Just Off Center

While not the most exciting sort of thing to read I'm sure, I wanted to take a minute to brag all over my new concrete. Nina and I have taken about two years to finally get some action done with regards to our back yard landscaping. It's a big yard and we didn't want to just load it up with rocks and call it desert landscaped. So we hired our neighbor, a reputable handyman, to do the work for us. I'd rather pay him the cash than some landscaping company that picks up a truckfull of Mexican dayworkers at twenty bucks each.

So we got the planters installed for Nina. I'm putting in a striking post. We've got our sprinkler system laid, and the grass, plants and curbing picked out. All that was left was to lay down several tons of concrete. We needed a large pad at the back gate to set our trash can on, a pathway leading from the pad to the driveway, and we just HAD to add in a half-circle extension to our back porch.

Bryan, our landscaper, came back with a quote on the concrete work. It was way more than we wanted to spend. Ordinarily he wouldn't do this, but since we're good neighbors (sucker) he offered to do it himself if I'd do it with him 50/50. Not one to pass up learning a trade, I jumped at it. So this past week I went to home depot and bought a cement mixer (which I'll be returning), flex boards, nails,and a total of 121 eighty-pound bags of concrete mix. Actually it was 115 bags, but I had to send Nina back on Sunday to buy the last six we needed.

You know, apart from the back breaking labor involved, concrete work isn't all that complicated. The process is very simple:

1. Clear the area of debris
2. Level the dirt
3. Lay down 2x4 boards as an outline
4. Drive stakes into the ground outside the boards
5. Nail the stakes to the boards
6. Mix the concrete and pour it in the work area
7. Shovel the concrete mix where needed
8. Trowel to a level surface
9. Use line and edge trowels to add... lines and edges
10. Let set for 24 hours
    
11. Spray with water twice daily for a week
12. Marvel at your ingenuity

I mean, when you think about it, anyone could do it. It only requires the will and muscle to do so. For the most part, Bryan worked the concrete over with the trowel, which Nina likened to frosting a cake. I mixed the concrete and dumped it in the work area. Nina sprayed down the mixer and held the wheelbarrow while I poured from the mixer. Oh, and she was the official provider of girly banter to keep us going.

It was a two day job, and now two days later, I'm still hurting. This is an entirely different kind of work from what I'm used to. But I learned a lot, and now I have all my concrete laid at the cost of the supplies. It looks really good too. Only a very few imperfections, and none of those major. I just got done hosing down the work this morning, and the concrete started fizz and bubble with this Rice Krispies sound. I'm told that makes it stronger when you wet it twice daily for a week.

It makes me feel very strong and masculine to do this kind of work. One of the primary reasons is that there seems to be some general consensus that I can't do it. When the Home Depot prick showed up to drop off the mixer and three paletes of concrete mix, I had just finished grading the ground so I was sweaty, dirty, stinking, and fatigued. He looked at me and said "You're not going to make it" straight to my fucking face, right there in front of Bryan. That pudgy 40-year-old $18K motherfucker! Just for that I took it upon myself to make sure that I personally mixed every single bag on those paletes. Huh, how about that, looks like I managed to handle almost ten thousand pounds of concrete. Now KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!!

Still I'd be lying if I said it didn't take a hefty toll on me. I've been rolling around like a little pussy for two days now. I'm glad I still had that Vicoden from when I twisted my ankle. And the beer. And the wine. And whatever else I found in the back of my medicine cabinet. But hey, at least now I can take my trashcan to the curb without having to drag it through a bunch of fucking rocks.