitated for a long time, knowing that once committed to the roof, the hard part would be coming down.

More later.

Venice

2011-07-03T09:09:00.007-04:00

I bought a paper hat in Rome, not just because I am a dweeb but because the top of my head was burned and blistered. By the time we got to Venice I was sometimes forced to wear it. Fortunately Venice is a very shady place.

Being a hopelessly romantic person, I insisted that we go on a gondola ride. Of course the rides are ridiculously expensive, but Venice is sinking into the sea, and when will we get another chance to paddle up to the home where Mozart lived or to where Marco Polo waved goodbye to his family? (OK, possibly the ride was not completely my idea...)

We turned the corner and found ourselves in the alleyway of a deserted and decaying city. What we saw would have shocked the Venetians of years ago--their houses sunk below the water.

In many places people no longer live on the bottom floors because the sea rushes in each day at high tide. Ornate, fancy doors stand proudly, rotting at the bottom. Many windows were bricked up to help provide some stability. The population of Venice has decreased dramatically in the past several years because no one can afford to buy and fix these buildings.

My silly brain, it seems, is unable to relax and enjoy some history--I just want to fix up these places.

The sea bed is sinking, and global warming will raise the water level just enough to really complicate things in this century. A great deal of money comes into Venice, and they have ambitious projects underway (like some giant gates that are meant to hold out the water from high tides), but the outlook for Venice is grim.

More than once during the ride I was reminded of being on Lake Overcup as a kid years ago, quietly paddling around in a small boat at a good fishing spot, around the remains of an old house, except all we could really see was its chimney sticking up from the water and the gray trunks of trees that once shaded the driveway.

Cave Canem

2011-07-01T10:49:00.007-04:00

More than 2,000 years ago someone designed and built this jacuzzi in Pompeii, a city that rivalled Rome at the time. I remember learning about Pompeii in grade school, how it was buried by volcanic ash, but I had no idea about it size--acres and acres, and only about a third of it has been unearthed so far.

The big sunken bath above featured plumbing with clay and lead pipes. In the center you can see how the floor was supported above spaces to circulate steam. Obviously these guys cared about their leisure time.

We walked down the city streets and could clearly identify the shops and restaurants, complete with pizza ovens, and then into the residential district. At one house, in the hallway leading to the front door, is this famous mosaic of a dog with the phrase "Cave Canem" (beware of dog). But notice the crouched position and wagging tail--dog people would have known that this was a playful dog (despite the barred teeth), so I see it as a mixed message. "Beware of dog," it says, "(except for dog people)"

Someone took the time to construct this picture out of thousands (maybe trillions) of small tiles. How long did it take, I wonder, and was there a project manager and a deadline?

The Pieta and a Lizard in Rome

2011-06-26T08:09:00.006-04:00

All do-it-yourselfers should read The Agony and the Ecstasy, a book about Michelangelo and his art (his painting, sculpture and architecture), sure, but also a book about craft, stubbornness and pride.

It's been years since I read the book, but I vividly remember the section on the Pieta, which now sits in the St. Peters in Rome and which I finally got to see last week. Jesus is down from the cross, held by his mother who appears to be a very large person and very young (and cute) looking for someone with a 33-year-old son. But this is for deliberate effect, a subject matter for art historians and sensitive people. No, what I remember from the book was Michelangelo's chisel work.

Long after the statue was in its final form, he worked hours and hours and hours doing the fine detail work, days and weeks and months of tap, tap, tap with his hammer, sharpening chisels (that he made at a forge), sharper and finer until the Madonna's forehead was as smooth as glass. Michelangelo was 23 years old at the time, a real do-it-yourselfer.

Of course, the Sistine Chapel ceiling is also described in the book, and I was no less excited to see it. We took a long walk through the Vatican museums to reach the chapel, with tourists pushing in all on sides, and we were surprised to find the big chapel crowded with people, sardine-packed with people, many of whom had frightened looks (which will remain as my memory of the place, instead of the ceiling) as a big policeman screamed "Silenzio!" every few seconds from his perch on a table, like we were in some bizarre Italian horror movie in which a large lizard eats all the tourists.

Even with my glasses, the ceiling was too far away; the "Creation" was little more than a postage stamp. And Cheryl has an aversion to crowds, so we pushed our way through and out the door before the lizard got us.

Not in Florence

2011-06-25T15:42:00.004-04:00

Willow slipped a note under my door this morning. "Hope you had a nice trip," it started, which is what your boss says when she really means to say, "Your trip is over now, so get your head out from your posterior."

That's OK, nothing can bother me for a while. The note continued, "...but we are in a real bind with the schedule, so I've prepared a priority list for you."

1. Fix the cabinets.
2. Fix the kitchen floor.
3. Finish the bathroom.

No, we're not in Florence anymore...

The Night Sky

2011-06-17T16:52:00.001-04:00

Last night, on the very top deck of the ship, with cold winds whipping at our backs, Cheryl and I listened to an officer talk about celestial navigation and the stars. We had just pulled away from Croatia in the Adriatic Sea, moving through the same waters travelled for centuries by Greeks and Romans and others, back when the Mediterranean was the middle of the known world and the night sky was thought to be spherical, like an upside down bowl painted with twinkling stars and planets that chased each other in a circle, back when people were aware of the night sky and had enough imagination to create stories about the constellations and hand the stories down to the next generation, at least until next generation lost interest.

