Lindsay Mutch, sweet Kiwi friend!

My very good friend, Lindsay Mutch, died recently and I have been struggling for days to find the right words to pay him tribute. You see, Lindsay was quite the master of words and, although, I love words and consider myself somewhat adept at the art of articulation, my talents truly pale in comparison. So, with apologies to my late friend, I continue.

As it happened, one night while on twitter, I watched my computer screen in fascination as my friend @MisterNoodle, a funny and clever guy, traded quips with someone I had never seen before, @lindsa (Lindsay). Their banter back and forth was fast and furious and funny. I can’t remember now what the subject was, bacon comes to mind, but in the end, MisterNoodle cried uncle. And, that’s how I met Lindsay.

Of course, it was Lindsay’s words that first appealed to me. He was funny, brilliant, quirky, quick-witted. He had a natural talent, and could spew forth the most outrageous, ironic, philosophical stuff, in an instant, too, whereas I always had to work at it. Oh, I remember many times searching the internet for help with a word or saying so I could write a funny comeback to something he had just said, only to discover that by the time I came up with something somewhat worthy, he had already moved on to something new and equally outrageous.

Lindsay and I became pen pals. We corresponded frequently via email and twitter. We talked movies, music, books, authors, current events, sports, history, politics, religion, ghosts, entertainment and I don’t know what else! We sometimes discussed our most recent blog posts. But, what I liked best were our conversations of the mundane everyday stuff of our lives. We usually did not go more than several days without somehow touching base with each other. I looked forward to turning my computer on in the morning to check my email, always happy when I got one from him. We talked on the phone several times, too. Every time, it was like talking to an old friend. He had such a wonderful knack at making me feel I was important to him, so kind and big-hearted.

To his family and colleagues, my heart goes out to you.

To Lindsay,

I’m thinking of the farewell scene in Dances with Wolves. Lieutenant Dunbar is leaving the tribe forever. Wind in His Hair stands on the mountain top and shouts for all to hear, “Dances with Wolves! I am Wind in His Hair! Can’t you see that I am your friend? Can’t you see that you will always be my friend?” You know where I mean? Okay, so you are Dunbar and I am Wind in His Hair. Except, you are not on horseback and I am not standing on a mountain. Instead, I see you hovering in a spacecraft (Kiwi Space Patrol style) in the clouds. And, I am standing on the ground near sea level, no hill in sight, looking up to the sky. “Lindsay! I am Cindy!” Can’t you see that I am your friend? Can’t you see that you will always be my friend?”

I hear a hoot owl every morning, still dark, while sitting on my screened porch having coffee. “Who, who.” You know, your poem, A Whim, pertains to friends, too, just saying. To wit, to woo, Lindsay! I miss you, my friend.

Lindsay Mutch, May 15, 1968 – June 28, 2010  Journalist, poet, author, friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlSZd8MNayE

I reckon it’s been about 2 months ago now that our refrigerator broke. To make a long story short, a technician came, diagnosed the problem, ordered parts, and the parts arrived several days later, but due to scheduling conflicts between me and the technician, the repair service got scheduled for 2 weeks later, and then, on the day he was to come, he didn’t show up, and I found out this piece of news when the day was half over and I had already missed most of my work day, that he had called in sick and there was no replacement to cover for him, so the repair appointment was rescheduled for one week later after we resolved our scheduling conflicts once again, and I arranged another day off,  and lo and behold, he came that time, on time, too, but then determined the fridge couldn’t be fixed after all, so he took the parts away, promised a refund via the mail, provided a $500 off coupon only good at Sears, which we went to on that Friday night, where we found a great fridge, bought it, and are awaiting the earliest delivery date available – one month to the day from when we bought it (gasps for air). During all this time, without a working fridge in the house, we used our second fridge, the beer fridge, located in the workshop, which was very inconvenient. Picture yourself, if you will, walking out your back door, going over to your neighbor’s house, walking into their kitchen, getting butter from the fridge, and then making the return trip back to your house, and you can begin to understand what a pain in the ass this was, and after three weeks of doing that to discover that the new fridge would not arrive for 30 more days, well, I told Brian I couldn’t do it anymore, would he bring the old fridge from the workshop and put it on the back deck, so at least, it would be a shorter trip, but it is still a pain in the ass, and we are still weeks away from resolving the fridge dilemma. And, that is all I’m going to say about that.

