Laying bricks, double trouble, Kingsman, 18.8, shaved, sticker shock, SNL 40

Friday after work I was running around like a mad man trying to get my triple headed grocery monster tamed.  First stop was the dreaded Costco where the relentless rude mobs of customers suck every ounce of enjoyment out of shopping there.  However my need for Costco pizza to pull off a successful Friday night pizza party made the trip unavoidable.

I was picking up the dogs on my way home as well so to avoid back tracking I decided to stop at a Publix other than my normal stomping grounds.  Well that decision of course opened up a Pandoras box of frustration as I didn’t know where shit was, requiring me to go up and down most aisles.  Since I was trying to rush, snaking around the dozens of aisle clogging old people was more aggravating than normal.

The last stop was Sam’s where I needed Mexican Coke and a few other items.  By the time I was finished I had Cindy’s passenger seat stuffed with groceries.  I only put limited items in the folded down back seat since I needed to keep room for Nicki and Sadie.  By the time I got the girls they were surrounded by grocery items.  Sadie was disappointed that the front seat she normally likes to occupy was taken.  When I got home Cindy asked what took me so long which I am sure I responded with a WTF face to.

As is customary when the dogs are over, Sadie started trying to wake me up as soon as a trace of daylight was in the bedroom window Saturday morning. When we got out the lanai door I was surprised to see ANOTHER racoon was in the trap, the smallest one yet.  Sadie somehow did not see it and ran right past the trap.  When she did see it of course she was interested and came storming over.  The raccoon greeted her curiosity with a hiss and a swipe although it landed against the inside of the wire cage.  Sadie’s hair on her back stood up and she started growling back at the raccoon.  I had her go back inside before things got out of hand.

So my first task of the morning was taking this little racoon to the same spot at the sanctuary to release him.  He genuinely looked scared and I did nothing to exasperate his fear, I handled the trap gently and waited patiently before he made a dash out of the opened door.  I hoped he managed to find the other raccoons I released if they were indeed part of the family.

When I got back the first outdoor tasks involved undoing the substantial frost prep I had done on Thursday night.  It appears that despite temps only 3-4 degrees above freezing the landscape has escaped pretty much unscathed which I was happy about.  While we were working outside I told Cindy I wanted to let the chickens out.  The dogs hadn’t acted any differently towards the new chickens than they did to the old ones but Cindy was nervous about letting them out to mingle.  I had more confidence in Sadie behaving herself so I let the birds out.  As I hoped the dogs acted just fine with Sadie ignoring the chicks and Nicki slowly “chasing” them around the yard from time to time.

We then piled everyone in the van to run some errands, the biggest of which was a stop at Home Depot.  We first went to the customer service desk.  Cindy had her DD214 with her that proves her military service, she was told previously that if she presents that at a store they can add her phone number to a database so she automatically gets the veteran 10% discount.  The guy we were talking with was not familiar with the program so he asked another woman that was next to him.  The woman assumed a bitchy disposition when she pointed to a piece of paper that had the rules for the discount.  Evidently you need a special ID card to get the full time military discount.  The DD214 is only valid on certain holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, 4th of July etc…  It was good to get the information but neither Cindy or I appreciated that the woman took a stance almost like we were trying to scam the system, nasty bitch.  The guy that helped us originally apologized, it seemed that he caught the bitch vibe as well.

Our next stop was in the carpeting department.  For quite a few years I have had replacing the carpet in the house on my peripheral of to do’s.  The carpet in there is in decent shape thanks to tireless robotic vacuuming and semi-regular shampooing but it needs to come out.  It’s the 14 year old builder grade carpet, which like many things in the house, was not high quality.  The only saving grace was we got the thicker 1/2″ pad which helped make up for the so so carpet.  Since I had my tax refund in the bank I thought it would be a good time to get some numbers on replacing the rug.

Cindy suggested that a hard surface in the main living area might be cool since it is the highest traffic area.  I agree it might be cool but I think my only option would be hardwood flooring since I have tile in the kitchen already.  I assume having two different types of tile would look pretty stupid.  I already know my foundation is far from flat from the issues I had installing tile where I did so I don’t know what sort of challenge that would present doing something like hardwood or laminate.  I also don’t know if I would like that huge open space with a hard surface. If I got carpet I was going to get the good stuff obviously backed up again with thick high quality 1/2″ padding.  Cindy suggested a mixed color rug, containing the various colors in the house, tans, whites, blacks, grays would be neat and also help hide stains.

