More kitchen drama, update style

It's been a while since I gave you an update on the kitchen. The demolition is complete now, and Superman has begun to do what's necessary to put it back together. Things are progressing slowly once again after a hiatus. 

The hiatus was necessary because Superman is... well, not the most graceful of all creatures. The floor was gone, all the way to the joists in the primary kitchen-y area of the room. 

The room is shaped like a fat L, the upright portion being fattest, and the horizontal bit more like a wide hallway that leads to the laundry room. The fat corner connecting the two lengths is where we have no floor. Therefore, in order to get from one side to the other one must levitate above the hole, or something. Walk on the joists. Jump really far. We have to cross it in order to do laundry (unless we want to use the laundromat, which we don't, since we don't need to, since we now have a working washer, thankyouverymuch). 

 Superman had a couple of space heaters blowing toward the joists to dry them out completely. On the Thursday between Christmas and New Years he went in there to check on things before going to bed. Only he forgot to activate his levitate function, and ended up here:

... after a brief visit to the ground under the joists. He cut a big gash on the top of his head which the ER doc stapled together. It's the first time I've seen staples applied. It was fascinating. Since Superman's scalp was numb, it more or less fascinated him as well. He was not amused before the Lidocaine took effect, though. In addition to the gash in his scalp he got lots of bumps, bruises and scrapes from the adventure. Oh, and also a concussion. And of course it hurt his delicate back. He was on prescription pain meds for a couple of days, but healed fairly quickly, all things considered.

Here is his stapled head before he'd had a chance to wash it. You can still see the Betadine in his hair.

The staples are out now, and the wound looks amazingly good. I can barely see the scar. It was a very clean cut and the doctor did a good job with the staples. Also he's no longer in pain from the fall (though he's currently suffering some shingles pain) and has gotten back to work on the kitchen.

Last week he sanded the damaged wood, scrubbed it with bleach water, then painted an anti-mold concoction on it. This weekend he sistered all the joists. When he fell into the hole he squished part of the air conditioner duct and has to repair that. He will also reroute the drain pipe, hopefully this week. After that he can begin to reconstruct the floor.

One might wonder why the joists were left exposed like that. 'Cause come on, Java, some planks or a piece of plywood would cover that gap and make it safer. Yeah. Wouldn't it. He laid some plywood down after he fell though the floor. When he was working in there this weekend he removed the plywood and put down a couple of planks, but that isn't very safe either. I carried a load of laundry across it this afternoon - kinda dicey. I am not strong enough to put the plywood back down, though he says he'll do it this evening.

In other home improvement news, Superman finished the bathtub area in the hall bathroom. That bathroom has been an ongoing project for a couple of years. He retiled the walls around the tub and replaced the fixtures. It took him a long time to get the tiling done (a year or more) and over the holidays he finished the grout and calk and applied sealer. When Twitch was home for the holidays they put up the shower curtain rod.

 (Twitch needs a haircut.)

 That was exciting!! And he accomplished that with a concussion and staples in his head! Superman, indeed!

He also gave us a bathroom door. There's been an old sheet hanging over the gap for a long time. There's still no cabinet or sink, but the toilet, bathtub, and door all work. It's all very exciting, let me tell you.

And that's all for now. This is only a home improvement update, and there is other stuff (not much, actually, and that's the point) that I'd like to ramble about. The kids are doing fairly well, all things considered. Sproing is actually doing very well, and Diva is not being outrageously bad. I'll post again, hopefully later this week, with more adventures from Java land.

The Deliciously Juicy Details, Part the First

Yesterday, October 13th 2010, was N's 18th birthday. Yesterday morning C and I took my beloved truck Manny to the small town in North Carolina where N's mother lives. We arrived at 6:30, before sunrise. We drove to the back of the cemetery that's down the street from N's mother's house and waited for N. His mom took him to school (he's a senior in high school), and he left school to meet us in the cemetery, which also happens to be behind the church behind the school. It wasn't a far walk. N met us at 7-ish. We waited for a few minutes, then drove back down the street to the house. No one was at home, as we expected. C and N took boxes inside and packed up the stuff that N wanted to bring, then hauled the boxes to the truck. We got everything loaded in less than an hour.

I took the license plate off the truck when we were in the cemetery just in case. After we packed up I drove five miles down the road and stopped at a convenience store to replace the license plate. Then we toodled on home to South Carolina. Both of the guys were quite calm, amazingly. When I talked to N the night before he was anxious. C has been a basket case for days, both excited and worried. They both worry a lot. By the time N met up with us he was calm and ready to do this. The whole thing went amazingly well. Manny performed excellently, what with his age and his decrepit condition.

We got home, the guys unpacked the truck, and I took a nap. Later in the afternoon I went to school to work on my pottery. (Pictures soon, really.) Some time after 8:00 Superman called me to say that the police had visited us. Hmmmm. My heart skipped a beat. He said all was cool, that N's step father had called them, asked them to check on N's welfare. N and C were out on a walk at the time, so the officer asked Superman to have N call his home or to call them and they'd relay the message that he was fine.

I got home from school around 10:00, and they guys hadn't called anyone. I joined them in the back yard to help them finish off a bottle of wine. We laughed, talked, drank, and generally had a wonderful time and didn't call anybody. We all went to bed and slept well.

C got up first. When I heard him puttering around I got up too. I tell you, he looks so happy! So happy, relaxed, at ease, etc. You know, the look you get when it's been a long time and you finally have really good sex with the one person you want to have sex with. The attitude you have the first time you get to wake up next to the person you love.

The peace was dashed when the doorbell rang at 9:00 this morning.