DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Most folks would resent being treated as a stereotype. Me, I sort of enjoy it.

I was cooling off at the gym, breaking one of my New Year’s Resolutions by reading celebrity news (Entertainment Magazine — could have been worse; could have been People), drenched and steaming after finishing my treadmill session, when a diminutive woman approached to ask a favor. “Could you go sweat somewhere else,” I expected her to say, for I was sitting in the only chair in the room.

This single chair is usually covered in clothing because many inconsiderate gym patrons use it to store their jackets and sweatshirts while they work out. There are two locker rooms provided for the express purpose of storing jackets and sweatshirts, but the locker rooms are about 10 steps away, apparently too far to go, and anyway, it isn’t as if any of these people came in to get exercise.

This particular day, the chair was only partially covered in clothes, and so I sat on it (and them), reasoning that if people disliked having sweaty guys dripping on their jackets they could instead stash them safely in a locker. It’s a sort of conditioned-response experiment; if it doesn’t work I’ll have to break out the electrodes.

Anyway, when the woman approached I suspected that I’d sat down on her coat. But in fact she had a different concern; she wanted to borrow my muscles. One of the other patrons had apparently left the 35-lb plates on the Smith press, and this woman was afraid she was not strong enough to remove them. She’s tiny — her biceps are about the same circumference as my wrists.

The best part about being asked to help was realizing that, of the ~33814080 remaining minutes I plan to live, I would otherwise have spent another one reading about Spider-Man. Yikes. She interrupted me just in time.

The new house needs very little in the way of remodeling, but with five years’ home-improvement experience behind us I guess we’re just not comfortable without having something be taped up or torn down or, at least, cluttered with replacement parts still wrapped in plastic packaging.

So, we decided to paint the decks. There are 600 square feet of redwood decking on the east and south sides of the house. All of it was due for some sort of treatment, because the old stain had faded, leaving bare patches and uneven coloration. Winter rains are coming, and although no wood deck will last forever, a fresh coat of sealer ought to buy us a few extra years before the decks peel away from the house and collapse into the orchard. (Untreated redwood should last for at least 17 years, which is how old our deck is. Because it was treated for part of its life, it looks like it has a few years left in it — and we’re interested in extending those years as long as possible. See this informative PDF: Comparative Durability of Untreated Wood in Use Above Ground (208k)).

Normally we don’t do a lot of home improvement work ourselves, because over the years we’ve learned that the projects we do ourselves take longer, cost more, and turn out less nicely than the ones we contract out. There are exceptions, for things that we have some experience with: remodeling closets with wire shelving, painting, … and actually that’s all I can think of. I am not a handyman.

The paint salesman at the local home-improvement emporium suggested a 3-coat “paint system” from Olympic: one coat of oil-based sealer followed by two coats of latex solid-color stain. Rather than hire our ultra-reliable painting contractor for this project, we figured we could quickly slop some paint on the decks ourselves. There would be little need for masking or other tedious prep work, which is the part we like the least. At the time it sounded like a fun weekend project.

Twelve hours of work later, I’d managed to paint 100 square feet of deck. I can do this math even without a calculator — I’d need 60 more hours to finish the job. Finding 60 hours of time, mid-day, when the sun is out and the ambient temperature is above 60°, in Northern California in November, would take me approximately 18 months. Which means I’d sort of miss this first winter, and the next one too, and my half-painted decks would be lying in the orchard after all.

Having painted ourselves into a metaphorical corner, we called our painting contractor for an estimate, and learned that he has a secret weapon: a spray rig. He and his assistant can prime and paint the remaining decks in 1.5 days. He can even put a third coat of color on the small deck I painted (which, despite my 12 hours’ attention, still shows bare patches and uneven coloration, because this ridiculous paint system uses a bright white primer and a wimpy thin topcoat that just doesn’t cover). And he’ll charge me a heck of a lot less than I’d charge someone for 1.5 days of work (much less 1.5 weeks). And so, I again learn the lesson: I can pay in money, or I can pay in time, and if I do it myself I’ll pay in both.

Just as I was contemplating my apparent obtuseness, the tree surgeon came to collect his $520 check. He’d cut down four dead madrone trees and chopped the wood into 16'' rounds — probably three hours of work at the outside. As I handed him the money, I thought, “Damn, for this much money I could have bought a chainsaw and done the work myself!”

Sigh.

In response to a piece I wrote a few months ago about curiously California food choices at a nudie dance jam, a friend from the Midwest clipped out a newspaper ad from the local slaughterhouse, which I’ve posted for the sake of all my treehugging granola-county neighbors who also can’t fathom such a thing.

I’m entertained by the blissful expression on the cow and the blue ribbon on the pig. Yeah, they’re satisfied now, but little do they know they’re about $20 and 25 minutes away from being sliced and bagged.

Last December, we boarded a train in Amsterdam to find that our assigned seats were part of a pair of benches surrounding a table — we were doomed to spending the next three hours staring at the couple across the table from us.

This is an uncomfortable way to travel, staring at strangers. I mean, traveling is all about staring at strangers, but not necessarily the same ones over and over for multiple consecutive hours.

This happened to me once before, the day after St. Patrick’s Day about eight years ago. I had to fly to San Diego on business at 8:00 AM. I’d been, erm, over-served at Ireland’s 32 the evening previous and arrived at the airport feeling pain, at least in the parts where I was feeling anything at all. I became a victim of Southwest Airline’s “festival seating” policy — as the sad last guy to board, I was left with the worst seat on the plane: row 1, middle of three, facing backwards in a seat that wouldn’t recline (it was jammed up against the bulkhead) with my knees touching the person sitting across from me. My only consolation at being so uncomfortably squeezed by my five seatmates was that I probably smelled really bad.

