Day 20

Monday, November 17, 2008
4:07:23 AM
Day 20

With the bulk of the house being at least livable, and, for the most part, cleaner than it has been in over a decade, the physical effects of our labors are finally starting to set in. I'm the one, at the moment, that is feeling it the most. While the air here is still crisp and clean, the over all environmental changes have been reaking havoc on my body. There is an over-abundance of heavy laiden dust and mildew around the house, just from not having been used in so long. Then there is the almost non-stop physical work involved in sorting, cooking, cleaning and taking care of errands. To top it off, my worst natural enemy thrives around this house, and in many forms. Mold. Black mold lines the windows and doors. Various types of mold lurk around the exterior of the home on the front stoop and back deck. Lichen variations are also abundant throughout the exterior of the property. Moss is another common sight here, although not in large forms, and Moss is nothing that seems to bother me in the least. I will say, however, that the moss is very soft and cool to the touch, and feels like Rabbit fur when I've run my fingers along it. Quite a change from the more course lighter green mosses we had near the ocean.

I went to bed last night around 10:00. Even before that I was physically worn out from a long day of working around the house and cooking. Most of the people in town went to the medical workshop last week for their blood pressure check and Influenza Shots. My mother and Andy got theirs, and I swear to the gods it feels like one of them gave me the damned virus. Every muscle and bone in my body is killing me right now, and I woke up this morning feeling like I had a huge rock in my stomach. This 'rock in my stomach' is the same way I feel just before I'm about to vomit, which, in my case, is a semi-violent and often system-shocking process. I don't get ill that often, so when I do, it's a major event for me.

The temperatures here have been ranging between 30 - 40 degrees within a 24 hour period. 65 - 70 degrees (F) during the day, and around 25 - 30 degrees (F) at night. Thus far, only a few flurries have hit the higher elevation passes near the summit, and all have melted off almost as fast as they hit. Here, however, people are 'squirreling' around town. Meaning, they are preparing for a long and difficult winter season ahead. Instead of expensive electronic equipment, dinner for two or movie tickets, raffles are being held for truck loads of freshly cut and smoke-dried wood. The current raffle was one to benefit the Basketball team in town, and the prize was a full truck load of freshly dried Oak. A full cord. For some people around here, that's enough to heat their homes for nearly half the winter. For others, it will only heat the home for maybe 1/4 of the winter, at best. My mom and step-dad have a full 5 cords + of wood in their barn out back, fully dried and ready to burn. We're also stocking up for our trash-burning wood stove. Between the two homes, we're the ones with a clear advantage in the fact that we're not required to burn just wood, or wood products in our stove. Ours was originally, and intentionally, built for burning anything that's safely burnable.

Fortuantely, our stove also has 2 burners on it, so if the power goes out, we can still cook a few things on top of the stove itself. Supposedly, the town's got a new generator. No one seems to know for sure, so time will tell. For now, having electricity at some point during the winter is the least of our worries. We still have a house full of furniture that has to be moved out. Our own furniture is showing up on 11/25, which is also only 2 days from Thanksgiving. With family members most likely showing up, that will post a problem as far as cleaning and organizing is concerned. That will give me 2 days to dig through, sort out, get prepared and cook a meal for Thanksgiving, and all with absolutely no help what so ever from my mom and step-dad.

It's going to be a miracle just having our bed fit into that room, much less anything else. When the bed gets here, I swear I'm going to take a tape measure and measure the footage of that bed. Knowing that Jerry is 6' 2", and his feet just come to the end of our bed without hanging off, I'm guessing that the over all length of the bed is somewhere around 6 1/2 feet long. It's possible about the same size in width, althoug it could be that the bed is around 5 1/2 feet wide, instead of 6 feet. All I know is that it's an Eastern King bed, and it's supposedly one of the largest beds made here in the United States. California King sheets barely fit on it, unless the sheets are flannel and have a bit of give to them. However, the only furniture we're going to have room for in that room is the bed, grandma's dresser, a bedside table and um...well, I think that's about it really.

Max's room is smaller, and with a full sized bed in there now, as well as a full dresser, we know how cramped Max's living quarters will be. Fortuantely, his wire book case will easily fit into the closet, and there's a good amount of wall space which will allow him enough room to hang up his pictures and such. The storage closet in the house is still crammed. Not with the old stuff, but rather with the new stuff that I've put in there from the livingroom. Stuff that my mom 'wants to sort through'. She came over yesterday wanting to sort through all of her items, and never touched one thing. She came in, got distracted, started playing a game of Monopoly (I won that game, by the way), and then ate dinner. After dinner she lounged around and then went home. This is generally how it goes when she claims that she's going to sort through things. She tells me that she's going to sort through things today as well. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then....one can only hope that she'll stick to her word this time. I doubt she will, but I can always dream.