the "news" part

When i went to the house to see the workmen, I found a delivered copy of the LA Times. We suspended service shortly after the fire, postponing it for the maximum 6 months allowable. It resumed today.

Jung would call this "synchronicity."

I postponed it another 6 months. I wonder what will happen then.

Groundbreaking News.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. -Anais Nin, (1903-1977)

In my mind, this was a momentous day. In my mind, the day workmen began rebuilding would be a flurry of activity, a cacophonous post-modern symphony of sloshing portapotties, grinding hydraulics, crashing metal dumpsters, screaming men's voices in Spanish and English, bleeping cell phones, attacking hammers and squealing crowbars as a dozen or more workers descended on Casita Moreno in a flurry of industry and creative destruction. In my mind, this day would be the release of all the pent up frustration, twisting worry, and force of will it took to get here, to keep family spirits high and emotional keels even, to wring sufficient dollars from reluctant Allstate (still in process), to believe that this day would come. In my mind, today the unstoppable force of man's desire to build would overwhelm the unmovable object of charred entropy on Moreno Drive and yield the beginnings of a shiny new life.

Instead, we got Jose and Alberto digging a hole. A modest hole, granted, perhaps even a sincere hole. In fact, as I consider it, a beautiful hole. But on this, the first day of new life for Casita Moreno, we got two guys with shovels.

They seem to have brought a white microwave oven which they have put beneath my house. This is a mystery I choose not to solve. I have done so poorly so far.

Evacuation

the portapottie is back. we're back in business.

Permit Me

Permit achieved.

[PICTURE OF PERMIT TO COME]

After a Kafaesque process, they signed. I went down to the city to view firsthand the machinations of this secret bureaucratic cabal in person. the office where all the decisions are made about what is built and how in the entire city of Los Angeles is an absolutely featureless room with 6 empty desks arranged in kneewall cubicles. Scotch-taped to the wall above each is a single sheet of white paper with a single number, handwritten, to denote each station. there is absolutely nothing else on the walls. Nothing. Rein. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Not a sign. Not a poster. Not a picture of a house.  Nothing. you could perform open heart surgery in this room.

Presumably, the sterility of decor removes all possible distraction for the plan checkers whose job it is to get endlessly lost in a repeating feedback loop of inane regulations and code requirements. If they had a touchstone to remind them of the real world outside this austere room, presumably, they would not be able to so completely, quickly, and repeatedly lose sight of the big picture of what you are trying to accomplish.

Each time they touch your plans, they immediately go down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass in a ribbon of linearity, going from point to point down some supernatural checklist that only they can navigate, until they hit a bump in the road, and no matter how many times you have explained, clarified, and agreed to the resolution to that bump, they stop dead as if frozen deer, panicking lest some lag bolt or flashing has been tragically misplace, dooming the entire project to imminent destruction.

At one point today, the über-boss was looking at our plans and describing how, because of current setback requirements, the "addition" to my house (which, I remind you, involves simply adding a wall to enclose already existing space within my already existing foundation footprint) would now have one wall that must angle five degrees in order to set it back 5" from the property line. This would be in the middle of my bedroom. And after ten minutes of explaining the reasons for this, and us trying to explain the inanity of this, he says that's the way it has to be "unless, of course, you have the signatures of your neighbors," which, of course, we had ten days ago and had shown them twice. Shown a third time, he says, "Oh, well why are we talking about this? I'll sign." and we are done.

Next up: Sweaty men on the property...if, of course, I can get my builder to draft a contract. but that's another story.

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

Down the Rabbit Hole

We're in plan check now, sort of a bureaucratic purgatory where the city building and safety office reviews your architectural and engineering drawings against a byzantine mosaic of applicable building codes to see what bizarre contortions you will have to go through to achieve a home. Sometimes, the codes are about building safely. Other times, I learned, they are about something altogether different.

My first encounter with Building and Safety (which from now on we'll simply call BS) came shortly after the fire. In the first few moments when I began to allow myself to dream of a real future for the house, I recalled a brilliant plumbing innovation I had learned about 8 years ago while writing for This Old House magazine called Pex. 

Pex is a system of flexible hose that does the same job as the rigid (and now extremely costly) copper pipe most commonly used in Los Angles area homes, but with some significant advantages. Let's review each system briefly, so you can see what insanity drives the LA BS.

 With a copper system, the water comes into the house through a single big pipe which then narrows and branches in a continuous steam throughout the house to reach each sink, shower, ice-maker, and toilet appliance you have. from the main street valve, each length of pipe must be cut and fit, with corners and tee joints, like a giant erector set,

 each length carefully aligned and inserted through holes or notches cut  in precise alignment into the joists, and then each fitting individually fluxed and heated with an acetylene torch before being soldered together. Every time a pipe path turns, it diminishes the overall water pressure through the system, so the whole system must be carefully designed to maximize strait pipe runs. Additionally, careful consideration must must be given to the distance between the hot water heater and each appliance, because to draw hot water when turned on, each appliance must draw all the standing cold 

water from the pipes first. We all know the experience of waiting for the shower to warm up and thinking to ourselves what a waste of water it is. That's because the hot water heater is usually located close to the kitchen, which is the most frequent hot water draw in the house, and further from the showers, which could be anywhere in relation.

Copper replaced galvanized steel as the metal of choice for household piping in the last 25 years or so, as galvanized tends to rust over time, restricting water flow, causing leaks, and contaminating the water supply. Copper does neither, was easier to put together (soldering is faster than fitting threaded joints), and was, in its time, less expensive. In the last few years, however, the price of copper has more than tripled, making it very costly to use (and, in a brilliant stroke of the Law of Unintended Consequences, improving the lifestyle of thousands of homeless people who scavenge and resell scrap copper).

