I took another trip last week back to North Carolina to visit my father and my sister's family. My posting last November told of Dad making it home from a rehab facility after recovering from a broken knee.
Unfortunately that's not all the story. In early November Dad was hospitalized with a bowel obstruction. Surgery to correct the problem (scar tissue) was successful, but he's just not thrived after the second surgery in four months. My sister and I were hoping that he might make it home, but he is still very frail. I thought I'd pay him a quick visit. Along the way my sister and I managed to work through some tax and estate issues - I'm doing a bit of homework with one of my CPA friends on questions that arose.
I suspect I'll head back to see him around his birthday in mid-March: he'll be 90.
This beauty is another new work coming out of the temporary shop space. The black material is a man-made composite called PaperStone: it's formed from recycled newspaper and natural resins. It's so waterproof that it survived being submerged in flood waters for days with no effect at all. John shaped these sensuous forms from slabs of the material, and then mounted a polished wooden ball. It looks unstable and completely improbable, but it's actually rock-solid.
John has a new show at Legion Arts here in Cedar Rapids that opens next week. Legion Arts was severely damaged by the floods last year, but they're now running full-steam.
John created this new eight foot standing sculpture entirely from materials recovered from the summer floods.
So many people helped us in the flood recovery effort. The first project John took on after getting his new temporary shop running was to take selected materials that we recovered from the flood waters and to create sculptures for our helpers. Here you can see an array of the sculptures before he played Santa in January last week. Each work is unique, but all have similar designs.
With the wood moved out of our Annex, John's moved his shop temporarily into the Annex space. Our Annex is a second building - the old garage and a large (800 square foot) addition - that we're planning for media, music, and exercise. John rehabbed the old garage space into our cool gym space several years ago.
The large addition how houses John's shop, minus his new table saw. Because the table saw is so difficult to relocate, John doesn't want to set it up just yet. But he's gotten the rest of his new tools out and running. Here he's using his spiffy Festool sander and vacuum setup. Festool's a premium German tool maker. Their tools use a common vacuum system: the sander, for example, actually pulls dust through vents in the sanding pad, giving effectively dustless sanding. The vacuum is HEPA-filtered, so the place stays clean.
With the wood moved out of our Annex, John's moved his shop temporarily into the Annex space. Our Annex is a second building - the old garage and a large (800 square foot) addition - that we're planning for media, music, and exercise. John rehabbed the old garage space into our cool gym space several years ago.
The large addition how houses John's shop, minus his new table saw. Because the table saw is so difficult to relocate, John doesn't want to set it up just yet. But he's gotten the rest of his new tools out and running. Here he's using his spiffy Festool sander and vacuum setup. Festool's a premium German tool maker. Their tools use a common vacuum system: the sander, for example, actually pulls dust through vents in the sanding pad, giving effectively dustless sanding. The vacuum is HEPA-filtered, so the place stays clean.
The big news is that John's gotten all the big lumber pieces moved from our Annex building (a 1200 square foot structure just in back of our home) to the place where his new shop will eventually be, in the Cherry Building - about ten blocks from our home. The lumber storage area is on the third floor of the Cherry Building where it'll be high and dry if any more flood waters come our way.
John's shop will eventually be on the first floor of the Cherry Building in an annex area that's filled with great light. The first floor of the Cherry Building was completely wiped out in the June floods. As with many projects around Cedar Rapids, reconstruction after the flood is taking much longer than one could have imagined. Because no one knows exactly when John may be able to occupy his new shop space, he's setting up temporary quarters back in the Annex where the lumber used to be. There's 800 square foot of clear work area, and he's assembling the tools he'll need to get going again.
It's the beginning of the return of light! (Though you wouldn't know it here in Siberian Iowa where the wind chill is below -20F.) This is my Yule wreath for this year. Taking an old English custom, I decorate a wreath with apples to symbolize the equinoxes and solstices.
John and his landlord worked out the details on some temporary storage space in the building where he'll have his shop. The first floor of that building was damaged by the June floods, but John now has storage space on the third floor. He'll lay out the new space and then begin moving the stacks of lumber that we've had stored here after the floods.
No word yet on when he'll have access to the new shop space. That space will be on the first floor of the same building - in a very stylish brick annex where he'll mostly be by himself. I suspect the final renovation of the shop space will now run well into 2009, but at least John can begin getting his lumber and equipment staged and organized.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday: it's all about food and friends. I love cooking for T-Day, and this year was just a slight variation. Usually I do a disassembled turkey breast roasted per Julia Child's instructions. This year I did one of those and I smoked a breast on the grill with cherry wood. John's brother Jay and his wife Janece came, as did his sister Jane and her husband Roger and kids Jacob and Rachel. Our friends David and Mary Taylor and Rick Hahn rounded out our eleven folks.
