Exit, Pursued by a Bear

I miss the butterflies

Finder’s points to spacing.ca: a proposal for facelifts at Museum, Osgoode and St. Patrick stations – the sarcophagi are my favourite. (I'm puzzled by the sprinters-and-racehorses meme at St. Patrick, though – what's with that?)

I'd enjoyed the plywood butterflies on the houses opposite Chester station for years, never thinking that I'd move into the neighbourhood and that it would end up as my subway station. Just about the time we moved in, though, the house that seemed to have most of them was sold, and the butterflies came down, except for a few on the house next door. It’s much-diminished – there used to be at least a dozen. Any proposal of this kind has to bring them back in some form – maybe by the turnstiles.

Pix!

all's well

Yesterday was a difficult day trying to establish breastfeeding, but he seemed to get the idea in the evening, and things have been pretty regular since then. (The 'he's already figured out breastfeeding' comment below was a new parent's error.)

The midwives' postpartum care is outstanding - we had two house calls Monday, one yesterday and one today. We're loyal fans.

1+1=3

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So, the suspense is over: C's water broke around 4a, regular strong contractions started from 5:45, midwives arrived 7:45, delivery followed at 10:50.

It was a planned homebirth, on a mattress in the middle of the living room floor. We'd planned on the bedroom, failing that the bright blue birthing pool in the middle of the dining room, but life had other ideas. Mother and baby are resting comfortably. A capable lad, he's already figured out breastfeeding. He has perfect tiny feet, which fascinate his parents. What the child of two journalists will be like has yet to be determined.

P, who through his whole life had wondered about the association between boiling water and childbearing, found himself boiling enormous quantities of water to keep up the temperature in the birthing pool.

The midwives were outstanding - if ­anyone is looking for some, let us know -

The Cherry Beach Express

This is a strange period - it's a bit like the time when we'd closed on the house, but couldn't move in yet.
We took the Snapper for a walk on Cherry Beach today -

Pix!

We went to Cobourg (on the Snapper's due date, very daring) and bought the missing bit from our fireplace arrangement: an iron basket to hold the wood. We were glad we held out, because the same item that we bought was on sale last weekend at the DoorStore for hundreds of dollars more. It was an identical fire basket, not a similar one - they must have been an Eaton's catalogue standard item a hundred years ago or so.

Having done that, we then had to buy a bag of firewood at an Esso station and have a fire. On our way home, we stopped at the Cobourg breakwater, which was stopping some spectacular waves - the local thing to do seems to be to drive right up to the end of the dock and enjoy watching the waves belching violently over the end of your car.

We also bought a very dignified brass mail slot, about the right period for the house (though I think it's repro) which was easier to install than I thought it would be.

Big Brother has stepped away from his desk

I’ve put a tag on the right-hand column (under the book images) linking to a service which is supposed to map where this blog’s readers are, though it’s not clear whether the map points refer to the readers themselves or to their ISPs.

The only time I tried a site that claimed to tell me where I was, it decided I was in a rural area of mid-upstate New York south of the Thruway, so I take these things with a grain of salt. (In fact, all of those scare sites that purport to show me how my online privacy is in peril have come up with pretty limited information.)

Having said that, there are apparently people in Genoa and in a building three blocks from the White House who care about the progress of my drywalling. Hi, Genoa!

Pix!

Mostly of the Snapper's room. The space below the window now has two thicknesses of insulation (there was room, so hey.) There was a howling draft from that space after I took the lath and plaster out - futher inquiry revealed that the space went directly to the internal space over the porch roof, so no wonder. During the windstorm last night, I could feel a puff of air a fraction of a second after a gust outside rattled the window. Now, it feels warm and snug.

