July 19th: More fun at Studio City

Jill's backyard, musical "Site"

Rebecca and Jill invited me to watch the musical Hamilton on the big projection screen in Jill's back yard. It's a very nice back yard with a great garage wall for a screen. Jill and Rebecca set up the projection equipment while Ollie entertained me. He's a feisty, friendly and fun little dog.








Jill provided a hot dog roast over her fire pit, including chili and roasted marshmallow s'mores. It's been a long time since I was at a hot dog roast and it was great.

Jill's signature cookies

And of course Jill made some of her signature cookies decorated just for the Hamilton screening. They looked so good it was again hard to eat them, but in the end we managed quite well. They are truly decadent! Jill twisted our arms so we had to take some home to go with our morning tea.

Streaming Hamilton in Jill's back yard

Ollie

We couldn't start the musical until it was pretty dark. The musical was pretty long and ended about 11:45 PM. Despite getting a little sleepy, the musical was very engaging so I stayed awake. Of course Ollie coming by every so often to look for me to pet him helped.






The weather was perfect. It was a very enjoyable evening and Rebecca's friends were a lot of fun. The yard was big enough for us to practice social distancing, even though everyone had been staying home bound until that night.


I slept in Saturday morning but London woke Rebecca up early as usual. (When I say early I mean 6 AM!) Fortunately, London just ate his breakfast and they went back to bed.

Removed numerous brackets
and started on the dry wall

My goal Saturday was to start taking down the many old brackets and bad dry wall in Rebecca's garage. It's a good sized garage but the interior is in pretty rough shape. We decided to take everything down to the studs and then put up new dry wall. I warned Rebecca this would be a many phase project. She said, "No problem."

I had done some surveillance and planning on my last trip up and
consequently ordered a very hefty 3 foot crow bar. It came in very handy. Some of the brackets were in a beam with 4 inch nails.

Half of the West wall drywall removed 

With the brackets removed I could remove the dry wall without too much effort. The hardest part was the 10 foot high wall, so I had to use the step ladder. Lots of climbing up and down. Good thing I had been doing the stairs at Swami's!

I had planned to finish the west wall but only completed half of it. Still it was a good day's work. There's always next time. It's not like it's urgent and with the CO#19, what else is there to do?







I was leaving the next day to get back for an eye appointment the following afternoon. I had put off getting an eye exam and new glasses for over 6 months because doing that in the Keys is "Iffy." With the CO#19 it took a while to get in so I wasn't going to miss the appointment. Rebecca, Trevi, London and I enjoyed the remainder of the afternoon and evening. Did I say the dogs are very lovable?








I decided to give Rebecca a break and took the dogs for their evening walk. You just never know what you'll come across in Studio City. These people are really into old cars and the 4th of July.






I knew that Rebecca had bought a portable air conditioning unit in her TV room that worked very well, but required dumping the condensed water quite often. I suggested we run a hose out the back wall under the dog door so she wouldn't have to empty the bucket. She thought it was a great idea.

Then she said, "You know, I think that dog door is too low for London." I agreed. She said, "If we raise it up, then we can run the hose easily." Made sense. I wanted to get it done before I left because it would be at least a couple weeks before my next visit and the summer heat was really kicking in. Lots of water dumping! Besides, how hard could it be? You guessed it. A lot harder than I anticipated.

London

Moving the dog door up

The guy that put the dog door in didn't put it in-between the studs, he just cut them off. Took 3 hours but I supported the studs and got it in. London looked on with minimal interest!

Hammer and Chisel
old school

When London tried the higher placement I thought, "That door isn't really big enough for London. She still has to crawl to get out." Didn't say anything though. At least it was good for now and the air conditioner water was now watering her raspberry bushes alongside the house.






I later called Rebecca to tell her I made it home and she said, "Would you kill me if I said I think the dog door is too small?" Guess great minds think alike! I assured her we could put a bigger one in more easily than this had gone.

In the mean time, the garage door started acting up again. I thought the motor was going bad because I had to adjust the tension as high as it would go. Oh well, new garage door opener and new dog door opener ordered for my next visit.

Puzzle June 18th

Puzzle July 10th

While at home I continued working on my puzzle. I work on it some almost every day and it is very slow going. It's  very detailed and the colors are very similar. It is fun when I finally find a piece or two! I guess I'm getting the kids' money worth out of my puzzle present, the gift that keeps on giving!