Vegetarians look away

This is what we had for dinner last night at a Cuban birthday barbeque. A little grotesque to be sure. A typical Cuban fiesta includes a roast pig ("puerco"), which is roasted in a coal barbeque pit for about 10 -12 hours, yuca (root vegetable like potato but more fibrous), Cuban black beans and rice, and some kind of salad. To make sure I wasn't rude, I tried everything. Twice.
It was nice to get out of the (dusty, echo-y and unfurnished) house for a while and meet some new people.

Did you know?

It's a little-known fact that when a cat reaches the topmost point of any climbable object over 10 feet tall, an invisible beam of energy comes down from the sky and energizes them with evil cat energy, enabling them to annoy you quicker and be 10x as mischievious as before. If you take a picture at just the right moment, you can see it shining out of their shifty little eyes. Kind of like "The Quickening" from Highlander, if any of you remember that. Probably less embarassing for me if you don't. Here's another case:

If you catch them doing something humans aren't meant to see, like Roscoe here doing leg-lifts, they will shoot radioactive cat beams at you from their eyes. Best to avoid these moments, it's awkward for everyone. Especially the next day, having to go back to pretending they're just little pets living in your house and not highly advanced alien life forms. Who also happen to like to play with string.

and the dust goes on

This is what it looks like when you take a 12-ft stone fireplace down to the studs. A hot mess. Any surface (including felines) that wasn't previously covered in dust now has a triple layer.

We had the foresight to list the used stone in the 'free' section on Craigslist Friday night; within 15 minutes of the listing I had 2 phone calls and 3 emails. No joke. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to a.) charge for the stuff, since apparently it's hellapopular, and b.) tell them they had to haul away ALL of the rubble, concrete, mesh, drywall etc. in order to get said coveted rock. My bad.

So, as penance, I had to sort through all the rubble myself, and bag up whatever wasn't usable stone. Of course, this earned me another few hours with gloves and a breathing mask, and another shower that almost required a hammer and chisel to remove the coagulated dust. Yeeeech.

We're hoping we can open up the fireplace to the back porch - OH's idea. That would be super-cool, to be able to see outside from the fireplace, and to be able to enjoy the fire (and reap the benefits of some woodsmoke on the back porch - the bugs here are unbelievable) from outside as well as in. Well, on the 3 or so occasions we'll probably want to light a fire in the winter, anyway. It's been 90-ish every day for the past two weeks, so it's a little hard to imagine wanting to light a fire.

If you'd like to see a few more pictures of the construction (destruction, really), see them here, in the "construction" album.

Why, oh why

I'd like to know who determined at some point in time that bathroom stall doors in public restrooms, particularly in airports, should swing inward. Not exactly a stroke of genius. More like a design flaw. If you've ever traveled with a rolling suitcase or wheeled laptop bag, and tried to maneuver yourself into the stall without any unnecessary toilet frottage, you know what I mean. I decided not to check my bags on this last trip, which required two flights to get there and two flights to return (hey, at least I'm returning to a city I like now), and of course had to hurriedly dash to the bathroom between flights, with my wheeled laptop bag and my other carry-on strapped on top of it. Well. Let me tell you what a fiasco that was to try to wedge myself first, then both bags, into a stall that was already 95% occupied by a toilet.

First I had to flatten myself against the right-hand (facing) wall of the stall, which the door is hinged to, then try to open the door pretty much right onto my face while my bags uncomfortably tried to squeak through the less-than-adequate opening. I managed to get the bags into the stall, but now we're forming a bathroom door sandwich, with my bags and myself serving as the bread. So then I have to further wedge myself into the actual corner where the hinge is (hint: if your posterior is not naturally triangle-shaped, don't try this.), drag my bags sideways in front of and touching the toilet (yeeeeeech!), and only then could the damn door (barely) close, almost puncturing my bags in the process.

Thank goodness it wasn't an 'emergency', because I never would've made it with all that maneuvering, huffing, puffing, and eventual slamming followed by fuming.

WHO DESIGNED THIS?

Being a former almost-designer (does that count for anything?), I am well aware of the disadvantages of a door swinging outward from a stall (potential to get hit in the face, cause traffic-flow problems, etc.). However, somewhat ridiculously, the stall doors on the handicapped toilet stalls do swing outward. And they're the only people with the room to turn around inside and need to be able to reach the door once they're inside to close it! I think we need to reverse this.

Am I alone on this? Or do others experience the same frustration with the odious airport bathroom stalls? Larry Craig need not reply.

Something else you should know.

There's no "T" in the word "else". Say it to yourself...it shouldn't sound like "eltse". It's pronounced exactly how it's spelled. Just thought I'd share.

Random thoughts

I just received news that the apartment of one of my favorite co-workers had a fire, and he lost a beloved pet (and a friend of his lost her pets too) in the fire. Unspeakably sad, I cry every time I think about his loss. So I'm sending out lots of love and support to him and his friend right now.

Hard to follow that up with any of the usual drivel I spew here, so as a distraction from the sadness, here's a random question I have every time I check into a hotel: why is it that Housekeeping will tidy up pretty much any slop you leave in the room, yet seem to be unable to PUT THE FREAKING IRON AWAY? Just wonderin'.

Ow.

I know, I've been suspiciously silent lately...and we all know that's not a natural state for me. What I've been up to is DEMOLITION. And prep work. We (and by "we" I mean "my other half") scraped popcorn off of the ceilings in our master bedroom, office, bath, closet, and dining room; we (I) cleaned up the mess wearing a respirator and goggles; we (both of us, really, but OH mainly) removed carpeting from those same rooms, then pried up the tack strips; we (I) then pulled the nails that were holding the tack strips to the concrete OUT of the concrete; we (I) patched each and every little hole, sanding to level when dry; we (I) then wet-mopped the concrete, then mopped it with an etching acid, then mopped it with a neutralizing cleaner, then washed it down with water, all in preparation for staining and sealing. Man, "we" have been busy! O.H. has also replaced the screens on our back porch, which actually involved framing it out since the original screens were not made to be removable. But for scraping the popcorn alone, which is a sweaty, difficult job that I couldn't do without gouging the ceiling (unless I got some robotic shoulder implants), O.H. gets the Husband of the Week award.

So I am now re-evaluating my relationship with Advil, Tylenol, and other OTC pain relievers. I think I under-appreciated them until now. Additionally, we have rented a buffer/sander to do some of the scrubbing work tomorrow; if memory serves, one of these threw me across the room in basic training. Should be fun.