The other day I watched a blind man try to light a cigarette in the wind. I thought about trying to help him, but then didn't know how I could 1) broach that topic and 2) do any better than he was doing.
I do believe I've got me a new simile for frustration though.
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Saturday was the Royall Mills Centennial Celebration in ye old Wake Foreste. The Tiny House was on display, as were 13 other houses in the village. I told folks coming through the door that the Tiny House was the "before" to all the other "afters," because after reading all the descriptions of the other places I realized that the TH was the only house on the tour that had NOT been extensively renovated.
Ah well.
My buddy Oldfriend came down to participate in the festivities, and we would have gone to the "opening ceremonies" and the pot-luck lunch, but being as how we were up until 3 a.m. that morning doing our best to kill a very large bottle of Jim Beam, we weren't quite up to the task. At least we didn't try to dye our hair this time...
If I'm correct in my estimation, there were at least 100 people who traipsed through the TH. Some were neighbors (HI!), but most were "interested parties," and at least one was from as far away as Los Angeles. Oldfriend and I switched shifts acting as tour guides at the TH through the afternoon so that we could each get out and get a gander at the other houses in the neighborhood. It was a sublimely gorgeous day for a bit of gawkery, with temps in the 60s and a sunny blue sky.
One of the folks who came through my house was a very old, very tiny woman, who announced to me that I am living in her mother's house. Miss Dixon went on and on about how my table was right where her Mama's used to be, and how her Mama used to bake bread in the corner of the kitchen where my desk now stands, and how in my bedroom her Mama had a big iron bed for herself and a smaller bed for the grandchildren (because there were always grandchildren around, it seems). I met people who used to play in my house when they were children, and told me stories about the neighborhood as it was back then. There were people there who knew the TH when it was full of family, full of bustle and children's voices, full of the smell of baking bread and the business of generations gethering in one place, full of screen doors banging and card games and calls for supper and men walking home from work at the mill, and I could almost hear the Tiny House sigh in pleasure to have the familiar souls of those it had known before come through the front door again. My Tiny House has a rich past; it is my intention to honor that past and ensure its survival long into the future.
Anyhow, I managed to get to about half the places in my 2-hour shift, and was mightily impressed by several places that had been totally reno'ed. I now know that there are lovely beadboard ceilings in the TH somewhere above the newish plaster ones that were put in in the 70s. There are lovely beadboard walls somewhere under the layers of "whatever" that were put on in throughout the last century. There are lovely pine floors somewhere under the layers of paint and lino that have been laid sometime in the last 80 years or so. I know there are, because I saw them in other houses just like mine. Whether or not these jewels will ever be uncovered is a question of time and money.
Floors first, because I suspect the dropped ceilings and extra layers of walls serve an insulating function that I do not want to lose just yet. Winters in NC are temperate, but not so temperate that I care to experience them without an R28 barrier between me and them.
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Do you ever have big plans for a day, and then just let ALL of them slip in favor of doing whatever the heck you want to?
That was my Sunday afternoon (well, except for the part where I thought I'd lost the banner to this here website, but Tracy Lynn talked me down out of that partcular branch of the crazy tree, thank goodness. Thanks TL!), and it was at once a trifle disconcerting and very very sweet.
There's always tomorrow to wash dishes and plant flowers and catch up on work, right?
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Hope your day is going swimmingly. I'm out!
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