From Cravings to Construction

I've had a hankering for tacos for a while now so this past Saturday evening we went out with friends to try  Gallo Blanco.  The restaurant resides in first floor of a retro styled hotel named the Clarendon in mid town Phoenix and unfortunately I think they've spent more time/effort on their style than their food or their staff hiring.  Drinks were ok despite a difficult to track down bartender, and overall the food was good, not great but good. I'm pretty sure our presence was somehow inconveniencing the staff by the way they semi rushed us through the ordering processes and never once checked up on us.  But enough complaining, we had a great night out with friends and despite Jonathan eating 3/4 of the fish taco I ordered, my taco craving was satiated.

                                                              Sunday it was back to work in the front yard where we spent a few hours constructing the Urbanite walkway.  We managed to finish covering the drainage pipe last weekend (hooray!!) as well as install the pathway's metal edging and plant the walkway's Queen Victoria Agave accents.  Having laid out some recycled concrete blocks last week, just to check out the eventual finished product, we had all the supplies we needed to start the hardest part of the job, leveling and placement.  Before each massive chunk of concrete can be placed we have to dig about 2-4 inches of the hardest, rockiest dirt imaginable.  Pick axe, then shovel then occasionally refill makes for slow going progress. To add to the joy, not all of the blocks have the same thickness.
 

  

After placing quiet a few blocks we poured in a few bags of sand/cement/grout between the spaces, added water and ta-da!! we have the start of our walkway. We certainly have a long way to go, but with our new confidence and established construction pattern, the completion of the next 11/12ths will move right along.

Rude attire

Pregnancy is beautiful, unless you look preggers and your not.  After a few run ins with mirrors and even a video conference camera I've come to realize that my shirt has me shopping in the maternity isle even though I don't belong there.

The fabric itself is likely the first offender.  A light cotton blend sans structure is bound to hit and stop on places on the body where you don't want fabric getting stuck. Include an empire waist with a ribbon tied in the back that doesn't stay up where it should, and bad is now progressing to worse.  The ribbon tied in back causes the sides to slump a bit causing a perception that there is something under the font of the shirt lifting the shirt up and out.  The grand finally is the back of the shirt.  Because of the fabric weight and length it catches and semi bunches right at the top of my butt giving me the sway back appearance again as if I'm supporting a little buddy in front of me.

As tragic as this shirt sounds, I sill like it, however perhaps it will best serve it purpose under a blazer or sweater of some sort.  

Rainy day adventures

Not being keen on working in the rain Jonathan and I spent this past cold and rainy Saturday spring cleaning, painting and waiting to go bowl.  8:30 on the dot we loaded into the 4x2, the affectionate name for our friend's Jeep Cheroke, and made our way to Let it Roll.  Unlike the near desolate, 80s music bumpin, innocence of our last bowling trip, this time we were greeted by some chest thumping Snoop and a sea of people who opted for bowling instead the club.  Not having a reservation we were told our chances might be slim for a lane so we decided to take a seat and wait it out for a bit.

About 20 minutes into our pitcher of Stella we were called to our lane. Getting the bowling party started Matt transformed himself into Mr. Mustachio, with an artful application of a little shoe polish. Classy!  We rolled to The Chronic, a little Dre, a dash of Eminem, and paused mid way through our game, with the rest of the bowling alley, to judge a "Duggy" dance off.  Alternating girls then guys a small crowed dance-challenged each other eventually giving way to the crowds overwhelming support of the superior male dancers.  Talk about living in a bubble, when the DJ announced the Duggy I felt like a white person played by Dave Chappell.  "The Duggy, golly gee, what's that"?

Different music, very different crowed, still a great time had by all.  Jane rocked out both games with some fantastic rolls, even beating Mr. Mustashio in round 1. When it came time for the speed roll Caleb was hands down the man of evening, sending that ball flying down the lane at over 20 mph!
                                                                                                           

Sunday I got up for a run before we drove north to age restricted, Sun City to pick up some white rock, and of course snap a few pictures.  Sun city is the original retirement community in Arizona and boy oh boy does its green painted rock still show it!.  We managed to snag an entire truck load of stone and despite its current muddy condition we're confident it will serve our walk way well.

Once home we got to work on finishing the setup of the drainage pipe and were delighted when it successfully drained into the back yard.  Filling in the trench required the sifting of our remaining rock to prevent hole plugging dirt and debris from affecting the pipe's drainage.  For the remainder of the day we again shoveled dirt and rock until we could take it no longer.  On the cusp of calling it a day, we were gifted with a lemon tree from friends down the street, so we pulled together our remaining energy dutifully planted our little citrus. Then we called it a day for real.

