Oh Dave! Now

This past Saturday my partner Eric was helping coordinate an all-day singing festival—he left the house at 7 a.m. and didn’t expect to be home until 9:30 p.m. On these occasions I can’t help but revert to teenage impulses. Party! Road trip! Junk food and stupid movies!                                

My only responsibility was to walk our dog Nia three times: morning, afternoon, and early evening. It cuts up the day but I could deal with that. Maybe I would take her with me on a day excursion to who knows where. I started thinking a few days in advance about what I would do on my “day off.” When I went grocery shopping on Thursday, I considered what I could get for my bachelor meals, an opportunity to feast on things that he won’t eat such as asparagus, mushrooms, tofu, or fresh trout. I settled on a dinner of grilled bockwurst (the pale white kind of sausage), a salad with lots of tomatoes, and for dessert something I love and he despises: rhubarb crisp.                                

I checked the local movie listings to see what Saturday matinees were playing. I went online to find out what time my favorite 9-hole golf course opened in case I wanted to go out and play a quick practice round by myself. I left a message with my friend Michael to see if he wanted to get together for brunch, a hike, or go to the movies.                              

And then Friday night I had the sleep of the damned due to residual anxiety from the work week. I probably got five hours of good sleep at the most. With a cup of coffee in hand, I saw Eric off to his festival right before 7 a.m., and then thought about going back to bed. I took the dog out for her first walk of the day and noted that the grass was very wet with dew, not great for an early morning round of golf. I dispensed Nia’s breakfast of kibble and while she gobbled away I considered my options. Frustrated by a poor night’s sleep and the appearance of a new cold sore, I did what any sane person would do with a day to their self—hours of manual physical labor.                               

It started with changing a light bulb. (Doesn’t it always?) It’s one of those difficult-to-change bulbs where part of the fixture has to be disassembled. It went more smoothly than I expected. The fixture is hanging over the kitchen sink and had been installed three or four years ago when we remodeled. The electrician had measured and marked with a pencil on the ceiling above the sink. We’ve been meaning to touch up that section of ceiling ever since and had finally bought a can of paint a few months earlier. It was a task on our spring break to-do list that still hadn’t gotten done. I hesitated. I wanted to have some fun today—I would still have the afternoon to watch a DVD or purchase an on-demand movie. It wouldn’t take that long to paint a 4 by 1 foot section of white ceiling. And it would sure surprise Eric.                                

I went to the garage to find the paint. However, it was in a cupboard that is blocked by our Wriggly Wranch worm composting bin made of hard black plastic which stands on four spindly legs attached only by plastic clips. The clips are missing from two of the legs so moving the bin results in at least one of the legs splaying out, and the bin threatening to fall over. The bin consists of three crates that stack inside one another—the top is filled with mulch and compost that a colony of worms feeds on. The middle is filled with worm castings, a technical term for worm feces—looks like potting soil and can be added to the real stuff. And the bottom is filled with water enriched by the seepage of nutrients from above, ie., the worms’ liquid and solid waste matter. There is a spigot to dispense the liquid into a pitcher for pouring onto the garden beds.                              

A leg did fall off but I managed to scoot the bin and hold the legs on at the same time. I still couldn’t get the cupboard open far enough so I got my car keys and backed up my car out of the garage a few feet, moved the bin some more, and got the cupboard open. I confirmed that the new quart of paint matched the color code for the original kitchen paint. I made several trips back and forth to the kitchen with prep and painting tools: two sizes of masking tape, a new plastic drop cloth, a roll of masking plastic, paint roller and pan, a small brush, a mixing stick, a couple of new paint rags, and an aluminum step ladder. I couldn’t find sandpaper anywhere and I remembered having designated a spot in the cupboard as “sandpaper storage.” Obviously, Eric had used it and didn’t put it back in the right place. I almost aborted the whole operation, considered just getting the painting done without doing proper preparation of the surface, but decided to look around the garage for a third time.                               

I found some electric sander paper that I could use by hand. A light bulb went off. I stopped and looked over the peg boards with tools such as an electric drill and saw. There was a black case I didn’t recognize—I took it down and opened it to find an electric sander—and all the sandpaper you would ever want! (Even the paper that doesn’t work with an electric sander, Eric.) I sort of remembered we had bought an electric sander at one point but how often does one use such a thing? A couple of times in a decade?                                

The gig was back on so I changed into grungy shorts and t-shirt, old sneakers, and a backward baseball cap. I found some safety goggles and masks and went to the kitchen with renewed determination. I was amped at finally getting this task done. I decided to take some photos to show Eric so he wouldn’t feel left out of the whole process—it was something we had planned to do together.                               