The GPS system on the ship can track its position within a few feet at all times, but all the navigation officers are still trained to use a sextant (a really cool instrument with gears and lenses) and to refer to the stars should technology fail on the ship, though the sextant can only show position within a mile or two and it depends on steadiness of hand and about an hour’s worth of math.

I’m shopping around for a sextant…

Beauty and Imperfection

2011-06-13T02:24:00.000-04:00

Cheryl and I are on a ship today, headed for Montenegro, then on to Venice and then Croatia. We’ve seen the Sistine Chapel, the pieta in St. Peters, the Vatican museum and countless frescos, murals, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, mosaics. Endless beauty.
Yesterday we saw Mount Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii, which (I was surprised to learn) had been a very large city when it was buried in 79 AD. Much of Pompeii is still buried under the volcanic ash. We then visited some beautiful cliff-hugging towns along the Italian coast, including Positano, known for its lemons and, of course, good Italian food and coffee.
I’ve also found some find encouragement from the imperfect attempts of others. (Leaning tower of Pisa)
More later...

The Sink Project

2011-05-30T12:08:00.006-04:00

Knowing that we'd have company by next weekend, I made a bold adjustment to the project schedule, essentially breaking out the bathroom sink as a separate project of its own, which meant grouting the tile, attaching the Mexican sink to the tile, installing the faucets and completing the plumbing under the sink. Otherwise our guests would not have a place to wash their hands.

Normally I'd need several meetings with the project manager to get such a drastic change approved. We'd draw up a change in scope and wrestle with the existing project plan to get the arrows, lines, triangles and colors in the proper configuration. Then there's document review, another meeting for scheduling and yet another for manpower adjustment and then final management review. And by that time, our guests would have already been here and gone.

So, even though I'm just a worker bee, I made an execute decision to finish the sink with no supporting ISO-compliant documentation. In two days the work was done.

Of course, Willow will take credit for the sink when our guests arrive. She'll brag about our adaptable and facile corporate structure. In the meantime she is not pleased with me at all.

How Tiles Get Made

2011-05-27T11:37:00.004-04:00

Here is one of my tiles, picked completely at random from the box, tucked into the elbow of a carpenter's square (a tool that brings up a completely different memory, but I'm trying to stay focused on the tile for now). Virtually every one of my tiles are comically crooked and bent like this, curved and buckled and warped, but that's the charm, right?

My guess is that the tile maker has a square frame on her work desk somewhere in Mexico, and I imagine that she looks out from the back porch onto a vast plantation of coconut palms. It is a perfect square in all regards, but she has a fiery temper and little regard for detail on many days. She slops in a hand-full of wet clay and flattens it out, and then she removes the frame and smooths off the top edges. And then something happens: sometimes she pushes too hard or she drops it on the floor or she throws it at her husband. She is bored with the tile-making, it seems, but it is a living.

Or maybe these are cranked out in a factory. Who knows?

Because each tile is different, I had to cut and place them all into a taped grid on the vanity top, carefully so that the faucet holes and sink opening are OK. The slightest movement of one would introduce chaos. So I un-taped them and set them back one at a time.

And now that it's dry, I'll grout the top today and then install the sink and faucets tomorrow, getting ready for a visit from Cheryl's parents next week. Maybe we'll even put the toilet back into place...

So Many Things Undone

2011-05-21T08:43:00.013-04:00

According to some nutty guy on the radio, the world is supposed to end later today. So Willow called a special meeting at 5:30 this morning. "Wouldn't it be a shame," she said to all of us assembled in the breakfast room, "if we left this earth today, with so many things undone."

I haven't done any work on the bathroom since the fire, but now I'm ready to start again, and, coincidentally, the world is ending on the same day, and it seems that Willow and her upper management team have dreamed up this new way to keep the project on course, beginning with the early morning meeting--early, so there's no time for anyone to develop personal plans for the apocalypse.

She continued with a long pep talk, sounding like an inspired football coach who never gives up, even when the team is about to jump into a lake of fire after halftime. And she had some interesting incentive for me. Apparently, if I can get the sink tiles cut by today, Satan will not be so mean to me this evening.

So let it be recorded as follows: On the last day, management called a meeting, and I went back to work. What better way to prepare for Armageddon?

A Cocktail Party

2011-05-15T12:19:00.004-04:00

Today was a day for the closing of loose ends, for finally getting signed up with a new home security system, and for finally setting my computer so that it backs up to one of those online backup sites.

And as much as I pedal water, my chin is still wet from working with the insurance company and contractors about the house fire, expanding it now to other repairs like replacing the broken window in the guest house and the leaking window in my office. It's a never ending stream of activity that most normal people would consider just normal, but that seems like complete chaos to me. The loose ends are endless. Normality has vanished.

Cheryl and I even went to a cocktail party at a country club this weekend, a benefit for guide dogs and, if I'm not mistaken, the first cocktail party I've ever attended without being paid. A band was playing off to the side, and I was transported back in time to the days when I played in a tuxedo band for weddings and big parties like this. On breaks we would attempt to steal drinks and food from the buffet table, stuffing shrimp and buns and cocktail weiners into our tuxedo pockets until we developed permanent greasy stains.

Back in those days I never saw myself--my older self--out in the crowd. I never guessed that I would be rubbing noses with the country-club set. But then, I never saw my older self at all. And I still don't, except briefly in the mirror now and then.

