june to-do list

Stuff I'll actually do:

tuck-pointing

I told RDC I didn't care what the mortar looked like on the north side of the house, since you can't get far enough away to have any perspective and it's not Curbside Appeal etc., but the new mortar in the garage is so vastly different than the existing mortar that I retracted that. And you can see the north side from the street, after all. One of the things that justified Guy the Tuck-Pointer's rate two years ago is that he color-matched the mortar. You can see where his repairs are to the porch and front of the house, but they're not glaring.

But RDC is working on the inside of the garage, so that when the house falls over into a swamp we can live in there. Also so that the garage itself doesn't fall over into a swamp. Also because you can see through it in a couple of places, by the person-door where someone wired it by hacking out bricks apparently with a sledgehammer, and on the back corners where no one cared for years whether the gutters drained properly or the creeper was demolishing brick and mortar in its relentless climbing.

This weekend he did the short end opposite the car-door. Once upon a time, someone apparently drove a car into the garage and tried to keep going, perhaps overestimating the building's length. So there is a concave section. Or there was, before his repair. In four hours Saturday he did a smaller section than he did in three hours Sunday: he got the hang of it. And maybe the mortar will dry paler than it is now. Because I don't want a charcoal-grey striped house.

I am really glad we have a new garage door, since that allows for a garage-door opener (English really needs some new words. Is there a one- or two-syllable word that could communicate that concept?), but this weekend I saw a garage with its original, glassed, bay doors. Very pretty. I am not so dedicated to the house As Was that I want, say, a coal furnace or a smaller fridge; I like admiring the pretty while I get to live with the practical.

wheeling around town

A pleasure-ride, through the neighborhood to Cherry Creek North for gelato, down the Cherry Creek Trail to Confluence Park to watch the kayakers (who are, as far as I can tell, suicidal in two ways, immediate and long-term: immediate because the white water flips them and sometimes they have to pop themselves out of their aprons if they can't roll fast enough, and long-term because ack, the South Platte?), and downstream, north along the river for a bit to the "new urban development" up there, and across 16th Avenue and home.

I met two Papillon dogs, Bailey and Bingo. "Bailey," besides being way overused, sadly for humans as well as for dogs, is for bigger dogs. In my opinion. They were very sweet and, being so little, could not beg for gelato very effectively, even with their paws on my knees. At the riverfront we met a seven-month-old Australian shepherd named Bob. Female, but not named for Blackadder's Bob. Possibly because her tail was docked.