I would never have predicted today would turn out the way it did.

I met X at Home Depot at 6:00 AM. Yes, I said AM. To pick up a wheel barrow. Then over to the rental center to pick up the mini-bobcat. His VUE has a trailer hitch and he agreed to haul it for me.

Home by 7:30, DJ and DS1 using the bobcat to pull stumps and I showered and got ready for work at Evil Coporate Job.

I can’t even begin to describe the day, except to say that most of it I was nauseaous from a crick in my neck. I slept wrong on it or something. Between that and the weather (very hot and humid) and I basically fought down the urge to urp all day.

Left the office a little before 4:00 to go out to Menards to order the patio bricks only to find out they deliver the Class V and sand in bags. I’m going to need almost 2 cubic yards of Class V. To order it in bags would be almost a whole pallet. And way more expensive than it needs to be. On the way home got call from DS1 – they ran out of gas diesel. So I had to stop and Bobby & Steve’s Autoworld and buy an appropriate gas can and some diesel fuel. Put the fuel in and they still couldn’t start it. Called the rental center and they sent someone out. It was a safety switch (as opposed to completely broken down and needing to be towed out of my backyard.)

So while they’re working on that I’m on the phone to the electrician.

What’s that, you ask? What does an electrician have to do with a patio project. Funny you should ask.

Seems the wiring for the garage was laid directly under the existing (crumbling) patio and under the poured concrete sidewalk. And by under, I mean about one inch below. So, they pretty much cut the wiring in a couple of places.

DJ has an uncle who is an electrician. Says he’d be able to come out and run new cable for $1000 if DJ digs the trench.

Holy Electrons, Batman! $1000???? Now, I’ll admit that it’s about 60 or 70 feet from the house to the garage (it’s an old house in an old city neighborhood with the garage on the alley) and I did make it sound like the wiring is not up to code and maybe he thinks he’ll have to put in a circuit breaker box and permits and all that. But $1000 is a bit more than I expected for cost overruns on this project. Just saying.

So, DJ has to leave for band practice but DS1 is able to finish up by about 8:30. That’s about a 13 hour day for him, not counting breaks and dinner. Seems to be holding up. He got good and dirty anyway.

Then he calls X to come back so that we can load the bobcat back onto the trailer. We decide not to do that for fear of someone coming along and helping themselves to all of it. So we’ll load it up tomorrow morning.

So, now I’m trying to figure out next steps. Call at least one more electrician for a bid/estimate. Because $1000 is a lot of money, that’s why. I can’t not fix the wiring. Partly because the downstairs bathroom seems to be on the same circuit, and partly because I can’t use the garage door opener without electricity and a big double-garage door without a handle and no other access is a pain in the butt.

But. Do you lay the electric before the Class V? That’s the question, I’m telling you!

Anyway. This was a fairly incoherent account of a fairly chaotic day.

But that’s the way I ended up spending so much of what would have been my 25th wedding anniversary with my X.

Life is really weird sometimes.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

That time of the year 2008
better than nuttin’ 2007

June 23rd, 2009 | Category: my crazy life | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL