Screen Door

Monday I installed my screen door.

Of course, I screwed it up.

Okay, nothing major. It's not like it swings in the wrong direction or I put it on upside-down or something. Just that once I finished putting it on, I realized there was a 1/4 inch gap between the handle side of the door and my door frame.

See, I mainly want the door so that I can leave my front door open to get a cross-breeze without the cats sneaking out and patrolling the neighborhood unsupervised. So if that were all I needed to do, then mission accomplished. Declare victory and walk away.

Unfortunately, I forgot that screen doors also exist to keep things out of my house. Little flying insectoid things, in particular. And having the screen door there with a gap in the side and a light on inside the house is a good way to end up with a bunch of bugs inside. Not good.

The sad part is that if I'd noticed the error earlier, then I was still adjusting the height and width of the door then I could have corrected it. But once I put the handle on, I was screwed, since I'd drilled some big holes through the door for the handle, and moving everything over 1/4 inch is not far enough to allow me to re-do all the drilling. I tried taping some tinfoil to the edge of the door, but it's not solid enough to hold its position. And a friend recommended weather-stripping, but I don't think there's enough clearance inside the door for me to stick it on and have the door close properly.

So I think the only solution is to go buy another door and do it right this time.

Grump. The installation instructions were pretty clear about how to do all the adjustments, but it wasn't clear all the time why I should make certain adjustments. And I was spending too much time worrying about getting the installation of the handle right (which turned out to be much easier than I'd expected).

Oh, well. Maybe this weekend I'll go buy a new door and put it on. It shouldn't take so long this time. And I may be able to re-use a little bit of the work I've already done.

Sure is annoying though. Spend another $50 to fix a tiny mistake. But, ironically, if it had been a big mistake then I probably could have fixed it. Sigh.

Yeah, Debbi's going back east with Lisa and Michel to visit her family for the next week. I'm taking them to the airport this weekend.

I don't have any great plans for the week. I'd like to have people over to play Bridge. And if my friend Rob is available I'd like to go up to visit him, since we haven't seen each other since my party. (That's just about true for Lucy, too, not to mention Monique, whom I haven't seen since last year; I'd like to see them too.)

But if I mostly end up hanging around my place and doing my own stuff, that's fine too.

Anyway, I went up to visit Debbi last night. We went out to dinner and had ice cream at her place and mostly just hung out. A relaxing evening.

Tonight we were supposed to have gaming at Subrata's, but it got cancelled late. I left well before the cancellation e-mail got sent out, so I was waiting for Subrata at the usual time and he showed up and said it had been cancelled. Ah, well. So I came home and watched the season finale of Smallville, which was quite good, with plenty of drama for everyone in the episode, and a cliffhanger ending. This show has been the biggest surprise of the year, as far as its quality goes, and I'm looking forward to next season!

Think you've got problems? Journaller Rebekah Robertson's fiance was killed in a train wreck last month. Rebekah and I have been corresponding for years, and I guess I sort of helped inspire her to start her own journal. My heart goes out to her. It's impossible for me to imagine what she's going through right now.