Guess Who's Back?

When I got up yesterday morning and let the dee-oh-gee out, I heard some commotion in the alley.  I couldn't see anything because the noise was from a little bit down the alley from me, but I had a pretty good idea of what was going on.  By the time I left for work, I saw that my "friends" were back.

I couldn't tell their purpose, but they were definitely moving dirt for the umpteenth time. 

After work that afternoon I went to get the dog from boarding, and when I came home (my eye on a shower --) I heard, "Excuse me -- ma'am?  Ma'am?  Excuse me --" and realized it was the construction crew calling to me. 

"[unintelligible] problems with the water."  ?  He said it twice and I still was confused.  Was he asking me if I am having trouble with water, or telling me that he has trouble with my water....?  Turns out, he was having trouble with my water, which of course in turn meant that I was going to have trouble.  It was nearly 5 p.m. -- e.g. quittin' time.  Uh-oh.  He advised that they were going to turn it off, and that he hoped it would be back on in about an hour.  Extreme skepticism but -- I agreed.  Did I really have a choice?

An hour came and went.  Since I was already hot and sweaty from dog walking and errand running I figured I may as well really get my sweat on (what was it yesterday -- 101?  102?) and stay outdoors since I couldn't go in and shower.  Dog begged to go inside -- she hates the heat -- so in she went. 

Back story:  Last week I put most of the furniture from my guest room up into the attic.  Suddenly I just needed some wide open spaces in there.  Up went the low round table.  Up went the little iron and ceramic tile end table.  UP went the four huge floor pillows.  Out to the dining room went the loveseat.  All that remains is my tiny little rocking chair and some bookcases.  Ahhhh.  And, well, a heap of electronics and my wooden box of house files. 

Back back story:  Up until a couple of months ago when I finally got my wireless internet to work at home (no thanks to AT&T; hel-lo Time Warner!) my laptop was tethered to my ethernet cable, and my modem to a phone jack -- my laptop location options were rather... limited.  Now I can go anywhere -- porch -- livingroom -- oh the surfing bliss -- so I can finally think about where I want my computer and printer to live.  For lack of a better idea I've had them in the guest room.  Truth be told I rarely use my printer, and my laptop has been living under the livingroom couch -- but I can recognize that some type of desk set up would be handy.  Sometime.  Somewhere.  But for now?  A heap in the guest room.

So back to the heat and lack of shower... I spied one of the three benches from my neighbor's deck demolition and decided to re-purpose the shortest one for a bench in the guest room.  I got out the Skil saw and remembered it needed the blade replaced.  I jiggered with it for a while trying to figure out how in the heck to get the old blade off before I gave in and called Red for counsel.  Got that switched out -- got 2 of the 3 cuts done that I needed to do -- but I needed an extra set of hands for the third one.  I mean, I probably could have done it, but I really wanted to keep all of my limbs and appendages.  I texted a neighbor who has repeatedly offered to help with projects because she wants to learn about power tools -- and she came over to help.  Zip zip and it was done and she helped me carry in inside.

Handily, she also speaks Spanish so I asked her if she minded going to chat with the construction crew to see if I could really count on water coming back on... she was glad for the excuse to keep her Spanish fresh.  I thought the guys were going to break their necks when she started speaking to them -- so surprised to hear Spanish coming from my yard (they were now half a crew inside my fence and half a work crew in the alley with shovels) -- but they said they were just about done -- and by 8 p.m. I did have water.  Not exactly an hour, but I'm sporting some new copper pipe junctions for my water connection.  I'm really wishing I'd taken a photo when I peered down into the hole before they totally covered it with dirt.  Drat.

And, speaking of photos -- I also neglected to take one of the bench.  I'll do that tonight and update this (very long rambling) post.  I guess I'm out of blogging practice ...  Now that it's so hot out, I suspect the outdoor project will wane and the indoor projects will fire back up.  More house posts and fewer garden posts coming up!

UPDATE:

I need to add trim to the left end to finish it -- but I wanted to see if I even liked it in here before that effort.  It's sort of a mish-mash of stuff just thrown on it at this point, but it's better than having all the stuff on the floor.  That's my worm farm on the left -- that burgundy box looking thing.  Things are happenin' in there!  : )