Donald had concert tickets on Thursday night.  He was prepared to take public transit down to and back from SF, which would have taken him at least 10 hours of transit time to do a 4 hour round trip. Added to that; We have pretty much decided on a contractor to do the rebuilding project in SF and that contractor is asking us to clear the whole garage.  Eeeekk!  There is 20 years of stuff in that garage.  We knew the "stuff" would need to be pared down and have been working on it;  but total removal?  That is a big job.   There were four items that I was struggling to figure out how to move: my good table saw, my dust collection system, a lime tree and a lemon tree.   All four are too big to get into my car, or even M's Suburban,  and three of the four were heavy enough that I wanted help loading.   Out of the blue my friend Mike B. contacted me. Something about a little fire that Watch Duty reported up here.  We texted back and forth a few times before I asked if he would mind moving my four items in his truck.  He would - but as any good stagehand does, he wouldn't commit to when he was available.   I spent the evening on Thursday and the morning on Friday disconnecting and removing the dust collector and at least some of its piping.  The table saw also needed to be taken apart:  the third party fence came off, the extension table was removed and the two, heavy, cast iron "wings" on either side of the body of the saw were unbolted.  The butcher-block table was removed from the back wall of the shop. I pruned the lemon and the lime trees severely, removing more than half the wood (they needed it, the lime had lots of dead branches, the lemon had lots of branches that some critter (rats?) chewed the bark off of).  They will be happy about the pruning once they get over the shock.  I called Mike on Friday morning.  Thankfully he was not working.
It was SO nice to work with someone who is used to moving heavy things, and does it regularly.  We loaded his truck with my four items, plus a couple of other things that were bulky.  My car was filled with dust collection pipe, and the first load of things like clamps and wood stains. Also some boxes of folk music on CD's.  Wood and some PVC pipes were on top.  Driving north took 4 hours to do a trip that normally takes 2 hours.  Miserable.  Mike stayed the night rather than drive back last night.  We had a nice visit.
My friend Kim had booked herself, and her new pup Twix, for a dog training class.  Twix is a 6 year old, tiny Jack Russell Terrier, who is just sweet. Kim really wanted me to come to the class with her. Of course the class was this morning.  The instructor supplied a 2' square mat, and a chair for each of the 6 human/canine teams, spaced around a warehouse room. She went over basic commands: place (the mat), sit, down, stand, off, look (at me) and leave it.  She stressed that dogs are visual learners. She showed how to use a treat to help position the dog. Chena was majorly distracted by Other Dogs. Over all though Chena was by far the best trained dog in the room and did keep reasonably good focus.  The two new commands for us; "Look" and "Stand" were challenging.  I've been struggling to teach Chena "stand".  The instructor said: start with the dog sitting take a treat in front of your dog's nose and move it forward.  Sure enough this method was very clear to Chena and she stood.   Sadly I won't get to next week's class, I'm off judging in Martinez, but will resume for the final two.
Ok, time to go unload the last things from the car.