Wednesday, July 23, 2008

A Colorful Life

Most of the roof arrived today. Only one major component was missing, the eave flashing that must go on first and starts the whole roofing process. Now at least, I know what color it really is. Did the colors previously chosen for the house and trim work with the roof color?



I'll get to that, but first I have been tagged by Cindy at From My Corner of Katy, that's in Texas, for one of those random things list. This is the procedure.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Begin:

1. I have been cursed or blessed with a faulty, sometimes non-existent memory my entire life. Other people can remember events major and minor. Some can recall conversations. Me nada. Zilch. When I think I remember something, I generally get accused of the memory being faulty. I have come to call this condition Early Onset Alzheimer's. If I should ever get subpoenaed by Congress, this condition would come in handy. It makes living in the present much easier to achieve. When you only vaguely remember the past, you're not likely to dwell on it.

Cindy's list was good. I thought I might follow along with it a bit, but back to other color matters.

When the roof arrived this morning it was a non-descript beige, an off white with the slightest hint of brown. By this afternoon it had begun to take on the hint of grey/green that I saw on the metal roofing website. The colors chosen for the house needed to work with this imaginary computer roof color.

The roof. I think this picture is pretty true in color, at least on my computer.



2. I have fallen in love with the wrong people as a pattern. As a result I am still single. There is no happy ending, life long partnership to tell you about. My embellished memory of the real characters involved and the time it took me to recognize the pattern and stop doing it would be good fodder for a long tawdry tale; for another time, in paperback.

3. I lived in Hawaii on the island of Maui in the town of Kihei next to the resort of Wailea for twenty years and one month. That represents 40% of my life. I spent another six years living in Colorado, two and a half of those years in the ski resort of Vail. While I consider myself a Floridian, I guess, most of my life has been lived out of that state. Maybe I am stateless. I feel at home here in the mountains of western North Carolina, but I have a long way to go before I become Kama'aina.



The chosen colors for the house and the trim are the overlapping ones in the center. The house will be "Artichoke" (gray) and the trim is a pale yellow, "Crafted White". I am still supposed to check on another pale yellow, Oatland Yellow before I settle totally on the Crafted White.



4. I have met or seen closeup in person several celebrities. These are some that I remember. Elizabeth Taylor came to Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver while she was married to the Senator John Warner when I worked there. I stood behind Mike Myers at the Foodland in Kihei a few years ago. I just thought the guy had a really strong resemblance. He was such a skinny scruffy runt I didn't think it was really him. When it was my turn, the cashier said do you know who that was. I told her who I thought he looked like, but it wasn't him and she said he paid with his credit card and it was Mike Myers. What a runt, a teeny, tiny petite little thing.

Tim Curry cruised me big time when he rented a house on Maui that I was the gardener for. This was long after Rocky Horror at the beginning of his Hollywood career. We chatted a bit about plants and kept weirdly bumping into each other around the island. I never let on that I knew who he was.

Slightly different lighting of the house and trim color choices with the roof. They are the two overlapping ones in the center. The door color that goes with this combo is a deep blue called Waterloo, 4003-6C on your Valspar paint chart.



Besides the missing eave drip flashing there was another small problem with the roof delivery. The ridge piece that caps the roof peak looks to be a metal of a different color. It goes just fine with the light yellow, "Crafted White" trim color, but do I want a Bi-color roof? I think not.



5. I am the eldest son and the middle child.



I don't know if it was subconscious or a lucky coincidence, I think I may have given it a passing thought, I don't remember, I just think the gray/yellow combo will work well with the two dry stack stone walls that form the terrace for the basement patio. Now what color will I paint the columns? They are already gray.



6. I never noticed all the warning sounds my truck makes for seat belts, open doors, keys in the ignition and such, when I lived on Maui with all the incessantly barking dogs, squawking parrots, sirens on the highway down below and the comings and goings of all the neighbors. Now that I live on this quiet mountaintop, the noises my truck makes drives me absolutely insane.



An added bonus to this post is one of my UFO pictures. A local newspaper photographer took some pictures and found some odd blurry spots he thought were UFOs and this started an intense discussion on another local weekly paper. The regulars who hang in these forums are an interesting bunch. I'll have to let them know I found one of my UFO pictures. You can click the picture to enlarge it. See if you can spot it. These UFOs show up pretty regular.



Here is a cropped closeup view of the UFO.



Time for the list of tagees.

