I went downstairs to check the progress of the husband’s basement project yesterday and it was not going well.
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Nope. Not well at all.
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I stood unnoticed, chortling while I watched him attempt to wrangle trifold insulation into a corner by himself. It was quite amusing, but I took pity on the poor guy after a few minutes and lent a hand.
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You’ll notice he bought a new toy. After the first low velocity hammer tool wasn’t strong enough.. he upgraded.
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This thing is basically a small gun that fires explosive rounds to propel nails into hard surfaces. In this case, concrete.
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And while my husband is (we never say was) a Marine and familiar with weapons, his usage of this tool made me a little nervous.
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The video doesn’t do justice to the noise. But trust me, that thing is loud.
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And best observed from a safe distance.
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I have to laugh that our entire cellar is a junk filled mess except for this one little corner. But he’s determined to put a ceiling, insulation and shelves throughout so I’m not complaining.
That’s an easy one for me. The best…. or should I say most fun… car I’ve ever owned.
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(Not my picture, but I don’t feel like digging through 124 albums to find one … so this is the same year, model and color)
It was 1982, I was single but dating a car guy. He had a cousin who owned a 1967 Mustang that had seen better days and been living in a garage collecting cobwebs. I saw it, fell in love with it, and my guy bought it for me.
A good bit of restoration was needed, the floor boards were pure Bondo… but after six months of weekend work she was road ready and throaty. We had a blast in that car, but a year or so later I met my husband and married him in six days. Feeling guilty for a lot of reasons, I gave the ex the car.
It was the right thing to do, but I still miss her.
How about you. What car do you wish you still had?
I just finished another book by Mary Roach… but instead of her usual quirky and irreverent devotion to one particular subject, this time she’s sharing a collection of quick stories covering a myriad of topics.
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Still quirky, still irreverent… and because they made me chortle?
I’m sharing.
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Being a menopausal woman of… ahem, a certain age…. I can totally relate to this. My thighs haven’t been there for me for years, the bastards.
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When my mother had too much sherry she called my father Pork. That may sound dirty, but they used to collect beautiful little pigs made from precious stones and gems so it was actually a term of endearment.
Hold on to your hats because I’m about to turn your world upside down.
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“Yup, it turns out that Humpty Dumpty from one of your favourite nursery rhymes wasn’t actually an egg and the more we think about it, the more obvious it seems.
Let’s give you a rhyme refresher:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Still a banger even now, but does it actually mention that HD was an egg?
The idea that Humpty was an egg first appeared in Lewis Carroll’s 1872 novel, Through the Looking-Glass. Chapter six of the book is entitled “Humpty Dumpty’ where he is described in all his eggy glory. “However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was Humpty Dumpty himself. It can’t be anybody else!’ she said to herself. I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.”
So it’s safe to say that this is where the idea that Humpty was an egg came from, but the rhyme apparently came before Lewis Carroll’s novel. Fortunately, after a Twitter exchange, the truth has been uncovered again, and Humpty’s true identity is even weirder than we first thought. It all started when author Holly Bourne tweeted:
Who decided Humpty Dumpty was an egg? Its not in the lyrics, and deciding he’s a giant egg is quite a random leap for someone to make, and everyone else being like, “yeah, a giant egg on a wall. Of course.
She added in a follow-up tweet:
Also, imagine having NO ARMY because they’re busy fixing a broken egg. “The king sent literally EVERYONE out to save the giant egg who isn’t actually an egg, leaving the realm wide open for attack.
Jane Etheridge, who is the Vice Chair of Federation of Children’s Book Groups, came to the rescue and offered a theory as to what HD actually is.
And apparently he was… a cannon?!
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She wrote: “It’s believed to be Roundhead propaganda about a Royalist cannon. First appearance as an egg was in Through the Looking Glass It adds up with the ideas of several war historians, who agree that he was in fact a cannon.
Yep.
A large cannon which is believed to have been used in English Civil War (1642-1649), specifically, in the 1648 Siege of Colchester.”
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Humpty Dumpty was a canon? I had to research this further.
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“The original story pre-dates Carroll’s take on the character. According to a number of military historians, Humpty Dumpty was the name of a cannon used by the Royalists during the English Civil War.
The conflict raged from 1642 to 1649, and in June of 1648, Humpty Dumpty was stationed on the walls of Colchester. It was one of several cannons erected to try and keep Parliament’s army from taking the city. The next month, however, the Parliamentary forces heavily damaged the walls beneath Humpty Dumpty with their own artillery. You can guess where this is going: Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and broke into pieces.”
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And if that’s not bad enough? Here’s another theory…
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“This all fits together very neatly, but there’s no decisive evidence that the tale is the origin of the nursery rhyme. In 15th-Century England, “Humpty Dumpty” was a common snarky nickname for somebody who was a little on the large side. Muddling the matter further, it’s also been suggested that Charles I himself was Humpty Dumpty, having been toppled from a great height by his Parliament. Those loyal to him certainly couldn’t put him back in his lofty position after all.”
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So our beloved egg was actually a canon… or a fat king.
In light of this discovery there’s only one thing I can be certain of now.
I gave my husband a set of handy dandy pool cue cleaners for Xmas and upon further inspection, I believe English is not the manufacturer’s first language.
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Things are getting serious with the cellar project downstairs. How do I know this?
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Low velocity tools have been purchased and I have to admit…. I’m a little scared.
Upstairs in the office –
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A seemingly appropriate calendar has been placed on my desk.
Years ago I had a wonderful little purse size green bottle of perfume with a funky top. It was a lightly herbal, somewhat floral refreshing scent. Naturally I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I knew it wasn’t expensive so I went shopping on Amazon just on the off chance I’d see it.
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Green, funky top, inexpensive…needing a new small bottle for my purse, I thought that could be it and ordered one.
I was wrong.
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So very wrong. The stupid thing towers above every other bottle I own and is most definitely not purse sized.
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Here it is next to a bottle of Chanel for scale. I’m sure it’s my fault for not noting the size when I bought it, but damn. Now I’m stuck with what seems like a gallon.
A miracle is currently taking place below Casa River. And though I never thought I’d say it… I’m now glad my bored by retirement husband is fully engaged in a project.
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After insulating the walls and putting an unnecessary ceiling in my small section of the cellar, he moved on to the cluttered with useless crap main section of the nightmare that is our basement, and this is where the miracle happened.
Look!
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Bare basement floor! I haven’t seen that since we moved to this house two decades ago.
And what used to look like this:
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Now looks like this.
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Be still my heart.
His plan is to insulate all the exterior walls and put a ceiling throughout the whole cellar, which is a massive undertaking considering there’s nearly 40 years worth of accumulated junk in the way. Will he get rid of any? He says he wants to have a yard sale… which is a start. But if nothing else, things will be cleaned and hopefully a bit more organized.
Also good…
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The husband built a large shelf in my section for my numerous tubs of holiday decorations.
The bad….
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I couldn’t get down there to photograph it before he cluttered it up with his mess from the section of floor he cleared in the other room.
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Anyone need a 600 pound waffle iron or a Snoopy lunch box?
Also bad…
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See the end of that long dark tunnel? The one you can only access by bending over double and ducking under the sewage pipe? That’s where the husband put all my wrapping paper, bows and from what I can see… Halloween decorations.
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And finally, there’s the really ugly. Because under an old moldy blanket?
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There’s an equally old and moldy stereo cabinet from some long lost era. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that I was unaware he even owned this beast. The husband has a habit of sneaking purchases down to the cellar when I’m not home.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 