Weekend Recouping and Recombobulating

One long round of extreme work! Give me a four-day weekend (mine is four days because I don’t have to go back to campus till Wednesday, thank God) and that’s what you’ll get.

Is this only Sunday?

Saturday morning I decided to return the rockers I’d purchased at Pier One. The stationary outdoor fake-wicker chairs, billed (somewhat clumsily) as “nesting” chairs, worked just fine. But the rockers…not so much. After endless unwrapping of cardboard and twine and plastic, one is left with the chair, its naked feet, and two loose metal rocker pieces.

The lucky purchaser is supposed to slide the holes in the rockers over the chair’s feet and then (what could be easier?) insert screws to hold them in place.

What could be easier, indeed?

Well, the problem is, the chair’s feet don’t align with the holes in the rockers. The only way you can get them in is to bend the chair’s metal frame and force the ends of the legs into the holes.

This is a feat best suited to a youngish man at the prime of his strength.

An elderly woman is not up to it. I explained this when I left Pier One, as their saleslady was merrily telling me it would be no problem while their male manager sulked behind the counter, trying not to be noticed.

More annoying, after I got the first chair unwrapped and realized there was no way on God’s green earth I was going to get the rockers onto it, I noticed that the fake wicker was unraveling.

Experimentally, I unwrapped the feet only of the other cardboard- and plastic-swathed chair and found that noooo, none of the supplied rockers would fit on those, either.

So, back they went.

Wrestled the two rockers back into the car. Shlepped them back to Pier One. Retrieved $225, charged back to American Express. Despite annoyance, was pleased about this. I had other things to spend $225 on.

From there it was on to a Costco run, a Home Depot run, a Safeway run, and back to the house mid-afternoon. Driving around this city through the unholy heat is in-fucking-sane. Drivers here go mad when temps exceed 100 degrees.

Northbound from a very long on-ramp I hit the I-17 at speed—just over 65 mph. As I entered the freeway I could see a guy in my rear-view mirror, moving with the traffic a good long way behind me. He saw me trying to merge into the right lane, so he floored it and came roaring up behind me, trying to cut me off.

He, alas, was driving a Corolla. My aged Sienna has had most of its heavy seats removed but still retains its vast, superbly maintained six-banger. I breathed on the gas pedal and the thing shot forward like a Mercedes-Benz. Or, to speak in today’s terms, like a Titan rocket.

phphphbphbphhhhttttt!

Heat drives white folks crazy.

The old Cost Plus rockers are tired, but not beyond resuscitation. So I spent most of the afternoon scraping off peeling paint and sanding.

Had to drag them indoors for this activity, because at 108°-plus, it’s way too hot and way too humid outdoors to be scraping and sanding wood.

Despite several layers of paint, they’re sunburned and rain-soaked to the point where most of the paint just chipped right off.

This is either the third or fourth time I’ve painted the damn things. It’s a bitch of a job. It was a bitch of a job eight years or so ago, when I first did it. And each year of advancing age seems to make it more of a bitch of a job. That, truth to tell, is why I wanted to buy new weatherproof fake wicker chairs!!!!! I just didn’t want to do it again.

By sundown on Saturday the things were scraped and filled and sanded and dusted as best as one can dust old wicker chairs. In the relative cool of the evening before sundown. I applied one layer of paint to the underside and backs of the chairs. This took the better part of an overheated hour.

It also consumed both of the two cans of white paint I’d bought at the Depot. Luckily, though, two ancient cans of white spray paint in the garage were still functional, despite residing there for three or four 110-degree summers.

By the time I finished, it was after dark. I had inhaled enough aerosolized paint to vomit it up for a good hour afterward. That was grand fun.

Sunday morning the runners were dry enough that I could flip the chairs upright and repeat that drill by light of dawn.

Getting the picture about why I really, really did not want to do this again? About maybe why that $225 for those two discounted chairs—a mere $500 for six, all told—felt like one helluva bargain?

Oh well.

They look pretty good  now. By mid-afternoon, when the skies were starting to clabber up again, they were dry enough for me to pick them up and carry them back to the covered patio, where with any luck if it rains tonight they’ll be at least moderately protected.

The effect is somewhat…rustic. They’re weathered, pleasantly weathered. I do like these chairs and wish they weren’t wearing out with age. This latest slathering with spray paint, I expect, will tide them over for another year. I can’t imagine they’ll last much longer than one or two more years. By then, though, maybe I can afford to buy a couple of fake-wicker chairs from some outfit that puts them together, rather than expecting elderly women to construct them.