                                                                                                                                              

         

Yet another Sunday

A beautiful morning + newly reinstated health insurance = time for a 25 mile bike ride before we started our yard work. All was well until about 6 miles from home when Jonathan smashed into a chunk of asphalt with his bike tire. Insert familiar sputter and hiss of a flat tire.  After I disposed of the old tube and was returning to Jonathan's bike repair location I heard a not so comforting tube explosion. Apparently during the attempted inflation the tube jumped the rims causing a blowout. To add to the comedy of errors, the tube I had for back up wasn't the proper size and would do Jonathan no good.

Confident that on this morning Jonathan would make the ride home faster than I, he headed off on my bike to pick up the car while I sat with his broken ride in the pool parking lot of a hoity-toity private prep school. Entertainment during my wait was provided courtesy of a few dedicated swimmers. First a 2010 Mercedes SLK pulled in and parked.  The stylish driver attempted to enter the pool area, then upon reaching locked gates approached me to ask if I knew if the pool would be open today.  "Not sure, I don't live around here" I responded, to which she walked back towards the still locked gate.  Shortly there after an equally lovely 2009 Porsche Cayman S parked alongside the SLK in the completely empty parking lot. Mid conversation between the two drivers, a brand new 5 Series BMW pulled into the parking lot.  Yet another swimmer equally defeated upon figuring out the gate was locked.

Desperation had apparently set in, because when I looked towards the pool fence I noticed that, with some assistance from her trusty friend, the SLK driver was now sitting on the fence attempting a pool break-in.   Desperate times call for desperate measures indeed.  About a minute or two later I saw that the fence hopper had thought better of the situation and was back on the appropriate side of the fence.

Defeated, and with no life guards in sight they disband and drove off.  It wasn't until I was again alone in the lot that I realized during a good 4o minutes of mini drama no one had even bothered to ask the single female sitting next to her noticeably out of commission road bike which sat upside down sans a front tire, if she was ok and/or needed any assistance. Oh humanity, how you continue to entertain.

Back home we enjoyed breakfast, headed down the street to assist some friends equally consumed with home improvement tasks, then returned home to again work on the front yard. I started by tamping the west side dirt into a darn near perfect grade while Jonathan worked at removing a portion of block in our fence which would allow the front yard drainage pipe to drain into the back yard.  With the hole created we started the task of arranging the pipe so that it would drain from the front to the back. Something that should have been easy was of course, not quite so.  As we kept raising the pipe to maintain a decline towards the backyard we realized our current set up wasn't going to work. In order to keep our existing grade, and utilize the drainage pipe successfully we needed to lower the end point of the pipe. Luckily our friends down the street still had their rented jack hammer. 

 Taking turns we worked at funny angles to jack hammer a hole in the concrete footer to meet the needs of our drainage pipe. Thanks to the jack hammer we were able to create the hole in about 10-15 minutes flat.  Now that the drainage end of the pipe is so much lower we'll need to continue to dig out a good portion of the trench to maintain a steady decline towards the back. Today's pipe arrangement was a bit of a set back in our progress, but now that we've solved the issue, we'll continue making progress through out the week.

Did I mention this kind of dirty work?

Supervisor Toby get his paws dirty

About three months back we hauled 3 truck loads of free dirt from down the street and mounded it in our back yard, knowing one day it would serve us well.  Today was that day.  Using said dirt we filled in the massive void that was the west side of our house. Due to erosion or previous owner actions the dirt was so low on the west side that the foundation was almost fully exposed. We still have to tamp down (compress) the dirt and grade it slightly away from the house, but that's for tomorrow.

In addition to dirt shoveling we also planted our first and only front yard tree.  Jonathan found a great Mexican fan palm at Lowes at nearly a quarter the cost of what any nursery in town had to offer.  For those not too familiar with palms, the Mexican fan palm has a somewhat skinny trunk compared to the California fan palm which has a very large, wide trunk.  Both have fronds that are wide and fan like opposed to date palms which are long and narrow.  Lets just say if you've seen a palm tree on a Corona commercial, its likely the one we now have in our front yard.  Our little tree is supposed to grow pretty quickly, but even at its current height brings a great splash of color and movement to our desolate landscape-in-progress.

Here you can see Mr. Toby assisting Jonathan in the staking of the tree which is meant to provide a little stability during its first few days which are expected to be a bit windy.

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