Today was a damned satisfying day. It was an HMT day, and satisfying HMT days are few and far-between – but I got to do lots of different things today, and that always seems to make a day go by swifter, even an uber-long one like this.
I got to be a salesperson, which at least in small amounts and with people who aren’t obnoxious / under the age of 14 / actively bleeding on the merchandise / looking for things that we obviously don’t have / OWN a child under the age of 14 / whatever… I can really enjoy the problem solving that goes into getting people what they want. Of course, part of today’s problem was finding a concertina for a 65-year old bus driver in Alaska who plays accordion for autistic children at traffic lights… who is finding the accordion too heavy for her as she ages and wants something full chromatic but lighter…. But the rest of the people I dealt with were generally pretty pleasant…
I got to do a photo shoot with my new SLR – Kristen and I dragged a dozen instruments into the Takoma Park gazebo and shot the Hell out of them in the sunshine. Unfortunately we should’ve aimed for a more panoramic composition, but that just means we might have to do it again!
It was a beautiful day and I had excuses to go to the hardware store (twice) and lunch (once) and the photo shooting (for an hour)… and we opened the windows and generally made a terrific noise with banjos for a bit, which truly is one of the best ways to pass a beautiful day.
I got to play guitar, which makes my fingers wake up and tingle – and I got to play at being a manly construction guy with Paul and Rowan. We installed slat wall and I did it without killing myself or others!
There’s something extremely satisfying about construction. I spent much of my “downtime” in the store today clearing an entire room bit by bit so that by the time Rowan arrived at close we could simply slide the new walls in, lift and screw.
Sounds so simple. We had to find studs before we could screw. And then make sure everything was straight. And we measured twice and cut twice… but it was on two different thingies so that was pretty much according to plan.
Yup. Thingies. I didn’t really know too much of what I was doing. I held what Rowan said to hold, drilled where I was told to drill, handed him stuff that he told me he needed and generally endeavoured to be an effective assistant.
And then I cleaned up the sawdust and the screws and the scraps and took a look at our handiwork and felt quite satisfied.
Yeah – it’s been a good day.
