sunday, week . . . ten

When I showed up (a little late) for the meeting with Ariel and Ryan on Tuesday, they were already discussing the exposed rafters in the sun room, which had been installed 16 inches apart, per Joe Born's specs, but weren't aligned correctly vis-a-vis the sliding door and the closet -- partly because we lost 6 inches of width but mostly because Ariel was following the structural engineer's orders. So I had to decide whether the crew should redo the work. Ryan had called for even spacing and the aforementioned alignment, and he didn't notice the slight difference in Joe's specs -- and nobody thought about how the 6 inches would affect the rafters. 

Technically, it was Ryan's fault -- he should have made sure the drawings/specs matched up. And -- as Ariel said -- the two of them should probably have checked in about the rafter placement before the crew got started. But hey, we're only human, and Ryan spotted the problem right away -- when I first showed up I was so excited to see the rafters that I didn't notice the misalignment. I would have noticed it eventually, but by then it probably would've been very expensive to fix. I tried to convince myself that I'd be OK with it, but eventually I had to face up to the fact that it would have bothered me to no end. So I decided that the rafters should be ripped out and redone. Ariel very kindly said he wouldn't consider it a change order -- even though they lost a day of labor and probably some of the rafters had to be replaced. I did, of course, get breakfast for the crew the next day.

The other thing we talked about was the back yard, and that prompted me to get in touch with Deborah about coming over and helping us come up with a plan. The immediate issue is how much concrete to pour and where to pour it. All I know for sure is that I need some concrete (and a step) by the gate and I need some kind of landing pad in front of the sliding door.

I didn't take any photos of the work in progress -- I guess I was distracted by the rafter issue. I did take a picture of the ballpark opera experience last night -- Carmen, set in the 80s or 90s (I think?). We sat in the seats at the Club Level, because it seemed like it would be too chilly down on the field. The staging was sluggish but the singing was very good. 

I took the T there and back. On the way there, the train stopped at Mariposa for several minutes after a verbal altercation between two men turned into a fist fight, or a wrestling match. The fight was pointless -- it started with one guy yelling at another guy for standing disrespectfully close to him. The instigator was ridiculously aggrieved, but even so the other guy, who was probably on his way to work, could not bring himself to back down. When the train stopped they tumbled out the door and onto the platform. They hurled each other around, landing at one point on top of a man sleeping across two chairs -- he scrambled out of the way. Somebody on the train called 911, and we sat for a while until the operator opened one of the doors and I decided to walk the rest of the way to the ballpark. 

On the way home there were problems with the signal box -- or so I figured, since the train I didn't want to take was stuck at the platform for 10 or 15 minutes, and the train I did want to take passed (very slowly) a bunch of guys in orange vests standing next to an open electrical box. There were a lot of other people on the train, and most of them were in a good mood. One particularly drunk guy was rambling loudly, with lots of profanity, about the pride parade and about how he could drink on the train if he wanted. But he didn't seem physically threatening and no one took him up on anything he said. After he lurched off the train at Innes the rest of us laughed together with relief.