The guys in the band smiled at me when I walked by with Berkeley. Me, wearing my silk jacket and walking a dog wearing a blue jacket. Sigh.

A Mother's Day Post

2011-05-09T14:21:00.006-04:00

My hand is healing slowly, casually knitting in the new skin, cell by cell, just as the clock ticks away, with no hurry or worry about my project schedule. Every night I take off the bandages and get into the shower to scrub off the remaining cream and take a close look, then rinse off and get a fresh set of bandages. As of last night my skin, except for the odd burn on the top of my foot, was completely closed.

During the fire a piece of black bubbling ooze landed on my left sandal and petrified, fused itself into the black plastic, where it remains as a present for me to cherish. Part of that glob landed on my foot, though, and I still have a small, angry flesh volcano at that spot.

I suppose I'm writing this because I used to say things like this to get a reaction from my mom, who's not here, again, this Mother's day. I wish I could turn back the calendar at least once a year and go visit her. And show off my bandages.

Bingo: Mission Accomplished

2011-05-06T11:48:00.009-04:00

Bingo, our former puppy who vanished without a trace into the service of the CIA about one year ago, is back to visit us, and only a few days after Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, though of course we do not discuss such things. And yet the timing is interesting.

Consider also that now his favorite toy is a Pakistani elk antler, something he sucks on like it was a fat, expensive cigar. He's a big boy, solid, and serious, with stories to tell, except he cannot tell them.

He'll be here until Monday and then he's off again, off to do Bingo things.

Tight White Dress

2011-05-04T14:06:00.003-04:00

What looks good in a tight white dress? My right hand. That's right. My sexy right hand.

The burn people say I've got another week or so in these dressings, but at least all my fingers are free and I can type at normal speed, making my white dressing dance.

Sexy! (But not like Michael Jackson or anything weird.)

Still not Recognized

2011-05-02T10:36:00.006-04:00

My computer still refuses to recognize me even after the bandages are gone from my right index finger. The fingerprint sensor gives me a big X and says Failed, which tells you a little about the people who developed the software. They could have used a smiley face instead and with a nice message like "Are you sure that was your finger?"

Maybe it's because my finger is a little raw, a little pinkish and without the normal layer of dead skin. It's pink and shiny like the top of my head when I stay outside for too long without a hat. Or maybe some transformation has taken place in the hills and valleys of my fingerprint, which I doubt because John Dillinger famously tried to burn off his fingerprints, and failed, and I bet he wasn't a baby about burning himself.

So I still have to enter my password. I'll keep trying every morning until the machine knows who's fingering who.

Out of the Routine

2011-05-01T16:39:00.004-04:00

With my right hand still pretty gimped, the bathroom project is at a complete stop, waiting within my eyesight here in the office, just as I type this, if I tilt my head to the left a few inches. The green tile is shimmering on the wall. "Have you forgotten me?" it says with a sigh when I peek.

And the other after-effects of the microwave fire continue to deprive us of our normal routine. We're shopping for appliances, evaluating new home security systems, working with the insurance company and some contractors, eating cold stuff from the fridge. And lately a software problem at work is giving me fits and consuming my other "free" time, something that I've resolved to appreciate, with appropriate regularity, as soon as I get it back.

But the hard fact is this: right now my hand is wrapped in a dressing that I can't get wet. No cutting tile with the wet saw. Maybe one more week and my burns will be healed enough that I can get back into the routine.

I'm not complaining.

Cleaning Crew

2011-04-25T12:02:00.004-04:00

We have a fire restoration company working to bring everything back to pre-fire conditions, but in some cases, as with the cleaning away of soot today, the condition will be improved since our cleaning crew is working in places that have been long neglected, like the tops of the kitchen cabinets.

One of the cleaners told me how glad he was to have some work. He gets paid by the hour instead of salary. So a fire or flood is, in that regard, good news for him. It's some steady work for a few days.

Being a virtual idiot in economics, I am overwhelmed by all the things I don't know; like how so many people can make a living and survive on the shifting sands of supply and demand, and how people can feed their families and pay off mortgages with uncertain wages, working in an economy that is slowly circling the big toilet bowl.

Cheryl and I are lucky to have steady work. We are lucky in many ways. I'm glad at least some good has come from the fire--at least the restoration people are working.

Just to be Safe

2011-04-24T08:23:00.006-04:00

My laptop has a fingerprint reader that I use to log on, but for some reason it is not able to see my fingerprint through the bandages and the burns on my index finger. So Monday morning I was stuck. The only recourse, the only way I could do any work, was to somehow remember that password I created over a year ago and that I then never used again, never imagining that someday my index finger would not be available for scanning.

To make things worse I have countless passwords--for work, for online banking, for online shopping, and so on--all of them different, but not all are written down. Apparently I never bothered to write down the computer's password.

But now we are very safety and security conscious. We just got a new fire extinguisher. We're looking at getting a new home security system and fire-proof safe. And when I went to see the doctor this week, I put Willow in the backyard. Just in case.

Then on Friday Cheryl and I went to my appointment at Tampa General Hospital's burn unit. After seeing some of the other patients there, I realized how minor my burns are. They cut away all the remaining blisters on my hands and wrapped me up and patted me on the head like I was some four-year-old who had just run into the house to show her mommy the mean splinter in her finger. My hands should be healed up in a week or two, no problem.

