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splinter rising from the finished floor
Tuesday, June 14 2016
Part of the reason Gretchen's parents had come to visit was so that we could show them the brick mansion we're buying, a property whose purchase they had helped to fund. Gretchen was in the midst of dealing with multiple paperwork hassles that were jeopardizing us closing on the house before July 1st, meaning we might have to wait a month before filling it with rent-paying tenants (a substantial monetary hit). The house tends to inspire awe in those who see it for the first time, and Gretchen's parents seemed suitably impressed. For my part, I tended to notice little defects I'd missed in the past, such as a treacherous splinter rising from the finished floor. I've entertained thoughts about such splinters (and sliding into them in sock feet) when I've wanted to scare myself, but this was the first time I'd ever seen such a thing. Other unpleasant things that I noticed today for the first time included the state of the oil boiler (a rusting hulk from the the 1940s or 1950s having multiple patches made of furnace cement) and a leak from one of the fat copper sewage pipes in the basement ceiling that didn't manifest until Gretchen's father flushed a toilet in the bathroom directly overhead.
I returned to the Tibetan Center thrift store on a round-about route home, this time on a missing to get drawer pulls if there were any. There were a complete set of Victorian-style brass pulls that I got for a dollar (along with a dollar for a stick of epoxy and $5 for one of those ionic air fresheners). The woman working there was a bit of scatterbrain, alternately reprimanding me for looking at things that weren't for sale and then joking about how sales tax is how "they really get you." Later Gretchen would say that we probably couldn't use the drawer pulls because, while the mansion is indeed Victorian, none of its kitchens are.
Meanwhile, Leopold II, the frog I'd put in the kiddie pool yesterday, had gone missing. Evidently he'd used it as a place for daylight hydration and rest, and had taken advantage of the dewy grass and increased insect activity to continue his travels after dark.
Workwise, I nearly completed my biggest project yet, a system for soft-matching imported contacts so as to minimize the chance of duplicate creation. My only fuckup today was changing a login for a third party site that I didn't know anyone else at The Organization uses.
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