Weekend work

I rented a 40′ ladder to finish painting the siding on the house this weekend. I painted the house blue three years ago, and the west peak (the highest point on the house, at nearly four stories) was still grayish-white because my 28′ ladder won’t reach. It’s nice to not have that hanging over my head anymore—literally.

The photos are shit because the light meter in my D70 is messed up somehow…more on that later.

What’s that little wooden box beneath the window?

Theoretically, it’s a bat box, meant for housing lots of the hungry little beasts so that they might rid us of the mosquitos that haunt our yard. In actuality, it housed a wasp’s nest, which I had to vaporize from the ladder with a can of RAID.

That air conditioner, a huge hulking beast of a machine, will come out as soon as I can get a replacement window measured and ordered. (I’d like to be able to just push it out and have it drop to the ground below, but I’l have to deal with humping it down three flights of stairs. Oh, well.)

Resale market on air conditioners must be good considering your willing to haul that thing down three flights of stairs. May I suggest putting carpet or something under it and sliding it down. It’ll be easier on your back. Nice beach shots. I hate you guys. : ^ )

Wasps inexplicably love my front porch. My hippie pest control service they said they couldn’t help me, as only “the big guns” work on wasps and scorpions.

I felt bad spraying that bigass can of RAID, but it was pretty satisfying to see those fuckers instantly fall dead to the ground.

And another thing: you should definitely push that A/C unit out instead of carrying it, and you should TOTALLY get it on video.

Ideally you’d drop it into something. I think a giant tub of green jell-o would do nicely.

Heh, heh. Yeah, all environmental and animal-friendly solutions got left on the ground when I was 35 feet in the air with a couple of wasps circling the ladder like the biplanes at the end of King Kong. Good night, gentlemen!

As for the A/C unit: I love the Jell-O idea, but unfortunately it’s perched directly over a couple hundred dollars worth of plants in Jen’s west garden, so all attempts at testing gravity that way are out.

*sigh*

I was going to ask if that was the ginormous AC unit from my apartment in CT but now I see it was one of The Doctor’s…

I’d pay half the cost of replacing the plants to watch a YouTube video of the green Jell-O displacement.

Excellent suggestion, Renie – I’ll add to the fund.

Y’all need to check with my lady–they’re her flowers.

No matter how much I love that idea, at three years (!!), the perennials are only now starting to act like they know something. So considering that I’ve put about $500 bucks into that 3′ x 2′ spot (and Renie’s poppies that she swore “will grow anywhere” died within three days), unless you’re willing to pay the ENTIRE amount of what it would cost to repopulate that spot, I’m leaning firmly toward no. I just can’t afford to keep putting money in the dirt.

Besides, I half wonder if the stupid AC wouldn’t arc in just the right way to come back through the dining room windows…THAT I would pay money to see. Because I’m sick like that.

Fuckin’ poppies.

Change of plan: Renie, myself and any other interested parties donate monies toward the purchase of a utility table, platform or some other means by which to protect the flower bed from A/C and Jell-o rain.

Works for me…and why is this beginning to seem like the beginnings of a Vonage commercial?

We’re going to need something sturdier than a folding table. More like a wooden ski ramp, starting directly under the AC unit and ending about 10″ from the house.

We could even tape skis to the bottom and recreate the “agony of defeat” guy on the old Wide World of Sports promo video. With Jell-O.