Over the weekend, we were blessed by a visit from Dawn Dontfuckaroundsky, our next door neighbor from Portland. You can see where she and her husband earned their last name at the end of this entry. She updated us on the old neighborhood. Apparently it\’s getting nicer. It was also nice to hear that the people who bought our house are totally lame. I mean, I wish the Dontfuckaroundskys had some neighbors they enjoyed, but it\’s always great to hear, \”These new people suck … we miss you guys.\”
On Friday we ate Mellow Mushroom and hung out at the house. I had 47 glasses of bourbon and then I … well, that\’s it, really. I was really drunk. So I went to bed.
On Saturday, I distributed 50lbs of weed n\’ feed on the old yard carpet. My grass looks like shit this year. The guy two doors up planted some super-grass last year that makes the rest of our yards look like the moon. Seriously, it\’s like a cartoon it looks so good. I should probably till the lawn under, plant watermelons in the middle of the yard and put big dirt-bike jumps on either side of the watermelon patch. I also scraped and re-caulked the shower in our master bathroom on Saturday. It\’s a stall shower with several big glass panels and seams and creases and areas that, in general, require a shitload of caulking. I\’ll go ahead and go on record now that this shower is going to be a big problem someday. The caulk in a couple corners was mildewed (it\’s been like that since we moved in), and the mildewed portions had lost most of their adhesion. This means moisture has probably gotten behind the caulk. For those of you who don\’t own homes, I\’ll now let you in on home ownership rule #1. The following two words govern all aspects of home ownership, home repair, home improvement:
MOISTURE BAD.
When you buy a house, if you can remember MOISTURE BAD, then everything else is basically cosmetic and, ultimately, futile.
Once I had scraped all the old caulk away, I applied copious amounts of bleach to the exposed wounds. I did this with an old OFF! spray bottle I found under the sink. I emptied the last few drops of OFF! into the newer bottle and made sure not to label which was which. I sprayed bleach deep into all the crevases and left it alone to slay bacteria for a half hour. Then I used Gia\’s hair dryer and cooked all the surfaces bone dry. I felt like I was really over doing it with they hair dryer, and maybe even burning certain surfaces, but a little scorching, even a lot of scorching, is better than even one drop of water left behind the seal. After about 20 solid minutes of drying, I went ahead and caulked. Everything on the surface looked fine, but if moisture has soaked anywhere past the surface, no stinking 20 minutes of blowdrying is going to dry it out. Hopefully the bleach will take care of the rest.
Naturally, my caulking job looks tits because I rule. But I have resigned myself to not be surprised when we have to tear that bathroom down to the studs and treat it for mold or some other obnoxious problem caused by my own negligence and laziness. I\’m not freaking out because someday we\’d like to tear that bathroom down to its studs anyway. Insert gay tearing down studs joke here.
We spent yesterday showing Dawn some of the more interesting parts of Atlanta. We started in Smyrna and made our way down Atlanta Road cutting over to Northside on Huff Road by Figo and Bacchanalia. We proceeded down to Tenth and cut across Midtown by the Park. Then I shot down Monroe to Ponce, cut over to Highlands and wound down through the area by Dad\’s Garage. Eventually, I hit Boulevard, so I took that past the Cottom Mill Lofts and over through Cabbagetown. We came out on Memorial and went up to Six Feet Under for lunch. Following lunch, we dropped Dawn off at the airport and proceeded to drive out to Woodstock for The Duke\’s birthday. The way we drove around yesterday, you\’d think gas was less than $2.19 a gallon. I\’m so ashamed.
“Insert gay tearing down studs joke here.”
I would if there were such a thing! You weirdo!
Yes, whoever had the idea to line houses with drywall (aka sheets of moisture loving CHALK) is an idiot. I can only sleep at night knowing that he/she certainly has a special place in hell.
Tony is sexy when he fixes shit and caulks stuff. I like it when Tony talks, out loud, about thinks like his “caulking job” and “caulking gun” ’cause it sounds dirty. Maybe when I get my dick chopped off and my tits turned into big, giant woman breasts, Tony will want to caulk my house.
MOISTURE BAD: Our back yard turns to mud soup when it rains. Our solution: dig a long trecnh from the low spot, along the deck, then under the deck. Put in a grate, lay some pipe, and let gravity do the work! Now we hope the water will drain out onto the driverway, hence less mud for the dogs to track inside.
In reality, either the pipe will do nothing or, since we did all that work, it will never rain in Marietta again.
I love how you said “let gravity do the work!” because W=Fd, and gravity is applying a force on the water, which is causing its displacement. The work is positive since the force and displacement are in the same direction. A+!!! come see me after class to get your reward!!!