I long ago gave up trying to keep nature out of this old house.  Correction: I long ago gave up trying to completely keep out the bugs and other critters. I do my best to block entry points, but there’s always a nook or a cranny in a 19th Century house that can be found by heat, food or shelter-seeking critters.

You don’t see them in action, but it seems there are house flies constantly circling the building on surveillance missions. Leave open a door for 10 seconds, perhaps while waiting for a slow-walking dog to make his or her way back inside, and you hear the insect buzz past your head. Inevitably, the bug will find its way to the bedroom to perform touch-and-goes in the dark using your face as the runway.

The living room is another popular destination for flies that successfully make the transition from outside to inside life. Here, they tend to gravitate to the blue glow of the television. I can’t count the dozens of shows and movies diminished by a fly walking across the screen, often treading rudely on the faces of Hollywood icons and ruining the fragile suspension of reality that makes movie-watching worthwhile.

On rare occasions, the presence of a fly in the TV room somehow adds to the entertainment. If a fly happens to land on the nose of a Boston Red Sox batter during a game against the Yankees, that’s worth a smile. If it bothers Derek Jeter, out comes the swatter.

However, nothing’s come close to tonight’s situation in terms of humorous irony.

The fly that decided to grace the screen during my viewing of 1986′s “The Fly” remake, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, was one of those really, really big fellas. The word “ginormous” is terribly overused these days, but it nevertheless is a great way to describe these flies. They’re the C5 Galaxies of the fly world – huge and combersome and loud.

Yes, that dot on Jeff's right chest is a fly watching The Fly

I’ve had, in this place, bigger ginormous flies than the one that joined me to watch the movie. But my companion was still a lot bigger than your average housefly. He remained on the screen throughout the entire film, possibly growing ever more in love with Goldblum as the actor slowly morphed from a scientist with insect-like characteristics to a disgusting scientist-sized insect that most definitely needed to have its head blown to bits by the shotgun-toting Davis at the movie’s end.

My problem, right now, is that I don’t know what happened to the big bug after I turned off the TV. I can only assume it headed straight upstairs to the bedroom so it can provide the perfect 2 a.m. soundtrack to my “The Fly” induced nightmares.

Back when this township was a bit kinder and a bit gentler, the friendly guys from the road department would come around once yearly to pick-up junk too large for your regular trash. There was always much excitement in the air when the locals rallied for the annual Spring Cleanup.

Somewhere along the line, those in charge of keeping our taxes low (as if that’s even remotely possible in New Jersey) decided that it cost the town too much to have the fellows driving around and gathering Spring Cleanup items. They didn’t cancel the event, they just made it inconvenient by forcing residents to somehow lug the junk over to the disposal site.

Nevertheless, Spring Cleanup remains A Good Thing. This year, I took three Chevy Suburban loads to the Dumpsters parked behind Town Hall. (I should have left the ever-breaking Suburban there and walked home, but that’s another story.)

Too Chilly For Spring Cleanup

The highlight of this year’s gathering of the junk was my encounter with a very beautiful, and very lethargic, garter snake that was hidden under some stuff. It barely moved when I pet its cool scales. I am sure it joins me in wondering why mid-May has been so cold.

Another wildlife-related discovery: A mouse made a home in a pair of Acousti-Phase speakers I’d been storing in the basement. Right before I saw the hole that was gnawed through the front cover, I entertained the idea of putting the speakers for sale on Craigslist. The fact that the speaker had become a mouse apartment killed that idea.

It’s unlikely anybody would have bought the things anyway. I forget where they came from, but one person, writing online, contended they were sold by the infamous Crazy Eddie. He or she also named them as the worst home audio speakers ever sold:

The worst were Acousti Phase sold by Crazy Eddie in NYC back in the 70′s. They would disconnect the tweeters on JBL L100′s or put speaker upside down and then play Acousti Phase with an equalizer hidden away to improve the sound. They sold many of these speakers with Kenwood receivers which they would sell for close to dealers cost. (They made big bucks on the Acousti Phase speakers though)

I don’t know the truth of that story, but another person’s feelings about the speakers convinced me the fancy-sounding units deserved a toss into the Town Hall garbage bin:

I thought my pair were about as bad a speaker as I’ve ever heard. Even padding the tweeter down massively didn’t help. Foam suspensions on the (folded paper) woofer were surprisingly stiff, and that may have been part of the problem, but running in did nothing. Gave them away (with apologies to the recipient).

So good riddance to those mouse-eaten, good-for-nothing relics of the disco era.

The township not only stopped coming around to gather Spring Cleanup items, it also shortened the duration of the service. It used to be Spring Cleanup Week. I have a problem with there now being only three days.

