Cold Spaghetti

It’s Mardi Gras time and we’re gearing up for the biggest event of the Carnival Season!

Paul and I have been brainstorming our family’s float and costumes. Will brought home a costume he’d made at school (a shiny purple cape, or as Will says it, “cafe” — rhymes with ‘safe’). He declared it a hero cape (cafe) and we went with it… coming finally to a Mardi Gras Superhero type theme with Will as Captain Mardi Gras, Kate as the faithful sidekick Lagniappe, and Paul and I as the Beignet Bunch. We were thinking of hero-type costumes (with helmets) in purple (for justice), green (for faith), and gold (for power)… or some kind of twist on that idea.

The Krewe of Abeona rolls on February 1st this year, down Oak Street and Carrollton. Today, they drew names to Crown their King and Queen, who (in the Mardi Gras tradition) lead the parade and toast the celebration. Like last year, floats, live music, costumes, and the signature throw (the Golden NuNu) will mark the celebration.

The King and Queen of this year’s celebration were selected this morning. This year’s King is…

(wait for it)…

WILL (!)

Wait, it gets better. This year’s Queen?

ANA (Will’s amor! In his words: “Mommy, I love Ana.”)

Here she is, as pictured during the Po’ Boy Fest:

If your heart isn’t breaking just a little at the cuteness of this, it could be a sign that you are experiencing heart failure (seek medical attention, quick!) The Mothers are appropriately stressing over the costuming issue as we have only a month — One Month! — for this Mardi Gras season. (Honestly a month? Is that really enough time for us sinners to get it all out? For Pete’s sake, shouldn’t we revise the rules on these early Easter years? We have Daylight Savings to get the most daylight out of each day, so why not extended Carnival season on early Easter years to get the most out of the world’s best party?)

Here are the King and Queen below, conspiring in a tea cup during Will’s birthday party:

The saga of the addition continues…
… and the homeowners seriously regret not taking the time and effort to put up a time-lapse camera because that would be Seriously Cool.

Nevertheless, we press on. Below, Paul holds a section of the rubberized membrane that he put on the roof. It’s waterproof… for 90 days… so the clock it ticking. He’s going to be using Mulehide, which is a rolled roofing surface. “Modbit” (modified roofing) is — I think — the official term for it, but I’m Just The Photographer with this stuff.
There are the boxes below for the Mulehide rubberized base stuff. It rolls out and and then is pressed down, to get out all of the air bubbles. You overlap seems to prevent water from seeping in.
The corner of the new room. This is the study side of the room. The window (behind the ladder) is now cut out.
This is the rolling tool used for pressing the Mulehide flat. The roofing specialist at the contractor supply company let Paul borrow it — really nice guys. I’m suppose to make them cookies this week… and maybe each week for the next month or so (they’ve earned them — their help has been invaluable!)
Looking out to the yard.
So we have walls! This is the Windstorm paneling (sheathing) that goes up between the wall studs and the Tyvek (house wrap). Paul did it right: he hung the boards base to ceiling to prevent seams in the center of the wall. This is extra protection against high wind and Paul planned for it well. He ordered the board and planned the room and framing so that there would be no horizontal cuts and no need for overlapping, etc.
Will’s cute little bench sitting out in the construction zone. Paul put this together with scrap wood so that The Little Man would have a place to sit and, eh-em, Manage.
A corner. Some interesting notes about framing. See how these corner pieces sit? They are done in this way so that drywall has a place to nail into on each side. Very interesting.
Paul calls this “sloppy” and guessed that our carpenter friend would strongly agree! See the light through the gap between the header and the roof joists? The wood is bowed here. Paul fixed it by adding a third header and nailing it into the joists; he’s done this on both sides. He still has to finish the blocking in the ceiling joists here.
The roof! Paul was covered in tar after finishing this. He had to take a special trip to the hardware store to find something to remove the tar from his hands… they were completely sticky and covered in black tar. He stuck to everything he touched. Showering for almost an hour did nothing… and nailpolish remover, a variety of soaps, and other remedies we tried were basically fruitless. He actually shaved off some of the hair on his hands and lower arms to help. Goo Gone eventually made the difference.

Skylights are in! Paul was happy with the way the flashing went in around them. He said they were incredibly easy to install. So either his planning is amazing or we should be really worried.
See how nice and smooth? The ridges are the overlaps. Up at the peak, the rubberized material goes up under the Tyvek about 6 inches.
The old pipes here are the original gas lines in the house. You can see where they capped off at each room. Cool.
View from the back — before the last window was cut out.
Paul shows the flashing from the skylights (above.)
Above — detail from a rotten wood piece from the peak of the attic roof. Neat old-style lettering on the wood.
The old roof on the lean-to — yikes! It would not have lasted another year (it was already seriously leaking).
The above picture goes into the “don’t show the insurance company” collection. What you can’t see is that he is swaying a foot with each blast of the nail gun. (Andrew: you’re right. Something about that nailer makes a man walk about 6 inches taller.)
Artsy-fartsy addition picture. I’m just playing with the lens.

Below, you can see the special roofing material Paul put as a “green” layer in the ceiling (under the rubberized seal). See how it reflects the sun, below? See the white reflection of the house and the blue sky?
Now look — it’s the silver. It’s almost like a mirror! Cool.
Back to the sky like before.

After letting me sleep in, Paul greeted me with a tidbit from this morning’s NPR show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. The show deals with quirky current events and includes a game where a contestant listens to three different stories linked by a common theme and chooses which of the three is the one that is true (the other two being made-up stories).

