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For graduation, there was cake. That was the bribe to attract family to help build The Fence.
First we dug post holes.
Then we cemented them in place. Those suckers ain’t ever moving.
Framing.
Affixing via screws.
Gate.
Front fence; gate yet to come.
More fence.
We’re not done — still have a couple gates and a whole side of the house to go (property line issue), but we got a lot done and I much prefer the newer, privater back yard.
On a different note, we have leftover cake, key lime pie, and cookies. Anyone up for dessert some evening this week? Y’know, before we leave for Greece. FOR GREECE, I SAY.
There’s this fencing company in a town about an hour south of here that I found advertising on Craigslist. I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to do that, but hey, I need fencing supplies and they claimed to have good prices. They had an online “request information form,” which I filled out. I asked the price of pickets, galvanized steel posts, and a double drive-through gate.
Here’s the reply I got from an e-mail account with the name Diane attached to it:
d/drive 10′ opening $182.85. post are 8′ and a structural .116 wall at $12.95 each are 2anbtr 1×6x6′ d/e real cedar this is old growth cedar doing a 3 rail ( includes fence boards post, 2×4’s, hangers,& screws) estimate at $8.20 per foot for more info call toll free 1-866-xxx-xxxx.
Whoa. Paragraphs are your friend, Diane, and I recommend some punctuation, too, while you’re at it.
Anyway, so I puzzled over the reply for a long time. I figured out that the double drive-through gate was $182. Got it. The posts are 8 ft (which I already knew — that’s standard); d/e means dog-eared, which I don’t want; but after that, WTF? “2anbtr”?
I could have called at this point, but the reply was so ambiguous that I thought I’d better see if they even had the type of products I wanted. Simple question. So I e-mailed back and said,
Diane, thank you for your reply. However, I’m having trouble understanding the information you sent.
I need about 150 ft. of fence, which I believe is about 300 pickets. I do not want dog-eared pickets, and I do not want to buy pre-made fencing. Is it possible to buy 300 non-dog-eared cedar 6′ pickets through your company?
Is it possible to get a double-drive gate with square-topped pickets instead of dog-eared?
Thank you.
The reply I got said,
FOR MORE INFO CALL TOLL FREE 1-866-xxx-xxxx mike
*sigh* Dude. First of all, I don’t know why “mike” is answering “Diane’s” e-mail, but WTH, I don’t really care. Second, don’t yell at me. Third, on your website, you have an e-mail form for questions. Clearly you have an e-mail account for receiving and responding to said questions, so you should be able to handle e-mail queries. I prefer to e-mail than call, partly because I have a mild phone phobia and mostly because it’s just faster, and ESPECIALLY WHEN I’M ASKING FUCKING YES AND NO QUESTIONS. I don’t think my expectations are out of line: is it that hard to say “yes,” “no,” or “we might be able to work something out, but please call us to do that”? Can you really afford to give bad customer service in this economy?
At any rate, we got a $50 off Home Depot coupon in the mail yesterday, so I’ll save myself the trouble of calling for more information.
Washing your hands after spending all day with them in the dirt really shows you how well you normally wash. Two minutes with soap and scrubbing, and this stuff isn’t coming out from under my nails. Huh.
In related news, am now the proud owner of about ten two-foot-deep holes on my property (all of which were dug by The Husband and a friend; I weeded, shoveled, hauled rocks, and generally did other dirt-related things as we only had two post-hole diggers). Am also unsure of where the east property line is, so will have to call the city to figure that out. It has come to this, however: either the guy who put in our sprinkler system put it in on neighbor’s land, or else the driveway is not quite perpendicular to the road. Either way, the discrepancy of about eighteen inches is, to say the least, sizable.
Fewer than twenty-four hours until the end of graduate school…
There are a lot of things I’d like to believe in but don’t, thanks to evidence or the lack thereof; the infallibility of the Bible being up there on the list, as well as the existence of angels and people who don’t fuck up the earth and kind, loving girls’ deans. However, today, I’m going to believe that dolphins saved a ship from pirates. Because I can. And because the NYT says so.
In other “because I can” news, we leave for Greece in one month! from today! Such an event almost calls for multiple punctuation marks….
Have discovered my journals from my high school and early college years. Life should have a giant rewind/undo button.
For the next couple days, I will only answer to “Magister” or “Your Magistery.”
Thank you to everyone who read, encouraged, and helped me finish this crazy degree. You’re the best.
Tomorrow I defend for my M.A., so today I’ve been pondering the thought of me and three people way smarter than me in a room for two hours. There is not enough antiperspirant in the world….
My comment got published on a blog post on ESPN! It’s not the most brilliant analysis but I think I got points for being succinct.
Yeah, getting sick is EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED THIS WEEK. Thanks, body.
ESPN.com and most of the sporting world have been enjoying the tasty morsels of the Jay Cutler–Denver Broncos breakup WHICH, I MIGHT ADD, BREAKS MY HEART. Not only did great players like Nalen and Lynch leave, but they fired Coach Shanahan who’s been the face of the Broncos for almost as long as I’ve been a fan, and then they hired McDaniels who looks like an overgrown frat boy.
Of course, it’s a little hard to trust a former quarterbacks coach who fucks with an elite quarterback and offensive line. And while I think McDaniels is more to blame, I think Cutler has either overplayed his hand for a new contract and/or is taking the diva route (which Shanahan would never have allowed), and frankly I’m mad at both of them because, yeah, I’m a Broncos fan and this doesn’t bode well for our upcoming season.
However, I did smile at one thing: a recent sound-off by Broncos fans on Bill Williamson’s ESPN.com blog had this gem:
“Is Cutler really being the hard headed, immature, unproven, pre madonna quarterback the media makes him out to be?”
Heh. “Pre Madonna.” I love sports fans.
- Dude, Cindy Selfe totally logged in on my laptop to check her Google Calendar. (For those of you not in the know, Cindy is to computer and writing scholarship what Judi Dench is to film and stage.) Eep!
- Cindy Selfe and Gail Hawisher came to my apartment to talk about computers and writing with people from my uni. CINDY AND GAIL! AT MY APARTMENT! (See previous metaphor; Gail and Cindy are like the power platonic couple of computers and writing.)
- The theme of this conference is “making waves” (our panel’s presentation is titled “Making .WAVs” and you can thank yours truly for that little play on words), and after two days of presentations, I swear if I hear one more effing thing about waves, someone’s going overboard.
- Tomorrow is my presentation. I’m either going to (1) die, (2) pass out, (3) burst into tears, or (4) a combination of all three. But it’ll all be over soon….
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