Next Sunday, my wife and I will be driving to Boca to pick up our German Shep puppy.
After considering many names that begin with the letter “G” (she’s a G litter), we decided on Geneva.
Yesterday was a milestone in terms of the patio. I was finally able to finish cleaning the mold off its screen support beams. That was a tough and dangerous job, and unfortunately I burned my right hand with bleach in the process.
Today, with the weather being more typical for this time of year, I’m going to complete prepping then start repainting the bottom screen beams that need fixing before I put up my remaining three screen protection grilles.
I will probably go by Lowe’s to check if the other 10 grilles have arrived, and pick up bagels for breakfast before I start this work.
I am very pleased that the baking soda and vinegar trick has whitened the formerly black and moldy (in patches) porch concrete floor.
The porch will not be completely ready by next weekend, but it will be nice enough for us as family to have a pleasant little comfort zone where Geneva can play and hang out for the month that she has to be sequestered away from other dogs.
We shall be taking her out to see the world soon enough, but for now, we are retreating to our little comfort zone, far away from the pointless noise and puffery that seems to animate a lot of people.
Not so in our back porch, however.
All I want is to be with my dog, relax with a good book, hang out with my wife when she is not at her store, and otherwise be left alone like a proper Mandarin — bemused, perhaps, on occasion, but living my life as I see fit, without listening or reacting to the palaver spouted by all the little would-be Napoleons out there.
Sometimes all you need to be content in this life is smell the jasmine growing in your garden and chill in a comfort zone of your own making.
Not much else is required.
Update:
Here are the results of today’s work. These beams are made of aluminum. Latex does not stick to aluminum, even if it says Metal on the can. So I sanded and peeled the old paint off, put on an oil based primer for adhesion, then sallped on the acrylic latex white paint. We shall see tomorrow if it sticks. It was tiresome painting with the grilles already in, but I managed thanks to the frog tape.
Leaving Amerika 