Outside In

Today is Marrakesh’s foundling day, and the sun has decided to, at long last, celebrate with us. (We so rarely know our pets’ actual birthdays that we instead celebrate the days they arrived to live with us.) It is also graduation day at Western No Longer State, so I imagine several hundred graduates, faculty, family members and illuminati are also pleased to have the sun join their party.

So far I have celebrated this day of celebrations with a busy morning, precipitated by a trip to help poke a newly-diabetic cat belonging to a friend. As long as I was out, I conducted my weekly tour of Carol’s house, just in time to see a fox streak across her driveway on its way deeper into town.

Then, in an effort to spare no photojournalistic expense, I pointed my car north to bring you a photographic update of house progress. Do we see the lengths to which I am willing to go for you, dear readers? On the road at 8:30! In the morning.

The first sign of progress is visible from the highway: we’re getting a roof. And it’s burgundy, which is making us much happier than the green we had planned on in an earlier exterior color scheme.

I am just now realizing I forgot, in my photojournalistic exuberance, to go around to the back of the house to see what a “deck ledger” is, because we’re supposed to have one of those as well. And since we have this deck ledger and all our trim, the way is now clear for the exterior finish guy to come over from Montrose. Dusty half-expected him yesterday, although it alternately clouded over and rained, so maybe not the best day for it. Perhaps it’s a chicken-egg thing, but we don’t know which comes first, the stucco or the stone. Possibly we’ll find out next week.

[I have also just realized that today is not, in fact, Marrakesh’s foundling day. That was last Saturday, and I have already lost a full week of May. Don’t tell him I got mixed up — I don’t think he’ll notice on his own.]

Inside the house, paint continues. I’m reasonably sure most of the neutrals are in. In the early morning light, I didn’t see much difference between Chalk and Frost, so maybe our agonizing was for naught. But our house is oriented a bit southwest, so we don’t get a great sun advantage until later in the day. Light in the Good Room will probably make a difference.

The east side of our house is not quite in the realm of pastels, but much closer to that family than the west, where boldness will rule. One of the tellers at the savings and loan thinks it’s hilarious that there’s a Lynn side of the house and a TL side of the house, but looking at the paint selections, perhaps it’s for the best.

In other interior news, the crew started to finish the solar tubes yesterday, but Dusty said that just as they cut holes in the roof, it started raining. The holes got quickly capped, and the tubes will be finished next week. He did say that there was nowhere to go directly up from my bathroom, so the tube will be slanted over to the south side of the roof ridge, which will offer better light anyway. I’m very excited to see what transpires, assuming it ever stops raining and snowing on work days.

[I saw Sharon Mendonca, retired teacher and active artist, yesterday, and she said she long ago got tired of telling herself We need the moisture.]

So that’s about all the home tour you get from my early-morning excursion, where I did also witness fisherpeople launching their boats into a very fast-moving-but-still-in-its-banks river.

And, on this graduation day, I would be remiss if I did not congratulate my friends Pete and Mark (neither of whom reads this blog) on their newly-minted status as professors emeritus at Western No Longer State. I’m glad it won’t be raining on their parade today, just like I hope no one rains on Marrakesh’s false parade. So far, we have celebrated by letting him out, letting him in, letting him out, letting him in . . . like I said, I’m not sure he’ll notice that I got the date wrong.

I hope the sun is shining wherever you all are today.