"Hey, Stace - whaddja do to your lip?"

"I dropped a stove on it."

Well, the good news is that I have a stove. The amusing news (for someone who was watching, not participating) was getting it home.

Sunday morning, Lisa came by with her truck. We went to Michele's house & hoped that someone would be home. I knew Michele would not be there. She had called me the night before & told me that she was in Monterey. The house remodeling project was too much so she left town for the weekend. I was welcome to come and get her old stove. The only catch was that I had to get myself inside the garage.

Lisa & I got to the house & found the painters hard at work with power tools. I tried to tell them I was taking the stove but they 1) didn't speak English and/or 2) didn't care. I figured I should tell someone before I drove away with the stove. (ha! as if it would be that easy). I knocked on the new tenant's door and introduced myself. They'd moved in the day before. I told them I was a friend of Michele's and there to pick up the stove. They didn't know or care about the stove.

Now to unearth the stove. It had been buried under a pile of construction derbis. We pulled away the dry wall and unearthed a 1950s Kenmore gas stove. It's big & has some style points. Getting it into the truck was going to be a challenge. We couldn't lift it. Fortunately, the contractor happened along at that moment. Between the three of us, we managed to get the stove into the truck. The truck got the stove to my house. That was the easy part. We got the stove out of the truck and through the front door into the entry way.

Next step: stairs.

There's only one flight of stairs but there's still stairs. This wasn't going to be fun. In fact, it wasn't possible with the two of us. Fortunately, Rosanne was on her way over so Lisa & I hung out in the yard until Rosanne came over. Rosanne didn't know what she was getting into. She thought she was just stopping by for a visit. Little did she know that manual labor was involved. Between the three of us (mostly Lisa), we got the stove up the stairs. In the process, the stove fell against my face and split my lip open. It wasn't a bad cut and really didn't swell that much. It's just annoying. It looks like a giant cold sore.

Once the stove was at the top of the stairs, we had to get it towards the kitchen. However, the doorway was too narrow. We started by pulling the knobs off the front. The oven control had a spring in it which sprung loose. I wasn't sure how it was going to go back. Removing the knobs didn't give enough room. Lisa took the door off the hinges and that did it. I put down cardboard to protect the new linoleum floor. We pushed, dragged and pulled the stove into the middle of the kitchen.

Success! Next, Diane came by with her chain saw. In less than 20 minutes, the big fig tree in the back yard was transformed into a pile of kindling. Once the chain saw was out, Diane wanted to cut more stuff. She took off a couple branches from the lemon tree. It sure has seen a lot of pruning over the past couple weeks.

Then the three of us hauled the old concrete sink into the yard. There used to be a concrete utility sink in the garage. To install the washer/dryer, I'd had to remove the concrete sink & replace it with a smaller plastic one. What to do with the concrete sink? Make it into a planter, of course! The difficult part was how to get it into the yard. Well, between the three of us, we managed to get it outside.

Then I went to the nursery & bought plants. I bought 6 San Francisco Fog Tomatos, 4 Roma tomato plants, one zucchini, 6 basil, one white sage, one chamomile, one shallots, 6 snow peas (to replace the ones that were eaten by something. maybe the something is full and it won't eat these new ones) and one large cat nip plant. While I was planting everything else, Mira discovered the cat nip and started alternately rolling in it and eating it. I eventually got the plant away from her and planted it in the yard. By morning, something else (the orange cat?) had eaten the rest of the catnip plant. I suspect I will never be able to grow cat nip in this yard.

Stacey