And my Intuos is still in the box. The shipping box. Sigh…
This morning, I slept. Late. Allergies are sucky right now (cedar pollen leaves a yellow dust over anything that sits still for thirty seconds) and I took Benedryl some time in the middle of the night. Put me out. Plus, I’d gotten to sleep late. You see, I went and read the comments all the readers had made on Carolyn’s bridge plans and it focused what had been bothering me all day about the design (while weeding). About the time we should have been going to bed, we started talking about my reservations and finally agreed on a final design and decided to redraw the arcs on the bridge supports in the morning. Basically, I didn’t want the support going to a point on the end. Seemed like it was just too fragile. So we’re raising the curve to a 10 inch rise rather than 11, giving us a good inch at either end. With a facia 2×4, it s/b plenty strong. We also compromised on a five inch width on the arc. That will give us a nine foot inner arc clearance and s/b plenty strong, especially since we’re putting in several 2×4 crossbeams, not to mention the 1×4 hardwood slats that will top the whole thing.
Predictably, I was too awake when I went to bed, so I read for about an hour before the Benedryl finally took effect.
Got up bleary and wandered into Carolyn’s room, where she was working away valiantly. (She’s amazing how nothing stops her from writing!) I told her, through a yawn, that when she was ready, I’d go out and help draw the arcs, if she’d go up on line and figure the radius of curvature.
I settled into my work chair, brought up my computer, played a game of Spider, then settled in to write yesterday’s post…And Carolyn came out, dressed and ready to go to work.
Whoopsie. I put the computer away, got dressed, we had breakfast, and went out to draw the arc.
Carolyn had this great idea to just use the measuring tape as the radial line and it worked really well. We aligned the tape using my long T-square and the center mark Carolyn had so carefully measured the day before (remember this center mark. It will become Significant), and everything seemed, seemed, mark you, to be aligned and good. No fuss. No bother. We got one side of the arc drawn easily, edge to apex, then I went to the other edge to go edge to apex in the other direction (since the apex is essentially flat, if you’re going to fudge, that’s the place to do it.)…
And it no longer matched up. Hmmm…We thought we fixed it, but then I couldn’t get the arc to go smooth. Finally, Carolyn said, “If only we had a roll of shelf paper, we could make a pattern.”
Well…duh! Of course. I didn’t have a roll of shelf paper, but I had an ancient tablet of large tracing paper left over from my figure drawing days (have I mentioned I never throw out anything?) I trotted downstairs (I even knew right where it was) emerged with three sheets and a tape dispenser, and we got to work on the half of the arc that looked right. That’s right, I said looked right. Who needs math and engineers and builders when you’ve got two artists/dress-makers in the mix? We made the upper arc, tracing the carefully measured one that looked right through my lovely tracing paper), measured down five inches all along that line, using the good old T-square to eye-ball a tangent/normal, and made the second arc.
Violá, we had half the arc drawn. Now…just flip the pattern and…
The pattern hung over the edge an inch. Silently, I picked up the measuring tape, measured the board…yes, 12ft. Good. Then…I measured the distance to the center mark. 6ft…and 1/2 inch.
Yesterday, Steve and Carolyn had realized the board was a bit long compared to the other board, and trimmed it very neatly accordingly…
But they’d never established the new middle. And Carolyn had measured six feet from the end that was ultimately trimmed. Ah, well. And so I joined the ranks of the Keystones. Note, I never questioned the center mark either.
We made a new center, used our handy-dandy little pattern, and in five minutes, we had two matching boards! (Well, they aren’t cut, yet, but they will match!) Then we determined that a width of 29 inches would be both aesthetic and (more importantly) highly felicitous and marked our 2×4 crossbeams accordingly.
Now, for the real work of the day. Our neighbor has a marvelous stash of the basalt rock we’re using around the pool and to edge our path. A stash he’s trying to get rid of. Well, twist our other arm, yeah? Only problem, it’s got to be dug out and either tossed over the fence or wheelbarrowed down the alley. Originally, his son was going to do this, but somehow, that’s been an excessively slow process. We’d offered to do it, but he seemed to think it was too hard work for two old ladies, and insisted his son could do it.
Hey, if I can get out of work…
Something in the last few months seems to have convinced him we’re not as old as he 
thought. Friday, he called me over to tell me he was going to be gone for the weekend, but would leave his back gate open, if we wanted to come after some of the rock, we could help ourselves.
Okay, I can take a hint. Fortunately, a lot of it is in a pile beside the garage and only takes a fair hike to heave across the fence. OTOH, some were really big and required the wheelbarrow. Carolyn came and helped for a while, but the hip tendon she’d aggravated skating flared and she (thankfully) had the sense to go do something that required a bit less bending and lifting.
I had no such excuse. I have a large wheelbarrow. I filled it three times with just the Re
ally Big boys, and heaved at least that much or more across the fence, working steadily for at least a couple three hours. But, boy, have we got a great haul. I’ll take some pix tomorrow. Still a few left over there, but the bulk is in our possession.
Came inside, took a soaky-bath, then settled in to watch the Mariner’s game while I caught up on my blog. Steve called right around dinner-time to say he was running late, but could still come over and cut the boards if we’d like, and we said we were just ready to eat, and he said how ’bout tomorrow.
Twist my other arm…
