One of the judges on “Dancing with the Stars” came up with my new favorite saying, “It’s never too early to panic.”
A mild panic set in with me when I watched the news the other day. The weather forecaster with his satellite pictures, and wind milling arms shook me not too gently into the realization that it is definitely October, and fall has arrived. The final kick to motivate me was when he used technical weather terms to describe what was coming, “In two days, it will be like a fire hose is pointed directly at us.”
Uh-oh! In the Pacific Northwest that most likely means that we won’t dry out until June or July. No more procrastinating, it was time to batten down the hatches.
Most of the time it’s not the actual chore that I hate, it’s the preparation to do the chore. I needed to paint the rail of our deck, before the rain, before the temperature dropped any further. It should’ve been done last summer. No problem, I like painting. What I hate is the cleaning, sanding, and protecting surrounding areas from the paint added to the scrounging around in the garage to find out if I still had the paint or had to go out and buy new paint. And that search inevitably leads to cleaning at least one cabinet out, then figuring out how dispose of the unwanted or ancient shriveled up paint.
Guess what--Mother Nature doesn’t care. She has her own agenda and is bringing autumn to the Puget Sound within hours. I could feel her breathing down my neck. I grabbed a scrub brush, and the hose, and started washing the rail down.
While the rail was drying, I moved inside. I also needed to steam clean the carpets while it was still warm enough to open the windows to let them dry. Again, I don’t mind doing the steam cleaning. It’s the moving furniture, and vacuuming—the prepping that I don’t look forward to.
The worst part of this chore was my battle with the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bathtub to fill the tank of the steam cleaner with water. When I stood up, in a hurry to get to work, my legs drove my head straight into the towel rack. To catch my balance, I dropped the tank, and flailed my arm hard into the glass shower door. Then I bounced onto the floor anyway and sat there for a few stunned minutes feeling like one of those cartoon characters with birds orbiting his head. The good news is that the glass doors didn’t break, and I only did that once. It took a few hours and a few lumps and bruises, but I got the carpets done. I opened all the windows and got some fans going to start the drying process.
Back to the painting--it was 4:00. In the summer, the hottest time of day here is at 5:00, but it’s not summer anymore. The thermometer hovered at 60 degrees. Isn’t that still warm enough to paint?
Even though the rail was clean and dry now, I knew I had some sanding to do. If “the boys” were doing this, they’d get the belt sander out. I didn’t have time for that nonsense. Anyway, it just needed a light sanding. I grabbed a few sheets of sandpaper and got busy.
I’d found the stain that we used on the rail a few summers ago and was pleased that there was enough to do this job. Stirring it took a long time to get it totally mixed. It had really separated out sitting in the garage for years. I started brushing it on the rail and thought it was a little strange that it was lighter than the old paint; shouldn’t the paint I was covering have faded? I chuckled to myself remembering when Johnny in a smart alecky mood told me that he’d never seen that color of green in nature. Ha, ha, wonder why it’s called Sage green then.
Time was ticking and the pressure was on to finish this job before it got dark and the temperature dropped. I’d moved furniture and plants away from the rail so they wouldn’t get spattered, but I didn’t take the time to cover the deck, I’d just paint very carefully. Then I looked back and saw drops of green stain on the brown deck. I doubled back to wipe them up with paper towels before they dried. As I slapped the paint on and wished Tom Sawyer would appear to help me out, I could hear neighbor after neighbor crank up their lawn mowers for the last trim of the year. Sounded like everyone else was trying to beat the clock before the rains come, just like me.
At last, done! I packed everything up, hauled it all down to the garage, cleaned the brush, and enjoyed a moment of satisfaction while the fans continued blow drying the carpets. Good thing I’d gotten all that done before the rains started.
The next morning on my way to let the dogs out, I noticed that the carpets were almost completely dry, and looked much better. Then I stepped outside to inspect my paint job.
I don’t know if it was because it was too cold out, the stain was too old, or I hadn’t sanded enough, it was horrible! The rail looked like overnight aliens had landed on it and left a scientific experiment that had mutated into a bizarre mold/algae sludge. Johnny’s description had come true!
I didn’t have time to wring my hands over it. I had a dentist appointment. So, while lying back in the chair with a mouthful of instruments, I debated. Should I try to scrape the slime off? It’s too sticky to sand. Maybe I should use chemicals to strip it, and then start all over. Isn’t it supposed to rain today? Maybe the rail will just have to go through the winter like that. Would be easier to just replace the rail?
When I got home I studied it more closely. It had dried more, but it still looked like grasshopper vomit. Through the Sage stain, I could see the Kelly green paint that was on it when we bought the house, beige paint from who knows when, and bare wood beneath it all.
So, I did the easiest thing I could think of: I gathered all the paint stuff up again, and started painting it again. First I read the can. It said the stain was best applied in temperatures ranging from 50 to 90 degrees. It was 60 again, but earlier in the day, allowing for more drying time before nightfall.
This time I really, really shook and stirred the stain up. And, I also stirred it several times while painting—which I hadn’t done the first time. There weren’t as many splatters this time because it was thicker. Afterwards, I walked up and down the length of the rail, waving a folded newspaper over it to speed up the drying process. Now the neighbors know beyond a doubt that I am nuts.
The last time I checked it, before the sun went down, it still looked good, like a freshly painted rail on this planet earth. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it won’t transform overnight.
Laura Keolanui Stark is ready for the rain to start. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.
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