Mossy Cottage Knits

Oh-Dee-Oh!

(Picture-heavy post, Dear Readers.)

You know what’s spooky? A large male coyote who isn’t as eager to run away as he should be—because he has zeroed in on the snack-sized bichon frise you’ve taken into the orchard for its afternoon constitutional. Sure, the coyote loped away, but reluctantly, and sure he kept looking back, but more to see if/when we were going to let down our collective guard than anything else. 30 seconds later, the bichon frise had been hustled back into the safety of the house. (Side note: This was my first coyote, other than the occasional, far-away glimpse of gray. I was thrilled and in awe, almost on tiptoe with excitement, and would’ve followed him if it wouldn’t have been a spectacularly stupid thing to do, although being spectacularly stupid hasn’t always stopped me in the past.)

So, yes, we’re back from a quirky weekend in eastern Washington. The last time I mentioned Monitor, the town where we went and where TMK’s mother and step-father live, I pointed out that it's too small to appear on the U.S. Census. This time, visual proof. I present to you the whole of downtown Monitor:

Okay, I lie. There’s a skosh more to the burg. If you do a 180 from the above viewpoint, you see…

…an antique fire engine and some apple warehouses. Ta-dah! (TMK's mater and step-pater do not, of course, live in any of the semi-dilapidated downtown buildings but in a lovely home, built by step-pater, about a 1/2-mile away.)

The purpose for the trip was to participate in a Rebuilding Together project. Rebuilding Together, which some of you may know as “Christmas in April,” organizes and sends out teams of volunteers to fix or improve the homes of poor, elderly or disabled people. TMK’s mother is the president of the Wenatchee, Washington, branch, hence our being sucked up and over the mountains.

Despite the visions of hammers and nails and saws and buckets of paint that danced in our heads, TMK’s and my participation took a sharp and decidedly womanly detour when we learned that our first task would be to help El Presidente fold and bag, by work team, 160 t-shirts.

This couldn’t be done, of course, without the occasional outburst of “Whistle While You Work” and, inexplicably, the “Oh-Dee-Oh” song sung by the flying monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz” and, even more inexplicably, TMK’s and my need to make, in unison, loud creaking, twisting noises whenever El Presidente secured a bag with a twist-tie. Fortunately, El Presidente took it all with good humor or we would’ve found ourselves trebucheted back over the mountains soon after we arrived.

The big event took place Saturday. Here, the 160 volunteers assembled in the basement of a local church for a pancake-breakfast send-off. TMK and I were relatively comfortable in small-town, largely Republican “enemy territory,” as it were, until a man walked in wearing a t-shirt displaying an all-red diagram of the United States with “My America” writ large beneath. Shudder. However, for the most part, everyone was warm and lovely and dedicated wholeheartedly to the work ahead.

Our team of 10 or so had been assigned to work on the mobile home of a woman with MS. My job, since the idea of me wielding either a hammer or any kind of power tool is truly terrifying, was to clean out a backyard shed. Primary job requirement: Not being afraid of spiders. I fit the bill perfectly.

Half-way through, with everything that was inside the shed now outside, although this picture only shows about half of it:

Done, with 90% of the items hauled away, and the remaining items completely accessible. (The homeowner helped us decide, of course, what to keep and what should go, and we greased the whole communication process by inventing a new acronym, MIG—“Make It Gone.” Everything was either "MIG" or "not MIG." Feel free to take and use in your organizing efforts.)

In the meantime, TMK, who was hoping to put her new-found woodworking skills to the test, was assigned to rebuild a set of stairs.

The old rickety stairs gone, the new stringers in place. (Neener, neener, TMK. Bet you didn’t know I knew the word “stringers.” What can I say? The Internet is my oyster.)

TMK and Bob the Builder cutting new treads. TMK reports that Bob the Builder was the perfect mentor: Unsexist, knowledgeable, experienced, encouraging, helpful, and supportive and yet wouldn’t let her wimp out when it came to something new and challenging. Hats off to Bob the Builder who, by the way, is a bit of a babe for his age.

Bob the Builder with the stairs almost finished, minus the handrails. Note how they built the top stair level with the landing to make descent easier for the homeowner. It’s that extra effort that the volunteers put in that truly warms me cockles. (And lest you think TMK has abandoned the project, those are her denimed legs behind the trellis.)

Elsewhere around the trailer, another set of stairs was built, the carport which had gone dangerously off-kilter was shored up, an overgrown-rose-vine-and-rotting-trellis combo was disassembled, pruned, whacked, and rebuilt, large pieces of furniture were removed, and, the next day, although we didn’t participate, the house was painted.

I think in this picture, El Presidente and the coyote snack speak for all of us:

Posted by Ryan at May 21, 2007 01:05 PM