As the day progressed, I kept taking photos. When Eric finally got home at 9:30 p.m., while he ate a late dinner of bockwurst and broccoli that I prepared for him, I ran a slide show (modeled after the TV program “24”) of my approximately 12-hour-long day’s adventures.                               

            

         

                   

          

          

I had finished the painting and some of the cleanup when there was a loud crash in the garage. I found the compost bin sitting flat on the concrete floor, all four legs thrown helter-skelter. Worm juice was splattered on the cupboards and pooling on the floor. Before taking a photo, I quickly wiped up the noxious brown liquid but you get the idea.                         

I had had it with that damn bin, something our former gardener had talked us into before we fired her, and it wasn’t being fully utilized. I kept hitting it with my car, it blocked the cupboard, and those cheap legs were worthless. The thing was too heavy for me to lift and reattach the legs one by one, not to mention more liquid would leak out. I looked around for some wooden blocks we used to have that it could sit on. Instead I found six cinder blocks stacked in the opposite corner and decided to relocate the bin out of my way forever. It could sit on the blocks and the legs could be retired, having outlived their usefulness. But the corner was filthy with leaves, dirt, and cob webs so I had to sweep it out. I managed to separate the bin’s three crates and carry them one by one to sit on the blocks in the corner.                        

        

                    

 I decided I may as well finish sweeping out the entire garage, another leftover task from spring break. The paint had to dry before I could finish the kitchen cleanup anyway.                     

        

                            

 I went in from the garage to find Nia waiting for her afternoon walk.                           

       

        

 Time for lunch–I heated up a frozen enchilada pie.                           

       

                    

Back to the kitchen to do post-painting cleanup. While I did that, I blasted several vinyl records I haven’t played in years, music that would disturb Eric if he was home.                              

Though I had moved some items away from the area near the sink and covered the counters with a drop cloth, a lazy susan and its few dozen kitchen utensils were covered with dust from two minutes of sanding so I had to wash every one and completely clean out one corner of the counter. I also wiped down the front of every cupboard, the stovetop, and foot-mopped the floor with a wet rag.    

    

    

                           

When I went to get the mail, it really bothered me that the driveway and front patio were full of fallen leaves and pine needles from recent windy days. I didn’t want that to get into my clean garage.                             

         

But first there were some branches hanging over the front steps that needed to be trimmed.                        

         

I dried the dishes and put everything back into place so Eric wouldn’t know until he saw the slide show that  I had done the painting.                      

         

I finally had time to relax in the sun before taking a shower.                             

        

Then I decided to start a new jigsaw puzzle so Eric wouldn’t think I had slaved all day long.                             

         

I was running out of time. And getting a little hungry. So I began preparing my strawberry-rhubarb crisp.                             

                    

And dinner.                             

                    

While I ate dinner, I started a DVD from my collection of James Cagney movies.                             

        

And finally, dessert was ready!                     

It was warm, bubbly, sweet and delicious. I had mixed my favorite hemp granola in with the flour and sugar topping and it was totally awesome, dude. Though Eric doesn’t like rhubarb it was also really sweet, offsetting the usual tartness, so I saved him half. The phone rang, he filled me in on the festival, and then I got his dinner ready while he drove home. The day was over, and it was good.  

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To Eric’s credit, he noticed as he drove into the garage that I had trimmed the tree, swept the front patio, and swept the garage. And he thanked me for it as soon as he walked into the house. I had aired out the house enough that he didn’t smell the new paint and was genuinely surprised when I started the slide show. He was delighted I had finally finished the painting task.  

He had had a very long, chaotic day at the singing festival, a constant scramble of dealing with late accompanists, no-show judges, and a rock band—part of another campus-sanctioned festival—performing outside the SF State building where youngsters were singing classical art songs so the singers had to change rooms and then change back later. He was a good sport to watch the silly slide show of my self-contained day after his had been so all-consuming.  

He didn’t know—perhaps I failed to tell him—that I had designated a storage place for the sandpaper. He had thought it logical to keep all the sandpaper together in one place in the electric sander case–I’ll gladly keep it that way so we both know where to find it. He was glad I had crafted a sturdy solution and out-of-the-way place for the composting bin. He has yet to try the rhubarb crisp but maybe if I reheat it and wave it under his nose he’ll succumb.  

It’s fun to have a day to myself once in awhile, but believe me, I wouldn’t want to go it alone every day without my chosen husband, no question.