by hed id tuft wit peanudbudda

Gah. My head is stuffed up like it has not been since a cold I had this winter. I feel like it is filled with peanut butter. Bleah.

It all started with a little job I was doing for an elderly lady in Seal Harbor. She wants to sell her home, but it needed a cosmetic fix of sorts. The upstairs bedroom where her husband spent his final days has remained pretty much untouched since his passing some 12 years ago. Only he used a humidifier in there. A lot. So great expanses of ceiling paint was peeling and hanging down in a most unattractive way. So she wanted it cleaned up so the real estate lady can add another zero to the asking price, and could I get to that right away?

Well, I've got some fairly expensive rental scaffolding presently in the shrubbery in front of another elderly lady's house, and she's paying for it whether I'm there to climb on it or not. Naturally, she'd like to see me up there as much and as often as possible so I can finish soon and get the damned things out of her yard.

So I told the first lady that I could do some work for her if it rained and I was unable to work on the scaffold. Fine. We got a couple of really wet days, so I went over and scraped the paint (nasty job!) and then applied drywall joint compound (nastier job) to the cracks and holes.

Then the sun came out. And scaffold lady wants me at work on her house. But ceiling lady wants me there to finish up.

So today I went to scaffold lady's house early, did what I could and left after applying some oil-based paint. Can't do anything until it dries, I said as I sped off. I got to the ceiling lady's house to find the room buttoned up tight (it was 80 degrees and 95% humidity - ga!) and waiting for me to sand it. What a nasty friggin' job that is! There is nothing, well, let me rephrase that. There are very few things nastier than sanding drywall mud on a ceiling in a stuffy upstairs bedroom on a day when it is hot and humid and there is no breeze. I got dust in my hair, in my eyes, in my nose, in my ears, it ran in rivulets of sweat off my body and formed a kind of slurry. It was nasty.

Well, I got it sanded. It doesn't look great, but at this point she just wants me out of there, so I slapped a coat of primer on and bailed for the day. I'll go back tomorrow early to apply ceiling paint and then get out of Dodge with my check.

As I finished up the sanding, I began to sneeze. Well that was really no surprise, I thought. It is utterly reasonable to sneeze when you are surrounded by that much dust. So I went home and cleaned up. Showered, washed my hair, got rid of every bit of that nasty drywall dust that there was. Only I kept sneezing. And now it seems to have evolved into a full-blown, all-out sinus-packed, drippy nose allergy fit. Damn. It really hit me tonight during my meeting. It was like somebody pulled a switch and my head filled up with fluid. Nasty shit.

So now I am home, sniffing and typing. I have eaten spicy soup, to no avail, (although I am nicely full) and taken my Claritin quick-dissolve stuff. I am waiting for it to kick in. It's been nearly two hours. I am not impressed. My gut tells me that I will sleep on my back tonight and my sinuses will drain of their own accord. I may or may not suffer like this again tomorrow. In the meantime, I sound upsettingly like the Swedish chef on the Muppet Show. Bleah.

Interesting job tomorrow. I hope to take pictures of what I am working on and what I have to do to actually get up there to do it. Stay tuned.