Epiphanic

I had an epiphany in a fast-food drive-through yesterday.

Okay, I can hear the judgment: yes, I was eating fast food. I had my car because the City of Gunnison has not been at its best for snow removal this year, and instead of plowing up everything when it turned to slush at 36 degrees on Tuesday, Public Works let it melt and then harden to glare ice. So I was walking to work in one inch of new snow (and watching the plow make a useless appearance in my neighborhood — honestly, this isn’t brain surgery) that covered treacherous swatches of black ice, and I was afraid I was going to die, so I turned and carefully headed for Carol’s garage, where my car awaited.

A few hours later, I couldn’t think of what we had at home that I might want to eat, so I determined to get something while driving home. I had used my twenty-dollar bill on Girl Scout cookies, so I had $10 left. I ruled out the healthiest option, Subway, because I was pretty sure we had lunch meat at home. (I understand “healthy” might be a relative term here.)

Frankly, I forgot we have Arby’s now, and I decided against McDonald’s because I always get chicken there, and I was reasonably sure chicken was going to be on my dinner menu (it was), which left Sonic. Oh, I’m forgetting Taco Bell, but for no particular reason, it never enters my consideration.

(Na Ki’o says “hi,” everyone.)

So there I was at Sonic, where to the clerk’s consternation I vacillated heavily on bacon-no bacon (we had some at home, but eventually I opted to just eat theirs). Something must have happened with my order, because I waited at the window for a very long time. Which led to my epiphany. Are you ready? (You were ready way back in the first paragraph.)

Our new house is going to look like Sonic.

We don’t have plans for a canopy or any drive-up slots we can roller-skate to (although they haven’t done that for years at Sonic), but while I was sitting there, not waiting so much as studying the river rock skirting, trying to decide if this is the color pattern we’ve selected, I looked above the rock and thought, That’s probably about the shade of stucco we’ve chosen — and then I realized the drive-through window frame is the same dark brown our window frames are going to be. I even think, although it was snow-covered, that the roof on Sonic is forest green, just like our roof is planned to be.

We had a minor kerfuffle the other day, after windows were allegedly already ordered. We got a bill for them and Lynn noticed that they were supposed to be “bronze” and we couldn’t remember ever selecting a color. She sent a text to Dusty, who came to see me with the Ultrex color swatches. And most of the process came back as I was rifling through the very limited color palette.

We made this choice months ago, probably even while we were still planning to put a blue roof on the house. And while “bronze” sounds like a polished brass sort of metallic color, it turns out it’s just regular ol’ dark brown. (Perhaps the name “brown” was already taken.)

While none of the color choices is blue, there is a forest green. And I think we discussed using that the first time around, all those months ago, but decided that wouldn’t work with a blue roof. But now the roof is slated to be green (not green slate, just metal), and I wondered about selecting green for the window frames.

Dusty counseled against that, and maybe it was because the windows were already (hopefully) in process, and changing colors might result in a slowdown. Or maybe he honestly thinks the brown will look better. So I left it at dark brown. Or “bronze,” if you want it to sound more elegant.

On Sonic there are forest green accents, which I preferred over the drabness of the brown around the window. But — particularly after reviewing the very sameness of Denver housing all the way from Lone Tree to Arvada (with one red, green and black development in downtown the exception), drab is the way to go in a neighborhood with covenants that focus on house design. Plus, we were about a week into what’s supposed to be a 10-day to two-week waiting period (today might in fact be Day 10), so what the hell — drab brown it is.

I’m putting this post in the “House” category, even though I’m not sure how much of an update it is. I haven’t seen our house for nearly two weeks, although Lynn is out there daily. There hasn’t been much to report, even if the plumber has started his work. But so far that’s mostly underfoot, in the crawlspace, and when I expressed an interest in photographing the in-floor heat system being stapled to the subfloor, Dusty suggested I wait.

I don’t know if that’s because he thinks I’ll get tangled in plumbing parts, or because the crawlspace is unfinished and he doesn’t want me seeing it in anything other than its finished form. But crawling around anywhere is hard for me, so I’ll wait until he gives me the all-clear. (If that doesn’t give you a reason to come back to this blog, nothing will: enticing readers with promises of pin-up photos of pex tubing? That seems scandalous.)

We’re in kind of a dramatic-photo lull: waiting on windows, with plumbing and then electrical next on the schedule. The garage opening is going to get boarded up today or tomorrow, and other door entries barred (perhaps just in time: yesterday Lynn found tire tracks and footprints that may have belonged to a work person, but it seemed more like some random person stopped to use the Port-o-Potty and then wander through the house).

In the meantime, if you’re anxious to see what our house finishes are going to look like, there’s always Sonic. I can’t in good conscience recommend the food — not even the Tater Tots tasted good yesterday — but the outside decor is superb.