Text message from a friend: “I am reminded I really need to get rid of a little of stuff!” She says it was an autocomplete error. Yeah sure. I told her I might use it, and here we are.
When we bought the house in 1999, the floors were covered in a mixture of tile and wall-to-wall carpet, clean but obviously old. We replaced the tile right away, and about ten years ago started reflooring bedrooms with wood laminate. The dining and living rooms were the last holdouts. I thought we were going to put wood laminate there too, but Donna decided on poured concrete, and I’m happy she did.
We originally envisioned the new flooring as a smooth, uninterrupted surface, but one day into the project Donna asked the contractors to groove it in grids so it won’t look like a garage. Grooving wasn’t part of what we’d agreed upon, but she talked them into it. If you squint a little, you can see the grid pattern on the finished floor. Ain’t it grand?
The reflooring project spawned a painting project. The flooring guys, who worked from Monday to Wednesday, came back today (Thursday) to pack up equipment and take away the old carpet. Nothing’s on for Friday, so we’ll use the day to stock up for Thanksgiving. Saturday morning another set of workers are coming to repaint the living and dining room walls; afterward we’re paying them to put the furniture, currently stuffed in the garage, back where it goes. Sunday we’ll put glassware, china, and books back in their cabinets and cases, then re-hang drapes and paintings. Can I remember how to connect the stereo components? It’s been a while!
It’s been hard on all of us, especially the dogs, imprisoned in the home office while stranger-danger contractors invade our home. Nor is the disruption over, but we can start to see the preverbal light at the top of the flagpole (that should give my friend’s “a little of stuff” a run for its money).
The FAKE!!! Seiko is back from Oregon, where another friend (and fellow watch hobbiest) tried to make it real. He was going to replace the dial and hands with new ones but ran into trouble with the hands. After we talked it over, we agreed the best course of action was to UPS the watch, partially reassembled, back to me.
It arrived two days ago and I took this photo. If you click on it you can scope out the glorious new dial … but you’ll also notice a distinct lack of second hands. Yesterday I took the watch, along with the tiny & problematic second hands, to a local watch repair shop. They agreed to take a whack at it, but no promises. With any luck no additional problems will surface and I’ll have a correct and running Seiko Pogue again.
There’s a hierarchy of Pogues. At the top is the “True Pogue,” the specific model Colonel Bill Pogue wore aboard Skylab in the mid-1970s, identifiable by the “Resist 70mm” text on the golden sunburst dial. Under that are the models Seiko built after the initial run, which lack that detail but are otherwise identical. Then there are the versions made with silver, black, and blue dials, all the same except for color.
My old Seiko was once a Pogue of the second kind; not True but at least a Pogue. Today it’s a “FrankenPogue,” one with replacement parts (the dial and, hopefully soon, hands). Those parts look exactly like the ones it came with, which begs the question: who would even be able to tell the difference? Seiko fanatics, that’s who. They’re like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One glance at a FrankenPogue and they start hissing. Well, fuck ’em. Show me a 45-year-old car with all its original parts.
I mentioned stocking up for Thanksgiving. We’ll be feeding six: the two of us and our daughter Polly, our friend Mary Anne, and our son and daughter in law, Greg and Beth. Donna decided to cook the turkey, stuffing, and sides from scratch after all. We bought prepared Thanksgiving dinners the last two times, and guess what? Between reheating and prep, they’re almost as much work as a DIY feast. Our only takeout this year will be the traditional Costco pumpkin pie.
Greg and I decided our contribution will be a mesquite-smoked beef brisket. We’ll get started early Thanksgiving morning. Since it’s outdoor work, we won’t be underfoot in the kitchen. And if at dinner we accidentally spill wine or gravy on the dining room floor, who cares? It’s concrete!