Bricks: Gospel #9

Geez, summer came in and I lost blogging. It hasn't been for lack of inspiration, more like--I'm lazy.

This weekend I spent time in Eugene after a work trip and it was a rare moment where it was just my mom and me. Lately there's been that pesky niece around, or somebody's husband or boyfriend, or something, so it was nice to just have the two of us to do what we do best, and together: Fussle. That's fuss and bustle together; you know, messing about with house projects and ideas and paperwork.

Saturday we biked around town, went to see a movie, and hissed at raccoons on the bike path on the way home. Then there was Sunday. My mom used craigslist for the first time and I'm impressed because a) she didn't call me to ask how, b) she posted and deleted an ad, and c) she was not unaccompanied to meet "Alan" at the sketchy, edge-of-town warehouse. We met Alan Sunday afternoon to see about some bricks. The bricks are to be used in a path to my mom's new little bunkhouse/garden shed out back. It's a darling thing that will help us deal with the overflow in the house on busy family weekends and a spot to read, sew, meditate, etc. My mom has created the building with primarily recycled materials (windows, flooring, lights, and so on). So, we went to see about a pile of old bricks for the path. Bear in mind that our meeting time and date was with Alan--whose partner was unavailable because a) he doesn't have many teeth left, b) "wrecked his car last night," and c) lost his cell phone in the car debacle and was therefore difficult to reach. So, we met Alan. I made plans for how to escape the warehouse area quickly, while my mom made sure we had hats and water to keep us out of the sun and hydrated.

What was a grand pile of bricks was no longer. It was some bricks, buried, and broken. But we spent two hours digging through the pile and finally came out with about 220 bricks. So, foolish as it may have seemed to simply save $275, we had a great time and my biceps are all the better for it.

At one point, my mom stopped and said, "There are only two people in the world who would do this with me. My sister and you." And she's right; furthermore, this means someday my kid will be blogging about me.