Me and My Old Lady HNT

HAPPY HNT

Home Imporvement Project No. 6, 7, 8 or 14

I'm loosing track.

I decided my back yard deck isn't safe any longer. It's not like it's falling down or anything, but there are a few boards that are rotten and must be replaced. I don't want anyone to get hurt and sue my ass.
In addition, the rail road tie retaining wall around the swimming pool has a bunch of rotten rail road ties too. I'm not surprised, I put in the pool about 21 years ago. I replaced the deck once about ten years ago and some of the retaining wall around the same time. I guess it's time, huh. That's my next major project.

I'm also switching my heating system from fuel oil to natural gas in conjunction. (Did you know that 80% of the natural gas we use comes from North America? No more barrels of oil that cost more than diamonds per pound. No more frigging Arabs getting RICHER from our money.)

The gas service has been installed and now I'm waiting for the contractor to do the in home tear out and installation. Part of that project is installing a stainless steel chimney liner. Natural gas gives off a lot of moisture and will ruin my chimney if I don't install it. I'm also replacing my propane water heater with a natural gas water heater.

I decided to also install a swimming pool heater at the same time to extend the swimming pool season a couple of months. Like one month in the spring and one in the fall. The nights are cool, but the days are hot. I've never been able to use the pool then and I want too, so the pool heater.

Oh yea, I almost forgot. Remember that half bath vanity contractor that disappeared with my sink and $300 that the local department of consumer affairs tracked down and finally was able to find him and make him give me back my sink and my money?

My outside contractor (who is really a builder, but does outside stuff too) that is going to handle getting me the long needed vanity top for the half bath.

In case your curious, I found this builder/contractor through Lori. Lori's son is dating a girl he works with at the aquarium where Lori, Lori's son and the girl friend work. Lori's daughter worked there up until a month or so too.

Lori's son's girl friend's aunt is Lori's son and his girl friend's boss. The boss is the sister in law of the owner of the company that I'm using.

Or maybe his sister. Hell, I don't know, I'm confused.

Lori's daughter wanted to find a new job so Lori's son asked his girl friend's aunt, who is related to the owner of the company I'm using that's related to her is some frigging way and Lori's son and his girl friend's boos.

When I found out Lori's daughter worked for the builder, I asked Lori to ask her daughter if the owner of the company that I'm now using to do stuff around my pool and the vanity top in my half bath, ask if he did things like I'm, having him do now.

Well' Lori's daughter that used to work with her at the aquarium asked her boss if he had projects like the ones I'm having him do now. He said yes. I said "COOL! and asked her to ask her boss to send someone over to take a look at what I wanted them to do.

She said "YES" and asked him.

He said "YES".

She asked him and because I am so very, very, very, very special in so many ways and dating her mother, she asked him if he would come over himself and take a look at what I wanted done.

He said "YES" so he came.

Today we me, went over the design, tossed around a few more ideas that will cost me more money (it's only money right) and I gave him a deposit. This evening two guys came over to take final measurements for the formal plans for the town to approve so I can get the building permits and go over the landscaping I need ripped out and the new location for the swimming pool heater and stuff like that. Oh yea, they took a shit load of pictures too.

In short, the new project I've described very carefully to you, which I'm certain you understand my explanations completely, is that I'm gutting my back yard and starting from scratch. Any questions?

I wonder if I'll ever see him again?

I drove by the marina where my boat, the BTExpress, has been dry docked for the last five years and it was gone. It's nice to know that the new owners managed to get it started to take home. They live on the water about five miles away and will be doing the major work while it's tied up to the dock behind their house. I'm really very happy for them and wish them nothing but calm waters and clear sailing. Bon voyage folks!

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

When the opening of the bottle of hot sauce gets clogged, DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT blow into the opening to unclog it.

Take it from someone that knows me and use something like a tooth pick to dislodge the clog.

You know why?

I didn't think so.

Because if you blow in the bottle the hot sauce will inevitably blow back into your face and burn your lips and face.

That hurts like a MOFO!

The worse part is that there doesn't seem to be an antidote readily available to cool off the endless burning.

Just saying.

Have a nice weekend.


Edit: Libby says milk is an antidote. I'll remember that the next time.