This morning, the stories were on the subject of patents taken out for various devices related to birth (hence why Paul thought it appropriate, it being my birthday and all). Guest panelist Paula Poundstone’s contribution to the three stories of “Unlikely Patents,” was the following paraphrased description of a possible patent:

A machine which uses centripetal force on a birthing mother by spinning her around and around to lessen how hard the mother has to push when delivering a baby.

Yikes.

Sorry, folks, someone holds the patent to that yet unmade device. I shudder to think what horrors the made-up stories held.

On that note: thanks, Mom.

I’ve been thinking about it all day, trying to keep busy, trying to not be so grouchy, and trying to just not think about it. Then, tonight, after putting the kids to bed and finishing some laundry, I go to the front room to continue my busy cleaning… and the TV has been left on, and is playing something silently. And I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I see Paul. Not my Paul, her Paul.

I stop, realizing what I’m seeing. It’s one of Helen’s movies in a documentary honoring her, recording on TiVo. I consider sitting for a moment and watching, letting it all come, all that stuff I don’t want to think about. Instead, I keep moving. Picking up done, I go to the computer… there’s this thing I started and want to finish. Ironically, that thing I’m wanting to finish is a movie animating still photography.

And then I read this wonderful post by Emmy. As always, Emmy finds the beauty within the worst of things. It was exactly what I needed, Emmy, thanks.

I’m doing the Domestic Goddess thing and preparing make-ahead meals to freeze until needed. I need to do my work more hours in the day and have found that this is possible only when dinner is already made. Paul is ’round the clock with work and house, so I’m picking up a lot more on the second shift (first shift = career; second shift = housewife) — in other words, the grind of all professional Moms.

I did this Brunswick Stew before the holidays and it worked well. Highly recommended for ease, freezes great, and even my Dad (who keeps a very limited meat-and-salad diet and never misses an opportunity to poke fun of something I’ve made or done) liked it.

Any suggestions of other good make-aheads that are easy and kid-approved?

Or, any suggestions of interesting things to do with leftover white rice (that aren’t fried rice?)

What the pictures can’t capture is Kate screaming “WHEEEEEEEE!” while spinning and throwing cups of water on her face.

Not quite. We messed up and only ordered one of the standard windows (we need 2 of them) to complete the collection of 4 windows in the back. Super bummer since the door is probably arriving tomorrow, which means we could have feasibly had the back room sealed to the elements (with heroic effort) by the end of the weekend (when it’s possibly suppose to rain.)

Paul bought the roofing. And came back with some bad news: the estimate for hardiplank (the siding we’re talking about using) is $6200. Big ouch (we were thinking $4000ish — and considering this a major splurge at that level.) We need to price out vinyl and see the difference. The bummer is that we ordered windows without the channeling needed with vinyl (it’s not necessary with hardi). So we’d have to add it back — wouldn’t be quite as slick, I guess, but I’m told that it would not necessarily diminish the integrity of the seals between the door/windows. Paul is definitely leaning towards the hardi (I think) but I’m big time questioning it. Mostly because the biggest reason for using it (that he can give me) is aesthetic and I see absolutely no reason why the exterior needs to be at all nice to look at — because no one will ever, ever, ever, ever, never see or notice it. This is just for the back sides and back end of the house — which is only visible when you’re walking the 3-foot wide space between the houses. Even when in the backyard, what will be noticed is landscaping, not whether or not the siding is hardiplank or vinyl. There is no great energy issue. Paul says that vinyl is more susceptible to winds and not as durable, but if the difference in cost is, say, $6200 versus $1000 — I’m willing to forgo any increase in durability. The rest of the house is aluminum siding, and it’s no great eye-sore, so I don’t see the big deal.

Paul’s argument that makes me take pause: the cheapest builder we know (guy who built the house next door and a few on the street), who cut every corner imaginable (no hurricane tie-downs, cheapest fixtures available, unfathomably sloppy finish work, brick stairs done so poorly that they were pulling away from the house less than a month after installation, etc., etc.) — that guy uses hardiplank. So if the cheapest, sloppiest builder we know uses hardiplank, which is seriously expensive, then there must be a really good reason for it. This is the kind of argument that makes a lot of sense to me.

Next step: more estimates from another supplier.

Anyone out there with experience or thoughts? Suggestions appreciated!

I was too chicken to climb on the roof, wondering why they weren’t using the extension ladder and feeling incredibly impressed that Paul and David were climbing to the top of the A-frame and hoisting themselves up on this end of the roof. So I took these of underneath.

Then I realized that they had a hole in the main section for climbing in and out. Silly me. It’s there on the lower left. The holes at the top section (over the existing bathroom) are for the skylights. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles: the distance between the ceiling joists in the existing section was 22 1/2″ — exactly what it needs to be for the skylights. So it dictated the placement of the skylights to some degree, but darn, what luck!

The boards out from the roof peak are where the A/C compressors will go (once platform is built.) The hole on the right is the skylight for the laundry area.
See the drywall ceiling below? That was it on the old roof — just the drywall, and the corrugated metal above it. No insulation whatsoever. (When the drywall goes up, Paul will slide insulation in. The silver panels you can see in the photos above — in the ones taken from below — is a radiant heat barrier. One of our “green” considerations in this renovation/addition.)
Thanks, David!
The old roof. Yikes!
Shots that make the roof look REALLY big. The grade came out well, nice and smooth. (Seriously good job!) In the pics below, the skylights are framed out.

Say, “Kate, smile!” and this is the result:
See that dreamy look on Will’s face? He is talking about the hamburger he had for lunch. (Treat at Ruby Tuesday’s after running morning errands with PapPap.)
The Professor.