There were 28 in class this morning at Bikram. When we got out, Kathrin and I headed over the Walmart. She had drowned her phone yesterday when a bottle she was carrying in the same bag as her phone opened. She had to get a new phone. While she went into Walmart, I sat in the car, listened to the Saturday shows on NPR, and texted Shivani to find out how she was.
When I got home, I went down to Yvette's. She had texted me to invite me down after Bikram. Scott was there. She told him to show me the progress he was making on her yoga room. There is a small room, which is this weird little extension of the house. It has a roof. The floor had been tiled, and she found that made for an uncomfortable surface for doing yoga. Scott took up the tile on the floor, found water sitting underneath it, and wound up with more of a project than he thought he would have.
Scott talked to me about the work he was going to do on Yvette's bedroom ceiling, spraying insulation to dampen the sounds of people tramping around up here, especially in the guest room. I have wanted to provide sound insulation for her bedroom since we moved in. Having guests stay in the room above her bedroom for a week or even two is one thing. Having someone move in for a more extended time is another. Now Kathrin is living there for several months; it is already a problem.
When Katrin first moved in, Yvette said she was the quietest guest we ever had up in that room. But Kathrin wasn't feeling well when she first moved in. Now that she is feeling better, her step has become more robust.
When I researched how to insulate, I found that there is some material designed to be placed under flooring. Installing means taking up the laminated floor, which Mike and I had laid when we bought the house, laying down the insulation and then relaying the flooring. Scott proposed blowing insulation into the space between Yvette's ceiling and the subflooring of the guest room. He found there's no such machine for rent on the island. There is one company that blows in insulation here, but they cost a fortune. Scott said he is going to buy some Great Stuff that can be squirted in from a spray can.
He will probably be able to do a better job with this system. I remember hearing that with the other method, when you open one hole and blow in the insulation, there may be a blockage somewhere along the way that you are unaware of. But it does sound like he is planning to take down the whole ceiling now. I have to ask a few more questions about this procedure. What is clear is that Scott is a meticulous worker. While I like the thoroughness of his work, I wind up not being comfortable, assuming that the best is the only option.
When he took up tile flooring in Yvette's yoga room, he discovered standing water. Different theories were generated as to why this had happened. The other day he noticed water spurting out of a gutter drain pipe. It wasn't intelligently placed. Where it is now, the water shoots out and then runs down toward the house. Scott will put an extension on the existing pipe to channel the water away from the structure.
I went down to the bottom of the property to check on the limes. I had seen several green ones the last time I looked. There were some on the ground, but they aren't even yellow yet. Yes, limes, at least these limes, turn yellow when they're ripe. When they're green, they are too hard to extract juice from; they're great for slicing and placing on the edge of a Margarita glass.
Once I had picked the limes on the ground, I went to the top of the driveway and placed all the branches I had cut off the old hibiscus tree yesterday into the industrial trash bag. I want them to be thoroughly cooked before they are placed in green waste, so all the blister mites are dead, dead, dead. I can imagine that the gardeners will take advantage of the bagged material and dump it right into the trash. I believe they have to pay for the green waste probably by the truckload.
I went to work on clearing off the vine growing on the fence along the driveway that I share with my neighbor. It's his fence, which he made clear when he took down the vine with the pretty orange flowers that bloomed in February. I wasn't happy about it but cooperated and helped him clear the vines myself. Being neighborly. When he was out and about in the yard, I asked him if he could remove the parts of the vine that was up there now that were difficult for me to reach. He said it was on his schedule. I asked him when he thought that would be because the vine was beginning to produce fruit. It means it was planning to plant more of the same. He said he didn't know it was on his schedule. It took me fifteen minutes to get most of the vine off the fence; it would have taken him about 5 minutes to clear the rest. But it wasn't top on his schedule. What was top on his schedule was dealing with branches from my blue flowering bush reaching over into his yard through the fence at the bottom of the driveway.
Okay, so tomorrow, I will finish clearing the vine growing on the fence at the top of the driveway. It will mean clipping all the shrubs that have grown close to the fence to get in there and get to the vines. Then I will go down and clip the brushes with the blue flowers along the fence lines. It will be easier for me to get in there and cut them back than for my neighbors to shave them off at their fence line. I don't have a rigid schedule, so I can accommodate them.
I have to admit I am a little testy with these folks because their dogs almost killed Elsa as they tossed her around like their favorite new toy. I also imagine that the woman of the house would be furious with me for allowing this to happen. What does she think? I wanted Elsa killed? Yeah, that sounds like what I needed after losing my husband. She might also think that I disrespected her wishes because I have wanted to get the dogs together under controlled circumstances. I would never have agreed to introduce my 14 lb. dog to her four large dogs at once in their yard. No, I didn't do it deliberately. I was shifting my retractable leash from one hand to another when Elsa, sensing her moment, took off into their yard. I'm still traumatized, as my neighbor helped me get those dogs off of her and saved her life.
It was drizzling when I finally went in for my shower. Boy, are we ever in the rainy season. Every day we have a good storm. Today it drizzled while I was driving on Queen K on my way to Bikram. It poured for a tenth of a mile, and then it drizzled again—a local downpour.
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Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.
Making life a game: I do not consider writing work unless I have a deadline. I do not consider teaching work. It is also fun. I do not consider washing dishes work. If it feels like work, I leave it for tomorrow. I wait until it feels like play. Cooking always feels like work.
Converting every activity into a game started when I was 12. We were issued gym outfits, which we had to wash and iron once a week. They had baby doll sleeves and puff paints. My mother took one look at that outfit and declared that she was not going to iron it. I was going to have to learn how to do it. I can still remember working at the ironing board in the living room. I loved doing the ironing. These outfits were blue. The color blue changed under the heat of the iron. I thought it was fascinating.
Once my mom discovered that I could iron, all my shirts became my responsibility. There was one shirt I loved to iron. I had small multicolored flowers of orange and red with green stems on a blue background. The color transformations on that shirt were magical. From these experiences, I learned I could find a way to enjoy any activity.