All the other kids are doing it

Here's what Google had to say:

Patrick needs a very patient family who can provide consistency and structure
Patrick needs to change style
Patrick needs to take a closer look at how the Penguins are doing their business
Patrick Needs You!
Patrick needs your help acquiring penicillin
Patrick needs to win a race to keep from becoming a pretty face without credible results -- the Anna Kournikova of auto racing
Patrick needs to identify himself with a few issues and positions that are the opposite of what one would expect from a progressive
Patrick needs to talk about issues
Patrick needs a better violin
Patrick needs an official document for the tolerance to be applied in his procedure

Now we know.

progress

I finished framing in the Snapper’s room last night, except for an awkward bit around the window. My subconscious, having apparently batted some possible solutions around, came up with quite a simple one last night, so perhaps I’ll get on that on Sunday.
The floors in that room were damaged some time ago by leaks from the kitchen that used to be there and also by some ragged, gaping holes cut for piping, which are repaired functionally but not aesthetically, making refinishing awkward. The key is to find as many good floorboards from elsewhere in the room as possible for the repair, kind of like finding undamaged skin for a skin graft.
C’s idea of building a toy/storage box in the window area of that room has the advantage of freeing up a lot of floorboards for the repairs, as well as being good idea in its own right.

In other news, this ‘which (noun) are you’ blogging meme is officially out of control. (More below the fold.)

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You are Andreas Carlstadt. A one-time teacher of
Luther, you felt he wasn't willing to go far
enough in his reform efforts. After an outburst
of radical iconoclasm, you were driven out of
Wittenberg.


Which 16th century theologian are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by Patrick at 09:10 AM

soundproofing

We have party walls on both sides, which while I’m sure will save on heating (we could use some insulation – there’s none in the roof, yet) means that we hear the neighbours from time to time, just as I’m sure they hear us.

Which brings us to soundproofing. The current project is to frame out from the party wall in the Snapper’s room about a quarter inch from the wall (done last night) then foam in the gap between wall and stud (mostly done – I ran out of foam last night) then put soundproofing insulation (bought, now in the basement in bales) in the gap and drywall, then put the original baseboards back on, trimmed to fit. The Snapper’s outside wall (framing started last night) gets the same treatment, but with pink thermal insulation. In principle, it should be the quietest and warmest room on the second floor.

In other news: the new fireplace is installed. We need to wait until the mortar cures (Friday, or maybe Saturday) and to buy a new grate – it’s a different size from the old one. Also, we need a load of firewood. We have lots of kindling (see framing, above).

In other news, C.'s mat. leave in effect started today, though I think she's actually on vacation.

Posted by Patrick at 08:48 AM

signed out and overdue from the door library

I spent a frustrating couple of hours Monday establishing at length that although we inherited a sort of door library in the garage, of seven doors that had once been in various places in the house, a) the one I wanted, for the Snapper’s room, really was gone forever, and b) no other would substitute. I had hopes for one of them, enough to lug it all the way into the house and upstairs, but it’s too narrow - bah. I actually put it down to answer the phone, then realized as I talked that I’d propped it up beside its original doorway, a once (and perhaps future) bathroom.

In the meantime, though, I worked out where the other doors had been, which was interesting but not immediately useful.

We know the house was built (1912) using a lot of prefab mass-produced doors and trim, so I was hoping to reuse a door from somewhere else, if all else failed.

In the short term, the study door may be rotated to be the Snapper’s door - I don’t see how else to manage it. In the long run, though, we’re going to have to find a replacement door. I’m hoping to find one of the same pattern, which can’t (famous last words) be that difficult: the whole neighbourhood is built with the same interior detailing, as far as I can tell. (We also need a cast-iron heat register and some cast-iron doorknobs, and may be in a position to sell some things: we have an iron coal grate that doesn’t fit the new fireplace, and will have three sets of six-over-one windows when they get replaced.)

In any case, it’s time for an expedition to the Aladdin’s Cave of leftover house bits, Legacy Building Supplies in Cobourg, where I’ve made a couple of pilgrimages, always coming home with something heavy, improbable, and in need of severe cleaning.

There are two Toronto equivalents, apparently these people, now in bigger premises (These places need a lot of space, generally. The Cobourg one lives in a former CPR maintenance complex.) and these people, who may be too expensive for us, but deserve a look anyway. Anyone been to either?

Tonight: more framing in the Snapper’s room.

(The Snapper himself is thriving, we’re told, and certainly seems wiggly enough. He enjoys deep vibrating noises, like organs and power tools.)