done and still undone

Constructing Mom's field kitchen proceeded well for about an hour or so. I was able to get the basic structure completed: as you'll see in upcoming photos, Mom will have plenty of shelf and counter space. Alas, I had to stop and help out with another project that consumed most of the day: laying the foundation for the new deck that will embrace two sides of our porch-turned-dining room. The deck will be L-shaped, beginning at the dining room's sliding door and moving around to the side facing the back yard, much like a miniature boardwalk.

The deck will be almost two feet off the ground, placing it slightly below the sliding door in order to keep dust and snow from too easily drifting inside the house, as would happen were the deck exactly level with the sliding door's bottom edge. Dad has to order the parts for the deck Tuesday morning; I'm not sure how long it will take for the parts to arrive. Once they're here, it'll be up to the family to assemble the deck; this particular labor isn't covered in the renovation contract, but Mr. Jeong, the Big Boss, will be teaching Dad and me how to put the deck together.

The whole thing starts with a good foundation, and that's what occupied Dad's and my time for much of today. We had to visit the local hardware store for two things: eight 6x6es, plus fifty 80-pound bags of concrete. That's right: two tons of 'crete. Dad and I went and got the 6x6es together, using Mr. Jeong's pickup. Dad did the second errand alone; the hardware store folks used a forklift to load an entire cargo skid of concrete onto the truck; when Dad got back home, he and I offloaded twenty-four of the bags.

The offloading was an adventure in itself: Mr. Jeong (who speaks to me almost entirely in Korean, even though I'm not always sure what he's saying) told me that I needed to place two bags of concrete beside each four-foot-deep hole that had been dug in the ground. These holes were an amazing accomplishment; Mr. Jeong's assistant, Mr. Park, and an extra laborer named Juan spent two or three days digging them (Juan didn't look very happy today). The holes are about two feet in diameter and, as mentioned, four feet deep. There were fourteen of them by the time Mr. Park and Juan had finished; two were possible misfires, and had been covered with our now-useless flagstones. The other twelve, though, needed two bags of concrete placed next to them. 24 bags. 1920 pounds of dry QuiKrete.

Dad had suffered a minor heart attack in 2006 on April 7, the day after his and Mom's wedding anniversary. He's been fine since then (no damage to the heart muscle, though he does have arterial stents*), but today was the first time in ages that he had pushed himself so hard. While Dad has certainly been more vigorous ever since his medical treatment and convalescence, I worry he may be exceeding his limits. But Dad and my brother David are two of a kind: they spend their lives flirting with danger. David loves mountain biking and moonlights at a dangerous** DC nightclub; Dad will stand under thunderstorms or climb onto the roof of the house to fix a shingle that hangs over a dangerous drop.

The bags of concrete were placed at the edges of each of the twelve relevant holes. Juan eventually came along with a shovel; he jabbed it into one bag, allowing the concrete to flow, gravity-impelled, into the hole. The second bag met the same fate seconds later; it was a bit like watching a pig slaughter. The concrete sacks, emptied of their contents, were collected by Dad and unceremoniously thrown away.

Once all twenty-four bags had been poured, the 6x6es, which had been cut into roughly six-foot-long sections, were pounded into the holes. Poor Juan, without whom most of today would not have been possible, ended up muscling the rest of the bags (mind you, that's twenty-six sacks this time; we'd purchased fifty sacks) over to the holes, again putting two bags at every hole, except for two holes, which received three bags of concrete. With the 6x6 poles in, and after a lengthy alignment process to straighten them, the second wave of concrete was poured in by Juan, with Mr. Jeong by his side, using our garden hose to fire water into the mix and stir the concrete. Everyone but Mr. Jeong wore a mask to protect their lungs from the smoky powder. I guess Big Bosses don' need no stinkin' masks.

After so much movement, the poles were obviously out of alignment again, but this time around, Mr. Jeong brought out a laser that worked like a horizontal plumb line, allowing its user to align the poles with great precision. Once the poles were aligned, the earth that had been dug out to form the holes was shoveled and tamped back in place; a third laser-guided realignment occurred, after which Mr. Jeong told us in Konglish, "Naeil achim ggaji touch hajimaseyo!" ("Don't touch until tomorrow morning!") The QuiKrete Dad had bought was the 24-hour variety, with firmness (mmmm... firmness) achieved within six hours.

While it's taken me only a few paragraphs to describe the foundation-making process, it actually took most of the day to do what we did-- and that's not counting the two or three previous days of hole-digging. Upshot: we had a busy day. My makeshift kitchen needs an exoskeleton, and that won't be happening until sometime tomorrow. It's also very likely that, as the weather gets colder, I'll be taking over more and more KP duty, unless by some miracle I acquire a whole slew of French students, which will mean time away from home as I drive around the DC-Metro area.

Photos-- of smoky holes, the kitchen, and people in masks-- are on their way. Don't laugh when you see the kitchen.

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*Not "stints"!! A "stint" is a bit like a "gig"-- something done for a period of time, such as "a Peace Corps stint in Somalia" or "a teaching stint in rural China" or "a stint in the Foreign Legion." A "stent" is a tiny, tubular device placed inside a blood vessel to reinforce a weak spot and provide better blood flow.

Visit Dictionary.com and see the definitions for yourself, then note the Google ads off to the side, rife with misuses of "stint." Watch them vowels!

**Dave's groupies might have a different perception of the place, but David's come home with some interesting stories about some of the more dangerous denizens of the club where he tends bar. Frankly, I'm worried sick about this, but it's David's life to live as he chooses. What, in the end, is risk-free?


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