Weekend Journal

Mom called on Friday night to say that the closing went fine, and now my brother and sister in law are proud owners of the cutest house in Tappan, New York. They’re on that moving train, as mom likes to say. Their new home is just 12 minutes from our porch to theirs.

On Saturday, I went over there with crowbar and needlenosed pliers in hand. It was carpet ripping time, which is sort of like our family’s version of the barn raising. We’ve all bought fixer uppers with ratty wall to wall carpeting and tacky wallpaper. Before the new homeowners move in, the family walks across the fields of wheat with baskets of food and, as one, we lift those beams skyward. OK, we all drive our little Toyotas to the next burb over, eat pizza, drink Coronas, and destroy things.

I do enjoy demo work, especially carpet ripping. I like jamming the crowbar under the wood slats and stamping on the crowbar. Bam! The nails shoot up and the prickly board cracks in half. Doc Martens are the shoe of choice for these enterprises. I like extracting the tacks from the stairs like cavity ridden teeth. I like standing back and admiring the before and after. It’s all good.

We were done by 3:00 and I was still ready for more, but Steve had come by with the kiddies. The boys were sorely in need of an outing, so we found them a playground next to the river and let them jump around for a while.

Other than the stomping and the extracting, it was a fairly ordinary weekend with chores and social plans. In a minute, I’ll head downstairs to check out the paper for the first time today.

The week ahead — I’m still on an education kick. I’m reading this kick-ass article by Katherine Newman who has combined her background in welfare policy with education. I’ve got a minor rant about corporate life and the freakin’ blackberry. Maybe a guest blogger.