HOM: More Muddled Mental Meanderings

When we moved into the house I appropriated the north bedroom upstairs as a library. It worked, but was pretty small. There was a big unfinished upstairs room on the west side looking out over the fields towards Ashley Creek and when I went to work at C&C I decided to make it into a den/library. I had to be at work at 1700, got off at 0130 and was usually up around 0800. Lyn was working at Sears from 0800 to 1700, so my days were pretty much free except for baby sitting Bec. I had a lot of time to work on the old house. (I dropped Bec off with Lois a few minutes before 1700 on my way to work and Lyn picked her up a little after 1700 when she got off work, and she often spent some time visiting with Lois. I really encouraged this. Lois & Gordon did all they could to help all of us.) I commandeered Gordon & his new Jeep Gladiator pickup and bought sheetrock for the walls and fiberboard for the floor & converted the old room into a den/library. He hauled the stuff and helped me carry it upstairs but drew the line at carpentering with me for lack of free time. Bec was my helper, and with her aid things only took twice as long! I was nailing down the fiberboard over the old planks and joists when Bec asked to hammer in a nail. I started one, then handed her the hammer. She took half a dozen swings at it, missed with every one, and handed the hammer back, saying "Here - that thing's STUCK!" With Lyn & I on such disparate schedules & our relationship being what it was, I pretty much moved into the den and slept on the old couch I'd put in there. That sorta started a lifetime habit, since I am not comfortable in a bed anymore. Sofas, floors or futons are my style now & mattresses hurt my back. Bec. She was standing on the back of that couch and playing with the old double-hung window behind it, which was open at the time. She had her fingers hooked over the top of the lower portion when it dropped and wedged both her hands between the sashes. Lyn & I heard the scream and ran in. I raised the window and freed Bec's hands. A quick check didn't show any damage so I carried her downstairs -- with her at full volume! I sat on the couch holding her when the whole thing of her wailing and flipping both hands around like she was trying to cool them off caught my funnybone & I started laughing. Bec immediately stopped crying, gave me a dirty look, pried herself out of my arms, stalked over to her mother, climbed in her lap, gave me another dirty look, and then turned to her mom and resumed wailing and flipping her hands. Lyn didn't laugh, but at that point I couldn't stop laughing Women! At any age, there is no pleasing them! (Two Quick anecdotes about that North library -- I had a six-gun cabinet in it with sliding glass door, and I carefully explained to Lyn that the magazines of the guns in it were loaded but the chambers were empty. I thought she understood, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I came home to a hysterical wife and glass all over the floor of the library. It seemed that she decided to fool around with my Marlin 39A, dryfired it a few times by cocking the hammer, then decided to cock it with the lever. Luckily the only damage was to the glass doors of the cabinet, but everything was obviously my fault since I lied to her about the guns being empty. (Once I wished they HAD been empty. I got home from hunting and walked into one of those domestic scenes where things had gone wrong and it was all my fault. Lyn grabbed my hunting rifle & ammo, said she was going to kill me, jumped in the car and took off. I waited outside in the dark until she got home, and when she went into the house she was empty handed so I hustled over to the car and retrieved my rifle. I was pretty careful to keep everything lethal under lock and key after that.) TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)