I finally did remember the password. I probably should write it down somewhere.

Blistered and Flustered

2011-04-22T08:38:00.006-04:00

My hands are still blistered and still wrapped up. For the past two days Cheryl has been the bandage architect, slapping on layers of this creamy stuff, then some pads, then gauze wrapping, then taping and then various final wrappings, the twists and turns of which cause us to argue (over the thumb here; no, under, etc.) until I am the mummy again. To be clear, Cheryl is just as good a bandager as the nurses I've seen this week, and I'm glad she can put up with me.

My burns don't really hurt. They haven't really hurt all week, and this is not a good sign, I'm told by the doctor. I have no complaints in this regard. I can wiggle my fingers freely and type, so everything seems OK. Today I go to the Tampa General burn unit just to be sure.

The project delay is really starting to bother me, though project manager Willow is handling it all in stride, reminding me to take all the time I need, etc. I can never figure her out. Anyway, I am just now to a fun spot--doing the sink and the mirror.

I lined up some tiles to get a general idea of what the mirror will look like on the wall, one row of the small tiles and a border of the rope tiles. In this picture, the mirror is showing a reflection of the wood panel ceiling in the guest bedroom, and you can see a blade of the ceiling fan.

More later.

Fire, Bad

2011-04-18T07:57:00.003-04:00

We had a big day yesterday. Our microwave short-circuited and started a fire, filling the house with smoke but fortunately not much damage.

I was just getting ready to work on the bathroom, both of us upstairs, when the alarms went off, and I tore downstairs to find smoke pouring from the microwave and flames shooting out the vent on top and dripping out the bottom. We had not even used it, except I always use the microwave timer to make Cheryl's special French press coffee in the morning (too bitter for me).

There are some burn marks on the floor--not too bad. And some damage to some cabinets. The stove and microwave are toasted. And we lost some appliances. And there's some smoke damage. And the smell. And... I won't go into detail.

I had the fire put out by the time the fire department got there, but they were great and helped clean up the water mess I created.

Anyway, my hands got sprinkled with some bubbling black ooze, which I was unable to wash off and which the people at urgent care also weren't able to remove (eventually it will wear off, they say). So now I am in a bandaged state and aware of the many things to appreciate about fingers. Like typing. But no permanent damage--just waiting for them to heal, two or three weeks.

Cheryl took a video of them bandaging me, so I'll be posting that soon. Then I pretended to be the Frankenstein monster, saying Fire, bad, and I scared Cheryl. Ha.

And I had just gotten the new mirror for the bathroom--I'll be tiling around it with the decorative pieces.

But probably not this week.

Working in Hyperspace

2011-04-16T07:31:00.007-04:00

Placing the tiles for sink vanity is an exercise in three-dimensional geometry, where very slight changes in one dimension can greatly affect all the other dimensions, even those that we cannot even see, but why worry about them because who knows if the people who live there even use the toilet or wash their hands or are interested in anything other than subatomic wave fluctuations and the occasional fuzzball singularity.

In order to allow for full tiles on the counter top, I need to bring two of the 2 x 4 inch bullnose pieces together next to the full tile that will go at the edge. I put masking tap on this relationship because it won't change. But I can slide these three tiles around on the counter top as necessary to let the bullnose hang over the edge.

The bullnose tiles need to overlap the side tiles exactly so that there is a smooth edge. Otherwise your private parts will feel a sharp poke when you bend over the sink, though I do plan to have a big sign in the bathroom that says "No bending over the sink."

So the side tiles that go under these corner bullnoses are attached first (thanks to Mark for this tip), then the three-dimensional assembly is wiggled around until alignment is achieved. Sure, I could have used basic Calculus to set the locations, but I find that wiggling is just as effective.

Meanwhile I'm getting ready to attach the rope tiles above the border. These are really cool.

I also cut a fairly decent hole for this pipe. No one will see it because it will be covered with a decorative piece, but I may show it from time to time.

Stream of Consciousness Tiling

2011-04-11T16:35:00.009-04:00

I've tiled floors, counter tops, patios. All of them horizontal, with gravity working as a silent partner. Dumb gravity, happy to hold your tile just so.

When tiling on the wall, however, gravity becomes a more active partner, eager to rearrange tiles when you aren't looking. And on the ceiling, gravity becomes your enemy--I don't want to think about the ceiling yet.

Each bucket of mortar that I mix is either a little too runny or too hard--I can't seem to get a perfect batch, something that is often referred to as a peanut-butter consistency.

Today I'm going to get scientific about it instead of just adding more water, then more mortar, then more water, etc. I'm going to develop a formula, and I'm determined to mix up a perfect batch.

Yesterday I tiled the wall behind the toilet, and I experimented with an approach that might be called stream of consciousness. Knowing that these handmade tiles cannot be and will not be aligned perfectly, I set out to blank out my mind and let the tiles place themselves free from my constant worrying and micro-managing and placement planning. And this was working very nicely until I ran out of mortar and had to mix some more, and I got irritated when I mixed much more mortar than I needed, and then I returned to tiling, annoyed with myself and trying to get back into the zone when a perfect storm of bad luck put the wrong set of tiles together in the top 2 rows (which I have since removed).

So I won't be using the tile meditation approach any more. Tiling requires some degree of mental attention. The yogis like to say, An active mind is a sick mind. Well, don't let a yogi tile your bathroom.