It didn’t take long for Cindy and I to see a sample we liked.  It was part of HD’s “Platinum Plus” carpet which has extreme stain resistance and a 25 year wear warranty which is pretty impressive.  The price for this sample on the board listed at something like $3.69 a square foot.  So doing some quick math in my head using the floor layout I had with me from when the house was built which showed roughly 1200-1300 of carpeted surface, I figured I am well below 5k.  Pricey for sure but worth it for high quality carpet. Home Depot had a promotion that free BASIC installation was included for any purchase over $1500 so I figured that would help save me significant money as well.

We were helped by a woman in the department who sat down with me to run some numbers and in the process deliver me a huge surge of sticker shock.  There were some things I was not considering in my mental number and other things I just did not expect.  For some reason I did not factor in the padding which at 89 cents a square foot for the good stuff adds well over $1000 to the price. I also quickly found out the the basic install is basically a joke.  More or less if you gut the carpet and move all of the furniture yourself then the install is free.

When our old neighbors had their flooring replaced the crew ripped out the old carpet and moved the furniture around on a room by room basis to get the work done.  Sure Home Depot will do that for you if you want, they will just charge you a bunch of money extra for it.  Plus they have all these stupid guidelines, for example, if they move less than 6 furniture items per room it is one cost but if they move more than 6 it is more, charging for removal based on square footage and other nickel and dime shit I found annoying.

So after a lot of data entry the woman handed me the estimate which she said she figured high.  Part of the process was scheduling (and paying for) a professional measurement that would determine the final quote.  I glanced at the total dollar amount and tried to not react with violent nausea all over the woman’s desk.  The quote was over $9000.  Cindy was off looking at back splash tile when I was handed the quote so she didn’t know the number until I handed it to her as we walked around.  She thought it was outrageous as well.  As we looked at the quote in more detail later Cindy noticed that the woman listed the carpet we liked as being something like $4.69 a square foot, a full dollar more than what was posted.

So at this point my game plan is to get the $35 professional measurement and then use it as a tool to shop around for a more reasonable quote.  Sure I expected the Home Depot number to be somewhat inflated due to the additional layer of profit taking inserted between them and the installer but $9000 to me just seemed outrageous to carpet 1300 square feet of household.

After the carpet sticker shock our final stop in the store was the outdoor garden section where we picked up 18 castle wall blocks as well as 10 bags of rubber mulch to start the pool border renovation project.  I had already picked up 220 feet of commercial grade weed block at Costco on Friday for the project.

The castle block was to be put around the border of the small pond.  I had some shitty looking plastic fence around there that I wanted to get rid of for awhile.  I needed something solid and heavy to prevent the chickens from kicking mulch into the pond, something the old chickens were quite adept at.  The new border looked better and should perform better as a barrier to pond debris.

I also finally got motivated to fix the blocks around the palm trees/bird of paradise that are in front of the cage.  When I installed the block over 10 years ago I was a novice and had them on the ground upside down, with their alignment line upward.  I didn’t realize I had them upside down until 5 years later.  For whatever reason it took me another 5 years to actually fix it.

From years of dogs running around this area and more recently chickens digging in the same vicinity most of the blocks were totally buried.  I used the post bar to pop each one out and them used a shovel to loosen and level the dirt so I would have a clearly defined border once again.  When I placed the old blocks back on the ground I expanded outward slightly to accommodate the tremendous growth of the birds of paradise over the last decade.

The chickens seemed to appreciate the new higher wall to their playpen.  They seemed more secure and content to be nestled in the plants with the blocks on higher ground.  The chickens free ranging playtime was cut short when the damn hawk flew overhead screeching away.  I quickly herded the chicks back to to the safety of their coop and run.

The final part of my Saturday outdoor work was covering the shortest leg of the patio border with weed block and rubber mulch.  The work wasn’t overly difficult except for the toll it takes on my knees.  Crawling on all fours is an activity that I just can not do for extended periods of time anymore.  I really liked the end result of the block/mulch.  I LOVE that when I am done, it will require next to no maintenance and the chickens will no longer be able to fling mulch dust against the pool cage.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went out to see Kingsman, a flick based on a comic book series I never heard of involving British super spies.  I really did not know what to expect but from the previews it looked like a decent action film.  It turned out to be a decent action film with some funny and totally random moments I did not expect.

