Monday 8/17/2020
After my run, I waited around until at 9am I was called for the monthly COVID screening test. The procedure seems to be improving; I don’t think the swab got past my eyeballs this time. Before it went back past my ears, I think.
Then I tackled what I thought would be a big job: emptying my closets. Well, two of the four closets in this apartment. These are the bedroom closets, two large (but not walk-in) closets that have all my clothes plus a number of banker’s boxes of stuff.
The reason for the clean-out is that tomorrow at 8am, the crew from Valet is coming to start work on the closet remodel that I contracted for back in February. Remember February? I barely do. Anyway, everything had to come out. It really only took half an hour to move stuff out and pile it, clothes and shoes on the bedroom floor and the boxes on the balcony. It will take a bit longer to put it all back, but that will be fun: deciding how to organize stuff in my new remodeled closets.
The rest of the day was refreshingly free of meetings or other external responsibilities. I spent a couple of hours putting the chrome onto the Ford model.
I had been looking forward to this for some time. It had to wait until the paint was completely done. The “chrome” is a very thin foil that came in a single sheet (underneath the car in the picture). Remember how in high school you would pop a stick of Wrigley’s and then spend ten minutes carefully peeling the silver foil off the wax paper backing? This is the same stuff. Well, not really. It is “real metal” according to the maker. With a very sharp X-acto knife you cut around a strip of it, lift the incredibly delicate foil off the backing, and place it over a piece of the model. Then you carefully but firmly emboss and burnish it down onto the plastic, using a fingernail or a wooden toothpick. It forms nicely around every detail and with sufficient care you can get it looking pretty much like real chrome. Don’t do it carefully enough and it tears, or the toothpick makes a tiny hole, and you get to scrape that piece off and do it again. Which I did, frequently.
Tonight I prepared sign-up sheets for next week’s meal delivery and package reception and passed them to Marcia to fill in the people who have requested consistent gigs. Tomorrow I will publicize them so the eager volunteers can jump on the remaining slots.
I also set up an Instacart order for tomorrow, with a few things for me and a couple items for the Allens. Nobody else on the floor wants to participate in group grocery buys any more. I suspect that some people are going directly to the stores on their own, trusting in their masks. I can’t judge; I’ve gone into two drugstores recently myself.
Codgerville 