Today I start tiling the sink.

Zen and the Art of Cutting Corners

2011-04-07T16:48:00.008-04:00

Be aware of the tile
Feel the tile
Cut the tile

In total, I'll be putting about 30 of the little accent tiles on the walls. Each piece is surrounded by 4 tiles that need their corners lopped off, about 120 tiles to cut.

Tedious?

I've created a jig that cuts each tile in about the same place. But I was bothered because the wet saw can create a jagged edge on the tile. So I tried taping the tile first. Then I discovered that the secret is to move the tile slowly through the saw--the tape wasn't really helpful.

Slowly. The saw motor makes a gentle hum, and the cutting sound is almost musical, muffled by the water that the saw blade spins through.

And the tray of water under the saw is clay red, just bits of mud from some creek bank in Mexico and hand pressed into shape, just as Cheryl and I witnessed once on a trip to Zihuatanejo, somewhere out in the jungle where a man and his family (some really young kids who he swore also went to school) turned red clay into barrel roof tiles.

So yesterday, interrupted by countless phone calls, I was able to cut through 6 sets of tiles even though none of them got placed on the wall.

Unlike the actual tiling, which is dictated by the tick-tick-tick drying out of mortar in the bucket that keeps you from walking away for very long, tile cutting can be done slowly, one at a time, with no harm done by interruption or by a careful attention to detail.

Goodbye, Jeff B.

2011-04-06T14:28:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I learned that a friend of mine passed away. He was crusty, and I'm not sure how many people could tolerate him. We knew each other mostly by email, passing back and forth the technical details of databases and the logic that makes them work well, stuff that should be boring but that we both enjoyed very much.

Whenever we did meet in person at his company, I tried always to walk up and shake his hand first, because he was an honest person, despite his insane politics, someone who loved his dogs and who was not afraid to speak his mind and go against the wind.

Beauty and Imperfection

2011-04-05T07:09:00.013-04:00

If the secret of true beauty is imperfection, then I am quite beautiful, and our new bathroom tiles may be the most beautiful tiles on earth.

Almost all of these hand-made tiles are curved and buckled and many of them are comically out of square. I knew this from the start--I swore I'd never use this type of tile, I said this again and again to Cheryl, who made sure we visited that Mexican tile place at Christmas time.

To start, I fastened some boards level near the bottom of the 3 connecting walls and marked off some grid lines. The boards support the tiles and keep them from sagging while I'm setting them in place. Later I'll remove the boards, put down the new floor tiles (which we still haven't picked out) and then install the bottom row of wall tiles.

I had pre-cut some corners so that I could install an accent piece in my initial run. And then, despite myself, I could find no reason not to begin tiling. So I did.

I found it cumbersome to get into a rhythm at first. And after the first 3 or 4 were on the wall, I started to doubt the whole project and the purpose of my existence. I couldn't even get 2 tiles to line up.

But then the bigger picture began to emerge. The tiles are highly reflective and the curved surfaces create an unusual characteristic, though I can't seem to capture it with a photo yet. Beautiful, I think.

Complete Vanity

2011-04-03T16:45:00.010-04:00

Luckily I inspected our new sink faucets and discovered that I needed some special holes for them (wider at the bottom than at the counter top). After the tile is in place, our vanity will be about 2.5 inches thick--the faucet threads only extend down 1.5 inches. Nice to know this now rather than later.

So, with the faucet holes drilled, I covered the wood in plastic, fastened the backer board on top and then wrapped the edges in mesh tape. It's ready to be tiled when the time comes--I'll start tiling on the walls first.

I got some more good advice from my friend who does this stuff for a living; he recommended a specific trowel to use considering the uneven proportions of my hand-made, sun-dried tiles. (More on that later.)

Next I created a jig for my wet saw. We'll be putting these small accent pieces here and there, and each piece requires 4 tiles to be cut. The jig (upper left of the photo) allows me to drop a tile in place and quickly lop off the right amount.

All in all, it was a very good weekend. Taxes done. Invoices done. Dogs walked. Wife appeased. Vanity done (for now).

I think it's time to tile...

The Corner

2011-03-30T13:43:00.010-04:00

Having committed myself to building a hanging sink vanity instead of one that is grounded to the earth through a big cabinet, I am consumed with fear and feelings of inadequacy about my ability to build a truly sturdy structure that has one corner hanging in the air.

I started with two layers of thick plywood and glued them together, fastened that to the wall studs on two walls with 4 inch lag bolts, tightened to a terrific torque and finished with thick braces underneath. (I'm preparing for the big one.)

A small elephant could tip-toe on this shelf with no give or creak at all. And still I am not confident in it, even to support a tooth brush, not without some more reinforcement somewhere.

And then there's the corner. I've given this corner more thought than all my combined other thoughts for the past two years, and I still haven't decided what to do with it. I could cut it off and put a tile on the angle, but how would that look?

My first attempt at cutting the hole and the top piece was a bust, but today I got it right. As I suspected, when I got the backer board in place, I changed my mind again about the corner. Nothing is fastened down yet, so I am free to waffle.

When I was a kid, my parents took me to Carter's barber shop. I remember the guy always swiveled the chair around so that I could see myself in the mirror, and he asked if it was OK. He always said the same thing. "I can take it off, but I can't put it back on." Same thing with the corner.

