Today was a busy day. Cathy and I finished off our work hours at Dalton?s day care by putting up a ceiling fan. It was much more of an ordeal than I expected and I?ve learned to expect ordeals with these sort of things. We were replacing a fluorescent light with a ceiling fan and the old electrical box was plastic and held in place by one nail to a sixteen inch joist. Of course, I couldn?t tell this when I was trying to pull it out. All I knew was that I had a plastic box that was fixed into the ceiling in an unknown manner. I did not discover the nail until I had the box 90% out (1-2 hours later, I wasn?t counting). This was followed by hours shopping for a new electrical box, cutting a bigger hole, installing the box, obsessing over the leveling of the fan, hunting for tools, and frenzied cleaning of a room that will be filled with toddlers tomorrow. All in all it was a 6 hour experience.
The silver lining is that we were at least being ?paid? by the hour. We?re all caught up with our hours for Spring and we now have a few finished for the Fall.
I really hate demolition work. It?s especially bad with you have to do the remolition work afterwards before you can be finished. It?s not very rewarding to be tearing something down. The fruits of your labor are a mess.
To reward myself on the way home, we stopped off for ice cream. We also went out for ice cream last night. Both times Dalton was all over it eating as much as we would put in is his little mouth. This is a change as he didn?t quite know what to do with ice cream a few months ago. I think it was too sweet for him as he?s always loved frozen peas and frozen blueberries. He?s apparently gotten over that and his Dad?s sweet tooth is growing in.
He had his first year checkup last week. He?s 50% for weight, 75% for height, and off the charts for head size. Would you believe that both his parents have trouble finding hats in large enough sizes? Cathy followed the chart back and he?s always been big headed. I guess it helps to explain the long arduous pushing phase of her labor a year ago.
Surprisingly enough, the ceiling fan work was not the low point of the day. While I was taking my shower afterwards (I had drywall in my pants), dogs managed to kill a cat in the backyard. Cathy and I got to spend the next couple of hours talking with all the near neighbors to see if they had a black cat with white socks. I thought I had found the owners at one point. The father came over to our house, identified "Mr. Purrty", and brought him back to his house. I was of course very apologetic and was grateful that he was reasonable as the cat was killed in our fenced yard. The story did have a happy ending for him. Shortly after, he called and said that it wasn?t his cat as his had showed up right before he got home. We never did find the owners. Cathy is going to let animal control know tomorrow in case someone calls looking.
Being parents of a one year old, the cat ended up in a closed Huggies box during the various phases of transport. I know if I was a better physical chemist that I'd have a good Schrodinger joke here. I guess I'll have to teach that class next summer.
The silver lining is?well there is no silver lining. The dogs smell like dead cat.
