Lipstick In A Caulking Gun

Yes, Dave chose this angle.

I've heard it said that painting an old house is like putting lipstick on a pig, but it's not true. Pigs don't need lipstick.

It was time to paint the house, so that's what we set out to do. Not a big deal. It's a bunch of work, but there's nobility in that. In fact, the more annoying the work, the more nobility it has. It's straightforward: muscles and ladders and time-in. We're both in our sixties so I guess we could get a pass, but hey--if it's time to paint the house, we paint the house. That's who we are.

Not our house. That's a job. The last time we thought it needed paint, it had metastasized into this giant thing (actual quote heard while under construction: "Is that going to be a Montgomery Wards?"), and it was daunting. Following a suggestion from a friend who said we could probably accomplish the same result with money, we hired mercenaries. People who could dangle from a dirigible to get the top bits of the tower. People who didn't have an active acquaintance with their own mortality. People who, hell, didn't lose consciousness every time they cranked their neck up to climb a ladder. Young people.

But this house, our rental house, is only a one-story. You just scrape off all the paint that wants to come off, you prime, you caulk, you paint. And if there's one useful thing I know how to do, it's prep and paint. In fact, that is the one useful thing I know how to do. I learned from the best. Actually, I learned from Dave, but he's my best. He taught me how to decant a portion of the paint into a bucket and do the whackety-whackety with the brush to offload the excess; he taught me how to dry off a newly washed brush by slapping it repeatedly against my butt. In fact, I think that was his own idea. I am mindful of the drips. I feather. I mitre the corners of the window-frames with my paintbrush strokes. I'm careful. None of which really comes in handy with the rental house.

Its south side is a complete mess, but the same could be said of a lot of us. With this place, you could be scraping merrily away when a chunk of petrified paint and caulk comes flying off, followed by a bluster of attic bats. After a while you don't even want to be doing that good a job. You're afraid the structural integrity of the place owes a lot to modern latex paint and cobwebs. You're afraid of cutting loose a strip of fossilized goo and seeing all the clapboards slide off. There are boards up in the attic area that are relying on rodent carcasses to remain wedged together. First thing we did was get rid of some wasp nests but we probably lost some valuable biological adhesive there, too.

I'm afraid we're bothering the tenants, of course. Scraping is nasty, loud work. It can set your teeth on edge. But on the other hand, who really "works" from home? As if. Pssh. Young people. It's not a job unless you punch a clock and your boss is an idiot. And the rest of the neighbors probably got used to the rumbling of the truck that came to cannon in the fresh caulk.

Even though it's a little house, it's a lot of work. But I can't see not painting it myself. I'm just not that person.

I will be in another week.

He Got A New Attitude

Dave

Dave said we needed to repaint the house two years ago, and planned to do it last summer, so this summer he really meant it. He'd been worrying about it ever since the paint dried fourteen years ago; he got agitated if I planted something too close to the house that would just need to be trimmed back later. He is a pre-emptive fretter anyway, believing that early worrying gets you in shape for massive anxiety down the road, and so he was well-prepared for a personal breakdown by the time he got the ball rolling. He set up an impressive array of scaffolding to contend with our tower, all by himself, because he is a fit and strong sixty-year-old man with a hell of a work ethic. Unfortunately a strong sixty-year-old is still weaker than a strong 46-year-old, and that fact coupled with the weight of all the responsibility that he takes on led him to approach the job like a man walking to the gallows. He was deeply unhappy. And I know what that leads to. That leads to me being deeply unhappy.

Not Dave

Then a friend listened to Dave's concerns and said: "you know, that's what money is for." A light went on for Dave. For the first time it occurred to him that he needn't be responsible for everything that got done in the house. He hired the job out. Within a week the painting fairies showed up in profusion. They made themselves at home, even peeing behind the shed just like Dave used to before the raccoon incident. They crawled all over the house with scrapers and sprayers and a boom box set on Country 98.7, and within days things were shining up and I realized I could probably write a hit country-western song every day before breakfast, and twice on Sundays.

I am immensely proud of Dave. This took a complete change of perspective and humans are not wired for that. He had to change from a man who takes care of everything, particularly me, to one who is willing to relinquish control. He also had to veer away from the idea that this was evidence of his own deterioration, and he did. "I'm painting my house!" he exclaimed, while pulling up crab rings on Nehalem Bay. "I'm painting my house!" he exulted, hiking among wildflowers on Silver Star Mountain. He was painting his house, and he was providing local jobs, miraculously without receiving a tax cut first.

The emotional transformation did not go without a hitch. While home, he peered at the progress overmuch, noticing a bit of overspray here, a lack of industry there. I tried to demonstrate serenity by my reactions to the tromping of my garden. The fothergilla I'd been nursing for years was stomped at its roots. "It wasn't doing too well there anyway," I said. The whole south side was draped in plastic on a hot day, instantly frying all the foliage. "I meant to re-do that part of the garden anyway," I said.

Fried Salamander

This is something I'm pretty good at. When things go sideways, I adjust my attitude. It comes naturally. I have a strong aversion to despair, and I will totally make shit up if I have to. If my sandwich falls jelly-side down, I figure I'm gaining some fiber. If I have something amputated, I'll say I dropped a few pounds. I can even look at the state of the world and note that at least it's good for the handbasket industry.

Then I came home to find the offending killer plastic stretched over my boxwood topiary salamander and blew a gasket. This was an outrage. This was a cocker spaniel puppy locked in a car on a hot day. This would not stand.

I guess it's not the worst thing, after all, that Dave still cares how well something gets done, even if he doesn't do it himself. I guess I need to look at the big picture, too. Dave no longer feels compelled to take responsibility for everything that happens in the house. And that's a good thing. As long as this philosophy doesn't extend to cooking, that's a good thing.