Snippetless Friday

Sorry, but I just can't get a snippet prepared today. Nor can I really afford the time for visiting snippets this weekend. I've still got a long way to go to get our room put back together. Today was the third day of the project and I did get to start putting things back in the room today but it took me two days to pull it all out and now I've got only two more days before Ed's folks get back home to get ALL of our stuff out of the living room, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and porch.

I've been taking pictures all along so there will probably be illustrated posts about it next week.

Today was a series of small catastrophes intermixed with triumphs. I discovered about twenty minutes after Ed left for work this morning that the boards he got for the 'bench' to elevate the bookcases above the mattress level were too narrow for one of the bookcases--a metal frame thing with spindly legs that were going to straddle the board. Not structurally sound, as Ed would say.

But I didn't panic because I figured it was just as well there was a built-in stopping point for me this morning since I had not slept last night at all. When I finished visiting TT after posting mine in the wee hours this morning, I realized that Ed would be getting up in less than an hour and not only did it seem unfair to disturb his last hour of sleep but I liked the idea of getting back to work for at least the time he was still home.

So I went ahead with the plan, putting the cinder blocks and planks in place so I could put the one bookcase up on it. But first I had to put two other bookcases up on top of the entertainment center so I could move the bed away from the wall. While doing that I did something that cased the TV to tip forward and almost out of the shelf it sat on. Luckily I was standing directly in front of it. But it was an iffy few seconds to a full minute before I was sure it wasn't going to fall out if I moved away.

Then while moving the bed, which is a box springs and mattress on a Hollywood frame, I discovered that the boxsprings were not sitting solid in the frame but one side was riding over the rim of the metal. I tried a number of things and was beginning to despair that there was nothing I could do but wait for Ed to get home from work. I just didn't have the strength in my arms or hands and had several close calls with smashing my fingers. Then I decided to try getting better leverage from the head of the bed by moving it away from the wall until I could climb in behind it and sit with my legs under the bed while lifting and jiggling the boxspring from side to side and using my toes to guide it. It was all hit and miss and I had visions of the board on the underside of the boxspring coming down on my knee or shins or fingers and me having being stuck there until Ed got home after five.

But it finally paid off and the boxprings fell into place.

So it wasn't all in my head that sensation of falling or of feeling as though I was about to roll down a hill every time I lay down in that bed since we installed it last June.

After that things went fairly smoothly with the room though Merlin did get out the door during one of my treks out onto the porch. But he was brought up short by the gusts of face-slapping rain, which made him easy to catch. We, here in Phoenix OR, were on the northern edge of that storm that hit California today. We lost power several time between five and seven this morning but in all but one case it was only for seconds. The first time it was for several minutes. That first time caught me by surprise as I was laying on the floor in the bedroom shining a flashlight under the bed and pulling items out and shoving them behind me without looking. I heard the TV go off and I thought Merlin might have stepped on the remote but when I pulled my head out from under the bed where it was lit up by the flashlight I found the room pitch black. Which meant there was no light coming in from outside either.

Oh, oh. I said aloud as my first thought was of my laptop sitting out in the living room. I struggled out from under the bed and over and around the stuff. Out in the living room Ed was sitting in front of the PC in the dark with his arms folded over his chest. I could just about hear the wheels turning. How was he going to get ready for work with no electricity? He wouldn't have let it stop him but it would have been a significant challenge in the best of times but at this particular time with none of the things he needed in their usual locations. Well. It wasn't going to be easy. But it didn't become an issue. Just as I got hibernation initiated on my laptop, the lights came back on.

During one of the trips out onto the porch for a plank for the 'bench' I discovered that the lid of the large garbage can holding aluminum cans come off and blown across the porch and several dozen soda and beer cans were scattered ad being blown about by the wind. I had to go pick them up and get that lid back on and fastened down with the rain slapping my face and the set porch carpet soaking my stocking feet.

At least Merlin had the good sense to show no interest in trying to get out the door time. But right after I came in Sweetie, my in-laws Austrailian Shepard/ Border Collie insisted she HAD to go out. I let her into the back yard and when she barked for reentry a couple minutes later, I shut the door to the hall before opening the back door. I stood ready with a bath towel and insisted on rubbing her down before letting her out to the front room where she would have joyed in shaking all that water off all over my books!

By ten-thirty I had reached the point where I could go no further without that second bookcase in place. I was desperate to lay down. But I wanted to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes before I did so. I hated the thought of waking to that chore left undone. After that, I needed to eat something. By the time I did lay down near one the desperate need for sleep had passed. I made myself lay down anyway. There was only four hours before the earliest I could expect Ed. I good nap I thought. But I could not doze off. My mind just raced as though running from room to room and corner to corner, thinking of this and that item and how best to set up for this or that regular task, planning for the most convenient new homes for each item I remembered handling in the last two days. I was still awake when Ed got home at four-thirty.

Shortly after that I discovered the water was off. It was off for over an hour.

Ed went back to Home Depot for another plank of the correct width. But we both decided we were too weary to do any more on this project today. I'm hoping to have everything but the clothes and the HABA (Health and Beauty Aids) back in the room by tomorrow afternoon. At which point the second major winnowing of the volume of stuff will commence. The first having occurred as I was pulling things out of the room.