Sea lions! 03:00 Yelping, barking, growling. I need to be near the sea almost as much as I need my sleep. This pushes the limits and I was not invited to the party. Geez boys, just take our herring and leave.
They stayed. Groggily I shuffle out onto our deck and get to work. Our deluxe 10×10 all-metal Gazebo has arrived from China. That ordeal ended. One huge box arrived weeks before the other. Now it’s here. I lug the two huge parcels onto the deck and lay them down, carefully extracting the contents, removing all the protective foam. There is a mountain of that. Inside each taped bundle there are parts mecifully coded. I find the instructions, hardware and tool kit. I know plenty of folks take advantage of the free entertainment that comes with assembling this monster mechano kit and they succeed. Lets see how this old wrencher manages on his own. Let the cursing begin.
Once at a previous home, I built a back yard shelter from local driftwood and named it “The Temple Of Jill.” Now I have to secipher someone else’s imagination. The instructions list some recommended extra tools to the ones provided including three people to help. I don’t want anyone getting in my way and besides, I can’t speak Cantonese. I put all the screws of different size in individual bowls. Easy to access, harder to lose. These kits are packed precisely. Often there is an exact number of pieces, don’t lose even one screw. Fortunately I have a large clear space to work on. I lay out all the parts and begin the tedious job of putting together various sub-assemblies. The objective is turn this Chinese puzzle of a thousand pieces into a single functional unit. By the first day’s end I have completed the main frame which is amazingly rock-solid.
I fight with the urge to keep looking ahead in the manual. One step at a time dude! The drawings provided are very accurate except for sections they’ve missed. All one does is complete each step as shown. The precision of all these pieces is amazing, the fit is perfect. The little bolts are of poor quality and it seems Chinese metric hardware is very slightly different from standard tool specs. The metal roofing panels are like very large razor blades. Gloves would make it safer but I need to be dextrous to handle all the little bits like the tiny bits to screw everthing together. Each one is covered with a thin, sticky, fragile layer of protective cellophane. Removing it from the panels is the worst part of the whole job. Once it is gone you can see the scratches beneath the protective layer.
In the middle of the job there was a severe wind warning. Everything was tucked away and the main structure was lashed down. What wind? All good things come to an end even if they never begin. The deck furniture will be moved in and then it is time to light the fire table and drink something with a little umbrella in it. There is no calculation for the free entertainment value of all the hours spent on this grand puzzle. There are a few slices on my hands but I still have all my fingers; it is not a recommended weight loss program. On a final note and perhaps a good omen, while having breakfast this morning and looking out through the new edifice, I saw a large male orca swimming in the harbour. Now that’s a bonus!
It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.
– Jim Collins
(Clearly he never put a gazebo together!)