At least as far as what I set out to accomplish four months ago, that is, but now that it’s done, the fire pit itself and the walkway around the fire pit area look absolutely awful.

I’m not going to do anything about either of them right now because I need to move on. I’ve been stuck on the same three projects all year, and now I need to focus on getting the videos for all of them done.

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The squirrels will bite the heads off of the stalks and take them to various parts of the wall where they will chew the seeds out of the flower and leave huge messes of sunflower guts all over the ground below, which I get to clean up. Then, in July, the ones that haven’t been decapitated will begin their inevitable demise. That’s when the real fun begins: pulling them up.

Sunflower roots don’t go very deep, but occasionally you get a big one that puts up a fight. The real problem, though, is what to do with them. They’re so damn big, they don’t all fit in the yardwaste bin at once, so I either have to cut them up which takes time, or pull them out in stages which is usually what I do because they die in stages. So, one day a week for pretty much all of July and August, I get to wrestle giant flowers in the heat of summer.

Hopefully, we don’t get another summer like 2023 when Hurricane Hilary made landfall in California at the end of August, dousing the desert in my backyard and starting the cycle of life all over again, six months early. I spent my whole autumn and winter pulling weeds that year.

Yay, it’s summertime again. God, I’m a miserable son of a bitch.

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The cashier at Lowe’s started talking before we even got to her register. Bonnie was riding on the cart, and the cashier asked what aisle I found her in. Then, she talked non-stop throughout the entire transaction and continued until we were out the door. She just talked nonsense the whole time about Bonnie being an item for sale in the store. She was riffing, but nothing she said was either funny or interesting.

I don’t make small talk. If I don’t have something to say, I will not engage with you, even to be polite. I realized last night why people like the cashier make me so fucking crazy. It’s because I can’t tune people out. If someone is talking to me, I can’t not pay attention, so when they’re talking gibberish, it becomes extremely taxing, especially when I’m trying to focus on a task.

This morning, I spread the two new bags around the patio, and it was so much easier than the first bag because it was all just powdery and soft. There were no clumps in it at all. Unfortunately, they weren’t enough. I needed a fourth bag, but not a whole bag. So, back we went to the Lowe’s in the next city. We went to the garden section first so Bonnie could get some plants, and then we went to building materials to grab a back of sand topping mix. The cashier said, “We sell plants at this end?” pointing out the irregularity of paying for plants at the building materials register. She scanned them all and was about to complete the transaction when I asked her if she scanned the bag of cement. She hadn’t even noticed it. Pay the fuck attention, I thought. Why the fuck do you think we came all the way down to building materials to buy plants?

After I paid, I held my finger over the POS machine so I could choose to have my receipt emailed to me instead of printed out because I didn’t want a paper receipt. Before I could tap it, though, she bypassed the option on her end and printed my receipt. It happens at every Lowe’s. At self-checkout, it gives you the option of a printer receipt or an email and printed receipt, but there’s no option for leaving the store without a piece of fucking paper. Obviously, I’m in the minority of people who want their receipts emailed because the cashiers automatically print the receipts without asking. Last year, my local grocery store added a prompt to the POS machine asking for donations to some charity. It didn’t take long for the cashiers to start reaching over to tap the skip button because nobody wants to donate to unknown charities when they’re checking out. That, I get. What I don’t get is who the fuck wants paper receipts?

I spread the final bag around and used about 3/4 of it. I’m glad I didn’t use all of it because now I have extra to fill in any place that I missed and make patches if need be. The fire pit remodel is basically done. I still need to make four tables to go on top of the 4 x 4 posts that I mounted the electrical boxes to, but that’s a whole other project.

The post It’s Done! appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

The one bad corner in the bag I bought last night was a bigger pain in the ass to deal with than I thought it would be, so I’m definitely not going back to Lowe’s. The Lowe’s in the next town has some in stock, but I’m worried all of theirs is ruined, too. Maybe the truck got caught in the rain, and that’s why the orange store doesn’t have any. I guess we’ll find out.

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Be Late, Never Early

In a world with ever-decreasing quality in customer service, I really shouldn’t complain about a delivery driver jamming through his day. It wasn’t a problem, but I wonder what would have happened had I not been home or taking a shit or something.

It reminded me of the time I worked for a carpet cleaning company that scheduled me for an afternoon appointment in Pacific Palisades. Obviously, this was back when there were still houses there. Anyway, I had four hours to kill between my morning appointment and my afternoon appointment, so I kept hounding the office to get me into the job earlier. The customer, however, wouldn’t return any of our calls.

So, I showed up at the house fifteen minutes early, and I could hear someone inside playing a violin badly. I knocked on the door, but the woman continued torturing the poor cat, who died in vain to make her instrument. I knocked again, and the call to summon the desolate one came to an abrupt halt. A short, chunky woman in her 60s opened the door, and before I could say a word, she said, “Our appointment is in 15 minutes. I’ll be with you in 15 minutes,” and then she slammed the door in my face.

That was the harshest reaction I ever received for being early, but I found throughout my 16 years in the carpet cleaning business that people don’t like it when you’re early. I think because they’re expecting you to be late.

Back To My Delivery

He asked me where I wanted them and then got to work unloading four large bags filled with 900 pounds of sand and gravel each. The bags were large, but they were smaller than I had imagined they would be, which I was kind of happy about because they looked less daunting. As soon as he left, I built a ramp to negotiate the two steps up to the terraced portion of the yard where the fire pit is, and then, I got to work.

It took about two hours and fifteen minutes to move all of the gravel from my driveway to the backyard. I started to get concerned that I hadn’t ordered enough, but those worries were quickly assuaged when I started spreading it out.

After lunch, I started laying stones down. I had always intended to lay the stones on top of the blocks, so that’s how I prepped the gravel and started laying the stones, but I didn’t like it. I dug out some of the gravel and laid a piece of rock down so that it was flush with the top of the block, and I instantly knew that was the right decision. Any apprehension or indecision I felt about this project evaporated, and I started laying stones in earnest.

I worked until I ran out of daylight. I really didn’t want to stop, but I couldn’t see what I was doing, so I called it a day. Tomorrow will go quickly, I think.

In Other News…

This little guy took up residence in our patio cover. I don’t know if this is the same one that had two babies last year, or if this is one of the babies, or if she’s a whole different bird.

The post Here We Go! appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

I set the four posts that the electrical outlets will be mounted to and filled in the trenches I dug for the wire. I filled in behind the block wall with the rest of the gravel, too. Then, I looked online for a company to deliver more gravel. They were all about the same price – $60/yard – but their ancillary prices made big differences in their total price. One company had a three-yard minimum. I only need 1.125 yards, so they were eliminated immediately. Another company charged $310 for delivery. Ultimately, I found a place that will deliver for $200 out the door.

I could save some money by renting a truck or trailer, but then I would have to unload on the rental company’s timeline, and I hate that. Plus, all of the logistics of getting to and from the rental place make the $79 delivery fee seem very reasonable.

So, sometime on Friday, I’ll have a shitload of rocks to move. It’ll be nice to have a day off from shoveling dirt and rocks tomorrow.

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