Corner Painting

The past three days will be “fondly” recalled as the “Great Porch Weekend”.  Saturday and Sunday was spent scraping an inordinate amount of flaking white paint off the front porch, whose size I never fully appreciated until this event.  Yesterday was scheduled for putting the paint back on because the weather forecasters had assured us all week that Monday was the “pick” of the weekend with no rain scheduled.

I’ve lived in New England long enough not to believe anything our forecasters say and I woke up yesterday to a steady rain.  Once we had the paint scraped off though we had to proceed.  The rain semi-stopped around 10am and we launched.  Buddy wanted to help by swatting his ceaseless tail against the freshly painted posts.  Since we hadn’t decided on white paint swatches throughout the interior of the house he spent the bulk of the day admiring our handiwork from afar.

The Inevitable Before Picture

My wife wisely consigned me to areas where my somewhat less refined painting technique would inflict the least amount of collateral damage.  The Keene Friend found out we were painting and volunteered to come down for the day which turned out to be a Godsend.  He assisted the wife on her side of the porch which allowed them to keep pace with my slightly more frenetic endeavors (does house paint kill roses? – one of the many questions I’ll learn the answer to this week – color me nervous on the answer)

Keene Friend and Buddy After Picture

The off and on drizzle abated long enough to even get a coat of paint down on the areas not covered by the roof before we ran out of paint.  We probably wouldn’t have run out if so much of it wasn’t applied to my face, hair, arms, clothing, and the odd rose bush or two but let’s not split hairs.  We only need to apply a second coat to two small sections to declare victory.  I’ll pick up another gallon of paint today to finish the project off when the rain stops again. 

The Wife in Action

We finished our efforts shortly before dark and as we creakily made our way inside made a sterling illustration of the importance of ibuprofen in a middle aged life.  It seems eight hours of bending at strange angles to apply paint into the cleverly concealed corners of the porch railings is not conducive to a life without muscle pain.

I Wasn't the Only One with Paint On my Arms
But this is Really a Poor Effort Compared to my Masterpiece

We assuaged our pain with the aforementioned chemical remedy and some really tasty dead animal flesh properly seared in Memorial Day fashion.  The Red Sox even decided to finally win again, thank God for the National League.  Since our painting efforts had thoroughly gassed the Keene Friend, he acquiesced to spending the night.  This allowed him to see the Wolf of Wall Street for the first time.  I had almost as much fun watching his reactions to the excesses as they rolled across the screen while my wife harrumphed in spectacular fashion from the kitchen at the liberal use of gutter language. 

Keene Friend and I Concurred on the Wolf Wife

I also discovered there was a gaping hole in my Keene Friend’s entertainment experience as he had never seen “24” before.  We rectified that and he was drawn into the spectacle that is Jack Bauer.  It is a little strange that it’s been more than three weeks now since Jack last dispatched a bad guy but I think the body count is due to rise in the coming weeks.  Caitlin Stark is still seriously pissed about the red wedding because she’s about unleash hell upon London with only Jack in position to thwart her.  Keene’ Friend’s DVR just acquired a new recurring event and I’m going to try to inveigle a loan of some of the earlier seasons from my son for him to watch.