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Hang me from the ceiling
Aug. 21st, 2002 08:14 amWe were up in Maine for the past week. I had Net access, but through a work computer with dialup through a work network... so I didn't think it was wise to check my LJ account or post or whatnot.
Turned out to be an excellent idea to go up, as we ducked the insane heat wave in Boston and I got a lot of things done that desperately needed to be done. My "moonlighting" module-writing for my old company, for example, had me hung up since May -- all my free time sunk into trying to write a 10,000 word Web-based lesson on Brook Farm, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and 19th-century utopian communities -- a topic I didn't know that much about when I started and very hard to come up with ways to make "interactive" and visual as opposed to narrative text. But I finished and I feel happy about it. Plus I finished up about 10 miscellaneous projects for the Board. Still feel a little nervous about my fall courses -- have a lot of work to do on the syllabi, and feeling in way over my head -- but better than I did a week ago.
Had some nice times in Maine -- too sunny and hot for mid-day blueberry picking on Little Moose Island, my favorite activity from last year, but had some nice long walks at Schoodic; discovered a swimming lake with a sand beach and a view of a mountain; had a picnic beside the bay; etc. The trip was enlivened by the biannual huge screaming match between the Mrs. and my father-in-law. The perils of vacationing with family.
Now we are back home amidst a dwindling number of personal posessions that haven't been schlepped down to Providence already. (We spent Sunday before the Maine trip in a rented cargo van, moving back and forth with a huge number of bookcases and whatnot.) The amazing thing is that there is still a great deal yet to be moved. The nervousness about dealing with the landlady -- getting that deposit back -- is already looming. She is intimating that she is displeased with how we kept the yard. I confess that not having 5 hours a day to spend on the jungle of a yard has prevented me from keeping it in hand. That's another project for the coming week.
It's funny how moving always involves my learning some new "grownup" skill -- ie something nerve-racking, costly, time-consuming. Last time it was the treat of trying to drive a 24' moving truck. This time it is learning how to install a hung ceiling. When we moved in here, we locked the cats in the basement for a few days for them to acclimate to the new place. I would come down and every so often Felix would be gone. I eventually figured out that he was inside the space between the ceiling and the hanging tiles -- the home version of "Alien." Proof of this was furnished one day when I came into a smallish room in the basement and discovered the entire hung ceiling on the floor. (I must say I wish I could have watched that one happening.)
Of course for the past 2 years I have been meaning to get to it... now the day has come. I would pay someone to install a new hung ceiling. But it turns out I cannot get someone to come here for love or money... the contractors are too busy to return our phone calls, and the one guy who came out to look at the room was too busy to call with an estimate (and we have tried to call him for weeks).
So. Everything can be located on the Internet, so I looked up how to install a hung ceiling. First off I learned the reason the thing collapsed was because it wasn't "hung" at all, as it's supposed to be -- the metal crossbeams are supposed to hang from wires attached to eyelet screws in the ceiling itself. Second, hung ceilings are designed to be modular (ie "any idiot can do this"), with standard sizes for the tiles and the crossbeams, etc. The stuff in Home De(s)pot would seem to add up to about $100 for a 7'x9' room.
When the old ceiling collapsed I saved most of the pieces, and I spent part of last night trying to figure out how they must have gone together. The best way I can describe it is like putting together a jugsaw puzzle that is missing some pieces, and even the ones you do have are rusty and crumbling and don't fit together as well as you imagine they should... Also, when you make a mistake, the whole thing comes crashing down on your head.
I thought I would have more to say than an extended description of home repair, but I find that I don't. I'm sure you're hanging on my every word to find out how this turns out. The best hope that it ends with me having a lot of pieces of ceiling tile dust in my hair, a lot of swearing, and several trips to Home De(s)pot to get the thing to look kind of bad, but not so bad that a landlord briefly squinting into the darkness will be inclined to withhold part of that damn deposit.
Turned out to be an excellent idea to go up, as we ducked the insane heat wave in Boston and I got a lot of things done that desperately needed to be done. My "moonlighting" module-writing for my old company, for example, had me hung up since May -- all my free time sunk into trying to write a 10,000 word Web-based lesson on Brook Farm, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and 19th-century utopian communities -- a topic I didn't know that much about when I started and very hard to come up with ways to make "interactive" and visual as opposed to narrative text. But I finished and I feel happy about it. Plus I finished up about 10 miscellaneous projects for the Board. Still feel a little nervous about my fall courses -- have a lot of work to do on the syllabi, and feeling in way over my head -- but better than I did a week ago.
Had some nice times in Maine -- too sunny and hot for mid-day blueberry picking on Little Moose Island, my favorite activity from last year, but had some nice long walks at Schoodic; discovered a swimming lake with a sand beach and a view of a mountain; had a picnic beside the bay; etc. The trip was enlivened by the biannual huge screaming match between the Mrs. and my father-in-law. The perils of vacationing with family.
Now we are back home amidst a dwindling number of personal posessions that haven't been schlepped down to Providence already. (We spent Sunday before the Maine trip in a rented cargo van, moving back and forth with a huge number of bookcases and whatnot.) The amazing thing is that there is still a great deal yet to be moved. The nervousness about dealing with the landlady -- getting that deposit back -- is already looming. She is intimating that she is displeased with how we kept the yard. I confess that not having 5 hours a day to spend on the jungle of a yard has prevented me from keeping it in hand. That's another project for the coming week.
It's funny how moving always involves my learning some new "grownup" skill -- ie something nerve-racking, costly, time-consuming. Last time it was the treat of trying to drive a 24' moving truck. This time it is learning how to install a hung ceiling. When we moved in here, we locked the cats in the basement for a few days for them to acclimate to the new place. I would come down and every so often Felix would be gone. I eventually figured out that he was inside the space between the ceiling and the hanging tiles -- the home version of "Alien." Proof of this was furnished one day when I came into a smallish room in the basement and discovered the entire hung ceiling on the floor. (I must say I wish I could have watched that one happening.)
Of course for the past 2 years I have been meaning to get to it... now the day has come. I would pay someone to install a new hung ceiling. But it turns out I cannot get someone to come here for love or money... the contractors are too busy to return our phone calls, and the one guy who came out to look at the room was too busy to call with an estimate (and we have tried to call him for weeks).
So. Everything can be located on the Internet, so I looked up how to install a hung ceiling. First off I learned the reason the thing collapsed was because it wasn't "hung" at all, as it's supposed to be -- the metal crossbeams are supposed to hang from wires attached to eyelet screws in the ceiling itself. Second, hung ceilings are designed to be modular (ie "any idiot can do this"), with standard sizes for the tiles and the crossbeams, etc. The stuff in Home De(s)pot would seem to add up to about $100 for a 7'x9' room.
When the old ceiling collapsed I saved most of the pieces, and I spent part of last night trying to figure out how they must have gone together. The best way I can describe it is like putting together a jugsaw puzzle that is missing some pieces, and even the ones you do have are rusty and crumbling and don't fit together as well as you imagine they should... Also, when you make a mistake, the whole thing comes crashing down on your head.
I thought I would have more to say than an extended description of home repair, but I find that I don't. I'm sure you're hanging on my every word to find out how this turns out. The best hope that it ends with me having a lot of pieces of ceiling tile dust in my hair, a lot of swearing, and several trips to Home De(s)pot to get the thing to look kind of bad, but not so bad that a landlord briefly squinting into the darkness will be inclined to withhold part of that damn deposit.