The cinematography of the action portions of the movie were shot in a very cool manner, in a somewhat Matrixy sort of way.  There also was a lot of in your face and pretty gross carnage but somehow it managed to remain cartoon-like as to not become overly realistic.  Some of the violence was downright hysterical at times and the very loud and unexpected mention of a sexual act into the middle of the action brought both gasps and laughs from the audience, depending on your moral compass.  I found the movie entertaining once Cindy brought me a soda to help wake me up from the initial drowsiness I was suffering from.  I’d give it a strong B+, I don’t know that Cindy would say the same.

Sunday morning we opted for a ride instead of a run as my right knee was feeling swollen from the work on my knees the day before.  We did the Dunkin Donut ride instead.  Early on Cindy was doing a lot of complaining about the temperature even though it was around 65 degrees, considerably warmer than the last ride we did.  Evidently she didn’t dress as heavily for Sundays ride.  I was in my normal bike outfit and felt a little cool early but fine once we had a few miles in.

We held a pace of nearly 21 mph during the long traffic light free portion of the ride.  I figured on the ride back we would pay the price with a bad headwind.  Lucky for us the wind was more of a crosswind heading east and allowed Cindy, who lead the entire way back, to hold 18+ mph for most of the 10 miles.  Overall we averaged 18.8mph for the ride, equaling what Randall and I pulled off a few weeks prior, impressive.

On Saturday Cindy had given Nicki a much needed haircut with the electric pet shaver.  On Sunday after the ride she gave both of the dogs much needed baths as a follow up.  We did something different, abandoning the normal tub bathing for a driveway session using the hose.  I was worried that it would be too cold for them but they didn’t really seem to mind.  Nicki especially seems to like the personal spa sessions with Cindy.

Over the weekend Cindy and I digested portions of the SNL 40 year special in small chunks.  I have to say as a whole I was disappointed.  Here are some of my questions/observations:

– The show was filled with montages of old clips but each clip was cut too short to get much out of any of them.

– the Kanye West performance was stupid and got FF’d

– is it me or can Paul McCartney not sing anymore? His voice sounded really rough.

– What did Paul Simon do to his face?  I can’t tell if it was plastic surgery, botox or both?

– Why were most of the actual live skits they did so weak?

– WTF is Eddie Murphy’s problem?  You couldn’t participate in one skit or say one funny thing after Chris Rock gave you a sickeningly over the top ass kissing intro?

– Miley Cyrus’s new hair is not flattering.  She can actually sing a little bit but she got FF’d as well after 60 seconds or so.

– Holy shit did Chevy Chase get fat.  It made me sad to see him that way, sincerely. Cindy didn’t recognize him.

So anyway like I said, as a whole I thought the special was disappointing although it was cool to see so many talented and funny people in one room together.  I just expected a lot more laughs.

The rest of my Sunday was mostly just chilling out virtually in WoW which I really enjoyed.  Cindy had her own stuff to do so it worked out well.  After feeding the dogs dinner I took them home.  Once again Ali was not home and once again I felt guilt as I saw the dogs sad faces being left with nothing but a radio to keep them company.

This morning I was not happy to see ANOTHER raccoon had become a live trap resident.  This one appeared to be an adult female as Cindy saw her nipples as she hung sideways on the cage.  Knowing this was a female bothered me as I had no way of knowing if she had babies somewhere waiting for her to return.   She also was the least aggressive of the four raccoons I have caught.  There was not a single hiss or strike the entire time I was handling the cage.  I left the house early to give me time to release the animal where the other three have been relocated.  I hope they are all part of the same family and wind up reuniting at some point.

Part of the reason the raccoons are visiting the yard has nothing to do with the chickens.  They come to scavenge the seed from the bird feeders.  For years I have had low feeders randomly knocked to the ground which I now am sure is a raccoons handiwork.  If I wanted to discourage more from showing up I could relocate or remove the feeders, a step I have not taken because we both enjoy seeing the birds hang out in the yard through the back windows of the house.  I may have to give up that pleasure unless I want to take up live animal trapping as a second profession.