Black tile / White Flag

Yes, we'll try most anything, but more importantly we know when to call in the professional. Bill's back, and we have a new entry way floor to show for it. Gone is the old scrap marble, and in its place is black slate. The old marble was in concrete so there was a jackhammer and some beefing up of the old floor joists and a huge mess in the basement, but this is WAY better. And it goes into the closet because I'm one of those "fewer flooring materials the better" guys.

The white flag part comes in with the bathroom. It was taking us forever, it was time. He started on that today as shown below.

And then our french door and new window are in (so excited!), so he'll install those in the family room when he's done with this tile.

This freed Brett and I up to work on our landscaping. We've started installing edging and a small boxwood border and the maple from a few posts ago. Today we put in a little mugo pine, a pair of artemesia, a pair of reed grasses and started installing weed cloth. We bought some more boxwoods to continue the border but they're not going in until later this week, we were beat.

Bullet dodged

Photo credit: Scott Cook via KSHB weather blog

I think this photo has had the color adjusted, but the cloud formations absolutely happened. I know because I was watching from my office on the 32nd floor of the second tall building from the right edge. It didn't look quite this green from my vantage point but it was seriously dark. I was in a meeting when the sirens went off, followed by the severe weather app on my phone. (Weather Alert USA, $3.99 from the App Store and totally worth it)

Shortly after that our COO stuck his head in the conference room and said "everyone to the stairwell!" The next hour and a half or so was spent milling around in the interior hallway, elevator lobby and stairwell with my phone watching the radar map and listening to National Weather Service radio before finally walking down 31 floors. Shortly after that it all passed and the sun came out. Totally strange.

The Rapture was a bust, so we landscaped

I read an early morning tweet from someone in New Zealand that said they were all still there, so we decided the Rapture must have been scratched. Its a shame too because the weather was beautiful, perfect for heavenly ascention.

Not perfect was Friday, when I took these first two pictures showing the enormous overgrown yews:
And the enormous overgrown yews coming out.

Here is our new Crimson Sentry Norway Maple shortly after we got it in the ground. We're in love with the color and the fact that it grows in a more columnar shape. The house is heavy on horizontals so we're trying to put in plenty of verticals.

And here you can see the beginning of the bed liner and the little boxwoods that will eventually become a low square hedge.

Weed cloth and mulch are coming soon. Hopefully the weather holds on Monday so the tree guys can come back and get everything finished.

We've been to the nursery a number of times and have found a variety of pines, both tall and tree-like as well as smaller and bushy, that we're planning to use. (There's a very odd dwarf cedar at Family Tree that I think I have to have too. The foliage is corded, it looks like a big green mop.)

I've also been to House of Rock which has some good smallish boulders, and Van Lieus, which has very good pricing on Japanese outdoor lanters. Hopefully there's more to show soon.

Regrets only

I'm a bit late here because I don't read fundamentalist Christian websites. I found out today that on April 29th vehemently anti-gay "pastor" Scott Lively wrote us a letter entitled "My RSVP to LGBT." Us as in the gays. All of us. (In case you didn't know, that LGBT stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered. So clever.) It's long-winded and chock-full of chapter-and-verse justification, but it basically says we should repent. There's a hint of the usual "love the sinner, hate the sin" thing that we always get and a bit of "I've sinned too" as well.

It kills me to link, but should you be interested enough to take a look you'll find it here.

As a good-mannered gay I've looked around to see if anyone responded, and I don't find that anyone has. So I will.

Mr. Lively,

Thank you for your recent note inviting us to repent. You obviously spent a great deal of time composing it, and I know that you have little to spare with all your work convincing East African governments that loving someone of the same sex should be a capital offense.

I can't speak for all of the gays as I haven't personally talked to everyone, but among those I have chatted with the general consensus is either that the bible is open to interpretation, or is not actually the word of god. Another salient point raised by more than one of us is that our eternal salvation is our business and definitely not yours.

That last point leads me to a question which I've always wanted to ask: If we're not going to change our ways (and clearly we're not), and you believe (which you clearly do) that we're going to spend eternity in a firey hell of unimagineable agony, wouldn't a Christian response be to support our safety and security in this lifetime? You don't have to love us. Indeed I sleep just fine knowing you believe my 13+ year relationship both displeases god and will bring about the eventual fall of civilization. Couldn't you just stand aside, perhaps read one of those Left Behind books, and just let us live our lives with the rights and dignity you enjoy? Couldn't we all just live the way that feels right for ourselves? And when the afterlife finally arrives we can play whatever hand we're dealt. Wouldn't that be fair?

Sincerely,

David (for a bunch of the gays)

Chipper

Earlier this week we had trees along the street trimmed up as they'd grown down to where it was hard to walk down the sidewalk. A different arborist (we split the job between two) and his crew are here again this morning. The dying tree on the corner is down and being fed into the chipper. Lines are up in the enormous oak in the back yard to clean up the trunk and ventilate the top. Crew chief is mowing down the overgrown yews that ring the house. Soon the monster magnolia will be trimmed back and ventilated.

We look less like the Munsters house every minute. THRILLED.

***UPDATE*** They got a good start but have been rained out. To be continued Monday...

Its an Airstream with a tortilla press

Food trucks aren't a new phenomenon, but they are kind of new for Kansas City. I follow a few on the Facebook and Twitter, which is how most of them let everyone know where they'll be.

Tonight we tried Port Fonda, which was parked downtown doing their mexican street food.

Local and organic and handmade, from a vintage Airstream. I was kind of far down the street when I took this, you can't see Brett there in line asking if they had dessert (they didn't tonight).

Brett had the carnitas, I had the chicken livers and pipian rojo, all on handmade tortilla, washed down with Mexican Cokes. We both liked our dinner a lot and I'm already looking forward to going back. Its in the 50s tonight so we ate in the car. When it's warm enough to eat out on the sidewalk I bet its even better.

The other cool thing is that the Airstream has a chef's table. By reservation, groups of six can hang out in the trailer, watch the cooking as well as whatever's going on out on the street, have some drinks (byob) and fill up on a family style taco spread. We're trying to figure out the perfect occasion to give that a try.

13 bears, a big dog, one pot-bellied pig, and a raccoon

Enjoy your weekend!

Baughman on the Bay

I love to type Milo Baughman into the search box on eBay. You always get a few things you've seen and loved, and sometimes you get something new.

Twill wouldn't necessarily have been my choice for this but it's simple and I don't hate it at all. I love that its white. The Buy It Now is pretty steep but you could make an offer. Here.

Then you'd need a spot to set your drink. Wouldn't one of these pull up nicely? Plus you get an extra to use somewhere else. Then when you feel the need to move things around you've got a pair. Here.