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cold dogshit twice
Sunday, May 11 2008
There was a biscuit-and-vegan-gravy-free brunch this morning, though it did feature waffles pressed on a vintage art deco waffle iron and vegan sausage. Gretchen's parents were there, as was Susan, the woman who wrote that book about a discerning horse. Gretchen's mother asked if I'd be changing out of my pajama bottoms before Susan arrived and I said no, that Susan was a good friend and our relationship was a casual one. I'd cleaned the house for probably six or seven hours yesterday and the day before, but Gretchen's mother still found places to dust. It's impossible to completely dust a house in the Catskills at this time of year, what with the constant blizzard of tree pollen.
When we walked in the forest after brunch, we took Susan's two purebred Labs along with our smaller, less drool-prone mutts. Another advantage to our dogs is that they generally defecate off the trail. Somehow I managed to step in cold dogshit twice on this walk, and I was, I should add, barefoot.
I was also barefoot when I went out in the driveway with my welding gear and an angle grinder and attempted to salvage the steel box I'd begun making the other day out of sheet metal salvage from the car. I no longer have plans of incorporating it into the woodstove pedestal (originally I'd planned to make it into a compartment for ignition sources and small tools). I just wanted to get into a state where it could serve as a handy storage container for things like tools, plumbing fittings, or other things that prefer to be stored in solid boxes. I disassembled two of the welds, ground away the paint, and redid them from scratch. At a lower power setting and without the interference of the paint, the welds were much stronger. After that was done, I took a MAPP gas torch and burned off the remaining paint, creating a toxic cloud that I did my best to stay upwind of in the shifting breezes. I was somewhat pleased with my result; I can definitely use it the way it is, and now I know how to go about making similar boxes in the future.
At some point Gretchen's mother came out and was horrified to see me welding barefoot. I say "horrified," but it's really hard to say, because she's an unusually cool person (and thus the temperamental opposite of her daughter). I don't think I've ever seen her register surprise. She asked what my mother would think about me welding barefoot and I shrugged and said she probably wouldn't care one way or the other. (There are very few things my mother hasn't seen me do barefoot.)
Remembering how the car sheet metal looked before I cut, bent, and welded it.
Resulting box, still black from having burned off the paint. You could call this style "Accidental Steampunk."
Meanwhile, the others were in the house reading, grading papers, deciding whether or not to award grants, and solving crossword puzzles.
Eventually Penny, David, and Stan (one of their friends) showed up. They'd been out househunting on Stan's behalf all day, amazed at the deals that can be had now that the real estate bubble has collapsed. Househunting was something of a pleasant distraction for P&D, who were still deep in mourning after putting their sickly sixteen year old car, Mr. Fluffy, to sleep. We opened up a bottle of wine and conversation was quickly dominated by those at the table who tend to dominate conversations (definitely a majority of those present fall into this category). I'm usually fairly quiet in situations like this, but at some point I managed to shoehorn open a brief pause in the monologues, filling it with a poorly-formulated myth about why seahorses don't have stomachs (as Penny had noted a few too many exchanges back). When I was done, Gretchen groaned and said, "Wow! That's really just not up to your usual level!" "I was trying to make a bad first impression!" I whined.
Gretchen's parents and I had to leave the gathering early, as they had a plane to catch up in Albany, and I'd volunteered to take them. Sally and Eleanor got to come! For a large part of the ride up, we talked about the subprime mortgage crisis, which was freshly in my mind after hearing the latest This American Life podcast, one called "Giant Pool of Money," one of the most effective explanations I've heard yet of what the underlying problem had been.
Speaking of Ira Glass, last week I switched on a subscription to Showtime on our satellite teevee provider just so I could watch the television version of This American Life. (The second episode of the season was broadcast tonight.) As I said to Gretchen last week after she noted the intelligence of his interviews, "Ira Glass makes Barbara Walters seem like a drooling stone."
A side benefit of having Showtime is that I can also watch the Tudors, a series that maintains a perfect balance between being a history lesson and fetish-pleasing costume porn, the kind that is hardly "soft" if you happen to have the relevant fetishes.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?080511 feedback
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