Is Plaster Faster?

I should be working on my movie treatment (sounds like a joke doesn't it??) but instead I feel like writing about today....a day in our simple retired life. We're in Metaline Falls. The morning was mostly clean up. A normal retired thing to do. Then, we picked up color boards from the plaster guy***. We met him half way, an hour drive and close by western standards as they say. Gary, the closest (only) plaster guy we could find, showed up with his little dog wearing a football jersey that said QUARTER BARK (the dog, not Gary) with a #! between the QUARTER and the BARK. We could tell that Max was jealous of Quarter Bark #1 because he could be carried around. We treated Max to a walk on the way home at some waterfall...he wasn't impressed...in-fact he vomited.

Back home, 31 degrees and feeling like it was about time for something semi-epic, we convinced ourselves there was enough daylight to ride up Hall Mountain (elev. 6400') We rode to the trailhead and hiked to the treeless peak through meadows with clumps of softwoods and rock outcroppings to a 360 degree view of Washington, Canada and Idaho. The late afternoon angle of the sun tinted everything a rich gold. So far so good albeit a little colder on the way down than the way up. Normally I would have looked forward to the all downhill bike ride but as I suspected my summer weight Yoko gloves weren't even close to warm enough. (UNDERSTATEMENT!) Four hours and a movie later, I can type and feed myself again but that's about as interesting as I can make frozen fingers.

Metaline Falls.
Movie. "Nine". It was neither about an aging Bo Derek nor a musical with Penelope Cruz (not sure where I got that idea) but it was animated...and pretty good. I'm glad we went because then there were six of us in the theater.

House. The tent came down and we moved into a corner of the master bedroom this weekend. The photos make us look cold and uncomfortable but our word for cold and uncomfortable is 'cozy'. Will waking up with a coating of sheet-rock dust in my mouth cause any long term damage?

Back to the movie treatment. I've been struggling with ways to decrease my school work-load and finally got up the nerve to request an audit for Film Studies. I picked up the hot pink 'switch to audit' form at the office one day when there was actually someone in there and filled it out. I started to hand the hot pink sheet to Ian, the professor. "Did you enjoy the assignment?" he asked, all excited. I ended up using the back of the audit form for notes on Nanook of the North.

***plaster.
Plaster is good.
1. We don't have to paint because the plaster is tinted with our colors
2. We don't have to tile because the shower will be waterproof plaster
3. We don't have to trim the windows because our window perimeters will be plaster

Plaster is bad.
1. We have to pick the colors we'll have FOREVER, NOW. Would that make you nervous? It makes me nervous.

Canada Is Complicated.

The other day I was half way down the street with my 2 dollar cup of coffee when I realized I'd just tipped the coffee kid 8 dollars. I can't seem to get into the habit of NOT dropping my coffee change into the tip jar just like I can't get used to a two dollar coin. I sort of waited until he was looking before I dropped the change in the jar so at least he knows the big tip was from me.

Is $3.50 Canadian a lot for a little can of olives? I figure when I need olives it sort of doesn't matter so maybe I'd rather not know and as long as there is no tip involved I'm probably OK.

Celcius. I can't get used to 30 degrees being really hot. One of these days I'll take two uninterrupted minutes and just focus on comprehending the celcius-fahrenheit conversion that I knew so well in grade school.

Get this...Canadian Thanksgiving is October 13!

School.
The other day at lunch a precocious 20 year old classmate asked me what it was like being in the same program as my spouse. Without thinking I said it was great. Later I thought about how Vince always has to ask me what the assignment is, borrows my handouts because he can't find his (I don't think he really looks) and then puts them back in the wrong place. I'm thinking of saying there isn't an assignment sometime....you know, teach him a lesson. Of course I'd never do that but am I awful for even thinking it?

Actually being in school together is pretty fun. We need each other for Seinfeld references (our classmates were in junior high during that era) and sharing wizened cynical comments and observations.

Other.
Exercise=about an hour a day. We ride up steep steep steep hills (middle ring even for Vince) to the abandoned railroad bed where we dodge unleashed dogs without even minding. No one would ever think of using a leash and no one would ever think of minding. I don't think anyone has a temper. To have a temper would be embarrassing because I don't think Canadians would know how to react. There would be no back and forth like we're used to.
p.s.. I mean that as a compliment

Nelson has a ton of hardwoods so anyone that feels sorry for us missing the fall in New England....shouldn't. Think of it as Vermont with bigger mountains and no tempers.

Metaline Falls.
We're gone for a couple of days, we come home and our house has been take over by blue birds. I'm glad the house is being used while we're gone.

One Big Door

Pick one.

1. Since summer in Metaline Falls is only two months long we would never need a 16 foot folding window-wall opening up to our outside deck.

OR

2. Since summer in Metaline Falls is only two months long we needed a 16 foot folding window-wall opening up to our outside deck.


If you picked #1.....you don't know us very well.


School.
Yesterday we had a Cinematography quiz. I won the 'setting up and leveling the camera and tripod' race which wasn't all that hard to do since it wasn't actually a race. I like racing against people that aren't racing.

More Stuff I Didn't Know I Didn't Know

I'm not sure whether to blame the long night on the hot flashes or the gas but I hope Cinematography is interesting enough to keep me wide awake for 6 hours again today.

They don't fool around here....yesterday we watched our edited versions of the screenplay we shot last week. I can't believe I was actually able to piece together a movie with software that was unfamiliar to me a few days ago and it was no worse than anyone else's. In fact, I accidently sequenced a couple of clips that were worthy of a pat-on-the-back. The movie had a gripping premise....a man stalking a woman through the school that turned out to be the husband trying to surprise the wife for their anniversary. The husband followed the wife into the classroom where, not knowing who he was, she grabbed a stapler and stapled him in the chest. You want to see some bad acting???

Speaking of acting...I thought I was going to have to pretend to be interested during three hours of 'lighting'. How could they come up with three hours of information that I didn't already have...on lighting? The endorphins didn't kick in, but did you know that you can make the same person sitting in the same chair in the same room look wrinkled or cranky or sinister or young? Hollywood. It's all lighting.

Tomorrow....silent movies from the 20's...better get a good night's sleep.

Ceiling Is Believing

One of these days I'll have you up to date on the little house in Metaline Falls.

Vince and Brett replaced our ceiling of blue sky with local 2 x 6 tongue and grove ponderosa pine. It feels good since that's our finished ceiling. I could tell they were having a good time putting it up because they were talking and singing with fake Scottish accents.

And just in case you think that all I do is walk around taking pictures, I helped put the felt on the part of the house where a ladder wasn't needed so that's done too.

Did I say windows? They're in too. Eagle brand milled aluminum (like the inside of a soda can) exterior and clear PRE-FINISHED!!!! (what a great idea) pine interior. It was love at first sight. It's fun to go in and out. Solid, like a vault. Ka-chung. Several of the windows are awnings. We ordered them because we liked the way they looked, not expecting any sort of performance, so when the airflow blew over Vin's half full coffee cup we were psyched. Where we don't have awnings, we have push-out casements. No cranks. They push out manually with a solid, old-fashioned European action (my words). Very chic.

Ceiling Is Believing cont'

More.