Backsplash

Here you see a couple of stages of the backsplash—(1) the built up plaster on top of cement board (a second coat of plaster went on after this); (2) the tile on the adhesive and (3) the tile with grout, both close-up and the complete setting. This might look mostly done, but there are still a half dozen things to do, not the least of which is dealing with the missing triangular piece of the original tile in the upper right hand corner. Lilya was surprised by how much better the tile looked when grouted—it gives it an even, consistent look, even though it isn't particularly consistent or even. It makes it look like it's all at the same level, even though it's not. In general, it looks like a picture in a frame with the grout, rather than one without.

Grout went in today, so I'll seal this bad boy tomorrow. Or possibly do a second helping of grout, since some of the grout looks a little sunken to me. Seal grout, then seal edges with silicone caulk, deal with the triangle (I may be able to cut a piece with a hacksaw—my hand-held tile cutter can't cut tile this small on a diagonal), and then there are some other issues to attend to—including paint. It'll be at least another week!

MORE alien invaders!

About three years ago, Lilya woke me up at 3 AM. It was a hot summer night, ceiling fans on, windows wide open.  "Rob, I think there's a bird in the house!" she said. I turned on the light, and watched it fly frantically around the spinning fan. "Uh, honey—it's not a bird," I replied. It was a bat.

While Lilya covered herself with a blanket, I herded the bat into the empty guest bedroom and shut it inside, stuffing a towel into the crack beneath the door. In the morning, the bat was gone, and a hole had been chewed through one of the window screens. Problem solved.

Wednesday night we were working on the couch when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A flash of dark brown by the side door. A wing, as it turned out—another bat. Bigger this time, of course, and on the ground floor, flying in frantic circles through the house, trying to find a way out. I used the same technique, closing it off into the back part of the house, going outside and opening a door. It vanished within the next minute, presumably having found the open door.

Except the next night, ten minutes into Obama's speech (which I found rather tepid, by the way, not the it matters, having been wiped out of existence by the nomination of Harriet Myers—sorry, I meant to say Sarah Palin—as the Republican Veep), our bat returned.  Damn bat. So we've been keeping doors and windows with less secure screens closed and that seems to have solved the problem. Two nights, bat free.

On the home front, I should have an actual kitchen-related post shortly, possibly even this afternoon.

Alien Invaders!

I had many ways of misspending my teenage years, and one of them was reading and re-reading hundreds and hundreds of fantasy and science-fiction novels. Some of the best were Roger Zelazny's Amber novels. He was a Columbia M.A. in English, and they were actually well-written, with a particular penchant for stream of consciousness techniques blended with a hard-boiled, existentially alienated and Chandlereque narrator who occasionally does good deeds in spite of his better instincts. The central conceit was a kind of literalized Platonism: there really is a realm of Ideals, a universe that is elemental and primal, and all other universes are a pale imitation of that world. That real world is called Amber, and everything else is called Shadow.

Our hero wanders through these realms of Shadow, and stumbles on one plagued by a menacing dark circle inhabited by demons and worse. Here is how it is described:

"One day there was the dark circle, and no one really knows why… it began as a tiny ring of toadstools, far to the west. A child was found dead in its center, and the man who found her—her father—died of convulsions several days later. The spot was immediately said to be accursed. It grew quickly in the days that followed, until it was half a league across. The grasses darkened and shone like metal within it, but did not die… In the twilight, strange shapes could be seen moving…"

We have one of these in our backyard. No, seriously, we do—it's called a fairy ring, and they are completely real, and Zelazny's description is quite accurate. Without, uh, the demons and strange twilight shapes and dead people, of course. They begin as a small ring of toadstools, and then form an expanding ring of dark grass—grass that does indeed have a strangely metallic sheen to it. In the morning the ring appears dark on the light grass, and in the evening, lighter in the darker light. And they grow, maintaining their circular shape, or occasionally changing into spirals, arcs, double circles, and so on. Occasionally, fairy rings kill all the grass on the inside, but more often they just grow until they hit a border.  Frequent mowing helps, which explains why ours just appeared after the month long mowing hiatus occasioned by my broken toes (I can mow again, and I wore a closed-toe show this morning for the first time).  I didn't take any good pictures of the ring, unfortunately, before mowing, but you can see still the lines and the dark grass. 

