Back From the Cape...

Rick came in from western Mass. on Sunday night so we could get an early start at heading down to the Cape. He brought his guitar and we made some music to Sylvia's delight. It's been a while since we'd done that around here. On our way out, the next morning we first stopped and bought a new 24 foot ladder. We got down there a little before noon, unloaded the van and got set up to start sanding trim and finishing the washing. I headed in town for lunch and there seemed to be a lot of noise coming from the front end of the van... stopped at a service station to make an appointment to get it looked at. Back to continue with the prep... Rick sanding while I chased the mildew that we hadn't removed with the power washer. A quick stop at the pub (not the expensive one) at the end of the day, Rick bought me supper and we hung out watching TV. In the morning we took my van to get looked at and got some supplies at the paint store. Michael and Paul arrived mid morning... Michael started in on the carpentry projects and Paul started priming the trim. At noon I went back to check on the van and was told that the ball joints were shot... big money. Gotta fix it, though. Got wood for Michael to replace some rotted trim with. Rick finished up his sanding and started to stain a small area of the pool house toward the end of the day. I got a call saying the van was ready and Paul gave me a lift over. It seems fine, now. Paul went out for supper, while Rick and Michael shared a pizza. Michael didn't finish his half and saved a slice, carefully wrapping it up and putting it in the fridge. At some point Rick found it and ate it! We didn't find this out until morning, when Michael went looking for it. Michael seemed more amused about it, than pissed off. I can't say that I felt the same way.
Anyway... it went on like this for the week... Michael continued with the carpentry, Paul painted trim, Rick stained shingles and I washed areas with various chemicals in an attempt to make the body of the house as uniform as possible. Paul took a hissy fit when we asked him to get lunch for us... then didn't get us drinks. He later bought his own food to cook on the grill so he wouldn't be put in that position again. Stephen showed up on Thursday and worked on the staining with Rick. I moved from washing the body of the house to cleaning the windows from the overspray of the pressure washing and scrubbing down the vinyl bits. I never did pick up a paint brush!
One night Paul and Rick pulled out their guitars and we had some music.
We had a fox visit us in the backyard.
My phone fell out of my pocket into a bucket of cleaning solution... took it apart and dried it in the sun, seems to work okay... sometimes the buttons are a bit stubborn.
On Friday I spent about 4 hours cleaning up the house... dishes, coffee maker, sweep up, collect beer cans, pizza boxes, etc.
Interesting dynamics with this lot... I've known them all for a long time... Michael since 2nd grade (about 47 years), Rick since college (about 35 years), Steve about 20 years and Paul about 10 years. And they've all known each other via me for a long time. Just another dysfunctional family, I guess.