Day 6: The Porch That Was and Will Be

What I really wanted to do today was repair and/or replace and rehang my front door so it opens to the right instead of the left. What I realized is that I can't even take the door off its hinges by myself unless I have a front porch first.

I've known from the start that I was going to have to build a new front porch/step unit. The old one was so poorly built, was so rickety, and was so compromised by dry rot that I wouldn't even try to use it. Just pushed it aside, pulled out the original metal step unit from under my frame, and have been using that to enter/exit the trailer instead.

I have the materials to build one. Two weeks before I moved, my brother-in-law tore out a ramp/porch unit at his house and set all the usable lumber aside for me to take/use as I saw fit. (actually, my friend, Rod, tore out the ramp while my brother-in-law, Dave, did the porch unit apparently). Saved him from having to pay to have it hauled away, and gave me more than enough for the porch/step unit I had in mind.

To clear the area, I had to take the old unit apart. It was a beast of a thing. Way too much lumber, way too many nails, and not nearly enough screws to make it any kind of real pleasure.

Old porch/step unit

Men seem to have a real thing for nailing stuff like this together instead of using screws like I think they should. With repeated use, nails work loose no matter how many of them you pound into whatever you're building. It's really hard to get a precise, square join because of all the pounding you have to do to get them in. And when they either fall apart, or you have to take them apart, you have all these really sharp, sometimes really rusty things poking out everywhere that have to be dealt with.

Welcome to my morning.

Three and a half hours after I start, I've finally gotten the old unit broken down, if not into all of its constituent parts, then into most of them with a couple of bits, too tough to break apart, sitting in my dump pile smirking at me and my panty-waist upper arm strength.

They are not the only things I've given up on.

I'm learning that, unless it's absolutely necessary, it's better to simply acknowledge that it's really too hot some days to do any kind of really heavy manual labor.

Today is one of those kinds of days, and building a new porch unit is one of those kinds of jobs.

I make a pitcher of iced coffee, pour myself a glass, turn on the fan, throw on my bathing suit, and spend the next four or five hours staying cool while I wait for the temperature to drop below 95 again.

95 is my limit. I don't have a thermometer, but for the last twenty years, when the temperature hits 95, I reliably break into a solid sweat sitting still that won't stop even in front of a fan.

The first thing everyone asks me when they find out where I'm living is whether or not I have an air conditioner. I don't, and I don't plan on buying one either. I don't really like them. I'm one of those people who get really cold really easily, and I have a very hard time getting warm again. Air conditioners make me really cold - so cold I end up going back outside just to get warm again. All that back and forth - in addition to whatever's being recirculated in all that cold air - take their toll on my immune system.

Besides, I really like being hot. Hot is summer, and not a lot of clothes. Hot is slow. Hot is languid. Hot is people sitting together in the shade, drinking iced tea, fanning themselves, and talking about how hot it is. Hot is being reminded that you're part of, and effected by the passing moods of the season. Hot is loving a soft breeze. Hot is sleeping under sheets in a room that smells like the sun. Hot is being aware of the skin you inhabit.

Most of all, hot drives you experience water in ways that cold cannot: the sheer pleasure of its taste and feel on your tongue, the shudder of still surprising delight that explodes in your mouth when you bite down on a piece of ice, the softness with which it parts and surrounds your feet as you step into it, that odd hesitation you feel about giving yourself over to its cool welcoming embrace that just moments before you were telling yourself you had to have, the deep breath you take when you dive to meet it face to face again, and the subtle exhilaration you feel when you surface from its depths to float, dance, and play in its arms.

Water makes hot days like this, not simply bearable, but immensely and sublimely enjoyable.

Getting wet, drying out, and getting wet all over again simply feels better than going inside, being surrounded by cold air, and coming outside into the hot air again. One is actually pleasant. The other most definitely is not.

For now - until I have the time/space to set up my little pool - I spend my afternoon hours running through, standing in, or sitting right next to my Miss Spider sprinkler. I read. I make lists. I play games on my kindle. I drink iced coffee. I listen to music.

At five, still in my bathing suit, I go back to work. By eight, with the sun going down, and the light fading, I have all the framing for the porch cut and screwed together. I lay decking over the top and give it a couple of tentative steps, then a couple of good bounces, to make sure it's solid. It is. The ground under it will need to be leveled tomorrow morning before I do anything else. Not my favorite job, but it'll go fast, and by the end of the day tomorrow I'm thinking I should be able to have the whole thing done and ready for its first coat of paint.

We'll see. One thing for sure. It's definitely going to be at least this hot again.