Cleaning up and other announcements

Folks:
This month I began work on the second major project I had in mind when I done quit workin’ for the newspaper man.

Namely, the little house renovation project.

(The first project, which is to write crap that amuses me and then save it for later “publication,” is going well.)

Among the buildings we own in town is a small rock house with a garage porch. To my knowledge the house was built for guests sometime in the 1950s and, in the grandest of Segrist traditions, immediately filled up with so much junk as to make it useless. Tell you the truth, I was warned to stay away from there for my own safety well into my teen years. I think I finally took my first look inside the rotted-out, termite infested hovel when I was 13.

And it’s gone downhill since. My Dad has sporadically done some work on it, mainly to tear out the rotted drywall and expose the termite-infested wooden beams. This is where I come in.

The idea is to replace the beams, install plumbing and whatnot and make this into my own swinging Hico pad. Over the past two weeks I’ve started with phase one: Clean. I don’t care if I don’t know jack about plumbing or drywalling or cabineting, I can already say this is going to be the hardest part. One, there’s a freaking huge amount of junk; two, all of it has to be shifted through.

Going through what appeared to be a pile of dirt and rocks, I found that most of the rocks had labels on them, like “Pyrite Cambrian, Staten Island.” My two great aunts talked about taking some college courses in New York when they were teens, this was the first time I had seen anything from it. Had to save that.

And it’s not all sentimental junk. I found a publicity photo of Rin-Tin-Tin in great condition, and I could make a cool $5 if I sold it on e-bay, after I paid the registration fees, sukas.

But I realize I have to throw most of it away. I trashed what looked like a 40-year-old set of color pencils the first day. I realize they probably would mean something to somebody, but I must be hard. As hard as steel. As hard as cold steel on a morning so cold you can’t get the cat to go outside. Perhaps even as hard as the Marble Dolomite of Bronx, New York.

Here’s a picture of my future sweet home.

Yes, that’s after three days of cleaning.

Here’s a shot of Ginger and the broken-legged cat:

Ginger is on the left.

Societal intuition
Was reading a blog the other day when, out of nowhere, people started making random comments about Mystery Science Theater 3000. I realized it’s about time for some kind of reappearance of THE GREATEST THING ON TV EVER. You heard it here.

Sign of the Month: On an airplane banner: “Meredith, will you marry me?” Actually it wasn’t on an airplane banner, as I have neither the money nor the complete lack of self-respect. Anyway, she said yes.

Adios.