"Put a Nail in it and Let the Church Roll on."

T minus 3 days of having our hero and crew leader Ross in our presence before he abandons us and goes to maintenance, thus ending the era of fun and ushering in the era of us doing things with no direction. If we don't get another crew leader, David and I have planned to just leave and go over to the Johnson House to work over there....David has also planned on joining a boy band and touring the world.

After Thanksgiving I returned up to Chicago for Joey Fitz's bachelor party. Joe's only order to us, his fleet of groomsmen, was "I don't want any naked ladies or any combination of the two." This is funny because for us, the "typical" bachelor party was out of the question...for obvious reasons. So, we spent the night in Chicago. We started out bowling at Lucky Strike. Oddly enough, it was the closest thing to a "club" that I have ever been to...like some kind of celebrity bowling club. There were even bouncers, people in leather coats, people wearing sunglasses at night, people that had clothes from express for men, people drinking Heinekin, people calling me "cat", and so on. Anyways, after the bowling, we went to Greek town, The Athena, for dinner. I had some sausage and flaming cheese, complete with the "Opa!" from our server. We then went to Rosa's blues club over on Armitage to see some blues guitar. It was my first trip to a blues club, and it was pretty much what I imagined; smoky, people looking really sad or really happy, clanging guitar, and an 80 year old Italian woman serving beer. Doug bought me some Newcastle (Nukie Brown) and we got to watch some blues guitar and harmonica. It was a little awkward though for 5 nerdy white guys to be in this blues club with old time blues players and middle-aged former 80's rock fans who listened to blues as a way to try and "stay hip". There were also a good amount of late middle aged folks "dancing all up on" each other. Which was highly awkward. This one woman even came over to Alec and I and said "Rarrooww". As a result, we decided to scamper, he to the bar and me to the bathroom to escape this strange lady. At the bathroom door (there was only one) there were 3 other nerdy fellows waiting. The bathroom was right at the front of the stage and so everyone around us was dancing and generally moving to the blues. So, in this fashion, we all tried to sway, bob our heads, and look like we knew what we were doing and that we were" experiencing" the blues I suppose. When I finally got into the bathroom, someone had scribbled on the wall, "Gunna spend all money callin' people 'honey' and wind up singing the blues". The night was capped off when all of us went to Joe's brother's to get some sleep. It reminded me greatly of a high school band trip, complete with us being totally exhausted and sleeping in sleeping bags...Doug also snored like a buzzsaw. I woke up at 6 Sunday morning to get to mass before heading back to the Bluegrass. I half expected to see Mr. Moore with a flashlight waking up the other seniors, but alas, I did not.

Back in the Bluegrass, today was far and away the best and most efficient day of work I've had since I've been at CAP. We spent the entire day on the Rader job, my favorite job of all time. I wrote of it earlier; the father is building a house entirely by himself for his wife and 4 kids who are under 9 years old. We have a goal of getting them in the house by Christmas dinner. Today we took a big step toward achieving that goal. Jesse, David, Mr. Rader and I spent the day hanging drywall and insulation. Drywall is always a wonderful task because when you're done, the rooms of the house look like actual real rooms, like in real houses that we've seen all our lives...and all you have left after drywall is finishing work and the floors. Mr. Rader and I worked as a team and Jesse and David worked as a team, and we finished probably and eighth of the entire house. Combined with previous work, we have probably drywalled 70 percent of the house. Mr. Rader and I also insulated the ceiling, which was very itchy, as fiberglass insulation causes itching and coughing. Today, I stopped for a minute, at sunset, and looked out the new front window at a blazing orange sky and the silhouette of the fall mountains. It was so peaceful and fulfilling. I felt like I was doing work I loved for people who really needed it and really appreciated it as well. I cannot remember feeling as satisfied with a day of work as today when Mr. Rader and I were standing admiring the newly drywalled room for his daughter. This day was a gift.

Cheers.

quotes of the day;
1. When ever we come across a board that is out of place in a house, Ross says, "put a nail in it and let the Church roll on"....then he hammers in the out of place board perfectly into place with only 3 hammer strokes and says "you're all gunna miss me someday"...consequently, that day is coming in 3 days...

2. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye