Deb and I (and Giff, our self proclaimed clueless boss) met on this date in 1981. 36 years ago.
We (not Giff) actually remember the date more fondly than our wedding day. I already told you what went wrong there. Oh, how I wanted a wedding like my sister's. Upstairs in the chapel, do the ceremony. One flight down was the big common room where the ladies of the church cooked and served the meal. The choir director played piano the whole time, not hymns, but there wasn't enough beat to dance. It was nicely decorated. I bet the arrangements were easy as pie.
Our wedding involved a cast of thousands and my opinions were wanted on every score. Until she realized that I didn't have a preference for flowers, favors, match boxes, the venue, the food, the photographer, the invitations, etc, etc. I had some interest in the band (Bruno's on the Boulevard had standards that required live music) but it's not like the Dead or Bruce Springsteen were available. Picking from the local talent was a formality, with a limited number to choose from. Deb and her mother, Shirley, did all the leg work. I think it was a task they thoroughly enjoyed. It was hectic and stressful. And ended in a welfare hotel. Dr Mitzi thought it was a hooker hotel, but never mentioned it until a couple of weeks ago.
We spent a week in southern New Hampshire and then two weeks redoing our kitchen. OMG, she was a good sport. She had no training in the use of tools. I had to learn how to ask for something. Screwdriver? I had to do an air-screwdriver move with my hand and wrist when I asked for a screwdriver. Same with hammer. We'd never worked together on a carpentry project before and we both got frustrated with each other on occasion.
What was good is we shared the same vision. We wanted a new kitchen in our Junior-4 coop apartment, we couldn't possibly do it on weekends and we each got an extra week from the bank - they had a policy of granting a bonus week when you got married. We saw the end result as something worth doing and worth 2 of the 3 weeks of our honeymoon. We carried that throughout our years together.
I'm no longer expecting her in her electric easy boy chair when I come in. I no longer have to run upstairs because the bathroom on the first floor has a booster on the toilet. When she first put it in, she wanted to know why I didn't just drop trow and use her bathroom. I looked at her and said I didn't need that project managed. I miss that give and take. Her trying to get in my business and me trying to explain something. For instance, like how electricity has waves and regular electricity has a plus and minus whereas 3 phase electricity has one minus and 3 pluses. She always thought if she understood what I was doing, she could help me do it better. Mainly she wanted her opinion taken seriously. As long as I tried to explain, she was happy to encourage me to do anything I wanted. Understandable or not. I'm sure she handled me just as deftly.
That's who I miss. It's been about 2 months and I'm getting used to her not being here to impress with my acumen in cooking, log cutting, lawn mowing and handy man jobs. I have to do it for me now.
It is nice now that if I want something I can call a board of director meeting, decide and move on, since I'm now the only one on the board. In the last week I have been able to skip the meeting and simply decide on things. The board meetings with Deb were mostly fact gathering and a little Q/A and then she'd agree with me or me with her. It was the absolute opposite of a hostile board. But she did like to know what I was up to, what my golf score was, what was in the Amazon box that just came with a tool in it. Even from her easy chair, she was running the house. Ask any one of the women who took care of her. She pulled her weight vicariously at the end.
On the workshop side, I got a metal bandsaw. I can do in a minute or so what a hacksaw does in a half hour. Today I got my Bridgeport mill running. So the lathe and mill are ready for work. I spent some time clearing clutter. Tomorrow I'll return all the tools I used to their places. Maybe even sweep the floor. There is a new smell in my workshop. It is machine oil. It is very distinctive. A clean smell, not at all like used motor oil. I like it. I'd been smelling it for years here and there and never identified it as Eau de Oil de Machine.
I don't have the skills yet to do complicated machining. Think wood working except with bars of hard metal. Think of dealing in thousandths instead of eighths of an inch. My first project is to thread four 1" steel rods and fasten them as legs to the bottom of a board of cherry I harvested here to be used as a bench to put on and take off your boots at Ryan and Jenny's.
Then I make myself some tools. I want 2 collet chucks for my 2 lathes. Middling ones exceed a grand. I hope to get a few metal slugs for $50 or $100 and turn them into true (straight and perpendicular) running chucks. I figure I have 10 tries to make one as good or better than the $1000 one. Especially now that I can buy a longer, less pricy piece and cut it with my new (very old) bandsaw to size. I expect to do it right the first time. But if I do, then what did I learn? I learn well from my mistakes. Each chuck is a cylinder with a taper at each end, one with english and the other with metric threads. This is how apprentices filled their tool boxes and learned their trade.
In closing, I reached out to Giff and in his reply, he mentioned I was on his mind, but he didn't want to ask the lame question of "How are you doing?". I'm doing OK. Some bad days. So, don't worrry if you want to ask how I'm doing to get the conversation going, feel free.