Ladies, Elizabeth, Michele, Susan and Amy, you have all been tagged. I am sure the loyal readers of GardenRant want to know a lot more about the women behind the writing. Four in one, not bad.

Now lets see. I do not keep up with these kinds of things so I have no idea who may have already been hit on. Les at A Tidewater Gardener, I don't remember seeing this meme on your blog of late. You are tagged.

Frances, have you been tagged for this yet? A list of random things from the Faire Garden could be fun.

12 comments:

Frances, said...

Hi Christopher, thanks for tagging me. I have been tagged and awarded several times and then could not find the memes and awards to act on them so I will do this right away. Your colors look great. I know this because they are the same as our house, even the blue door. HA That ridge cap is unacceptable though. The ufo's look interesting. I imagine the forums on that are quite different than the garden blog conversations. Have fun at the friday meet up. Brokenbeat is not going, I couldn't talk him into it.

Christopher C. NC said...

Frances you are such an early riser I did not even have the chance to follow procedure and leave a comment on your blog about the meme. Your mention of gray for the house did have me look at that in a drive through the burbs of Lake Junaluska. I saw the brown/red combo which was nice, very woodsy, but the gray houses really looked sharp. I did consider a red door with the light yellow trim. That was nice, but the blue door was more inviting.

The Asheville forums can be very intense.

Anonymous said...

Okay, you win! THough I've NEVER played meme before, I'll do this one, for you.
I'll think up the 6 things while driving to Buffalo tomorrow, post soon. S

EAL said...

I ... hate ... memes ...

However, I agree with full disclosure on blogs. Readers ARE interested. That's why I can't tear my eyes away from my friend's blog where she tells every detail of her gastric bypass, her seemingly iffy marriage and her neglect of her son as she commutes between Buffalo and Philly for her job. It's fascinating! And this is why I limit myself to a garden blog, as I could totally give her a run for her money.

I'll come up with something for ya.

Cindy, MCOK said...

Christopher, thanks so much for playing along! I'm chuckling about Tim Curry: I'll bet it made him crazy that you didn't acknowledge you knew who he was.

I like the colors you've chosen for the house. I can see it melding with its surroundings and looking very much at home on the mountaintop. I agree that those colors should also work well with the stone walls.

Your musings about your faulty memory remind me of one of artist Brian Andreas' StoryPeople. "I'd probably have more trouble with the ghosts of the past, she said, if my memory wasn't shot to hell."

Christopher C. NC said...

Susan, your a meme virgin. Boy did I get lucky.

I know, Elizabeth, I know. It is good of you to play along. The readers of the Rant or GWI if you prefer will be fascinated though.

Cindy I must have been dropped on my head as a small child because my memory has been shot to hell as long as I can remember.

Frances, said...

Who could say no to you, Christopher? It looks like a good turn out for your tag. My post is up. Thanks again.
http://fairegarden.blogspot.com/2008/07/tagged.html
Maybe someday I will learn how to do this link like the pros.

Unknown said...

I love the house colors you picked, in both sets of lighting... and a bright blue front door? Wow.

How funny about your truck noises, and about Tim Curry. I drool over his garden in that book about Great Private Gardens by the editors of House & Garden. It's not something that I would have created, but it seems so... so him. And it was a huge undertaking, what with the 40 tons of debris that he had to to take out to restore... ah crap, some old movie star's garden. (My memory is about on par with yours at this point, I think!) Anyway, here's a picture I found of Tim Curry's Garden.

Anonymous said...

I love your choice of colors for your cabin, and the blue door will mimic the color of that gorgeous blue pot.

Christopher C. NC said...

Kim I wonder if Tim Curry was in the same garden way back when I met him? Early 90's I think. He may have bought the former stars home after he made some pocket change. The man was asking me about how to make his bougainvillea bloom and I hated bougainvillea very quickly after landing in Maui. I'm sure my response was less than enthusiastic.

The roof trim is all painted and on the roof now. I'm going to buy a gallon of the Artichoke, the gray color, and slap some on the plywood of the front roof section for a sneak preview before the roof gets air lifted onto the cabin. One last chance to back out.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I sorta kinda did the "6 random things" meme, but not on GardenRant:
http://sustainablegardeningblog.com/archives/457
I WILL mention it on the Rant tomorrow and link to it. Thanks for asking!@ Susan

Les said...

Thank you very much for the honor. Sorry for the delayed response, I have been in the mountains and wonderfully disconnected, but I posted my response tonight.

Thanks Again,
Les