The week started out cold, windy, and nasty. It's the middle of April and it's snowing. I think Mother Nature and Father Time were having some sort of spat and we were the ultimate losers.
But, wouldn't you know it come Tax Day, Mother Nature thought it would be a cruel joke to make that a beautiful day...
Nothing like waiting until the last minute to get our taxes done. Despite suffering through our appointment that ended with a negative outcome, it was uplifting that our after-taxes tradition was so pretty. We've been having our taxes done near Titlow Beach in Tacoma for over 30 years. For most of those 30 years we've gone down Titlow Beach to either celebrate or commiserate the outcome of our tax appointment at Steamer's Seafood Cafe'. When the weather is nice, we walk along the beach, or at least watch others engage in that activity. When you think about it, it's amazing that both the tax service and restaurant have both stayed in business to humor us for the 30+ years of our annual tax tradition.
This is a beautiful view of the Tacoma Narrows showing both Narrows bridges in the background with the ruins of the old ferry dock in the foreground. In 1911 Aaron Titlow opened a hotel here and this ferry brought tourists from Seattle to vacation as well as provide a rudimentary grocery store (think 7-11) for the locals and others travelling the Narrows water highway from Seattle to Olympia. Although the old ferry dock is fast disappearing, part of the old hotel still lives on today as the Titlow Beach Community Center.
The sun is setting on the Tacoma Narrows. Fox Island is across the Narrows looking picturesque in the setting sun.
Saturday was Chelsea's bridal shower, a day I had been looking forward to for a long time. Although Chelsea has this wedding planned, bridesmaids dresses bought, and a wedding dress in her closet for some time, this shower in her honor made the wedding feel "real". Payton was the perfect lady while learning about female traditions. Unfortunately with all the action, Harry and Logo had to be "confined to quarters" in Kyanne's bedroom during all the action. Here's three generations of JoAnn's family, JoAnn, Jenna, & Payton.
I made Chelsea's gift, but I had my fingers crossed as to how she'd like it. When we were at JoAnn's for Carissa's birthday, JoAnn brought out some family heirlooms that did not make the cut in her rapidly reducing household size. Everyone loved this old picnic basket with it's short bio written by Grama inside, but no one wanted to take custody. Although I didn't have a use for it, I didn't want to see it go wherever it might be headed to so I brought it home.
After looking at it for a while trying to give it a new life I decided to make it into a sewing basket for Chelsea's wedding shower. That would neatly wrap up three needs. Chelsea's shower gift, giving the basket a loving home, and Chelsea gets a starter sewing basket. It was a lot of fun to upcycle the basket and even more fun to stock it up. I'm glad I had plenty of time since I had to make a lot of trips to JoAnn Fabrics use one 40% off coupon per visit to buy materials, scissors, and supplies. I laminated the basket bio Grama had tucked inside the basket and sewed it into the lid of the box so Chelsea could feel Grama with her each time she used her basket. You can see the basket's bio sewn into the lid below.
Chelsea opened her basket and seemed to be very happy with it. She loves family heirlooms so I hope this multi-tasking basket will be with her for many years to come.
Bob and I have been doing the Tulip Rallye for several years. It's a lot of fun with an unknown route, puzzles with the answers giving clues to the route, and trivia used to find an unknown destination. Obviously since this takes one to drive and one to navigate so Ryan took one for the team and hopped in the right seat as navigator instead of me since I was at Kyanne's house for Chelsea's shower. Since Bob already thinks Ryan walks on water anyway, he loved having Ryan with him on the rallye. This was also a good solution since it got Ryan well away from the estrogen charged age-old tradition of starting a new bride off with items for her household while providing both Bob and Ryan with entertainment.
At the rallye, the XJS is ready and waiting for it's turn to ride the raindrops, it's never been in the rain since we've had it. Although Bob went prepared with duct tape and towels, there were no leaks and both guys returned as dry as they left.
Not only did Ryan, Bob, and the Jag have to travel through pouring rain, there were puddles, muddy road shoulders, and dirt parking lots. The end result is that the Jag got it's very first "wet" bath. As sparkly as this car is, Bob has only used "dry" products on it so far. It's never had to undergo the humiliation of being washed in the driveway like a common mongrel.
Nitro is excited it's spring because I put his summer grass in the catio. He gets so excited about his little slice of nature and the opportunity to become one with Mother Nature. By the end of the day he's pretty much grazed it down to the nubbins layed on it, rolled in it, and eaten it. It's kind of sad that he's so ignorant as to be happy with a little patch of wheat grass from the grocery store while thinking he's a big tough outdoor wildcat. I suppose that's what would some would say the same about me.
After the black and gray primer coats, the last step is the guide coat. This is a speckley coat of black paint over the last coat of gray. This is used to show where Bob has sanded and where he has left to sand. Below is a close-up of the guide coat on the bonnet. It's kind of pretty so it's sad that it has to go.
Bob's starting the sanding process. You can see that he's taken the guide coat off half the top.
Here I'm being told if I want to keep my drawing finger, I'll need to stop drawing smiley faces on his project.
RestoCat drops in to help Bob sand.
Guess what happens when you tell me not to do something?
...twice.
After priming the outside of the car and bonnet, the underside of the bonnet needs to be prepped. There is a skim of rust and soundproofing inside the bonnet that needs to be removed. Typically this is done by sandblasting. Sandblasting has several downsides such as not easily being cleaned from crevices and holding water to invite more rust. The answer to that is the soda blaster Bob bought earlier.
Step One: RestoCat reads the instructions.
Then we carried the hood outside and inverted it. Two old people trying to do this without destroying the "finished" primer, or even the bonnet itself was quite a show.
The inside of the hood has old adhesive, rust, and patches where Bob's tried several techniques to remove the rust. Soda blasting is supposed to be the answer for all of this...
Although it makes a huge mess, it's a lot less messy than his go 'round with sandblasting was.
Bob's puts up a huge cloud of soda as he gets into the blasting process. He's really going to town now and making great strides...
...buut this is Washington and just because it's sunny does not mean it's gonna stay sunny! This here is what is known as a "Washington Fail".
So we carried the bonnet back inside, baking soda and all, to wait the weather out. I know, however, that Bob is not patient enough to wait that long and will probably get the job done by hand before we see sun the next time.
We'll see what next week holds!
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