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?