We pack rats need time to gather the strength and courage necessary to throw things away. On each day of Spring Cleanup, that courage builds and more gets tossed. I’m just getting warmed-up by the third day and then, like Haley’s Comet, the Dumpsters disappear. A mouse or a snake, cowering inside some piece of junk that escaped removal, sighs with relief.

“It’s just stuff,” said my friend. “You can’t take it with you.”

The “stuff” being mentioned didn’t include only the movable items that usually come under the “stuff” heading; the furniture, appliances, tools and other possessions that are scattered and stored everywhere. It also included the house itself. In the end, a house is just another piece of “stuff,” he asserted.

Circumstances are dictating that I put the house on the market, hence my good-intentioned friend’s desire to have me classify it as just another piece of “stuff.” I’m not sure I can fully accept such an emotionless approach to something that, for a fellow who comes up short on the Zen enlightenment scale, serves as a foundation, a marker of existence and proof of accomplishment.

But people sell houses all the time. In the end, a house – even an old one that’s been under restoration – is like pretty much everything else: a temporarily-bound collection of raw materials destined to change and change hands.

Old Walls Echo The Trampoline Giggles

This one served its purpose: It was a home where children were raised, pets were given shelter and burial, friends were entertained. Life was lived within its old walls (and inside them by heat-seeking rodents). On its patch of tilted lawn countless softballs were pitched, lacrosse balls were flung, sticks were chewed by dogs. Perimeter patches of ground were tilled and flowers were grown.

Christmas days, Thanksgiving dinners, Easter egg hunts, the highs and lows of marriage and family – the “stuff” of life – had a unique place to happen here. The yard echoed, and still does on sunny, warm days, with the laughter of kids in the pool and on the trampoline or swingset.

OK. So innumerable days were spent, and still are being spent, doing the hard work of removing layers of caked-on old paint, replacing rotted window sills and broken panes, tightening slates, mowing grass, painting/painting/repainting, sanding and hammering. I don’t think the effort was wasted time or wasted money even if it doesn’t equate into any meaningful increase in property value.

Despite periodic bouts of frustration and weariness (and a realization that the job would never be finished) the time spent fixing the old house brought pride, purpose, experience and honor. It enriched my soul even as it stole time that could have been spent on more relaxing endeavors.

I wanted the house to be perfect before putting it on the market. Clearly, that’s not going to happen. I can only say that some parts, especially the exterior walls, are in a lot better shape now than they were then. They weren’t sealed in vinyl siding. They were treated with respect.

I just have to stop worrying whether the next owners will do the same. I realize they might not. In fact, they might bulldoze the old girl. That, like the passing of time, is out of my hands.

When Granny Smith Hits a Window

When you are a 14–year-old boy and your father is making up a song and singing it in an Indian accent, you really have no choice but to throw something at him.

So my son must be forgiven for grabbing an apple and whipping it.

I can’t say I didn’t get angry. I can say that I didn’t stay angry for too long. I’ve broken plenty of windows in the house, after all.

So, halfway through sweeping up the scattered shards, I went to the kid, who was upset, and gave him a hug.

It’s just a window,” I said. “No big deal.”

In fact, the incident inspired me to free the sash, one of the few that remained unmovable because people in the past insisted on painting them shut.

But now I have to decide whether to do it “right” by taking the entire window apart, stipping all the paint, fixing the glazing, etc.

That’s a lot of work. Could my singing have been that bad?

My latest trip to Lowe’s didn’t result in the purchase of any paint from the bargain-bin, but it nearly sent me to the loony-bin. When did buying light bulbs become so difficult?

Having given-up on the gigantic, half-broken ceiling fan that for years had fouled the upstairs hallway with its ugliness, I purchased a simple, inexpensive light fixture. After grabbing a couple of cans of spray paint, which will be used to gussy-up my old pump-jacks before they make a debut on Craigslist, I headed for my last stop: The light bulb aisle.

There was a time, not long ago, when this would have been a task done on the fly. I would have whizzed up to the 75-watt incandescent  bulbs, grabbed an 8-pack without even slowing the shopping cart and headed for the self-checkout lane. Those days are gone.

I believe I spent at least 20 minutes, possibly a full half-hour, walking back at forth, staring at bulbs, reading labels, seeing which ones fit in the light fixture and feeling dumbfounded. Lost and befuddled, afloat in a sea of indecisiveness, I performed mind-numbing cost-benefit analyses that weighed the benefits of the various energy-saving “lamps” on display versus the good-old Earth-destroying incandescent models.