After my arms quit hurting and my right hand quit shaking, I decided I’d better try to replant the schefflera I’d bought a week ago into a pot that it could live in. Quite a nice plant, this thing from Costco. Figured it could take the place of the dying thing that’s on its last legs in the family room.

So I dragged a heavy pot M’hijito had given me around to the side yard and primed it with some of the potting soil I bought during yesterday’s HD run.

Tried to shake the schefflera out of its plastic pot.

No luck. Trudged into the garage; retrieved the big plant nippers. Cut open all four sides of the square plastic pot the plant came in.

Went to lift the big plant out of the pot. And….

SPLAT!

It fell apart!

Yes. It fell apart into half-a-dozen small plants, each with a root ball about the size of a 99-cent potted plant’s.

So. Instead of paying $12.99 for one large schefflera, I’d paid $12.99 for x + (.99 ·5 y) + ~$8. ARGHHHH!

Jumped in the pool to wash the sweat off. Blow-dried the chlorinated hair. Painted the face. Threw on a moderately presentable dress and some makeup. Piled the plant debris into a box and tossed it in the back of the van. Set out again into the vicious traffic.

Got the $12.99 back from Costco. Didn’t have the nerve to ask them to pay for the large bag of potting soil I’d bought at HD, intending to transplant their fraudulent house foliage.

From Costco, intended to head east on Missouri toward Scottsdale, skirting my son’s neighborhood.

At 15th and Missouri a godawful wreck had had shut down the intersection. Fifteenth was closed northbound; Missouri in both directions. One of the crushed automobiles was an aged, once-silver Honda.

It looked exactly like my son’s car. Trying to convince myself that ten thousand cars a day drive through that intersection, I cut through the neighborhood to get around the accident scene. Headed east on Missouri from Seventh Avenue. Made a U-turn. Drove back to M’hijito’s house.

No answer at the doorbell, no puppy yapping. Stood in the heat silently rehearsing what I would say to the cop at the intersection…was one of the victims a 30ish man? did he have a white puppy with him? where are you taking him? can I take the pup, if it’s still alive?

Finally after what seemed forever a voice from the back of the house hollered “coming!”

Holy God.

Back on the road, eastering, eastering through the madding traffic. Arrived at Scottsdale Fashion Square, the erstwhile home of the upscale.

It’s getting a bit worn with age. Marble steps are cracking. Brass treads, where broken, have been replaced with black tape. No joke.

It’s still populated by upscale stores. The crowds, however, consisted of hoi polloi like me in search of smokin’ deals. What a zoo!

At J. Jill’s, I picked up a coveted little dress at a 20% discount. At Macy’s, I got an allegedly $80 pair of sleek sterling silver earrings for $29. Could’ve gotten them for another 20% off if I’d been willing to use my Macy’s card…no chance of that, though, after the last fiasco, despite their manager’s fine recovery. Dropped by the Coach store and confirmed that a hobo bag I covet costs $298; add 10% tax to that and you’re looking at a $330 price tag. For a purse. And that’s cheap. The really cool bag they had was $425. Before taxes.

Well, it’s clear I don’t get out enough. So long has it been since I visited those rarified climes that I had no idea Pottery Barn had closed its outlet there and been replaced by three new boutiques. Some stores have moved. Others, little remembered and less regretted, have been replaced by new palaces of mercantilism.

I must have walked through thirty acres of merchandise. And the weird thing was…almost none of it appealed to me. In all that huge expanse of expensive products, I couldn’t find anything more than a mid-priced dress and a pair of plainspun earrings that wanted me to buy them.

No wonder the economy is going down the tubes. Americans are learning to do without and prefer it.

Oh well.

Homeward bound. Stopped by a Safeway to grab a bottle of wine, having decided that now is not really the time to ride the wagon again.

Fed the dog. Fixed a piece of steak, a slab of Costco scalloped potatoes, a fine green salad. Wine.

Noticed the dog’s eyes are running. She has an eye infection, lhudly sing goddamn. Sunday night before Labor Day: soonest I can possibly get her to the vet is Tuesday. Soaked paper towels in ice water and applied cold compresses to her eyes. Seemed to relieve her a little. Now we’re having a frenzy of ball chasing.

I have not graded student papers.

I have not cleaned the house.

I have not repaired the kitchen cabinets where Charley scratched them up (again).

I have not dug the new pup-resistant fencing into the ground around the poolside garden.

I have not washed the car.

I have not cleaned the garage.

I have not loved my fellow drivers as myself.

Heaven help us.

Image of God at work: Michelangelo. Believed to be in the public domain.