Work

Recently, my co-worker, work partner, the one who covered my job for me and me for her, submitted her resignation so she could work full-time for her husband’s company. We determined that I could handle the additional duties and we had about 6 weeks to train me before she departed. In theory, it was plenty of time. But then, consider that both of us worked four day workweeks. (She took a day off every week and I took a day off every week, but we never took the same day off as we covered each other’s jobs.) So, then we were down to 18 work days for me to learn her duties. Then, of course, I missed two additional days during that time for refrigerator service and she missed several additional days with a tooth problem and subsequent root canal. Her last day at the office was April 30, so since then, I’ve been on my own. I expect it will get easier as soon as I figure out what in the hell I am doing.

Homefront

Spring is always a busy season for us, what with five acres and an old fixer-upper house and summer being generally too hot to do major outdoor work projects. As soon as the winter weather breaks we get outside and get busy. We’ll be on that track until sometime in July when the heat beats us to a pulp. One big project is almost done – new columns for the front porch. This is one project that has been on our list for seven years, but, you can see by the pictures that we couldn’t put it off anymore. We were getting very afraid the porch roof was going to collapse! We couldn’t find replacement columns in the style we wanted, so Brian built them himself. As soon as he gets them painted, I’ll post the pictures.

Here is the background information. I remember staying up late (or waking up) to be with my mother when she got home from the second shift at the hospital. I might have been five (maybe 1963 or 1964). Mom was folding laundry and watching the late movie on television.  The movie was in black and white.

This cottage is similar to the one occupied by Susan Hayward.

My memories include an English countryside dotted with quaint cottages, gently sloping hills, stone hedgerows. The main characters might have been Richard Chamberlain and Susan Hayward. Chamberlain was a country doctor (no, this was not an episode of Dr. Kildaire). He and Hayward were lovers. They might have been married. Maybe not. Maybe he was married to a dying woman and couldn’t leave her to be with Hayward. Near the end of the movie, Hayward is on the telephone with him, crying happily because he is finally on his way to her. Next scene, Chamberlain is speeding on dark curvy country roads to get to her. Of course, he crashes and is killed in the accident. Hayward worries what is keeping him. She hears sirens in the distance. She knows something horrible has happened and she waits by the phone for the phone call that never comes. Or, maybe the call does come at the end. Either way, the movie ends with her alone and crying.

That’s all I can remember about it. I have looked up Richard Chamberlain, Susan Hayward and every other actor I can think of from that time frame. I have read hundreds of movie synopses. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent on the internet trying to find it. And, of course, the more I search, and the more I fail, the more I need to find it. It has become quite an obsession. 

Please help if you can!

The floor was covered with cheap stick on tiles that over the years came loose, curled back, broke off, yada, yada. It was nasty and I hated that it looked so crappy. Several years ago, when we had to pull out the built-in dishwasher for repairs, we saw underneath that our floor was hardwood.

So, on one cold Sunday in early January, we decided we would expose the hardwood to match the rest of our house. The plan was to remove the tiles, sand, stain and urethane. Our best estimate was that we could complete the project in two weekends. On the first weekend, we would remove the tiles and do the sanding. On the second weekend, we would stain and finish. Aaah, the best laid plans… We began scraping off the sticky tiles and discovered a sheet of luaun. We removed the luaun and discovered a layer of linoleum. We removed it and discovered a layer of tar based mastic adhesive. Underneath that was another layer of tiles and under that was another layer of the tar based adhesive. We scraped the linoleum and the next layer of tiles, thus removing the one layer of that tar based icky stuff, but the bottom layer was going to be problematic. We tried scraping, mineral spirits, goo gone, and other products to remove this icky coating, but nothing was working. I researched the internet on how best to remove this stuff and found out that even Bob Vila had no answers. Most sources said it couldn’t be done and to replace the flooring with new hardwood. One source suggested using hot steam.

