Nocturnal Painting

I like the way seasons change in Sacramento. There are no easy transitions between seasons. Instead, it's like someone throws a light switch, and you're abruptly in a completely different place!

The amount of rainfall at Sacramento Executive Airport from the weekend storm was apparently about 1.35 inches. The storm altered the weekend considerably.

I've been a little disappointed that water continues to pool on my new front porch. The slope isn't quite right - not a surprise when it comes to my wonkily-sloped house. I was glad that no water was penetrating the basement, however, but the pooling meant I had to get a mop and push accumulated water off the side. C'est la vie.

Sunday morning, I was jolted awake by a pebble against the window screen . Joe the Plumber, the new porch's developer, was outside in the rain and eager to talk. When I opened the door, Joe went off on a verbal tear. He was so agitated I thought he might be on caffeine, or some other stimulant. The essence was he wants to come back and fix the porch (interesting that his first thought when it started raining heavily was the porch). I guess I have a guarantee of workmanship, or something. Fixing the slope might be a little hard, but we'll see what can be done.

I spent a large part of Sunday dealing with accumulated paper. Some of it was for frantic appeals for magazines I no longer wish to subscribe to, because I don't have enough time to read them. Some of the paper was for newspaper clippings (I maintain files of all sorts of theater-and-politics-related stuff). The saddest part, however, was dealing with the year-long accumulation of charity mail. Since I donate to charities, my name has been passed around to many, many charities, many of whom I have no interest in, and so I get an unceasing flood of heart-wrenching appeals. I can't bear to throw the appeals away, but the charities engage in papering their donors, so the flood continues unabated. Once a year, I get hard-hearted and throw the majority of the appeals away (three sacks on Sunday). There just isn't enough money in the world for all the needs!

I started preparing the outside east wall for painting again. I've been fussing over peeling and scraping paint for three weekends. Every time I go out there, the temperature and humidity is different, which means even more paint is peeling. I continued priming the surface again with Kilz, but then the sun set. The neighbor's security light allowed me to continue (you don't have to see well to brush on primer), so I continued priming until 8 p.m. I ran out of Kilz, but got 95% of the surface covered. Next, the actual painting!