2/17/22 Journal: My Wife’s Deck

So my wife is building a deck. Yes, you read that right. Evgeniya, the love of my life, my delicate flower, the former fashion model, has started building a deck in our back yard.

Okay, first off, here’s a piece of advice: never call my wife a ‘delicate flower’. She as hard a fighter as there is in this world. There are very few women who would even attempt to emigrate to the U.S. from Russia with zero connections and a steadfast refusal to marry her way here. She’s fought for everything she’s ever gotten in this life. I may get punched if she reads this.

And when it comes to home projects, she definitely has a different viewpoint than me. Hers is that she decides something needs to be done, she researches whether it’s a home project or if professional contractors should be involved, she studies YouTube videos, she buys the tools and supplies, and she just does it. My viewpoint is usually along the lines of “eh, it’s fine for now”.

I hate home projects. My feeling is that we should leave any construction to the professionals:

Me: “Sweetheart, we better get some quotes from a few contractors.”

Evi: “Joe, I asked you move a chair.”

Me: “Do you think we need a permit?”

This is why Evi leaves me out of any decision making now. She doesn’t even tell me what she is doing. Last weekend, when we were running errands, she mentioned she needed to buy some tools at Harbor Freight. I asked her why.

“I’m building a deck next to our back patio.”

She’s always taking on projects that seem impossible. She’s published a book, she’s owned a tour company, she’s currently building a metaverse-based company. So no matter what she says, I try to stay encouraging.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I asked, encouragingly.

She calmly explained that she’s already done the research and can do this herself. All she needs are some tools and supplies. I know better than to fight with her, so we off we went.

When she was in an aisle looking for wood clamps, Evi got in a conversation with some blue collar-looking dude about the best ones for cutting long two-by-fours for a deck. He was very helpful, and started explaining what she’d need. That’s about when I walked up. He looked at me and asked, “will you be working on this?”

“Nah,” I shook my head. “This is her thing.”

I can only imagine what he thought.

Anyway, I can’t wait to get off of work one day and hang out on our new deck.