I did what I had time for: 20 miles down to Yunk and back up, including going up Shawmont and Bells Mills rds.  When I arrived home, I came around back, took my gloves off to fish my key out of my jacket and open my back door.  And thats when I remembered.

Spring 1991.  Same kind of weather as today.  Shitty, basically. We were out in 8s.  4 of them.  Maybe we were doing 3 x 1500 race rehearsal, the standard wednesday workout.  Everyone launched from the Penn AC docks in full gear: turtleneck, jersey, sweats, shell. (This is before the advent of breathable base layers and other related space age shit.)

After the first piece was done,  after the motors had been revved, we rowed to the twin stones and spun it to get lined up again. Everyone had taken a layer or two off at this point.  Since we had a competent coxswain, we tended to be lined up first.  I’d sit there, oar handle across my lap, watching everyone else get set up…and the steam coming off everyone around me.

It occurred to me that we all looked like overheated cars in the desert. Except that we were floating on a river and about to clobber the hell out of each other again.

Anyway, as I was about to open the door, thats when I noticed that my hands were steaming.

I hadn’t recalled the steam on the river in a long long time. Unexpected and small, but a good reward for today’s ride.

All the tiles are pulled from the porch.

The kitchen and the breakfast nook are gutted.  All paneling out, floor tiles out, cabinets taken down(thanks Cullen!).  

I gutted one of the upstairs bedrooms.  Its down to the beams and the rafters.

My garage is stacked with contractor bags.

We’re moving in day after tomorrow.

I’m very tired.  Thats all I got right now.

I found things this weekend…things that made me reconsider my otherwise universally warm feelings towards towards animals domesticated or otherwise.

To start with,  I pulled up rugs in the family and dining rooms after our painting was finished.  Parts of the matting under the rug by the front door all but sat up and waved hello to me when I pulled them up and turned them over.

And then there was the dining room.  The exterior wall’s corners were staked out by two different types of animals.  In one corner,  I noticed after pulling up the rugs that there was plenty of bird seed around the tac board. In the next, there was the sweet perfume of dog urine.

The tac board lining most of the room was brittle.  The wood broke around the nail, meaning that after I pryed the boards up, I had to go back and yank the nails.  The corner used as a pooch urnial on the other hand,  the tac boards were black and rubbery. They came right up, completely intact.

A silver lining in every cloud, I suppose.

So thats the domestic animal scene over on Edge hill road.

Now, for the wild:

After closing, Stephanie and I had lunch with our realtors and then went to the house. When we got to the deck, I watched as a squrrill ran across our roof and upto the attic vent.

I watched it go up into it.  And promptly, convinced myself that I was hallucinating.

2 days later, I was taking a rest between painting rooms and the curiosity finally got the best of me.  I took a ladder and went over to the crawl space and got up there.

I was immediately confronted with big pile of leaves, twigs and torn insulation. To make things even more awesome,  the drey(technical speak for the  squirrel nest) is sitting right next to a bunch of knob and tube wiring.

Also, I found that I wasn’t so much hallucinating on Friday.  The attic fan(right above the drey) was open.  Except for the remnants of some chewed up wire mesh.

I called a wildlife removal guy tonight.

I love squirrels.  but not as housemates.

I was on the ladder yesterday cutting out the top of the walls when it occurred to me why my entire body was achey.

I haven’t stood this much for this long in years.  I mean,  I work, sitting on my ass all day,  and then I work out, sitting on my ass on my bike.

I probably stood friday and saturday more then I have in the past 6 months combined.

That’s all in contractor bags in the garage now.

Remember that time that I spent a bunch of money on something and then committed another 30 years to pay it off and then immediately went about the business of ripping it apart?

That was awesome.

No surprises.  So that’s good, right?

Well, no really bad surprises:

Surprise #1: The house has a 2 car garage. Which in itself isn’t awesome.  It has some termite damage and needs some TLC.  But we knew that.

The garage’s left door has been up every time we looked at this house.  Look at the google street view pix of the house, the garage door is up.  Look at satellite pix on live.com, the garage door is up.

We pulled that door down today.  There was a piece of what looked like cat shit stuck to it. Surrounding it, in the caked dirt(door really has not been down in a long time) were little paw prints.  Not cat though.  Raccoon.

Good Surprise #2: The basement has this extra room in the back that leads to the back door.  I walked out and there was a bunny. He hopped into a bush but stayed there long enough for S to get a look.

Looks like I am going to have some trouble w my carrots this year.

I’d read Man in the High Castle and Valis a while back but I don’t recall Dick’s descriptions of  mental illness being quite so vivid…or disturbing.  There is a scene written from the perspective of child who is described as autistic and precognitive. He watches two adults grope each other while in parallel watching their bodies decompose. I’m willing to wager that Dick took the brown acid.

More then once.

Began to wade into A Scanner Darkly on the train ride home,  but didn’t get very far. I’m pretty wiped.

Didn’t ride today but my legs felt leaden at times.  Otherwise, today was uneventful.

I’m sure in a few short weeks,  days like today will be like unicorns.

Very hilly miles.

Two odd things I saw:

#1)A pack of pheasants making an incredible amount of racket in front of someone’s home on a quiet rural road. I should mention that they were not caged.  Just congregating and being loud. I can only assume that they were in the habit of being fed by the home owners and their schedule was not being maintained.

Maybe I was just thinking about the financial sector bailout and projecting.

#2)I came over one hill to see 2 rather large bulls, thank god, completely oblivious to me.  They were enclosed in an electrified fence that was barely thigh high.  Perhaps they like their Flannery O’Conor in that part of Bucks County?

Came home. Cleaned up.  Took the boy with me to Home Depot to buy some supplies for this weekend’s painting and demolition derby in Glenside.  About half way there,  I noticed that G was saying something.  I turned down my iPod.

“What?”

“Fweetwood.  Fweetwood…Fweetwood Mac”

My in laws have been playing Rumors by Fleetwood Mac.  He’s become a little bit obsessed.  Given that he has previously insisted upon listening to the Bacon Brothers, Momma Cas, or Abba,  I think we’re finally moving in the right direction.

We’re closing on a new house in Glenside, PA on Friday.  A house which is going to be awesome…once I get all the rooms painted, all the carpets up, remove I don’t know 4?  rooms worth of wood panelling(God?  If you are listening, please let their be plaster underneath that crap.),  redo the kitchen(well remove some wallpaper, redo the flooring, get the cabinets repainted), demo a half bath, add a whole bath, replace all the windows, have the floor boards replaced on the garage…

It could be accurately described as a fixer upper.

And then, in the middle of all that, We have a baby coming next month.

I’ll probably  be blogging a bit more about this stuff then bicycle racing for the foreseeable future. (although I’m still planning on doing a bit this year.)