My mumbling mental meanderings ultimately led to the $1.47 8-pack instead of the  $9.98 2-pack. In the end, my lack of cash-flow trumped the rain forest.

Screw This

However, back at home I found in a closet a box of GE “energy smart” bulbs.  Having made a commitment to myself (back when I had more money) to use these energy-sippers whenever a bulb needed replacement, I carried one of the high-tech, white spirals upstairs and up the waiting step-ladder.

I screwed it into the fixture and my suspicion was confirmed: It was a sixteenth-of-an-inch too long. So out it came. And then, out of my fingers it slipped.

There were no children present when this happened. My mother was far away. I know God was watching, but they tell me he’s a loving entity. So I figure no harm came to my soul and no innocent ears were withered due to the string of incredibly loud, vile language that bounced around the freshly-primed hallway a nano-second after that RoHS Compliant, 6-year-lasting, 23-watts-but-as-bright-as-100-watts piece of $5 crap shattered on the floor.

The light bulb now shining cheerfully from the $11.98 ceiling fixture set me back about 18 cents. It sucks down energy faster than my Suburban. I don’t care.

Having cringed at repeatedly spending $40-per-gallon for paint, I was putty in Lowe’s hands four years ago when the local store wheeled out a cart of orphaned paint. You’ve probably seen them: gallons and quarts that – for some reason – were never sold.

In many cases, the paints are of custom-mixed colors that didn’t match samples supplied by prospective buyers. Maybe the store employee botched the order so that what was supposed to be “Golden Delight” turned out to be “Dijon.” In any event, the customer wasn’t happy and the rejected paint was shoved on a shelf or cart next to a can of “Skyscrape” that was supposed to have been “Sea Frolic.”

I can’t help but poke around these carts of lonely latex. I rarely buy anything. However, there came a day in 2006 when I fell off the “don’t be stupid” wagon and grabbed a couple of the godforsaken gallons. I think they were $5 each. What a deal!

That logic gets me in trouble at the supermarket. I come home with a big jar of mayonnaise, purchased mainly because it was on sale for 10 cents off and because I once ran out of mayo while making tuna sandwiches so I have this fear.  Now there are four large jars of mayonnaise in the pantry and a nearly full jar in the refrigerator. And I don’t even like the stuff.

That’s about the same feeling I had for the el-cheapo gallons of paint I bought at Lowe’s on that thrifty day in 2006. Once I got them home, I realized I didn’t particularly like any of them. I’d wasted $5 that could have been used to buy mayo. Or cranberry sauce, something else I keep purchasing but never use.

On Sunday, I decided to begin cleaning the basement. Cue the marching bands. Launch the fireworks. Turn up the Alice In Chains. I decided to clean the basement.

A Hue Once Known, By Crayola, As "Flesh"

I was doing a decent job, filling contractor bags full of stuff and sweeping dark places where brooms had rarely ventured. Then I took a good look at the oil tank. My God, it was one  appalling, beastly, foul and hideous monstrosity.

At one point in its life, the tank boasted a sparkling silver coating. But the decades weren’t kind. By Sunday, its top was flaking and oil-stained. It’s front was adorned with decals for motorcycle products. So down went the broom, out came a paint scraper and over I went to The Permaladder Sagging Shelves O’ Paint Cans.

Appearing as sad as the day I bought it was a can of generic flat beige latex wall paint. It called to me. All my life, I’d dreamed of owning a beige oil tank. Haven’t you?

I used a small roller and I didn’t waste time. I must say, that inexpensive paint stuck like glue to the dirty metal. In 10 minutes, I created something that resembles a very large pig, a super-sized  chunk of turkey-loaf or a small atomic bomb suitable for desert warfare where, it seems, everything is painted with beige paint bought for under ten bucks from the Lowe’s bargain cart.

I am coming to terms with sanding by hand. I don’t think I’m ready to say I enjoy it, but my tolerance is increasing.

With the exception of dirt biking, I generally don’t like activities that create dust. That places sanding, even the relatively docile practice of doing it without power equipment, solidly in the negatives column. But you have to look for the good in those things you initially loathe, so that’s what I’m doing.

Enter Sandman

I’m focusing on the smooth-as-glass surface I’m leaving behind, not on the arm muscle fatigue. I take the time to glide a finger over the wood now and then.

I’m focusing on the satisfying way I can erase scratches, caused by overzealous paint removal, just by bearing down a little and adding a couple more strokes.

Most importantly, I’m not viewing it as a race. I am taking breaks. The difference this time is that those breaks are being kept as just intermissions instead of  ”that’s enough for today” work stoppages.

