Duct tape is The Force: It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
When we had taken the carpet out of the Macek home, we knew that we had to install some quarter round. The original quarter round had been taken out when Lug and Darlene had installed the carpeting quite a few year ago and who knows what had happened to it. Without quarter round, the flooring, as beautiful as it was, look unfinished. Gary and Tom, his brother-in-law went up on a Saturday and installed all of the quarter round. Beautiful.
The 3 Macek siblings, Gary, Cathy and Dawn, got an offer on the house yesterday. Unfortunately, it was much lower than then had asked and then the buyer also wanted $2000 in concessions. Firstly, they found out that the buyers had just gotten married and this might be their first home, just like Lug and Darlene. Ooh - wouldn’t their parents like knowing that another young couple was starting here in their home? However, business sense quickly came to the fore and the discussion was about FHA loans, inspections, and the actual offer price. They e-mailed about it over for about an hour discussing all elements of the offer and finally turned it down.
Which then gave Gary and me time to go back to the house and finish up some tasks that we thought might improve the appearance of the house - especially the back yard. We also needed to completely empty the house since it seemed as if we were not going to be staying there for any length of time. All we had really left in the house were cleaning supplies and Gary and I had given it a pretty deep cleaning the last time we were there.
Thus our tasks were to:
empty the house of the cleaning supplies and any other odds and ends
clean up the garden in the back yard by removing all the wooden fences and timbers Lug had installed for each individual plot.
rake and pick up what winter had left in the yard.
We first loaded up my brother’s pick-up with things that we still had to take to the landfill and, yes, even after 2 dumpsters-full, there were still some things. While the 2 guys enjoyed the pleasant task of visiting the local landfill, I raked the front yard, bagged the leaves and began on the back yard.
Back at the house the guys began on the garden. Lug was thorough and in a garden of about 15’ x 30’ he had made 5 distinct 1’ high beds, all outlined by landscaping timbers which he had nailed together - nailed together with 8” nails. Then he had laid old carpeting between the beds for a walkway. Not, just one layer of carpeting, several and he had held them down with long nails too. Here’s Gary standing on an old ‘colorful’ (remember the 70’s?) carpet layer with a maul in his hand beating the timbers apart. We’ve already taken the timber and fencing out that was around the garden.
Many of the nails were rusty and there were a passle of them. Jack then used the trusty saws-all to saw the logs in half so they would fit into his truck.
Now, his technique wasn’t the best as you can see here. He leaned the timber up against the tailgate and sawed down. And, this technique worked - for a few timbers. Well, you can guess what happened, the saw blade got pinched in the last timber as he sawed through. Finally, , he pulled the saw blade out, stomped hard on the cut with his boot to break it and, sure enough, one half of the timber fell to the ground, the other flipped up and hit him on the arm. I won’t repeat what he said but he let us know that he had been attacked by the timber. He then went on with his work. Until he noticed big red glops on the bricks where he was standing. Oops. he was bleeding profusely. We all ran to the only outside water spigot, in front of the garage to wash off the blood. We thought it was stopped, I wrapped a cloth around it secured by duct tape and Gary and he took off for the landfill while I finished up smoothing out the dirt in the garden. I should have cleaned off the driveway by the water spigot since we had all been walking in the wet dirt in the garden. My shoes had 1” of the dirt on the bottom and Gary’s and Jack’s were just the same. Lots of wet mud all over the driveway. 
When they returned, Gary and I noticed that there was a 2” in diameter swelling around where the timber had hit Jack and our thought was that one of the nails had penetrated the skin. We whisked him off to the emergency room of the local hospital where we all sat and waited until a nurse ushered us into a room. A nurse with a horrendous cold. Nope, I’m not kidding - a tremendous cold. In the end Jack got a tetanus shot, an x-ray and a prescription for some antibiotics.
Meanwhile our real estate agent called to tell us that there was a showing. Oops, remember that mud all over the driveway? Great curbside appeal there.
We picked up Jack’s prescription, had a nice lunch with tiramisu ice cream at Netties, went back to the house where Gary and Jack loaded some stuff into Jack’s truck and took off for his home. I then tackled the mud in the driveway. 3 hoses in the garage to choose from. I tried the first which at 25’ long was too short. I struggled with the next one on a reel which Lug had tied together with twine in about 4 places. When I got it all untwined and hooked up to the water, it leaked profusely and no water was coming out the end. The last one was about 50’ long with such a curve in the end that, when I held it, I could either water my feet or aim towards the sky. 3 hoses and none worked. I was not in a good mood.
Does this all sound like a comedy of errors? On the other hand, the backyard looked immeasurably better, though the large mulch pile in the garden was frozen and mounded still.
Finally, at 7:30 we got both cars packed: Gary’s with tools and garage stuff and mine with house stuff.
On the way home in the dark at 8:30 we stopped in Dayton to get something to drink and eat. We were pretty hungry since we hadn’t had much to eat today. While we were there, crouched in front of the protein bars trying to choose the one with the most nutrition for the least amount of money, a guy came over and said: ‘I’ll bet that you’ve been married for a long time.’ Interesting supposition - what made him think that? Well, yes, we have and he then told us he had a joke for us:
A couple were at a marriage encounter when the speaker told the men that they probably did not know what their wife’s favorite flower was.
The guy thought a minute, and then leaned in to his wife and said: ‘It’s Pillsbury, isn’t it?’
We laughed and, since we were such a willing audience he told us another:
2 robins were perched on a branch in the rain. Looking down they saw some plump juicy worms. They swooped down and indulged in their favorite meal, overstuffing themselves. They then waddled over to a tree branch, spread their wings with their legs up in the air, basking in the sun.
A cat crept up, pounced upon them and ate them, grinning wildly, ‘Just love baskin’ robins’ he said.
And, that was our time in Dayton. Best time we’ve had in Dayton - ever.
Home at 9:30, a small snack of cold cereal and off to bed.
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