Page Six, Class, Boredom and Plans



I Survived the Arizona Blizzard of 2013



This will be the first thing I’ve written in almost a week. I’m completely bored with my new book ventures at the moment and every time I sit down to work on them everything I write just feels forced. So I prefer to do anything else because forced fiction is painful and I won’t put out something that feels like I had to write it just to appease people waiting for a sequel. Sorry folks, Guess you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer.

But in the meantime I feel like a complete and utter space filler right now. Kind of the same way baseball started taking over the sports section. One day there was a blurb on page three about how spring training would be starting soon and suddenly today any talk of hockey ends up all the way in the back of the section on page six so baseball can have the first five pages. Sorry hockey, guess I’m the last desert rat who gives a rat’s ass about this sport.

We had a good run though didn’t we? Since February 3, right after the Super Bowl came to a close, the Coyotes were featured on the first couple pages of the (sports section of the) paper every day. Because let’s face it, they’re playing better than the Suns. And you all know my team is the Bruins but if you think it’s tough getting Coyotes info, try getting something about a team that’s on the other side of the country and in a different conference. That’s what NHL Network and Android Apps are for.

But now that the snow has melted off Salt River Field and all of the tobacco chewing, over paid guys are back in town, hockey in the desert will become a fading memory. In the paper at least, I’ll still be watching my four games a week until July when the Cup finals will likely take place.

Oh, speaking of a fading memory, I’m going to regurgitate one right now. How great was Ben Affleck at the Oscars when Argo won best picture? He was so classy in fact he squarely put the attention of the entire audience on his Jennifer and took it off another Jennifer - Lawrence - who wore a dress so bulky it caused her to fall down on her way to pick up her Best Actress statue. Eek.

Of course, she was funny about her fall, which I also found quite classy, but Affleck saying things like ‘there’s no one else I’d rather work with’ to Jennifer Garner, knowing they’ve only made one Hollywood movie together, and seeing Garner’s reaction read ‘oh god honey, I thought we talked about you making speeches off the cuff after the Globes’ made all of that falling down business seem less clumsy. Good for you Ben, you took care of two Jen’s with one awkward speech.

Which brings me to my pet peeve of the Oscar evening. Let me first say that I don’t have an Oscar – the golden statue or a de la Renta – and I’ve never been to the proverbial Super Bowl of Hollywood nights. I don’t personally know anyone who has and I don’t think I’ll be getting an invite anytime soon. But I’d like to think if I did go I could look a little excited to be there.

I get it Hollywood you’re like the baseball players in this situation, taking over everywhere. Or me in my current state in life, bored off your ass. You’ve been to so many stupid award shows over the past couple months, put on so many pairs of constricting Spanx and four inch heels, dresses you have to return the next day, and copious gallons of hair product that you’re just over it.

But that shouldn’t be our problem. We watch the Oscars not because we really care who wins but to see all the other stuff – like who falls down, who has the ugliest dress, or who made a speech so right on we Writers are happy to have him in our corner. What we don’t want is the camera doing the quick cut away into the crowd only to see you practically rolling your eyes then taking a nap in your seat.

You’re freaking actors for goodness sake! Can’t you play the role of the interested and excited person for four bloody hours? I mean we don’t follow you home so feel free to lambaste the person winning later while you toss your Spanx into a corner of your closet and let the true you out. I know it’s constricting to pretend but give it a try and I’m sure you can pull it off.

And if they can’t pull it off, I want to institute new rules. 1) If the camera pans to you and you look bored you don’t get invited next time. 2) If the camera pans to you and the viewing audience can just tell you hate the winner because you’re either a) not clapping or b) giggling with the person next to you instead of paying attention you will be summarily dismissed from the show and someone more deserving of sitting inside the glitzy arena will take over your seat.

I’m willing to volunteer.

Maybe doing something new would help me get past my own sense of boredom.

Which is exactly what I had in mind this week when I started drawing up plans for our house. I needed a shift in creativity, pronto.