Because the rings appear guided by some exterior intelligence (how does a fungus know how to draw a circle, for crying out loud?!), fairy rings are the source of numerous legends and stories. Ones that Zelazny was acquainted with, obviously. This is a nice example, actually, of how a completely natural phenomenon, one that is completely stupid (it's hard to imagine anything more stupid than a fungal spore), can appear uncanny precisely because it appears to "know" something human. I have more to say about this in another post, or perhaps on another blog, but suffice it for now to just note that it's part of our larger impulse to ascribe meaning and uncanny power to the natural world when it manifests patterns.

But the fairy ring was not our only alien invader. Within two days of "finishing" the kitchen, a new mouse moved in. We lived mouse-free in this house for several years, but now we seem to have an official position for the mouse, an endowed chair for rodent-in-residence. We get rid of one and go a month or two before a new one shows up (and by the way, I'm removing these mice to a spot a couple of miles distant—it ain't the same guy coming back).  Anyway, I removed the mouse this morning to a distant site and got a speeding ticket for my troubles. The officer was, as always, extremely polite, but he was also clearly fulfilling a quota—he said:

"SirIdon'tknowifyouknowwhyIpulledyouover? Iradarclockedyougoing45ina35zone. Licenseandregistration. Signhereandsigningisnotanadmissionofguilt. AnyquestionsIhaven'tanswered? Okaydriveslowlyandcarefully."

I have never received a ticket so quickly or efficiently, and the officer then zoomed back to his hidden position to get the next speeder. But really? 45 in a 35 zone?

Ms. Turtle

So, our turtle (perhaps a spiny softshell turtle?) came back a few hours later, and this time we kept everyone off the beach while she did her thing (about 20 minutes once she found her spot—about 5 minutes for digging and about 15 for laying). Afterwards we went over to the nest and uncovered it to get a look at the eggs (they're not like birds who will sometimes not care for their young if they smell like humans have been near—turtles don't take care of their young at all, no matter what). We couldn't find them. We uncovered sand until we hit the undisturbed wet sand below and nothing. Then Sasha dug for a few seconds and found the top of the nest—most impressive, both for his egg-finding ability and for how deep the mother buried her eggs in such a short time. They're a little smaller than ping-pong balls and harder than one might think. Underneath the one we excavated you could spy some of the others. We re-buried, of course.

hiatus

We're on a temporary hiatus here on the shores of Lake Norman in North Carolina, as you can see. Everything is going swimmingly, so to speak. We'll be back to tackle the backsplash around the 20th.

I saw an enormous turtle (technically a terrapin) on the beach this morning laying eggs. Her shell was probably 18-20 inches in length. We're talking seriously big. She spooked easily, however, and headed straight for the water when I cam out onto the deck with binoculars. Sasha has not yet managed to catch a fish—evidently the water is too warm. Everyone's been lightly sunburned at least once, and today we may be going out on a speedboat piloted by the famous "Captain Steve." He's a former fighter pilot, and Sasha's hero.

updates

I hadn't really intended to do any more updates, but we've had requests. So, here's how things are looking, here's what's been done, and what's still left.

What's done since the last report:

• 18" cabinet assembled and installed, with countertop
• toekicks
• ceiling painted
• baseboards painted
• "crooked" lamp straightened
• chairrail painted
• second window painted
• door trim painted
• pantry door removed, sanded, painted, restored
• open shelving added
• magnetic strip added for knives

What's still unfinished:

• tile backsplash—this takes some doing, since the old tile was mounted on about a half inch of concrete, and so I have to build up the drywall with patching plaster to match the depth at several points, and it takes a while for the plaster to dry. I'm doing the second, and hopefully last, coat of plaster today
• short baseboard to cut, paint and install
• crooked dishwasher
• countertop gap—this may be less of a problem than we had thought, and I'm going to wait until the tile is down before making any decisions about what to do with it
• I'd like to install a vapor/moisture barrier above the dishwasher, but I'll see what my options are

In the meantime, you can enjoy seeing what the kitchen looks like in its near-normal state, being used every day (in fact, now it's hard to find time to work on it when it isn't being used!)