Birthday Adventures

Today is Amy's birthday. We don't usually make much of a fuss about birthdays in our house. The absence of children probably has something to do with that. Most birthdays are celebrated with a card or two, a small present or two and a cake. Today was a little different. There were no cards and Amy got her present a week and half ago when we went to see Cirque du Soleil's Ovo.

Yesterday was a busy day. I spent the morning kayaking with my friend Carol. And Amy and I spent the afternoon with friends celebrating the college graduation of their son, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend Bill.

The handsome graduate.

So, we hadn't planned much for today. Amy decided she wanted to spend the day with me, and so she came along to Meeting this morning - though she chose to sit outside in the sun and read rather than participate in Worship. After rise of meeting we shared the cake I made last night with the Friends in attendance. It was once most Friends had left the Meeting House that our adventure began.

Last week our caretaker, Wendyl, had asked for me help and advise on a project she had started. The kitchen of the Meeting House has a wonderful butler's pantry. At the entrance there is a swinging door which opens into the hallway. On the wall perpendicular to that door is a second swinging door which used to open into the dining room. Many years ago that doorway was blocked off to provide space for shelving in the dining room. On the pantry side the door was left in place and toenailed into the frame so that it was no longer operable.

It was this second door which had captured Wendyl's attention. She was eager to remove the door so that shelves could be added into the space of the door frame. When she asked me to take a look last week she had managed to remove several of the nails holding the door closed, but was unable to release it. I gave it an unsuccessful try, and decided that we needed a different selection of tools to attack the problem.

Which brings us to today. I'd reported the details of the project to Amy when I arrived home last week, and she'd volunteered to help (silly girl). So we left the house this morning with crowbar and saw in hand. The crow bar made quick work of getting the door open. The goal, though was to remove the door. This proved to be much more difficult than any of us ever expected.

There are a couple of hinge configurations currently available that allow a door to swing both ways. One involves specialty hinges which are screwed into the frame and the door, like standard hinges. The other variety involves a pin that holds the top of the door and a spring mechanism that does the work that is attached to the bottom of the door. The hinge mechanism on this door was most like that. This might have been a fairly easy extraction had both sides of the doorway been accessible - but one side of this doorway is a wall, so access to the edge of the door was non-existent. Method number one was to unscrew the plates above and below the doors. That didn't work because there wasn't enough give in the door to lift in off the pins at the either the top or bottom.

Then we decided that we should chisel out around the plate that accepted the pin at the top of the door. This necessitated a trip home to pick up chisels. After the trip home (about 15 minutes round-trip) and the yummy lunch Wendyl made for us we went to work chiseling out the wood around the top plate. After this work we were able to wiggle the door more but still could no get it loose. Careful examination with a flashlight revealed that the pin was about the same thickness as my finger, and the plate included a large tab that stuck further up into the framing.

After much discussion, examination of both the top and bottom mechanisms, and much wiggling of the door we decided to go with the slightly less elegant method. We pulled out the circular saw, draped off a good portion of the room with plastic and sliced the door in the middle (side to side). Space didn't allow us to slice completely through the door, but it didn't take much separate the two halves. After cleaning up the cut on the bottom of the door, which we did outside, and some cleanup our adventure was done, for now. The pantry is used for folding table storage, so the bottom half of the door is going back into the frame with shelves above.

We did get a small surprise - a non-structural two by four in the center of the opening. I did attempt to remove it but there was not enough support for the dry wall and that attempt was abandoned.

The end result.

The top pin.

After our adventure we returned home to relax and promptly fell asleep. We both had nice, unplanned, late afternoon naps. Not exactly what we expected this morning, but a nice day anyway.

The birthday celebrations will continue - there's another cake to make (once Amy decides what flavor she wants) and the annual birthday lobster to be eaten (at one of the number of local restaurants that offer such fare).

Happy Birthday Shelley!!!!

The fabulous Shelley is celebrating her birthday today.
In honor of the day I share this photo of her laughing with her boy.
Cape Cod 2007

Taking Thanksgiving on the Road

We are somewhat notorious for making plans for major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas...) at the last minute. Way back in November Amy headed off to Arkansas to visit her mother leaving me to determine how we were going to spend Thanksgiving. My little brother and I had already begun how to figure out how to provide Thanksgiving dinner for my parents and grandmother, without my mother having to clean her house or cook. (My brother lives near my parents, while I'm 160+ miles away.)