The Sink Platform

2011-03-26T16:21:00.012-04:00

The new sill piece and Willow,
disgusted with me for changing course

I woke up this morning intending to frame the window and doors with new lumber. The old framing was all dinged up and ugly, and it really doesn't fit any more because the walls have all changed position.

I cut out the new sill piece for the window and realized, while holding it in its future position, that I could and should put it on after the tile is in place. Likewise for the door frames since the walls are deeper on one side of each door than the other.

So, instead of tiling up to the framing, I'll do the tile first then rip the framing (I have to do this anyway to compensate for the walls) so that the framing slightly overlaps the tile, giving a nice clean line where wood and tile meet.

OK, then. It's time to build the platform for the sink. I laid out some tile to get an idea how the sink might look. The layout above is about 23 inches wide, but I've decided to make it a little wider. (The sink is only 17 inches wide--it appears bigger in the picture because it's closer to the camera.)

I'm also going to do an angle cut on the front left corner so that it doesn't poke people on the hip as they walk in.

Hopefully I'll get this done today. Then the tiling begins.

I had grown comfortable with the idea of framing because it's my favorite thing to do. I like cutting wood, sanding wood, nailing wood. Downstairs I walked past Cheryl and said, "I think it may be time to start tiling." But she looked confused, as if to say "how it could not be time to start tiling."

Stepping Up

2011-03-23T13:15:00.005-04:00

By mistake I picked up the white thinset at the store. It really sticks out on the edges I finished up yesterday. I suppose the white is for people who are planning to use a white grout--I'll be using gray instead, so I guess I'll go get the gray thinset, just to stay on the straight and narrow.

I've been thinking about the Libya problem, and it all goes back to my days as a musician, playing at redneck bars and clubs, where it was not uncommon early in the morning, out in the parking lot, to see some drunk guy being mean to his girlfriend or wife, grabbing her by the arm and yelling, punishing her for his own pathetic existence.

The police would be called, and the guy led away in handcuffs, though you would see him (and the woman) back again in a few nights. Still, something has to be done.

But what about a civil war? Can you protect the innocent people on one side and not the other? And can you ignore one country (Sudan) and not another just because of oil? Isn't that like the police arresting the drunk guy just because they think his girlfriend is cute?

Cheryl made one last attempt at the antique store to find a small cabinet for our sink. Looks like I'll be building the vanity into the wall. Oh, well, it's easier than managing world politics.

Mesh Tape

2011-03-21T11:42:00.007-04:00

I've finished sticking the mesh tape to the joints of the wall boards; the next step is to trowel a thin layer of mortar (called thinset) through the mesh and into the empty corner spaces between the boards, with the intent of keeping the walls from expanding and contracting over time.

In the old bathroom, the builders accomplished this structural integrity with steel mesh and truckloads of mortar. Our new bathroom is what you might call disaster-lite--it probably would not survive an earthquake like the one in Japan, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

I read that the entire country of Japan has shifted position: 8 feet to the east in some places, and 3 feet down. Now some towns are under water at high tide. Even the planet has shifted position, causing the days to become shorter, though apparently this type of shifting happens all the
time.

We use the same taping process for the drywall, only with different materials. Here I've put on some tape and an initial layer of drywall joint compound to hide the 1/4 in. edge of the backer board on the ceiling. I'll need a few more layered coats to make this all appear flat, allowing me to bring the ceiling tiles to a good stopping place (instead of all the way to the edge).

And this approach will allow me to line up the tiles so the joint lines go up one wall, across the ceiling, and then down the other wall in clean, unbroken lines. If the tiles don't line up, I will be punished by that fact forever and will be aware of nothing else when in the bathroom or any other room in the house.

A Smudge of Ink

2011-03-20T07:41:00.009-04:00

About 25% of the bathroom wall space will be painted instead of tiled, so it gets drywall instead of backer board. Drywall is much easier to cut and install--it's nothing more than a hard sandwich of talcum powder.

The trickiest piece of drywall had two cuts: a little one for the light fixture above the sink and one for the air duct. I measured the openings and then drew them onto the board along with a big FRED. Like every single thing I've done to this point, my signature will be not be visible at the project's end. If this is a metaphor for life I'm not inclined to pursue it here...

...Or maybe I will. Yes, my signature will first be covered with some spray-on texture stuff we found at Home Depot--if it works. Otherwise I'll use a sponge or something to emulate the plaster texture (called orange peel texture) that's on most of the walls in the house. Then it will get a couple coats of paint.

Like me, my signature will be buried and forgotten before too long, a smudge of ink covered in sand. Too gloomy? (Can't a guy be gloomy now and then?)

Anyway, I hate doing drywall, and I always have. It is too forgiving, too flimsy and artificial, though it may last for centuries. (I don't care.)

Very soon, the project becomes visible: tile, texture, paint. Maybe I should sign the wall after I paint?

Doing Right and Feeling Good

2011-03-16T15:48:00.005-04:00

We've been deliberating on how to install our new sink. Seeing an opportunity to make Cheryl happy (which is my goal in life), I asked her to go antique shopping to find a table that would work as a vanity for the sink. It would have to be a small table, but a tall one. Off she went.

The other option is for me to build a table into the wall. The sink is opposite the toilet, and the room is only 5 feet wide. Not much wiggle room. Of course, the toilet is not actually in the bathroom now so I'm using my memory and some yoga squatting to see where my knees would go when I sit down. Under the sink, it seems. How would a table even fit?