The train ride in Amsterdam was less uncomfortable, but still worth a story, which I’ll return to presently, or in fact now. My wife and I had stopped at a deli on the way to the train station, and purchased two amazingly great-looking vegetarian sandwiches: crackling fresh baguettes, ripe tomatoes, cucumber, sprouts, crisp greens, peppers, splash of dressing, shake of pepper, mmmmm.

Inside the station, we spied an appealing dessert: warm pastries from a concession about 100' from the platform. We selected an apple tart and a chocolate baguette. My wife had some crazy idea that she was going to eat one of these but I made sure I was the one with the bag. I think I let her carry the napkins.

Entering the train with two gourmet sandwiches in my carry-on, wrapped lovingly in white butcher paper by the deli artiste, and a sack of warm pastries, I felt guilty like a smuggler sneaking out of Amsterdam with a sock full of heroin. Yet I was ready to go head-to-head with any suspicious-looking border sentries: no way was anyone going to get between me and my lunch.

Then we saw our seats, facing two other travelers 30 inches across the table. This was a depressing arrangement. I’ve always struggled with what I call “social eating,” and I outright dislike being watched while I eat. Partly it’s the worry that someone will be looking during the moment when I misjudge a bite and dribble food down my shirt, or that I’ll zone out and jab my fork into my teeth, and partly it’s the worry that I might have to share my food. (You’d think I grew up hungry, the way I guard my plate. In actuality we always had plenty to eat; I was just horribly deprived and abused in other ways, e.g. I had to share my Commodore 64. Also I was made to eat cauliflower on three occasions.)

So it was with mixed feelings that I unwrapped my lunch. On the one hand, I had this awesome sandwich that I’d been salivating over for a half-hour. On the other hand, sandwiches are the hardest of all foods to be watched eat. But I would not be deterred: the sensual gravity of my lunch overpowered any hesitation caused by fear of impropriety: my mouth fell into my sandwich at 9.8 m/s^2. We tore into the food, blasting bits of baguette crust across the table, dripping tomato and dressing on ourselves, smearing chocolate and apple tart over fingers and faces (my wife had half of each after all — it took only a stern look to relieve me of the fantasy that I’d bought those two desserts for myself).

Meanwhile, the couple across the table sat there looking forlornly out the window while we smacked and gushed and self-consciously enjoyed what was obviously the best lunch being served anywhere in the entire country that day. After a few minutes, they apparently began to know hunger, no doubt due to the sight and sound and aroma of our feast. The male of the couple rummaged around in his backpack, and pulled out a brown bag. I was immediately relieved, for if they had food too, not only would my social-eating karma be restored, but they’d be distracted from the tomato seeds that had just squirted down my arm.

I watched covertly while the man opened the brown bag. Food is salvation, especially in this case. And then he pulled out his hand to reveal… a wrinkled half-bag of Cheetos. My guilt returned with a vengeance.

So, as I licked the remains of my five-star sandwich and heavenly dessert from my fingers, the folks across the table munched wistfully on a few handfuls of chemically-stained, extruded, fried corn-puffs, which I’m sure provided exactly no relief from their longings.

I learned an important lesson from this episode. It is this: whenever I travel, I pack the most awe-inspiring sandwich I possibly can, preferably with fresh bread. Because, you know, why not?

Six months ago I joined a group of friends for a social weekend in Cincinnati. We’ve all moved on to new homes since the time we lived in San Francisco — now, we’re spread out across the country. In Cincinnati we vowed to meet twice each year in an attempt to keep in touch, so we don’t grow old and fat and full of regret at having lost contact with each other. (To be clear, the twice-annual party plan only combats the “regret” part of the progression I just described. The “old and fat” part is pretty much inevitable.)

This time we met in San Diego, which was an excellent choice. Although I was there last Fall, I’d forgotten, or maybe not even noticed what a stunning city it is. We stayed in the Pacific Beach area at a dumpy motel about a stone’s throw from the beach. This motel, the Diamond Head Inn, was ideal for our reunion for many reasons:

• the rooms were relatively inexpensive
• the carpets and upholstery were already stained, limiting the amount of damage the management could possibly blame us for
• the balcony was large enough for everyone to sit outside and stare wistfully at the sun setting over the ocean, and yet not high enough in the air to be fatal should anyone tip over the rail in a desperate grab for a dropped shoe, tortilla chip, bottle, etc.
• the housekeeping staff was patient and forgiving
• many taverns and restaurants were within walking distance, providing necessary chemical sustenance to support our visual apparatus, which was overloaded with several varieties of natural beauty (in addition to the beauties that simply can not have been natural)
• our rooms had refrigerators, which were crucial for chilling beer and preserving leftover takeout food (although we found that most leftovers fared well enough on the balcony, the counter, the couch, and select areas of the floor (i.e. anywhere they didn’t get stepped on before being greedily consumed the next day))

Weekends like this can be pricey, if you factor in the travel, lodging, meals, obligatory CD shopping, tattoos, replacement clothing, and subsequent therapy. And yet this is exactly the sort of thing I want to spend my money on. What’s better than catching up with friends, making new times while reminiscing about old times? I hope we do this every six months forever.

If you go to the Diamond Head Inn, make sure to request one of the two rooms with ocean views.