Typical Sunday

Having completed  ceiling texture renovation nearby at my aunt’s house I have resolved to do no more than tend to a fire and firewood pile outside. She makes one or two phone calls because her paint roller cover is beyond its usablilty, and so I do make a trip down the mountain to supply her with a professional kit.

It is one of those early Autumn days, with the sun slowly edging its path downward in the cloudless sky. The audacity of it’s heat backing off a bit. This is the weird calm where one gets to rest but an idyl moment before the snow and the mud, and the wind whipping everything around.

Pine Seedlings

I heard something on the radio about a pianist who had botox injections into his right hand after having no use of it for 35 years. With it he had a miraculous recovery. Apparently he had been “hearing” poeces in his head that he had learned all those years ago, and when he got the injection (into his forearm) he was able to use his hand again, perfectly.

Out my door the other morning it is obvious what all the rains have done for all these Ponderosa seeds that had been twirled around by the winds of last winter and settled into my bare spots.

Google Maps

Well, I did some research into my job location. It starts on a map as so many times before. In 1984 it was one of those giant fold outs and me trying naively to string the straightest line from Pueblo, Colorado to Austin, Texas. That took me into industrially laid out cotton fields and little burgs with old fashioned gas pumps. I guess it was worth it the first time. The trips to follow would always attempt to go smoother.

I will be working for Milestone Ltd., of Amarillo, Texas. (I’m still crossing my fingers in disbelief that the job interview was secretly a wash for the owner, that it is all lies that there is a job waiting for me, a move into management or creative capacity.)

Family get together

My sister, Elizabeth planned her own birthday party. She’s now 28. I came into town very late. Did what I could in the progress of restoring the cracked plaster in the hallways of second floor or the Historical Federal Building in downtown Pueblo, Colorado. Not much can be accomplished in only four and a half hours. I headed over to her party at 5:30PM and was first to arrive. Well her place is this small split level apartment, a duplex two houses down from my parent’s house. It’s a bit too convinient in location. My nephew, who is nearing 13 years made the cake with a thick layer of frosting and multi-color design of which Jackson Pollock would be proud. Aunt Becky with oxygen and uncle Bob show up next, then my parents. My brother David was already there, but without a vehichle. I guess his girlfriend has taken it to her college nightclass. Grandma arrives with dad and we help her up the icy steps (which my nephew has neglected to shovel the snow off). She seems in a good mood regardless and has a few tales to tell. She tells one of being mad for six months at her neighbor in an apartment during the war (WWII), then confesses to her about being mad. Her neighbor said that she didn’t even know about it, to which grandma said, “You mean, I wasted all that mad!” Truth coming out she couldn’t even remember what it was that made her so mad.

Aunt Becky has made us all banana bread, tells us she used 86 bananas and baked two at a time. They all get laid upon the table and look as if they are large cellophane bricks of something else. Later on my cellophane wrapper, cling wrap, actually, will vex me with impatience at having nothing with egg nog. I almost break out the knife before I get it off.

Then my brother Matt comes in with wife Angie and two year old son Cole. We all sing Happy Birthday with the candles lit. Cake is cut by the teenage chef. The frosting is so thick that his knife’s drag tears the cake to shreds. He doesn’t know to dip the knife in water. Mom helps him serve, but he still is in a hurry and continues to flaunt the authority. It’s all pretty funny. Somewhere along the line some coffee is also served with what few cup my sister has. We improvise.

Then my last brother shows up, the one with the brood all going through a series of infections. The only members absent are my brother, Ben who is in North Carolina, and Angela who is in Fort Collins to the north. How did he get away we all ask. It is wonderful to see so many here on such short notice, wonderful to see so many who cannot get along with the other call a truce of sorts.

Then some friends of Elizabeth’s show up and change the whole dynamic. The television is put on and my nephew puts on a video, the movie Spiderman. The bliss is busted.

By and by people are going home. Lizzies friends first since the have an errand or something, told they would be back.

I make the weary slog home to my mountain home, let all my cats in and feed them. I read the entire breakdown on celebrity breakups and get togethers for some reason. It’s getting where I hardly know why or how they became famous now. Katie Holmes – no idea. Oprah and Letterman making up after 16 years of feuding, maybe. Why people care about celebrity private lives I’ll never know. I suppose some feel their lives aren’t enough.

A Relaxing Sunday

Stayed home one day. Windy, funny snow with sunlight through the clouds. Tended a fire all day. made something nice to eat, made up stew in the crock pot for tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be a big day, casting the large piece for good or ill.

Needed the rest.

Upside Down Work

Well, I made my first foray into using Polytek’s urethane rubber for mouldmaking on some egg & dart bordering in a vault about the courtroom in the Historic Federal Building. There’s a section of it missing in same that the owner wished to repair. I had a choice of putting some material up there and carving into it, which I estimated to be to time-consuming and would create a lot more dust in the carving process. I chose to just re-produce it in a plaster cast and then adhere that to the spot.

It was a little like brushing honey on your average ceiling, only 18 feet higher with the challenge of keeping it from dripping. In hindsight I think I could have waited five minutes to start using it, but the instructions say to start brushing imediately. Being more liquid it would have less tendency to bubble in the deeper undercuts, and it does call for two to three layers. It gradually thickened up to a taffy-like consistency where it would not drip anymore. I was supposed to wait an hour and put another coat on, but I decided that for a one-off casting I could risk it tearing during the de-moulding. I got a good sense of what this brand handles like. There’s no substitute for experience.

I made a small box to form the backing compound into a rectangle, sealing and waxing it for ease of release, then I went about supporting that whole apparatus by some thin boards upon the top ladder rung.