And if I'm going to build a table top, everything needs to be perfect. I had to own up to the fact that I did a terrible job on the sink wall: the board was not aligned well, it was squeezed into place, the holes for the plumbing appeared to be roughed out with a chain saw, and I didn't put up any moisture barrier (even though there's plenty of water in a sink).

So I redid it all, and now I feel much better.

After a few hours Cheryl returned empty-handed from antique shopping. "You'll have to make the table yourself. There isn't a thing out there." I think she felt better for looking, though.

Goal-Driven Wallboard

2011-03-14T07:03:00.008-04:00

My right thumb has an ugly bruise today, sore and ugly and inexplicable because it is one of those bruises that you get from a misplaced hammer blow, only I never ever swing the hammer with my left hand. I suspect that Cheryl is hitting me with a hammer in my sleep, and this is my best proof so far.

Yesterday was one of those goal-driven days. I was determined to get the wall board for the shower in place, and I did it (well, almost).

On one wall I had to cut out holes for the bathtub spout, the shower handle and the shower head at the top, and these cuts needed to be pretty precise. I drew out the cut lines in blue pencil. Then I cut them using a new diamond blade on my saber saw. All in all, I probably spend more time previewing and thinking through these tasks in my mind, particular in the early morning when I first wake up, than I actually spend doing the work.

Everything lined up pretty well. Cheryl had to help me with the ceiling piece, which is 5 x 3 feet, meaning that I will need to hang 60 tiles upside down--the thought of it will begin to haunt my dreams soon.

The next step is to tape and seal all the edges with thinset so that we have a solid concrete box for the tile.

Berkeley was pleased. She likes to see results, likes to check items off the check sheet, likes to see milestone achieved and schedules met, never mind about quality. She was not concerned about my thumb. A new era of management has begun.

Black Curtains

2011-03-12T16:43:00.004-05:00

After several days of fussing and tweaking and aligning the wall studs so that the tiled walls will be more or less square, I finally said enough and I stapled up the vapor barrier, which is solid black and disconcerting in its lack of geometry--I had grown accustomed to and fond of the grid of wall studs, despite their imprecise alignment. Now I can't tinker with them any more. Sigh.

A log cabin might be nice for just this reason; just to sit and contemplate the rows of logs and mortar on the interior walls, stretching around and around. Why did this ever go out of fashion? (People are weird.)

Next I'll put up the backer board, though not today because I want a nap instead. These sad black curtains have sapped my strength.

Little Green Worms

2011-03-06T12:04:00.010-05:00

Nature indulges itself in excess now and then, with human beings as the worst offenders. And for all my good intentions and my respect for the natural order, I realize that my peaceful and benevolent feelings are a slim veneer, easily cracked to unleash my inner wrath, when it comes to something like these little green worms that are descending from our oak tree and covering everything in sight with a silky, worm-infested web that, once cleaned away only comes back in an hour or so, so bad that we cannot even park our cars in the driveway or walk around in peace.

The worms are commonly called Oak Leaf Rollers and are considered to be a natural, helpful part of the environment, providing food for birds, etc. I even found this quote on a web page: "They are our green little friends. We should treat them with love and respect. They get up on their little hind legs and look around. They're not hurting anyone."

Are you kidding me? We can't even walk to our car without getting these on our clothes and in our hair (or Cheryl's hair). I would permanently banish them from the planet and send them to wiggle for eternity in worm hell (which is populated with big fat birds), so yet again it is a good thing that someone else is in charge.

Apparently nothing can be done--nothing short of renting a flame-thrower and turning the oak tree and the front yard to ash (which I only briefly considered).

Meanwhile, I've installed some insulation to the exterior-facing wall, put up a layer of roofing paper, and I've put up my first panels of backer board. I still have some framing to do in the shower area, so I'm getting ahead and doing things out of order, but I wanted to get some experience with the board first so I can make any adjustments. The backer board is more flexible than I expected, and it is not too hard to trim using the special tool that I got.

I suppose I need to learn to love the green worms, but this won't happen until they are gone from sight and I can become a "good" person again and forget this unpleasantness ever happened.

Electrical Box

2011-03-02T15:13:00.008-05:00

With Berkeley away at school and occupied with other matters today, Willow and I put our differences aside and had a meeting, despite the fact that she could be fired when Berkeley and her other corporate dog overlords discover that she's been collective bargaining with me. Meanwhile I have joined the local Do-It-YourSelf Union, Branch 203. I still haven't actually gone to a meeting since I hate meetings and would rather just work on the project, but I suppose I felt the need to support my fellow workers.

Apparently Willow wants us to get everything back to normal. Sure, she says, our negotiations are messy, but that's how we get things done. She says she never wanted to be a dictator--she just likes managing proects. It was all a corporate decision, etc., etc., she wants me to know. We'll see.

So I'm not sure if I should be working or not, but today I completed my only electrical task: to move the light above the sink to a higher position. (The old location is about 9 inches down.) To do this I had to carve out an opening in one of the 2x4 furring strips. This wall is about 8 in. thick in total, with a criss-cross of lumber inside.

Normally I like to do electric work without turning the power off, just so I get a little shocked, after which I always seem to feel better so I don't mind. Today I turned off the power so I could thread the wires to their new location. I could go shock myself on purpose but that seems a little weird.