Only a little more to go and then I can go get the primer. Yahoo! Oddly enough, priming bare wood is something I do enjoy. It’s like putting a warm blanket around a shivering little kid.

“There, there now, naked door-frame. Doesn’t that thin layer of white feel nice?”

Suddenly it’s spring and that means I can no longer use the “it’s too cold” excuse to not clean windows. It was a bogus excuse anyway because I decided it’s easier to clean these old double-hungs by just taking them apart and doing it inside the house.

That’s a big benefit of having taken the time to strip all the old paint that kept the sashes from sliding up and down. Not only do I now have windows that work, but I also can easily remove the wooden stops and jambs and, in a few minutes, take out both sashes.  It’s a lot easier than trying to clean the glass from the outside, a job that entailed dealing with ladders and screens and storm windows and running in and out of the house and asking for help.

Window Cleaning Stops Here

As I worked my way around the living room today, merrily performing a job that usually doesn’t rise to the top of anybody’s Fun Things To Do list, I came to the window with the broken counterweight rope. I admit it, part of me wanted to just clean the glass and put the thing back together without fixing the counterweight system.

I don’t like that part of me. It’s a part that lies, usually by saying, “I’ll come back and fix that later.”

So window washing is now on pause and window repair has commenced. That’s OK. I find fixing broken sash counterweights to be a really fulfilling job.  I get the feeling it’s a very, very rudimentary form of the satisfaction likely felt by surgeons.

Ready to be Repaired

You remove the screw that holds the narrow counterweight chamber cover. You reach beneath the skin of the house into that dark space. You find the forlorn iron weight that one day plummeted to the bottom of the chamber when the rope broke. You cut the proper length of fresh, new rope. Let the counterweight healing begin.

When the weight is re-connected, when the panes are clean and all the parts are back in place, I’ll be able to enjoy a sparkling view of the spring. And when spring turns to summer, I’ll be able to lift that sash and feel the helpful pull of the dangling iron cucumber as it does its simple-but-ingenious part in bringing a cool breeze into a hot room.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a right-angle in this house. Have fun searching for anything perfectly vertical or perfectly measured.

Floors should be flat. Most of mine aren’t. If a grape falls out of the refrigerator (an appliance propped up on one side not by wimpy, little  shims by fat chunks of wood) it rolls away faster than a Derek Jeter line drive to Right Field.

Nothing is square. Nothing is plumb.

Hoping to find something beyond the obvious to say about this house’s many crooked doors, windows, floors and walls (such as, “It’s just part of the charm”) I first became engrossed in several Web sites dedicated to Salvador Dali.  I wasted 30 minutes staring at melted clocks. Isn’t that ironic?

Then I stumbled upon this old New York Times story by Kirk Johnson that talked about how Johnson’s parents’ house was also full of mistakes and imperfections:

I loved that house, and what I’ve come to realize is that I loved it not in spite of its flaws, but precisely because of them, something the Japanese call ”wabi.” Howard Rheingold explores this concept in his book ”They Have a Word For It — a Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases” (Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc., 1988). The idea is that a work’s flaw — its wabi, if you will — is what gives it unity and humanity. Without wabi, a thing is incomplete, imperfect — in the end, deeply flawed. Whatever it means to the Japanese, I think it applies just as well to a sense of home.

Carpentry With Ruler Optional

Yes indeed. I don’t have to look far to find “wabi” around here. In fact, I can just turn my head as I type this and see a wonderful example of a closet door that appears to have been built by a raging drunk who shouldn’t have been near a saw. Not even a hand-saw.

The right side of this closet’s upper frame is amazingly higher than the left side. Somehow the door closes perfectly and somehow the bottom is square. It boggles the mind. Depending on my mood, it can be annoying or enjoyable.

I don’t really mind it. I just don’t get it.

A similar off-kilter situation exists in the door from the foyer to the living room. I’ve spent a significant amount of time just staring at this thing with its one side higher than the other. I mean, it’s ridiculous! Was that door installed by Mr. Magoo?

Wabi Overload

I try to rationalize by telling myself the crazy angles are just the result of 200 years’ worth of structural settling. Gravity takes a toll. The house has poor posture in places. Maybe the wood shrunk on one side only. Maybe the wood expanded on one side only. Maybe the floor is sinking. But why, then are the doorframe sides (relatively) vertical?

Ignoring the way they can make me a little crazy, the imperfections of the house are OK. They do add to its uniqueness and charm.

It’s all good, until the time comes to sell the place. Then I’ll have to brush up on my knowledge of Japanese philosophy so that, when a prospective buyer stops in his tracks and stares at The Door Built By The Drunken Carpenter I can convincingly explain that a house without wabi is deeply and horribly flawed.