I let it cure out one whole day, then put the setting gypsum behind it in its box. I used a twenty minute mix so I could take it off the ceiling the same night and see if there were going to be any problems in using this particular rubber. I put a layer of fiberglass mesh tape between layers for a little guarantee of stability and then brought it down after that hardened.

Notice how I’d pushed shims under the supporting boards. Somehow the whole mold had moved up, or the ladder has crept back, or out.

The resultant product in hand.

Today I came in to work in the courtroom. My brother re-assigned to paint trim in an office one floor below. Turns out he never showed up today at all. The cornice got sprayed gold all the way around by Kenny, our spray man. First hour was spent being an expensive janitor, hauling everything we did not need to the basement. I pointed out to my dad, my boss, that were were now 80% done with painting, except for the walls over the tops of the windows, which had been masked off to the wall. We were 100% “not even started” on that wall. And so I went to it. Re-masking, patching fragile holes no one had even investigated. I finished up about nine PM.

A Disturbing Day

I don’t know how to even approach writing about yesterday. It all has to do with work and my youngest brother sabotaging my work effort. I don’t know what’s behind it, because he doesn’t confront problems with communication. Maybe he’s emotionally disturbed. Perhaps he feels slighted, but then again he always has felt that way for as far back as I can remember.

But the truth is, he doesn’t invest in the business. He’s not interested in upkeep with buying tools with his own money, and yet he starts to think of any brought in as his own. That seems to be the mainspring for this latest insult. Neither is he consistent in showing up for work, always calling in with excuses, and constantly ill, through which my father and I laugh, because anybody who wants to keep a business going has worked through colds or body aches.

I don’t know. When it comes right down to it I can tolerate idiocy. It’s just when it’s teamed up with self-righteousness, disrespect, and spite that anyone’s patience would be tried.

I lasted all the way up until 3:15PM yesterday through the insipid on purpose off-key whistling. Then I had to take a lunch. When I got back I said, “Hi, David”, as he was just stepping out. He said nothing.

My scaffold was moved from where I was going to work back from lunch. It was unecessarily moved, and then two extention ladders were put in the path taken to weave it between the chandeliers. An empty bucket that I had at the end of a rope from the top was filled with trash. The lanyard hook at the end was removed and the rope was densely knotted. The gypsum compound at the top was diluted beyond usability. My main tool had miraculously changed from stainless steel to rust and caked with dry gypsum mud. The lights had changed, and the triple outlet to use them had been hidden.

It was all I could do to go on last night. I did have to take a break and talk to my brother Alfred, who lived about a mile away, and notified my father about this sabotage. I went back to work, and it was all I could do to continue.

Somewhere near the end of my evening shift I found my dust shield. I had it hung from the top post of the scaffold. It never gets messier than from some sanding dust. It was smeared with drywall mud.

That was when it felt disturbing. Anywhere else he would have been fired. Knowing some of the companies I’ve worked for in Texas he could have been taken to the alley, beaten, and left to imagine on his own if he was fired or not.

His family carries him, because he won’t become responsible for so much as a lanyard hook and his own rope.

I half-way want to file a restraining order to prevent him vandalising my mouldwork that is to come. I’m a peaceful man driven to the edge of the things within myself which I hate, and that is rage, violence.

I don’t know this person, my brother. I don’t want anything to do with someone so petty who seems to subsist on too many forgiving attitudes, whom retains too many indulgent, disturbing, passive-aggressive tendencies, whom knows no serious consequences for his actions.

I don’t know what to say. I’m flabbergasted! I suppose I should still be more forgiving. My other brother who is more forgiving is also more stern, and violent. He’s not on the point here on this one though.

How to press on? Restraining order seems a little harsh, but with very real consequences.

local stuff

When I head in to Pueblo I usually stop at this gas station. The view is pretty nice from about eight miles away from home.

I tried merging two photos together for a panorama type perspective. Th flat-ish dark hill, or ridge before the mountains is a Dakota sandstone formation called Table Mountain. The deli sells breaded boneless chicken breast, and sometimes they are okay. Most the time too salty.

Below I have a few pictures of how the wind snapped a tree top off and it landed on the clothesline. It also is on top of my lumber stash. Can’t wait to see what it’s damaged.

Got a bit accomplished last night with the new materials. Made two days work into one with the additive to the rubber and anti-tear fabric inserts. More time to goof around…not.

A Dull Day

As a sort of duty I went into town today with nothing intent except to watch a football game with my dad at his house. The home team, the Denver Bronco lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A miserable game with only a faint flourish of hopeful plays toward the end.

I still have a bit of a weird rumble in my gut. I don’t know what from, but I’m a little depressed at other things. I need to get dental work done, specifically a filling replaced, and I don’t know where to start. I mention it to my mother and she tells me she that she has a family discount card that I can use. It’s not insurance, just a discount.

My nephew has adopted a small puppy. She’s black with white tips, and has obviously been played rough with by human hands already, and so it bites when petted.It’s yet another “Pit Bull” type dog. Has no one in the family heard of Cocker Spaniels or less brutal breeds? He’s on the computer in the back room playing video games with no shirt on, comes to the table at lunch half-naked, then complains of being cold.

I give call to my brother whose son is in the hospital with pneumonia. The boy has broken fever. They expect that he may return home in a couple more days.

I gather my laundry up and head for home about 8PM. The Celtic show comes on and I seem to cheer up a bit with “Scotland the Brave” playing about the time I hit the on ramp to the southbound.

Old, fuzzy pictures of ancestors

I found some pictures of my grandmother’s mother’s family before she came from Tennessee. I’ve seen them before but lost track of them when I got divorced from Louise – which was about the time I was looking this stuff up.

Here’s my gr-grandmother as a child with the blue dot over her head.

There’s a link to a genealogist who wrote a little about her husband’s line and did a few branches beside. She met up with my aunt on the internet about mysteries to connect up back and forth.