Why move the box at all? Because I promised Cheryl I would make a big tile border for a mirror here. More later...

Master Class

2011-02-28T16:32:00.007-05:00

This weekend I met a guy who fixes up houses professionally and who knows his stuff and actually seems to enjoy it, so I took advantage of his good nature and showed him the bathroom and asked every question I could think of (to the annoyance of his girlfriend and my wife, who just wanted me to shut up so that we could all leave for lunch)--probably a thousand questions or so, and today I've thought of another thousand that I wish I had asked and that I intend to ask in the future.

Otherwise, on Saturday I finished cutting and installing most of the furring strips for the shower; these strips of board, in various thicknesses, fit onto the studs so that the finished tile wall ends up inside the tub. Pretty important stuff.

I also installed the shower place-holder pipe, which I'll replace with the shiny, curvy pipe and the shower head once everything is done. Since I'm overly cautious about every single thing I do, the project is progressing at a painfully slow pace.

I remember back to my days in college, back when I spent hours and hours in the practice rooms working on piano and violin. A well-known violinist came to school to give a master class. She stood on the stage before 20 or 30 of us and played something really incredible and beautiful on her violin. Then she said, simply, "Playing the violin is easy. Playing music is hard."

Something in the pit of my stomach knew what she meant: "Until playing the violin is easy, you will never actually play real music because you will be too distracted struggling with your stubby fingers and little brains. So just give up, and quit wasting your time."

Fortunately I've learned to accept my limitations. And I try to keep an open mind and learn new things. Yes, home renovation is easy. Creating a new bathroom, one you can be proud of, is hard. But it is possible.

Finally, I'm Starting to Get It

2011-02-25T07:43:00.008-05:00

By this time a normal person would have become suspicious or at least a little curious. What started out as a simple hobby for me has turned into a major corporate enterprise, with layers of bureaucracy and with me at the bottom, even though I'm just fixing up our house, just some minor remodeling, with no discernible financial interest to anyone else. A normal person would have wondered how this all happened.

Possibly it's because I've spent so much money at Home Depot that the store now considers me an asset, a sort of branch company? Maybe Willow and Berkeley are really here to make sure that I dump as much money as possible into Home Depot--but only so much as we can afford over time (considerating the recent financial meltdown) without going bankrupt.

Then recently (and again, a normal person would have seen this coming, but what do I know about economics?) this new corporation had become successful enough to attract attention and some investors, so that speculation over how much stuff I might buy in the future (or how much I wouldn't buy) is now fueling its own revenue stream.

It's no wonder that these corporate lackeys and professional gamblers are not interested in my opinions about how things should be done, even though I am the do-er of those things. Even more so, now they insist that my opinions actually poison the process, quick to blame everythng on me.

Notice how they pose with such sincerity for the cameras. Corporate dogs.

Yes, I have been naive, but this is not over.

Twittering the Project

2011-02-23T13:51:00.009-05:00

Just like I thought, the recent flurry of news about demonstrations, social media, collective bargaining, credit crunches, etc., etc., have left our operation here in a state of flux, with management behind closed doors for a couple days until, finally, this morning they emerged for a press conference.

Normally they would have just called me into their office for a talk (or from my perspective, a listen), but this time Willow (the project manager) and Berkeley (who somehow is her boss now) went straight to the cameras and for a prepared speech.

Ever since my Power to the People diatribe the other day--which was said mostly in jest, as anyone would know--I've noticed an icy chill around here, so I should have seen this coming. I should have known that management would be on pins and needles worrying about what might come next, whether I might start Tweeting about them or Facebooking about them (even though I abstain from such technology) and bring about a collapse of their regimes, if such a thing a possible for two silly dogs who have no business being in charge of anything.

I'm listening to Berkeley now. She's very serious, talking about how it is no longer possible to negotiate with me directly. Instead, she says, in the interest of the project, in the interest of fairness (what she means is: in her interest), we will all be entering a new phase. From this point forward, they will do the telling and I will do the doing.

My cell phone rings. "Stop work now. We are with you," the voice says.

"Who the heck are you?" I ask.

Power to the People

2011-02-20T17:05:00.015-05:00

It turned out that the triangular brace was in the path of the tub spout, so I had no choice but to remove it, gently and with some respect for its nearly 100 years of service. Here is it turned upside down, looking like some Medieval candelabra or implement of torture.

Instead of trying to salvage the existing shutoff valves, I just cut them off (they are the candles in the picture above) and I put in some new Sharkbite push-on valves--no adhesive, tape, flux or solder. They just press onto the pipe. To my mind this is most unnatural--witchcraft, perhaps. I had Cheryl turn on the main water to test it while I sat upstairs and watched.

Except for a small piece of drain pipe, all of the original plumbing is now gone, and because this achievement was a major milestone the project manager stopped in to celebrate and take all the credit (no surprise), through she did grace me with some stealthy looks of appreciation from time to time, which is what all of us worker-bees live for--to make the boss happy, right?

I have a sinking feeling that she's been watching the news and that my collective bargaining rights are about to disappear (just like Wisonsin).

With the triangle out of the way, I was able to position and install the shower faucet body today (it has a black plastic shield to protect it while I do the tile work).

Just for fun I turned on the water for a second, sending a gusher out the bottom. Ooops. Power to the people.