Another busy day

10/9/06 Monday
It’ll be another busy day preparing to go. The latest weather report predicts snow will come in Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday look nice and sunny. We may not leave till Sunday because I don’t want to be loading our furniture and stuff in freezing rain and snow. We may load up Saturday and leave early Sunday morning or perhaps Saturday. It’s nice to not be tied down to a date.

Cherie may quit her job tomorrow or perhaps even today. She is in worry mode so I spend a lot of time assuring her things are going to be fine. I told her to relax perhaps a dozen times this morning. Of course my level of frustration yesterday didn’t help things. Just called Bobby to let him know I was heading his way. He didn’t sound real hot so I asked if he was OK. He said he is tired but I know he was drinking so is most likely hung over. It is sad to watch his alcoholism erode away his life. Got to go.

It’s 7:30 now. Been a long day and we got a lot done. Bobby was a big big help. When I went to pick him up he was still fighting with his wife, Nancy. They were fighting yesterday by phone while Cherie and I were visiting Eileen in the hospital. Bobby had just gone out to get a pack of smokes so I talked to Nancy about it. Bobby is accusing her of fooling around cause she went out with friends and didn’t get home till late. Nancy said she was only gone an hour but Bobby said she didn’t get home till 1:00 in the morning. I tried to guide both of them to get this fixed and how to make things better for the long term. Bobby’s drinking is a big factor in this. When I paid him for his help I said “Don’t drink this up”. He doesn’t take offence to this cause he knows it’s a problem and also knows I’m not putting him down, just giving some well intended advice.

Anyway, as you can see there is some progress. Bobby took the sander to the roof in preparation for painting and then masked everything that I didn’t want to paint blue. I painted the interior white while he did that and then cut the ¾ inch plywood for the floor on the front section of the trailer. That was a challenge. The original rusted out floor that I used for a template didn’t work because the circular front had been bent out of shape from years of abuse. It took over an hour to get it to fit with me putting it inside and marking what needed to be removed. Then I would try and put it in and find another area that had to be trimmed. Bobby also painted the wood for the sides with the clear protective coating I got for that purpose. Anyway I am worn out.

I called Allen and unleashed my pent up frustration. Not the friendliest conversation. He waffled about telling me his view of what happened. Of course he was the hero and I was wrong to be upset. I laid down the facts for each excuse he made such as he lost the number of his friend at the sheetmetal shop. “Allen, that’s bullshit. He’s less than a mile away and his business is in the phone book. Why didn’t you just get in your truck and go over there?”. He had no answer. I was angry and told him “BYE, I’m going to Texas”. He called me back fifteen minutes later and apologized, offering to come out tomorrow to help. “Allen if you want to come help call me and come over but I’m not going to depend or count on it” I told him so we’ll see. Fact is he doesn’t usually get out of bed till 3:00 and by that time I’m already worn out or at least need to take my nap. It’s so strange to me to need to take an hour or two nap in the middle of the day. I used to run a twelve to fifteen hour day at my companies and then go work in my woodshop to unwind.

Cherie has been contemplating quitting her job to have more time to get stuff packed and ready to go. Of course she runs this by me to get my approval several times and I told her it would be fine with me and in fact I thought it was a good idea. She let them know today is her last day. This wasn’t a surprise at her work as they know we are moving and she has been training her replacement.

Now the weather report says that Wednesday and Thursday will be the rainy crap days but Friday is still going to be freezing. Of course that could well change by tomorrow. I’ll get the painting done tomorrow while it’s still nice. (Providing it’s still nice) I am pretty worn out and the pain level is up there so that’s all I’ll write for now. See ya next time.