It was a good day overall, this birth-day of mine.
My parents called in the middle of the day, which was quite a surprise since I was at work and not expecting it. Those sneaky parents! And after having a wonderful chat with them in the middle of the day, who can concentrate on work? I had to take a walk around in the lovely weather outside, hoping to clear my head and get back in focus, but it didn't work, so I just bagged it and headed home to see what was going on there.
Cheryl was getting ready for our cookout with our good friends, the Shapins, so there was lots to get ready, especially since I had made some rather tenuous repairs to the grill yesterday and didn't discover til now that there was a couple things I forgot to do...
It's a funny thing about metal in general and steel in particular, that when you heat it up and down over a long period of time, even though it might have high-temperature paint on it, the humidity in the air shoves those oxygen molecules into contact with the iron and creates that wonderful layer of iron-oxide (rust) which then decides to abandon ship and litter the ground with particles which were until recently elements of the grill but are now little better than sticky red dust.
It doesn't help that the grill sits out in the weather (underneath its cover, of course!) all the time -- and this past winter, unlike all the previous years, it didn't get stored in the garage because there just wasn't any room! So it really wasn't any surprise that it started to fall apart.
We thought about buying a new one. They're very cheap at the beginning of summer, somewhere between $99 and $150 at the hardware stores, but the Mr Fixit in me said, "No, you can't do that! There's still good metal in there somewhere! You just need to find it!"
So I tore off the rusted support tabs and just stuck a couple bolts through the holes on either side, and that worked great.
And when the Shapins arrived, we had grilled chicken and crackers and cheese and salad and fresh fruit, then sat around after stuffing our faces to work those mouth-muscles with good conversation.
It was a very nice birthday!
My parents called in the middle of the day, which was quite a surprise since I was at work and not expecting it. Those sneaky parents! And after having a wonderful chat with them in the middle of the day, who can concentrate on work? I had to take a walk around in the lovely weather outside, hoping to clear my head and get back in focus, but it didn't work, so I just bagged it and headed home to see what was going on there.
Cheryl was getting ready for our cookout with our good friends, the Shapins, so there was lots to get ready, especially since I had made some rather tenuous repairs to the grill yesterday and didn't discover til now that there was a couple things I forgot to do...
It's a funny thing about metal in general and steel in particular, that when you heat it up and down over a long period of time, even though it might have high-temperature paint on it, the humidity in the air shoves those oxygen molecules into contact with the iron and creates that wonderful layer of iron-oxide (rust) which then decides to abandon ship and litter the ground with particles which were until recently elements of the grill but are now little better than sticky red dust.
It doesn't help that the grill sits out in the weather (underneath its cover, of course!) all the time -- and this past winter, unlike all the previous years, it didn't get stored in the garage because there just wasn't any room! So it really wasn't any surprise that it started to fall apart.
We thought about buying a new one. They're very cheap at the beginning of summer, somewhere between $99 and $150 at the hardware stores, but the Mr Fixit in me said, "No, you can't do that! There's still good metal in there somewhere! You just need to find it!"
So I tore off the rusted support tabs and just stuck a couple bolts through the holes on either side, and that worked great.
And when the Shapins arrived, we had grilled chicken and crackers and cheese and salad and fresh fruit, then sat around after stuffing our faces to work those mouth-muscles with good conversation.
It was a very nice birthday!
1 comment:
Sounds like a fun day. May your next trip around the sun bring many more wonderful days!
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