Sporting my canvas

Quick personal update as I scrounge for source materials on 1914 reconnaissance.

The divorce proceedings move on, with the "settlement" (the draft of the final decree) being in process. Nothing dramatic, just the slow dissolution of twenty-two years. Sad. I already miss my wife, and to a great extent, my kids. Even the cat.

And, to a surprisingly great extent, my old house. Where, in one of those "what the fuck..?" things, I ended up back working, taking down the old fence we built decades ago. Here's what the front of the house looked like in April 2003, several years after we moved in:

That's the left front of the house looking northwest. The former owner had planted tulips all along the top of the retaining wall that the cats are inspecting. Here's the opposite corner:

Some time in the next couple of years we built a picket fence along the wall, both to keep The Boy and Quinn the dog from catapulting off the edge. Here's the same corner as in the second photo above in March 2007:

We're already working to change up the suburban dream; the bulbs are still there, but we've planted a couple of natives. Pacific wax myrtle in the corner and the vinca at the base of the dogwood is already beginning to crowd out the non-native stuff. 

The fence outlasted Quinn and the Boy's random running days, but not time and the Northwest weather. It was a good fence. But it was time for it to go.

So...

Wednesday while Mojo was at work and the grown children doing...something, I drove around with wrecking bar and power drill and sawsall.

The panels came off and took a one-way trip to the Metro dump...

The Girl asked me to save the posts; she says she wants to run espalier wires or a trellis. So I took only the two interior posts, and replaced the rotting bannister on the lower steps, then painted everything with that thick "Kilz" anti-mildew paint.

 Panels off, pre-paint:

And post-paint:

Drachma, the idiot, insisted on sleeping in the work area. Of course, he got painted (a bit) too...

Thursday afternoon it was all done, painted and pretty:

And then I took my soon-to-be-ex-wife out for a beer.

It's...very weird. I really LIKE her. A lot. More and more I'm missing Mojo the friend, the good companion, the funny one, the salty, smart, wisecracking long time sharer of confidences, hopes, fears, and dreams.

Lovers? Those come and go.

But friends? Real good, solid, dependable, heartfelt friends like her?

Goddamn it, they're beyond price.

Well.

Last weekend I had my first political ground-game work; canvassing in the spendy Southwest Lake Oswego district. Hours of pounding pavement and ringing doorbells. Nice houses, polite people.

But.

My first encounter with The Portland Voter In The Wild was...not reassuring.

Lots of "well, I'm not really sure..." and "I'm pretty much an independent..." as if this November wasn't a black-and-white choice between a bog-standard corporaDem and a raving headcase of a lunatic egotistical madman and his pack of loony little fascist running dogs intent on a New Gilded Age.

What the fuck, over?

I'm back at it this coming weekend, too. Plus writing postcards (?) to hesitant voters.

Which is nice. But I'm getting to the point where I want to be throwing fucking bombs, not writing fucking postcards. I can barely open the news without losing my composure. It's not enough to "beat" these goddamn people. The GOP needs to be destroyed, root and branch, burnt hull and sticks, plowed under and the ground sown with fucking salt.

Oh.

And as a reminder that I'm Old, between all the canvas walking and being a good lad and riding the stationary bike once I got back in my legs thanked me by spasming and cramping so badly I was up half Saturday night and slept through kendo practice Sunday morning.

Ugh.

The only thing worse than aging is the alternative.