Catch of the day

And it's not yellowtail.

I finally got the hasp on the little outside storage door on the south side of the house -- the access hatch to the space under the stairway.

Arnold hand-fashioned the door out of our deck wood, but it needed a spacer to draw even with the frame for a tight fit.

Deco had the chop saw out, so I Dumpster-dived a piece of the same wood, drilled it to attach to the door, then drilled pilots for the hasp screws . . . . And I think, before the chop saw goes away for good, I may make a new spacer, just slightly wider.

Deco was generous with tips but neglected to mention carpenters' Lesson No. 1: Measure twice, cut once.

- - -

It was a day of little projects: vacuum this, pick up that piece of trim, visit the bank, find some solvent. I squeezed this in -- and then got a call that put me on tenterhooks.

I'm not going to talk about it yet, but the more I think about it, tenterhooks isn't the right word. It's more like eleventerhooks.