ANOTHER ARMY STORY HNT

While walking patrol in Vietnam, we were always on the lookout for signs of the enemy and places where they could hide or hide things. They were a sneaky bunch and well trained in disguising their hiding places. Remember the post I made about us finding the hidden tunnel, which lead to the underground hospital? Then while searching the village, I found the bag of penicillin hidden in a bush? That discovery taught me to look in places for signs of the enemy where you wouldn't normally think to look.

While on patrol on a different day, I spread the branches of a tree with the barrel of my M-16 as I had done when I discovered the bag of penicillin. I saw what looked like a neat little hiding spot that someone had recently been occupying. There was fresh grass spread out all over the ground, matted down as if someone had been laying on it. I looked around and off to one side, I saw a pair of Ho Chi Minh sandals and a North Vietnamese Army pith helmet, but nothing else. Someone must have heard us coming, took off and left them behind in their haste to leave, so I picked them up.

Ho Chi Minh sandals are most common footwear the Vietnamese people wore. They are cut from used tire treads with straps made of strips of old inner tubes. The helmet was North Vietnamese army issue, both very cool souvenirs indeed.

After searching around, but not finding anything else, we radioed for the choppers for the ride back to camp. When I got on the chopper, the door gunner saw what I’d found and offered to buy them from me. He said they never find stuff like this and really wanted them as a souvenir. I forget what he offered me, but it must have been worth it, because I sold him the sandals, but I kept the helmet. I took the helmet back to the FSB, showed it off and then stored it in my sewer tube sleeping quarters. I was wounded a few days later and medivaced out, so I left it behind.

That’s where the helmet stayed until my stepmother wrote my company commander asking him to send it to me. One of the first times I spoke to her after I was wounded, I told her about finding the helmet. I asked her to write my CO and ask him if he could send it to me, which she did on November 18th. On November 27th my CO wrote a letter to my stepmother telling her that they had the helmet and sent it to me at the 249th General Hospital outside of Tokyo, which was where I'd been sent.

However, it didn’t find me there, because I’d been sent back to the World by then. Therefore, the Red Cross in Japan sent it to my next known address, St Albans Naval Hospital in Queens New York.

It didn’t find me there either, because I’d been discharged from the hospital with orders for my next assignment, which was the Sixth Armored Calvary Regiment at Fort Meade Maryland.

Again, it didn’t find me there, because a disabled infantryman wasn’t any use to the Sixth Cav, so they transferred me to First Army Headquarters also at Fort Meade. They sent it to me there.

It finally found me there, ONE YEAR after my CO in Vietnam sent it to me. Yes, one year later. One day I went to the mail room to see if I had any mail and the mail room clerk handed me this beat up cardboard box. It looked like hell. I had no frigging clue what was in it, but saw it was from the Red Cross. I opened the box right there and saw the helmet. I couldn’t believe it, because I’d long given up ever seeing the helmet again. I was thrilled to say the least.

I passed it around the barracks and the office where I worked, because most people had never seen an NVA helmet. Especially the many civilians I worked with in head quarters.

I safe guarded that piece of history all these years and still have it. Here’s the Vietnam vet wearing his NVA helmet war souvenir. I think it's a little small for me.

HAPPY ARMY STORY HNT

PS
I learned something the other day. I learned that the "Vietnam War" is called the "American War" in Vietnam. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

What a good son I have.

When my son got home from work yesterday, he asked Lori if she was still coming out to dinner with him and I. She asked him if he sure he wanted her to come? He said, yes, of course he did. So she said yes.

FYI: If you remember last year, he wasn't too keen on her coming with us, so she made an excuse to go home and have dinner with her kids, which she did and then came back to my place.

We went to our favorite Italian restaurant, had a great dinner and all chatted like one happy family. When the check came he paid the check. Lori argued a little and when he refused to take her money, she insisted she at least leave the tip. So she did.

That was the best desert I could ever have. :-)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY GUYS!

I hope your father's day is going well and your being waited on hand and foot. So far, so good for me. Lori made me breakfast in bed; ham. egg & cheese on a toasted English muffin and coffee. Later my son, Lori and I are going out for dinner to an Italian restaurant Brian and I used to go to the night's Barbara taught a college English class. I'm going to order exactly what I usually got those nights; we'll share fried zucchini with marinara sauce for dipping and I'll have chicken marsalla and a carafe of house red wine to wash it all down.