Author’s Tier Photo Journal – My Fiancé is a Badass

In one of my favorite photographs of my fiancé Lauren, shared above, she is standing some ten feet in the air, perched confidently on a cinder block wall, running a saw through a miserable stretch of concrete Hardie board. I stand safely below, performing light photojournalism and occasionally helping hold the ladder.

This was 2022. The southern siding on my home, the one we currently share, had been battered near to mulch by the incessant rain of Portland autumns, winters, springs, and early/late summers, so it was time to do something about it. She had built many houses for Habitat For Humanity, and gutted and restored her own midcentury home (largely by hand), so when she offered to plan out and lead the project, I greedily accepted.

After all, what better adventure to bring a young couple closer than alternating hours atop a twenty-seven foot ladder, pulling thousands of nails from splintering, lead-enrobed shingles in the blistering sun? And what partner hasn’t thrilled at the idea of making love with a beau who is currently throwing a temper tantrum over a trim board he’s cut wrong three times in a row?

Together we bought a terrifying, mismatched three-story scaffolding set off Craigslist, did business with a poorly-socialized man whose labyrinthine dwelling was filled with thousands of secondhand windows, and quibbled endlessly over the correct color palette to paint the house. (After ten months of sharing neighborhood inspiration pics and doing Photoshop mockups we opted for…white).

The last lick of paint finally went up this weekend…a little over a year since we started. I’d feel bad about this, but we saved so much goddamned money doing it ourselves. And, I must say, my admiration for her grew at each step of the way.

To thank her, I commissioned a pair of garden gnomes that supposedly look like us. (See last photo.) We also went out for dinner at one of those places where they don’t screw up the food too bad.*

Soon we will let go of our respective current homes and move into a place where neither is the incumbent landlord. She has been reading websites about dizzyingly expensive “heat pump” HVAC systems; I am lobbying for a koi pond.**

Please wish us minimal tendonitis and asbestos exposure as we continue our journey together. Maybe in Latin?

C

* I have done a lot more thanking than this, but these were the easiest photos to find.

** My patrilineal forebears built water features; this goes back at least three generations, but perhaps to antiquity.