More sheet rock
There are other pictures of last evening's work that show the room to be what it is, much brighter, but I like shadows and contrast, as for the work itself, for the moment I say, as the French do, "no comment." I am withholding judgment, which would very much surprise my husband to read that, since he believes he heard plenty of it yesterday. Loudly, and with conviction.
"Mais tu es un vrai bricoleur!" I believed I shouted, not necessarily at him, although I am sure he is convinced otherwise.
In fact, at one point, he approached me in the kitchen, where I had sought refuge in another pressing task that needed me at not far from 10 pm -- the preparation of a late supper --, my son having another four-hour exam session the next afternoon, with the last two following Tuesday and Wednesday, and made reference to my steadiest criticism of the French Education Nationale, our reviled system of education, "Et tu parles d'encouragement."
He was complaining about my lack of such encouragement for him. The thing of it is that he is making a poor comparison. He has not, you see, once come to me to learn a thing, knowing it all better than do I already. What encouragement ought I, then, to offer?
Hm?
I let it go without comment, just as I had tried to let go without comment his renewed and vigorous cursing of the lightweight framing system for the insulation earlier in the evening.
"C'est vraiment de la merde ce système -- Mais! Ce n'est pas possible! -- Regarde-moi ça! Mais regarde ça! -- Mais on ne peut même pas faire rentrer la vise! Ca sort à chaque fois, mais que c'est de la merde ce système -- Je m'en fou de ce qu'ils dissent -- Mais! C'est pas possible!"
I reminded him that it is conceived and fabricated by two of the top materials systems companies (Isover and Stihl), used not only in France but in the UK and the US, and probably elsewhere, in fact, certainly elsewhere, and somehow, somehow everyone else manages to screw it to the framing.
In fact, he had managed to screw it to the framing, with greater and lesser success, when we first started hanging sheet rock (was it only a month ago?). The screws, at any rate, didn't come flying back out of their holes, and he hadn't had to push into them with all the weight and strength of his upper body, sending the ladder sliding away from the wall. I suggested that he stop, recover his senses and his calm and let me go and ask at the supplies store the next day what we might do, see if the neighbor didn't have a proper cordless driver as I believed he had offered, but there is no stopping him when he is in a fury, and I went off to announce Brazil's goals (that second with not one but two hand balls was too much!) and red and yellow cards (Shame on Kader Keita! FIFA should throw that one out, suspend Keita and let Kaka play against Portugal) to him from the living room, and to read the articles covering the dramatic catharsis les Bleus were staging on the World Cup's theater this weekend after too much pressure, too much loss, and too many years of Raymond Domenech and Jean-Pierre Escalettes at the top of the FFF.
Spoiled and overpaid they might be, but since so is every other player on an elite national team in Europe and South America that is perfectly inadequate to explain the team's only solidarity: absolute opposition to their leadership from the Fédération Française de Football. No, it is the FFF itself that is to blame.
"Carton rouge pour le Brésil!" I called to the sounds of the electric drill in the deepening evening. "C'est Kaka! Et, mais c'est pas possible!" I exclaimed, my husband appearing to stand behind the armchairs and watch the replay, "il n'a strictement rien fait de tout!"
I mean, c'mon, Keita didn't even grab the right "injured" part!
My husband watched and shook his head as Kaka walked off field, suspended for the next match against Portugal. Like that didn't feel bought and paid for, somehow, if it weren't payback for Brazil's two uncalled handballs in Fabiano's second goal, a goal the BBC reports "had a dubious hint of handball." Hardly dubious; even the referee told Fabiano with a knowing smile after the goal was counted that there was hand, showing him precisely on his own arm where he had used his to control the ball. But no, there absolutely should NOT be video refereeing so the referee would have the advantage of actually seeing what happens on the field. That would RUIN soccer!
[Note: It has come to my attention that I need to make a sarcasm alert for the above comment. So, sarcasm alert!]
Next, Italy will be offering Keita citizenship. Thank you, anyway, for giving us reason to forget les Bleus for a moment.
My husband hesitated a moment before returning to the drill he had left in the "petit salon".
"Ah, je me suis rendu compte," he said, "que c'était de ma faute que les vis ne rentraient pas." I looked away from the replays in succession and at his face, in the penumbra. There was, he was saying, nothing wrong with the screws or the system. He had my attention, and I knew where he was going with his confession. "J'ai eu la perceuse en marche arrière comme pour enlever les vis." Mais voilà, bien sur. En marche arrière.