In May we’re going to refinance our home loan so we can get rid of mortgage insurance (something I find even more useless than bored actors) and in the process we’ll take a bit of cash. Our plan is to put it right back into the house – all new windows (ours are currently single pane and doing nothing for energy efficiency), new flooring and possibly renovating the kitchen.

Which is why I’m doing up plans and pricing spreadsheets. Finally my Interior Design schooling can come into good use. I’m budgeting down to the penny for this one and if we can’t afford it by even $100 we’re waiting until that $100 is in our hand.

Luckily we’re planning to stick around this time so we won’t be looking at another Labor of Love situation, regardless. Sometimes you learn your lesson. This is one of those times.

Anyway, part of what we’ll be doing is opening up our living room and kitchen to one big great room space and I got the before and after plans drawn up yesterday. What do you think?



Fireplace & corner walls that are freestanding in the middle of the space as well as all upper cabinets and the wall above the stove will come down to open up to a great room concept.

 

Breakfast bar replaces upper cabinets, countertop extended, pantry cabinets and desk fill the void on the north wall. Open shelving on the south wall. Window on the west wall, north most, will reduce in size to match the other window on the same wall & make way for the laundry coming in from the garage.



If nothing else this bout with creativity in a realm other than words has caused me to get a little spark back inside my brain. Maybe my next murder will take place in a design center or something. I can have Shaw out shopping for a new refrigerator and when she opens it there’s a body inside. She’ll call Agent Harris right away. It could be JJ’s cousin. Then the gang will all be back together and Shaw will be hot on the trail of a murderer, gathering fodder for her next novel.

The good news, it looks like if I keep working on dream plans for our house perhaps you won’t have to wait all that long for a sequel after all. Maybe even by the end of hockey season.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

by Jenn Flynn-Shon

Remember those papers we all had to write back in elementary school?  I didn’t have to write it for every class, every year, but sometimes it seemed that way.  The teacher was all but telling us that they might have partied a little too hard over their summer vacation and that’s why they came to school on day one with no real purpose or direction; without a real lesson plan.

But it was cool, none of us were all that happy about being there so our motivation level was just as low.  It didn’t even matter that we wore brand new outfits and snazzy new shoes for the occasion.  It was still school.  Was it just me or did no one want to go back to school at the end of summer?  Then right off the bat the teacher wants us to recount all the fun things we did and wanted to still be doing.  Hello, unfair tease…

Those days are gone now of course; lost to the past where responsibilities didn’t exist and all of us should have been smarter to open our eyes and relish it.  But that old “youth is wasted on the young” cliché is true.  For the most part, my only responsibilities included stuff relating to school.  Paying bills and other grown-up problems weren’t anything I had to deal with until high school.

Ah, yes.  Sometimes I miss those days of high school where I had to set myself free.  Skipping was a class I took regularly sophomore year and on.  And I was excellent at it; absolutely no doubt I got an A in that class.  There were times I spent entire days in that class, not just single class times.  Another true thing, said by Brian Setzer – “Can't learn nothin' in school they don’t teach you on the street.”

But now I’m all grown-up, most of the time, and this summer I would have all kinds of stuff to report back to the teacher.  It may have even got me to go to school to tell them – I moved into a new house, spent a bunch of money making it a better place to live, and splashed in the pool just about every day.  In other words – BORing.  No teacher enjoyed the boring papers, the ones where the kid recapped exactly what they did every day in full detail.  They wanted something they could enjoy reading.  Something more exciting.

So in the spirit of entertaining my teachers back in the old days, here’s my summer vacation recap.  And let me preface this by saying that my teachers back in the old days likely weren’t all that entertained by my stories because I hadn’t yet developed sarcasm and I never included pictures.  But as an adult now, you can all but count on me to try to rectify that problem.

Summer Isn’t Even Over, How Are You Writing Your Summer Vacation Essay Now?