We were swimming in food - and I had one surprise: almost all the turkey vanished. The smoked stuff was a real hit!
1. Last summer I tried using the window in my office. It opened fine, but it wouldn't close. John finally pushed it shut from the outside, and we contacted the Pella Window folks to come take a look. Their inspector found dry rot in the windows and conducted a complete inspection of every window in the house. (John will only use Pella windows, by the way.) The inspector said the company would be back to us with quote and schedule to replace the four defective windows.
Turns out there was no quote - just someone from the Pella factory calling to replace all the windows free-of-charge. He did the job in about an hour, and I'm a happy camper.
2. I've sworn by Shure in-ear headphones for years: sonically they're impeccably good, and they're just wonderful for blocking ambient noise. My SE530's developed a real problem: the earpiece cracked so I couldn't put the left element in my ear.
Not to worry: I sent 'em back to Shure under their two year full warranty. About a week later I got a complete new package, factory sealed and perfect in every way.
I've had some friends ask what's been going on: I've not been updating my blog very much of late. Lots of changes have been going on, and our new Teahouse is a big part of that. I've just finished editing video of how the building came together. Now for a bit of the backstory.
Our old shed was ready to fall down when John moved into this place in 1983. John got permits to replace the old shed back in 2001. but with work on the house and work for clients, he's been too busy even to contemplate another major project.
After the summer floods, John had (and still has) no working shop. About the same time I thumbed through a book on Japanese architecture that he had, and I wistfully talked about how beautiful the teahouses were. A little gleam went on in his eyes, and he started reworking the old shed plans with a different use in mind.
After the demolition finished, his old friend and master builder Franklin Hanson came available to help with the project. John and Franklin did the structural work on the renovation of our house, and I was delighted that Franklin could come back and help again.
The video shows most of the story - with a few exceptions. Some of the construction phases, like raising the walls, happened while I was at a client's site during a day. I literally returned to find all the walls in place and sheeting done. Other phases, like putting on an incredibly beautiful metal roof, escaped the camera, too.
John and Franklin buttoned up the exterior this year, and I'm actively using the space as my meditation retreat. Next spring John plans to complete the siding and the interior walls and floor. We've already found a supplier for tatami mats, and he'll build some low tables. We're talking with some of our artist friends about commissioning pieces for the space. One of these artists is a renowned Japanese ceramics artist; the other is a sumi-e painter. I'll follow up this story as the project completes.
I made it home almost a week ago from a reasonably successful trip helping my almost ninety year-old father come home from a rehab facility.
After I wrote my last post things got busy quickly. Dad came home on 24 October. The first day or so was practical care: Dad was getting used to living at home rather than having all the help he'd had in the rehab facility. I was chief dish-and-bottle-washer (as my mother would have said), and spotted him as he got used to using his walker for daily tasks.
Things got better fast. By Sunday, 26 October, he was up making his own breakfast (oatmeal and raisins, which he eats 365 days a year) with just a little help from me. Because he was discharged as housebound, he qualifies for Medicare-covered in-home services from a registered nurse, a physical therapist, and an occupational therapist. The first RN visit happened while I was there. I was extremely impressed with this firm and their staff: they were incredibly supportive and caring - and focused on getting him back in his usual game.
I fixed and froze almost two weeks of dinners before I left on the 28th. My goal was to relieve my sister Jill from needing to cook every day for him. I took off and Jill stepped in to continue the practical care.
He's now able to fix all his food, and his occupational therapist has fired him because he's already doing everything he needs to do at home. I'll head back down shortly after the first of the year.
Dad started feeling sick this morning, so we didn't try moving him home. Jill and I did get him to a doctor's appointment, though. I am concerned about his ability to get around on his own once we get him back here.
I flew back to North Carolina today to help my father get settled in his home again after being in a rehab facility for two months. My sister, Jill, and brother-in-law Carl have done an incredible job of getting his home adapted for his needs. We'll bring him home tomorrow. I'll hang out here with him for a week. We're all hoping he'll start feeling comfortable here again.
Michael Mejia: Scrawny to Brawny : The Complete Guide to Building Muscle the Natural Way When I read this book I thought the author had access to my personal exercise history and problems. This is the first book I've ever read that provided rehabilitation exercises for shoulders and legs before beginning weight training. A fabulous book for gangly types. (*****)