He had, in other words, the drill in reverse, as you would to remove screws.
Ah.
The problem is rarely outside oneself. Such is the use of calm. Now, if he can do that in the OR, why on earth -- ?
Today, I am in a miserable state not because the traitor in the locker room still hasn't been forced to walk the mutineers' plank in the world press and French public conscience -- the one who told everybody that soccer players use really bad words, allowing us to all suspect at last that superstar soccer players aren't necessarily gentlemen, despite their suits for travel and when forced to sit out for injury --, but because I really should have waterproofed the exterior walls before installing the lightweight metal framing, insulation and sheet rock.
Meanwhile, it's the Fête de la Musique and the first day of summer (cloudy and chilly), and my husband asked if I was to go to the fête somewhere (it's everywhere), or maybe hang some more sheet rock.
Is that rain I hear?
Sheet rock, if he'll borrow the neighbor's cordless sheet rock screw driver.
....
"Mais tu es un vrai bricoleur!" I believed I shouted, not necessarily at him, although I am sure he is convinced otherwise.
In fact, at one point, he approached me in the kitchen, where I had sought refuge in another pressing task that needed me at not far from 10 pm -- the preparation of a late supper --, my son having another four-hour exam session the next afternoon, with the last two following Tuesday and Wednesday, and made reference to my steadiest criticism of the French Education Nationale, our reviled system of education, "Et tu parles d'encouragement."
He was complaining about my lack of such encouragement for him. The thing of it is that he is making a poor comparison. He has not, you see, once come to me to learn a thing, knowing it all better than do I already. What encouragement ought I, then, to offer?
Hm?
I let it go without comment, just as I had tried to let go without comment his renewed and vigorous cursing of the lightweight framing system for the insulation earlier in the evening.
"C'est vraiment de la merde ce système -- Mais! Ce n'est pas possible! -- Regarde-moi ça! Mais regarde ça! -- Mais on ne peut même pas faire rentrer la vise! Ca sort à chaque fois, mais que c'est de la merde ce système -- Je m'en fou de ce qu'ils dissent -- Mais! C'est pas possible!"
I reminded him that it is conceived and fabricated by two of the top materials systems companies (Isover and Stihl), used not only in France but in the UK and the US, and probably elsewhere, in fact, certainly elsewhere, and somehow, somehow everyone else manages to screw it to the framing.
In fact, he had managed to screw it to the framing, with greater and lesser success, when we first started hanging sheet rock (was it only a month ago?). The screws, at any rate, didn't come flying back out of their holes, and he hadn't had to push into them with all the weight and strength of his upper body, sending the ladder sliding away from the wall. I suggested that he stop, recover his senses and his calm and let me go and ask at the supplies store the next day what we might do, see if the neighbor didn't have a proper cordless driver as I believed he had offered, but there is no stopping him when he is in a fury, and I went off to announce Brazil's goals (that second with not one but two hand balls was too much!) and red and yellow cards (Shame on Kader Keita! FIFA should throw that one out, suspend Keita and let Kaka play against Portugal) to him from the living room, and to read the articles covering the dramatic catharsis les Bleus were staging on the World Cup's theater this weekend after too much pressure, too much loss, and too many years of Raymond Domenech and Jean-Pierre Escalettes at the top of the FFF.
Spoiled and overpaid they might be, but since so is every other player on an elite national team in Europe and South America that is perfectly inadequate to explain the team's only solidarity: absolute opposition to their leadership from the Fédération Française de Football. No, it is the FFF itself that is to blame.
"Carton rouge pour le Brésil!" I called to the sounds of the electric drill in the deepening evening. "C'est Kaka! Et, mais c'est pas possible!" I exclaimed, my husband appearing to stand behind the armchairs and watch the replay, "il n'a strictement rien fait de tout!"
I mean, c'mon, Keita didn't even grab the right "injured" part!
My husband watched and shook his head as Kaka walked off field, suspended for the next match against Portugal. Like that didn't feel bought and paid for, somehow, if it weren't payback for Brazil's two uncalled handballs in Fabiano's second goal, a goal the BBC reports "had a dubious hint of handball." Hardly dubious; even the referee told Fabiano with a knowing smile after the goal was counted that there was hand, showing him precisely on his own arm where he had used his to control the ball. But no, there absolutely should NOT be video refereeing so the referee would have the advantage of actually seeing what happens on the field. That would RUIN soccer!