Yes that’s a great question!  But for me summer ended as June came to a close.  July and August I’m spending writing (blogs, manuscript #2, guest posts, interviews, etc.) so my new school year started on July first.  That doesn’t matter though, there was plenty already packed into summer this year.  I have already:

Dealt with a mortgage closing on a short sale.

Painted 1500 square feet of walls, ceilings & cabinetry.

Moved in and set up my office (remember that, because I do…heehee).

Drained my bank account replacing broken pool equipment and buying tools.

And in reference to the tools, most of what we’ve bought so far has been for gardening and the like.  Matt is in heaven having an outdoor space to work in and I can’t wait to see how he brings the entire yard together.  One of the things that I practically insisted on though was a spot for our grill that didn’t interfere with the pool or wind up under the outdoor patio roof.

We found about 100 leftover bricks had been piled up over by the pool equipment and I knew they had to get used somewhere.  Now for those who have known me a long time you’ll recall we purchased another house, the Labor of Love, a long time ago.  Quick backstory to fully understand the brick debacle…

Right after we bought the house in Springfield we discovered the lot was just a wee bit improperly graded.  Like, about a foot below the neighbor’s backyard which was nothing more than a parking lot of asphalt.  Hey, they needed somewhere to conduct their chop shop duties so I can’t really fault them.  One day that summer it rained.  It rained like no one has ever seen rain before and our backyard turned into Niagra Falls.

Water flooded in at an alarming rate and next thing we knew it was overflowing right down our bulkhead and directly into the basement.  We had about four inches of water in our basement and a non-functioning sump pump.  Oh where was Mike Holmes when we needed him?  (Canada, yeah, I know)  The next morning, after Matt spent a healthy number of hours the night before bailing out the basement with a five gallon Home Depot Homer bucket, we went to the Depot and purchased a bunch of drainage stuff.

Back at the homestead our Saturday was spent digging out a twenty foot hand-dug trench that spanned from just under the deck out into the wooded area beside the house.  We installed a French drain type system, complete with sock over the drain pipe.  For the next handful of years that we “lived” there we never got another drop of water in our basement but we definitely didn’t install it correctly (no gravel surrounding the pipe, just dirt) so I’m sure that means at some point the thing will fail.  Sorry to whoever ended up in that place.

But you’re probably asking what all this drain digging and flooding have to do with left over bricks right?  Well, when we dug the trench we discovered, yup you guessed it, about 100 leftover bricks that were just buried in the backyard.  My guess is they were leftover after building the foundation and became part of the backfill.  After digging them all up they became my patio.

Now here’s the kicker of course, that was another thing I had no clue how to install.  Again, sorry about that.  But it sure looked good at the time.  Not that we ever put a chair out there.  Details…

It may have sloped a foot downward over a 13' run but damn it, the place was all ours and we were gonna grill!

These days however I’m a little savvy and have more time to figure out how to do it right.  Plus I can afford cable now so there’s a hell of a lot of DIY Network being watched in this place.  Again, Mike Holmes is like my personal hero.

So when I discovered the leftover bricks this time (without even having to dig a drainage ditch!) I knew just what to do and where I wanted to put them.

As you can kind of see behind the chairs and on the left there is a big patch of empty gravel space right next to the patio, garage and walkway.

So I grabbed Matt and between the 2 of us we collected the bricks then broke up the clay soil and dug out a level patch of gravel and dirt.  Not easy stuff to move and we started it on a day over 100 degrees.  Maybe not the smartest plan so we stopped early.  But yesterday we finally got rain here, the temperatures dipped into the upper seventies and we had a somewhat muggy but cloudy day for the whole day.  Our day started at Lowes picking up the tools we needed using our $10 off coupon (score!).

We dry fit the brick to decide on a pattern and to make sure we’d have enough.

We staked out the area with stakes meant for our beach shelter and ran a level line of string with some old present wrapping ribbon.  Sometimes you just use what’s on hand and wing it right?  This is the spot dug out, filed with gravel then topped with play sand and leveled so water slopes away from the walkway.