We wanted to save our old floor, so we got out the iron and tried it. Yes, it did work the best. Heat up that black tarry gunk and scrape. It was hard, arduous work. It was not perfect. That bottom layer of gunk separating us from our hardwood floor had probably been on there for 60 years and probably full of asbestos, too. So, we needed to get the floor as clean as we could before doing any sanding. Five weekends later, we were ready to sand. 

At this point, we moved the range out of the room. We wanted to remove the refrigerator, too, but the only way to fit it through the doorway was to remove its three heavy doors. We decided we would try to work around it, pulling it out away from the wall to work on that area and pushing it back into place while we did the rest of the floor.

It took another two very inconvenient weeks to finish this project, what with not being able to walk on the floor or use the stove or get to the refrigerator, but it is done. Just in time to get out and start working on the outdoor projects.

A hoarder is defined as a person who has a need to acquire things, but fails to use them or discard them. A&E says its program is about people whose hoarding has gotten so out of control they are on the verge of personal crisis. 

One episode was about a woman whose children were taken out of the home by the Department of Social Services because her house was considered unsafe and unsanitary. She had to clean up in order to get her children back. The therapist and a cleaning crew came in to help get the job done. The work was slow as the hoarder had to touch every piece of junk before she could decide if she could throw it away or not. And, in most cases, she could not. At the end of this episode, the woman’s house is clean, but her garage and basement are stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of the stuff she could not part with and Social Services is not convinced that her home will stay clean for long and she does not get her kids back. 

In another story, a woman had convinced her second husband (the first husband had divorced her over her hoarding problem) that they could never get their current home cleaned up and should buy a second house so they could start over! Eventually, they would clean up house one and sell it, she had promised. So, now, strapped with two mortgages and two out of control houses, she asks for help. Ultimately, the crew of helpers left after barely making a dent, although, the woman said she would finish at her own pace on her own. 

In another episode, a man spent a week and only got his dining room table cleared. Even though his wife had fallen down the steps the previous year resulting in a broken leg because of all the junk stacked there, and even though, she promised she would leave him if he did not get his mess cleaned up, he could not. 

In all of the cases I watched, the hoarders felt overwhelmed and ashamed and really had a strong desire to get a handle on their compulsive behavior, but could not. 

I admit it. I really don’t get it. I do not understand how people could live in such filth and why they have a need to keep so much utterly useless crap. It made me realize, though, that most of us have our own compulsive behaviors.  I am quite the opposite of a hoarder. I must have order in my house. I keep the spices on the spice rack alphabetized. My silverware drawer must be organized and only hold a matching set. There are no wire hangers in my house and clothes must be hung facing the same direction. All of the clean towels and wash clothes must be folded in the same way with the fold facing out and stacked in their appropriate places in the linen closet.

A couple of months ago, I was losing sleep because my sock drawer was a mess! Well, okay, honestly, I wasn’t losing sleep over it, but I was thinking about it everyday. Browns were mixed in with blues and some had no match and I couldn’t just reach in the drawer and pull out what I wanted. It felt very satisfying to clean it. (I do not remember now the exact count, but after I threw some away I had over 30 pairs – more than I could wear in a whole month! Maybe, I’m a sockaholic.)

I have no problem getting rid of stuff. My general rule is that if I haven’t used something in a year, I must not need it and out it goes. The junk gets thrown out, and, I pile the quality stuff in the workshop, planning a future yard sale. I have never actually had a yard sale as I can’t stand the accumulating clutter, so I gather up those things and give them away a few months later.

This is not to say that I am a neat freak. I am far from it! My floors can get dirty, the furniture can get dusty and I usually have a stack of clothes piled on the dresser by week’s end. But, I do clean the inside of my refrigerator every week and straighten the kitchen pantry shelves every time I put groceries away. The more I write about it, the more I realize that people must think I’m  a tad crazy! I am truly a compulsive anti-hoarder. 

I see a reality TV show in the making; people who throw things out only to discover later they need them! 

I’ve got other compulsive behaviors, too. But, I’ll save those for another day!