My brother lives in a small, second floor apartment which wasn't an option. Transporting my parents and grandmother to Boston also wasn't an option. At some point my brother said he wished we could rent an apartment for a day. That's when it hit me - that's what Residence Inn style hotels are. We'd stayed in a Residence Inn while visiting in New Jersey and it was quite spacious. So I did a search and discovered two relatively close to my parents and a room was reserved.

Amy learned of the plan when she returned from her trip the week before Thanksgiving. Planning began immediately. As much of the food as possible would be made before hand and be taken to heat up when we got there. Amy'd been reading up on cooking turkey, reading recipes is one of her favorite entertainments, and was eager to try brining a turkey. This presented a challenge. The plan was to head west Wednesday evening. The turkey needed to brine for 4-6 hours. The drive takes 3 1/2 hours. So, we decided that we would brine the turkey on the drive. The next challenge was figuring out what container to transport the brining turkey in. We have several large coolers - all of which would hold the turkey and it's brine. Amy was concerned though because any of those would require increasing the quantity of brine and since this was the first try at this method she was reluctant to make that change. The solution - a 5 gallon bucket lined with plastic bags.

The easiest part of the packing was our clothes. It was to be a quick trip so we didn't need much in the way of clothing. The rest of the packing was to accommodate the dozen people we were expecting (my parents, my grandmother, my younger brother, his wife and son, my older brother, his wife, son and daughter and Amy and me). The Residence Inn's provide kitchen equipment but not for that many people. We packed plates, glasses, silverware, kitchen equipment that Amy (who was doing most of the on-site cooking) couldn't live without, food - rolls, cranberry sauce, apple sauce, stuffing, vegetables, pumpkin pie, crackers, two card tables and eight folding chairs, napkins and table cloths.
Just to make things even more interesting Amy came down with the head cold I'd been fighting for weeks the week of Thanksgiving. The crowd ended up slightly smaller than anticipated - my brother and co-conspirator succumbed to the stomach bug that his son brought home from school, my older brother's wife was too exhausted to spend 5+ hours (round-trip) in a car and my oldest nephew needed to stay in Montreal (where it wasn't a holiday) and go to class. (For those keeping track that gave us a crowd of 9.
After dinner my nephew, N, who is five and my niece, S, who is 16 and I went down to the lobby to play Sorry. At one point N was frustrated because he wasn't doing so well, S and I were chatting about something (probably her swim season) and he decided we weren't taking the game seriously enough. He announced "stop talking and concentrate on the game". I smile every time I think about it, partly because it shows how much he's matured since July when he got frustrated by a game we were playing and wanted to quit.

A good time was had by all, though I don't know that we'll ever try it again.

(I do know that this post is month's overdue, but I didn't want to let this go undocumented.)

Happy Birthday to Me!

As a child growing up in a household with a dog, I knew what a veterinarian was. I did not understand what a veteran was. And so I thought that November 11th was Veterinarians Day. I remember the conversation when my mother explained the difference between veterinarians and veterans. Veterans Day was, and is, an important day in my life. Not because it's Veterans Day but because it is also my birthday.

Because my birthday is a holiday I have almost always had the day off from school and work. (There was one year when the government decided to make Veterans Day a Monday holiday at the end of October, but I digress.) My current place of business does not give us Veterans Day off. We get the Friday after Thanksgiving instead. However, I do get generous vacation time. So I was able to take both Monday and Tuesday off to play.

I spent most of Monday in my woodshop, working on a project for Hiker Boy. (I haven't posted about it yet, but will soon on elf business.) And I installed the car rack on my new car .

Yesterday, I headed off early for a paddle. I'll post about that tomorrow. My timing was perfect. The morning, when I was on the river, was full of sun and clear blue skies. By the time I had the kayak and all it's equipment put away it was gray and threatening to rain. I spent the afternoon watching a movie (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - recommended).

After dinner out at our favorite Chinese Restaurant, we returned home for cake, complete with squiggly candles.


In addition to the new ipod, which goes with the new car (there's a connector so the ipod can be played through the car audio system), I also got the way cool bumper sticker from my sister-out-law, Shelley (who will be getting a proper thank you). It now holds a place of honor on my car.