While Matt ran back to Home Depot for filler sand I laid in every single brick by hand, by feel, and gave them a little tap with the rubber mallet.  All 108 of them.  After every 6-8 bricks I tossed the level on just to ensure they were installing correctly.

Yes we went a little shy of the line all the way around, that was to accommodate for backfilling with dirt and bringing the gravel and sand right up to the edge of the patio.  Matt poured the sand and we both took turns sweeping in and tamping down to ensure all the cracks were filled to the top with no obvious gaps.  Then we brought back dirt and gravel and topped the edge bricks with sand.

We finished just as the sky was clearing out a little bit and the sun was setting into a beautiful sunset.  Most of the bricks dried out nicely overnight and I walked out to see this beautiful piece of effort this morning.

It is going to be the perfect spot to house our grill.  Just as soon as our budget allows us to go out and get one.

So this is how I spent my summer, capped off with the Fourth of July holiday and a bit of manual labor.

And just like those teachers who came to school exhausted and under motivated to get back to their jobs, I’m taking 2 Tylenol and lying down on the sofa to edit today.

I Can Hardly Believe It Either

Wow not only posting BTPT on the correct day this week but I am actually posting something for the second day in a row. Could this mean I have my sort of normal schedule back again? I guess only time will tell.

Those of you who read yesterday’s late night post are probably aware that I am going to be running the Labor of Love posts as a regular series here. I have a whole bunch of stuff already completed and even more swimming. I figure if that house gave me anything it is a good solid novella and I fully intend to write it up!

I have also been setting my subconscious on my actual manuscript while painting and a few little nuggets of wonder are making their way toward the surface as well.

Painting will wrap Saturday for the big stuff and Monday for the touch ups then I am done with that job for a while and I can just get back to writing. That is until we hit the Vineyard for our annual vacation with our friends!

Now there is something I am not even able to describe how excited I am to do. Inspiration, relaxation, sun & salt air for 6 straight days. Just the ferry over to Oak Bluffs alone is like a spiritual experience. I’m sure the Obama family took a private boat into port which is too bad for them, there is something about seeing that land mass peek out in front of you as you pull away from Falmouth that nothing can match.

When any of my books hits the big time we will own a house on the Vineyard. Maybe.

Last week over on the other blog I posted a vid of instructions of how to make a shirred sun dress. Shirring is that gathered stretchy look that a lot of lady’s dresses or summer tops have. They made it sound so easy. They always do though right?

Well after one slightly failed attempt on a fabric that was just a little too advanced for me I decided to do this on a simple cotton fabric. It was complete, the elastic was stretchy and the gathers were even pretty well matched up I went to put it on and three of the elastic threads snapped. It wasn’t even over both of my shoulders yet. I spent about 6 hours on this dress and at least 3 on the one before it. I am so bummed, it was going to look so cute with black leggings and sandals this weekend at my adopted nephew’s birthday party.

Guess that means I am shopping in the morning on Sunday because I want my cute dress damn it. Or else I need to figure out how to create, pin & sew from a pattern like pronto. Not looking too good though. Guess the only way to learn is to just fuck it up sometimes. Oh well, I will now rip out all the elastic threads, add some decorative thread colors and use it as a curtain for my closet that is in desperate need of one. Silver lining right?

Going out to play pool with one of Matt’s old high school friends tonight. Funny thing is they didn’t reacquaint themselves through Facebook. In fact Matt was on the bus on the way home one day & they randomly ran into each other in Arlington. They both grew up on Long Island so to see each other there was very strange indeed. It will be fun to meet him & have a beer or two; maybe a Grimbergen if they have it. It has been forever since I’ve played pool. Should definitely be fun.

So another installment of Labor of Love is on deck for tomorrow. Not sure how I feel about this working title though. It just doesn’t seem right but it was the first thing to jump to mind. Any suggestions?