I suppose we'll laugh when it's all over

Yesterday was - you guessed it - another bummer. If you look at the 10 day forecast for Mendocino you will not jump for joy, neither will all your prayers be answered. You will see rain, drizzle, wind, clouds and more.

Erin talking benderboards with Dan from CYC, who proved most helpful

Our day began with a call to Colorado Yurts to get some final benderboard logistical questions answered. Upon arrival at the prop we quickly got to work uncovering the bamboo and towel drying the wet spots. This took the better part of an hour, but the sky was partly sunny and the wind seemed to be finally drying things out instead of making them wetter. Erin attempted to make me take a bet on an afternoon cloudburst, but I didn't bite. Just as we were contemplating peeling back a corner of the tarp to get some work done, a giant gray monster reared it's head above the trees. In five minutes we scrambled to recover the floor and put away all the tools. In twenty more minutes everything was soaked and the cloudburst was over. Double Dog Dangit.

Our temporary work environment

After a break for lunch the weather situation improved. We started in on scribing a line on the plywood with a ball point pen and our giant 15' compass. After much debate we have decided it will be best to hand-cut the plywood with the jigsaw and we will need to follow this line very closely. Unfortunately, Erin ruined three pens before we got the contraption to work properly, and after drawing only a few feet of the line our last pen was toast. I jumped in the car and returned from town with a 10-pack bag of BICs. Unfortunately we went through three more pens before the circle was completed, leaking massive amounts of blue ink on the plywood in the process. The highlight of the day, in retrospect, was Erin's unprecedented use of profanity to express himself as the trials of the day wore on. A sample:

F**K, F**K, F**K, THIS F**KING PEN JUST F**KING BROKE. THIS F**KING IS THE WORST DAY EVER. I WOULDN'T DO THIS WORK FOR $100 AN HOUR. I F**KING HATE THIS F**KING TARP. MY BACK HURTS! IF THIS F**KING TARP TOUCHES MY HEAD ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO F**KING DIE! F**K! I NEED A HAIRCUT BECAUSE I HATE MY F**KING HAIR! THIS LINE IS SO F**KING BAD I CAN'T EVEN DEAL WITH IT. IF THIS LINE GETS ANY WORSE I'M GOING TO CUT MY HAND OFF. F**K!

We had a good laugh about this as we drove home for the day, having finished cutting exactly half of the plywood with the handheld jigsaw. We quit with intentions to return the next day and complete the job in better weather.

However! The next day (today) is awful. The drizzle is incessant with occasional downpours. The crazy part is that tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be "partly sunny" with little chance of rain. But we just can't seem to get ourselves in a position where we're ready to erect the yurt. The rain continues to foil us.

We were able to complete the cutting this morning, despite Erin's vows to never do ANYTHING under a tarp again ever for the rest of his life. Benderboards were impossible with the rain coming down heavily, necessitating the continued use of Big Blue.