Family Christmas

The Saturday after Christmas my family gathered at my parents for our Christmas celebration. My sister and her family, my younger brother and his family, my older brother's family, and Amy and I were all in attendance. Unfortunately, due to travel issues and hockey tickets my younger brother and his family had to leave before my older brother's family arrived. My older brother was busy coaching a hockey game so he wasn't there either. We had fun opening presents, in a really laid back manner. My two youngest nephews (4 and 6) had a great time playing together and lots of game playing fun was had - Sorry with the N and D, Set with Shelley, the swimmer (my 15 year old niece), and D, and Sleeping Queens with Amy, Shelley and D.

Sunday morning while Amy enjoyed some alone time in the hotel (my parents house is too small for all of us) I met my sister, and younger brother and their families for breakfast and then we headed off to the movies. We saw the Water Horse, a story of one possible explanation for the Loch Ness monster. It gets a thumbs up. I wouldn't recommend it for children under 5, but everyone else will enjoy it. After lunch on our own, Shelley and D joined me for a swim in the hotel pool while my sister and Amy watched.

Sunday night we met up with a college friend and her family for dinner. Ann and I weren't that close in college, but over the years Amy and I have gotten much closer to her, her husband and her daughters. Dinner wasn't fancy, but we closed the place down - not as exciting as it sounds since the restaurant we were at closes at 8pm on Sunday nights. Had it been warmer we might have continued the conversation for hours in the parking lot. The good news is that they're going to be in our area in a few weeks, so we'll continue the conversation then.

Highlights of the weekend in photo form:

N showing off his new zamboni.


D watching the action.


N and his monster bowling set.


D enjoying N's monster truck (can't you just hear the truck noises?)


Cousins - I love this shot of the two little imps.


View from our hotel room Monday morning.

Honored

My post for last week's Moody Monday challenge got picked as a favorite. Five images of the 74 submitted were chosen as favorites. This is really cool given the quality of the photographers who participate in that challenge.

That picture was taken behind the Unified Arts Building at Brookline High School (where I take an adult ed woodworking class). The construction technology class (a high school class) is building a small one room house in that corner of the parking lot. The tree stump sits next to that house under construction. My guess is that the nails have been added by bored kids.

Now to find a picture that will work for this week.... If I'd known in advance that the challenge was chaotic I would have taken a different set of pictures at my nephew D's wrestling practice (more to come on that soon) on Saturday.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is not only Veteran's Day (or veterinarian's day as I called it as a child) it is also my birthday. That's me above. And I'm famous. As a fund raising event the writer of my favorite on-line comic auctioned off the opportunity to be part of the strip. Today is my day to star in it. Head on over to Barkeater Lake to see my 15 minutes of fame. (Note: if you are reading this after today you will need to follow the link to the comic's archive and click on Nov. 11 to see it).

Happy Birthday D!

My nephew D turned 6 today. In honor of this auspicious day here are a few shots of D through the years. He was one month old when I took the picture above.

This is from his first Christmas, the hands are Amy's.

Pointing out his foot.

Introducing me to Wormy.

Trying out the "big camera".

Acting like a dog.

Hanging out on the Cape.

All tied up.

Rejoicing in Massachusetts

I didn't hold a sign,
I didn't chant slogans,
I wasn't in the crowd.

I did release a sigh of relief,
I did call my wife,
I did smile broadly.

Three years ago I said I do,
Three years she said I do,
Three years as wife and wife.

Voting on rights is wrong,
the legislature agrees,
Our marriage will not be challenged.

At this point it's really not news, but today the Massachusetts legislature voted down a proposed ballot question that would have put the question of whether same-sex marriage should be legal on the ballot in 2008. I'm not naive enough to think the battle is over. The battle will continue both here and across the country. The haters will still hate. But for today it's time to rejoice because love has won out.

Waiting for Snowflake

Our pals, Sunshine and Snowman, are expecting their first child, Snowflake, in a couple of months. It couldn't happen to a better couple. The parents to be are kind, gentle, generous and fun-loving. And judging from the crowd at last Sunday's baby shower (Thanks Domino for organizing it!) the little one has a lot of honorary aunts to provide even more love.

I can't wait to meet this new person.