[Note: It has come to my attention that I need to make a sarcasm alert for the above comment. So, sarcasm alert!]
Next, Italy will be offering Keita citizenship. Thank you, anyway, for giving us reason to forget les Bleus for a moment.
My husband hesitated a moment before returning to the drill he had left in the "petit salon".
"Ah, je me suis rendu compte," he said, "que c'était de ma faute que les vis ne rentraient pas." I looked away from the replays in succession and at his face, in the penumbra. There was, he was saying, nothing wrong with the screws or the system. He had my attention, and I knew where he was going with his confession. "J'ai eu la perceuse en marche arrière comme pour enlever les vis." Mais voilà, bien sur. En marche arrière.
He had, in other words, the drill in reverse, as you would to remove screws.
Ah.
The problem is rarely outside oneself. Such is the use of calm. Now, if he can do that in the OR, why on earth -- ?
Today, I am in a miserable state not because the traitor in the locker room still hasn't been forced to walk the mutineers' plank in the world press and French public conscience -- the one who told everybody that soccer players use really bad words, allowing us to all suspect at last that superstar soccer players aren't necessarily gentlemen, despite their suits for travel and when forced to sit out for injury --, but because I really should have waterproofed the exterior walls before installing the lightweight metal framing, insulation and sheet rock.
Meanwhile, it's the Fête de la Musique and the first day of summer (cloudy and chilly), and my husband asked if I was to go to the fête somewhere (it's everywhere), or maybe hang some more sheet rock.
Is that rain I hear?
Sheet rock, if he'll borrow the neighbor's cordless sheet rock screw driver.
....
Articles
The cardinal rule I ignored: Architects should always marry other architects, or people with teeny tiny egos, or who have no need to prove anything around the house.
That one did. So did the architect-friend with whom I discussed the noisiness of light construction. Architects understand how important this is, and they can both do double layers of sheetrock whenever they feel like it. Without a challenge. Without an unpleasant comment. Without quailing.
I am so jealous.
We had just screwed the first panel I had measured and cut into place and I just had to -- tap on it. My tap reverberated in the empty space between the back of the only 13mm (1/2") sheetrock that is pretty standard around here. Just so you know, when we intend to use only one layer, it's 3/4" sheetrock. I knocked, and the reverberations increased, and I heard a definite squeaking noise, the sound of the bizarre fittings that hold the vertical metal (can I really call them?) studs onto the horizontal elements that are anchored into the walls.
Squeak, squeak.
It sounded like Barbie and Ken's little bed.
"J'aime pas ça," I said to my husband, whose mouth was filled with sheetrock screws. He removed one and glanced down at me, where I was still tapping the wall. He removed the others, so as to be able to speak.
"Personne -- à part toi -- ne va jamais tapper contre le mur." He sounded pretty sure of himself, returned the screws to his front jeans pocket, and started to position one. He hadn't grasped the issue; I didn't care if anyone else would, ever. I would. Frequently.
I watched him position the drill and screw it in.
"Je vais le faire." He looked back down at me. "Je vais peut-être essayer de mettre de l'insulation là derrière."
"Ca ne servira à rien." He was saying that stuffing fiberglass insulation behind the sheetrock we had just installed would be useless.
"Ca donnera un son plus," I thought a bit, "solide. Comme si le mur l'était vraiment." I cannot stand anything that doesn't sound solid, especially in an old house. I have to tear it apart and start again.
"C'est comme tu veux."
It was only after we had struggled like pack mules to hold the sheet under the carriage of the stair into place that I realized I had missed my opportunity. It was closed. For another 71 years, although he was so disappointed with a gap between the sheetrock panels that I suggested we take it down and do it again.
I had also realized that it would have been better to butt that one into the back of the vertical panels rather than slide it past them, as we had done, but that was a lot easier. Doubling the sheetrock would solve that, too, because we could do that on the second go around, but I still haven't found the courage to bring it up.
"Use a technical word," suggested my second architect friend. "That always works for me. Stops the argument dead."
"You clearly don't know my husband well enough yet," I sighed. "If anyone else uses a technical term, they are an 'expert'. If I do, it's irrelevant, and then I have to have a fit. Can you call him?"
That was wishful thinking. They don't speak the same language.
Neither do we, come to think of it.
Maybe we'll look at flowers in the sun I haven't seen in days tomorrow.
....