Gardener 2

Tiburcio, our mow-blow-and-go guy hit me up for "me checka" yesterday. Six months back wages.

So much for all that sweetness and light.

Oh well. the guy's got to pay the bills.

pause.

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. -- John W. Gardner

the permit, she still has not come.

Hoops of fire

Last weekend, I spent 3 hours catching up with every neighbor whose property surrounds ours and walked them through our plans in order to gain their approval for our addition. Evidently, our proximity to our neighbors required a sign off for what the city called a "yard reduction."  Though we have no yard, per se, I thought this reasonable at the time because enclosing the rear sun porch, though it lies within our existing footing, steal 7 feet from the outside space, making it inhabitable.

then i read the form, which clarified that what i need to spend all that time on one of the hottest days of the year attaining was permission to reduce my yard from 2'6" to 2'1", a reduction of 5". Had I not received it, I would have had to move the back wall in the 5" along the 12' stretch of patio.

5".

10 days ago, I cajoled our new downhill neighbor to sign a city-mandated affidavit acknowledging that we shared a sewer line and if it broke, the county was not responsible. We had it notarized, on the paperwork provided us by the city.

Today, I got a call from Nancy the Industrious Architect. 

"Nelson, we have a problem."

Love a call that begins that way.

Turns out she went to file the doc and the county did not accept it.

"They no longer accept notarization on the form they provided," she said. "It must be notified on this page instead."

And she faxed me the doc, which contained the EXACT SAME VERBIAGE in a different font.

there is a point in the process of getting the final permit to go ahead and begin reconstruction when your spirit and rational mind is utterly shattered.  I may be there.

Numbly, I trudged off down the hill to the Korean notary to get him to duplicate his stamp on the new page provided. Nancy the Industrious Architect arrived at my door 20 minutes later to shuttle the corrected document to the county. $37.50 per hour for an errand girl.

I now jump through hoops of fire without complaint. At some point building will begin. But will I any longer care?

Party On, Dude.

Given the sustained lack of life in the shell of our home, we decided to do the most absurd thing we could think of: cater a cocktail party in the rubble of the front lawn. Large Marge Sustainables prepared the food. Here's the menu:

Mt Tam triple cream and Mission fig sandwiches with arugula on crostini

homemade ricotta, grilled radicchio and lemon zucchini on crostini

rustic herbed heirloom tomato tart with caramelized onions and olives

honey cumin picholine olives and almonds

crudite with Asian walnut dip, and basil and lemon mayonnaise

fresh strawberries and minted whipped cream on walnut cornmeal cookie

Yum.

Don't think I related the story of Large Marge. Large Marge is actually small meg. Meg appeared in our lives days after the fire at the beckoning of our good friend and neighborhood connector Cheryl Revkin, who procured Meg's services to make us a home cooked meal after the fire. So on the first night in our new (rented)house, with no furniture or personal possessions to be seen and only our plastic inflatable mattresses on which to sleep, Meg

 appeared bearing iron pots full of luscious victuals, which we consumed on her plates as a picnic on the empty, echoey living room floor. It was the first food made by a real person we had eaten for days and it

 was like penicillin.

A few months later, we decided to make a dinner for the firemen who had diligently saved both our homes and many of our precious belongings in what was truly extraordinary work (remind me to tell you the story some time). Meg was the obvious call (since we didn't, and don't, yet own a knife sharp enough to cut through a tomato). She appeared bearing racks of chickens, which we fed to the dozen or so hungry and charming firefolk who inhabit LAFD station 56 on the C shift. It was a wonderful evening,a nd the men seemed to appreciate the care. It was an opportunity to share our appreciation and gratitude, and for Charlie to connect with those who spend their lives in ther service of others (the ride in the ladder truck with the siren on didn't hurt either).

So now Meg is an integral part of our narrative, as inseparable from the journey as the flashlights I keep in my car so as to be able to enter the darkened house. once again, she did not disappoint.

I think about 40 people showed up, plus a pack of kids. The adults stood amid the crushed ash, singed goose down, and broken glass and drank gin and tonics, wine, and beer, laughed and shared stories, and toured the denuded shell while the kids played mad and endless games around the property. There was joy, and life, and a revivified sense of the deep connection we feel for our friends and neighbors. The builders were there as well, and the net result of the evening was to bring once again to that forlorn property the sound of laughter and the ambiance of society, to remind it, perhaps, that it was not forgotten, but rather hibernating before it's next life begins. i think even the Buddah, which sits guard over the property since the day after the fire when we bought and installed it there, smiled.

With luck, groundbreaking next week.

I forgot to take pics, but Chris sent along a few, following:

Holmes pt 2.

Holmes on Homes was cancelled this week, run off the US airwaves by a rebranding of the network on which it ran, no longer "Discovery Home," now "Planet Green."  Nothing Green about 'ol Holmsey. He was a one man waste creation system, and now he has seemingly been banished back to the snowy north from whence he came.

Is there some poetic symmetry here, that the show ends just as construction begins? I will miss my Holmes fix. He provided odd comfort in time of preparation purgatory. Watching him reassured me that somewhere, someone's home was being Made Right. That gave me hope that one day soon ours would be too. 

Perhaps the plumber's torch has been passed.

Now I will take the lessons he taught me ("Un-Acceptable! This has all got to go.") and guide the work on our hoose.

Bye Mike. See you on the other side, eh?

wakefulness

somehow got turned back around this weekend from the vampire hours I've been working on the book, and woke up Monday morning...dare I say it...happy. The first time I think I've felt this way in months. I had, without realizing it, slipped into a low level depression fueled by lack of sleep. Life had gotten gray and dolby-ed, little got through and if it did it was more often enervating than not. I was conducting myself in three hour blocks of productivity and sleep, working two jobs (building house, writing book), often the first to the detriment of the second.

Monday, I awoke rested to a perfect spring day and felt alive again.

A good reminder of better days to come.

We're Having a Party

On Friday the 13th. Go Figure.

Evite, June 8, 2008.
With your love, support, and, let's face it, seemingly endless patience with
our recent travails, we have made it to a major milestone. Sweaty men will
soon be crawling on our home to make it whole again. Construction begins
soon.
To mark this moment, and express our appreciation of how patient you will be
with us during the next six months of actual construction, we'd love it if
you could join us amid the rubble and broken glass of our front lawn for a
sunset cocktail party. Frozen blender drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be
served. Wear durable shoes.

Those of you interested can tour the house, now gutted to the studs and
subfloor, and see the plans of what is to come. Everyone else can just hang
out and celebrate with us the absurdity of life. When the idea of milling
about the front yard of an abandoned house loses its charm, we can retire
quietly to David & Marcelle's new backyard next door where at least it is
possible to sit down.

Stop by and booze it up. Life is short.
--
Men have become the tools of their tools. -- Henry David Thoreau