Pex, on the other hand , is a very different beast. To visualize a pex system, think of a hose bib, that spigot you use to water your lawn with a garden hose. Pex pipe is almost exactly like a garden hose, except it doesn't break 

or leak and lasts 25 years or more. to repipe, say a sink, with pex, you run two long lengths of flexible pex hose through the walls from hose bibs near your water main and water heater to the hot and cold spi

gots on the faucet. the hose is totally flexible, like electrical wire, and can twist and turn as many times as you need without effecting flow pressure. Instead of measuring pipe, aligning holes, and soldering all day, you simple drill holes in the joists more or less at the same height, start at one end, and thread the pipe all the way through the house to the appliance just like you thread a tent pole through a tent. Your mother-in-law could do it.

Now imagine a single pipe, a foot long, with, say, eight bibs coming off it. That's called a manifold and in a pex system, you hook up as many of those as you need close to the hot and cold water sources (each sink, for

 example, would need one bib from the hot supply and one from the cold), and run a hose to each appliance. This design is called a "home run" and though at first seems less efficient than an integrated whole house

 design, is in fact much more so. 

First, pex hose is much cheaper than copper, so you can use more of it for the same overall cost. Second, there are no fittings or soldered turns needed, saving all sorts of time and toxic materials. the hose is attached to fittings with a simple crimping tool that takes about 20 seconds per fitting or less.  Third, as I mentioned, you can repipe a typical house in a day. And last, and this is the beauty part, you save a ton of water. Instead of needing to empty the standing cold water out of the entire house every time you turn on a hot spigot, you only have to empty the direct run from the hot water source to the appliance you are using, hoses that are varying diameters depending on the amount of water they need (you would have a bigger hose going to a bathtub, for instance, than to a powder room sink).

Cheaper, faster, more reliable, more efficient, and more earth-friendly. Seems like a no-brainer, eh?

Well, it certainly seems so to most of the world, which has been using Pex in everything from residential construction to office skyscrapers for 20 years without any complaints (there are some urban myths about mice liking to eat the hose, but none have been substantiated, and if a leak does occur, it is simpler to repair than copper, too). In seismic zone, like LA, flexible pipe dramatically decreases earthquake damage by virtually eliminate temblor-caused leaks common to rigid pipe, and in fact, there are thousands of buildings in Los angeles that are piped just this way. 

But no longer, a fact I discovered when i called the Plumbing desk at BS back in February.  As i recall, the conversation went something like this:

ME: Hi, is Pex pipe approved for use in Los Angeles?

Plumbing Desk Supervisor: Nope.

ME: Really? why? It's been in use around the world for 20 years, is cheaper, more efficient, more earth friendly, and more earthquake proof. Why wouldn't LA approve it?

PDS: Good question.

ME: Is there an answer?

PDS: Well, they used to approve it, but no longer. In fact, there are thousands of building in LA that have it with no problems.

ME: Then why not now?

PDS: they changed the rules.

ME (getting a little frustrated by his obvious reticence): Why??

PDS: Honestly?

ME: YES, HONESTLY.

PDS: Politics.

ME: huh?

PDS: The plumbers union and the metal companies make a lot of campaign contributions. There's no other reason you shouldn't be able to use it. In fact, you should go ahead and do so. I did. My son and I laid out the whole thing on my front lawn and repiped the house in a day.

ME (incredulous): Are you, the head guy on the plumbing desk at BS, telling me to go ahead and use an non-permitable and unapproved plumbing system in my home? (I might not have been this obvious, but you get the idea)

PDS: Yup.

ME: And you're telling me that you did this on your own house, without a permit?

PDS: Yup. Who's gonna know?

ME: Wow. Wow. I'm recovering from a fire. Won't they have to inspect the plumbing before we drywall?

PDS: Oh. In that case, you're shit out of luck.

I may have simplified this conversation, but not by much. The guy in charge of plumbing permits, a nice guy really,  basically told be to ignore building codes and permit requirements and do the sensible thing, just like he did, unless, of course, you think you'll get caught. And these are the guys who now sit in judgement of our architectural plans and are the last barrier to having sweaty men crawling on our property.

Something tells me that the permit process will soon give new meaning to the term roto-router, with me on the prison-shower end of things.

Insurance travails pt1

There are too many things we do not know about how to live a life in USA 2008. More than any one person should have to know. In fits of political pique, I often attribute this to Ronald Reagan, who first deregulated virtually everything in our lives and in so doing set loose the mad dogs of hypercaptialism. On a practical--nonpolitical--level, this means that rather than deal with one phone company every month, I deal with four, plus my internet provider, plus my satellite TV company plus plus plus plus, well, you get the picture. Life, the monthly maintenance of which used to involved writing about five checks to pay my various obligations, now requires several hours of bookkeeping (the only word in the English language with a triple double letter, btw) and even more phone calling, the latter activity aimed at correcting the various ways various service suppliers try to fuck you up each month, either through gross errors or deliberate malice.

Which brings us to the topic of the day: Insurance companies.

In what I can only attribute to an unquenchable need to reinforce every stereotype and cliché of the industry, our homeowners insurance company, Allstate, has decided to drop us from their rolls.

Just to get the pathos out of the way early and get to the meat of the matter (corporate criminal behavior), let me paint the human picture for you. We live in a slightly shabby rental home, with rented furniture, rented dishes, rented candles, rented brooms, etc. (see This Rented American Life) while we await the rebuilding of our almost totally destroyed home. 80% of our personal possessions have been totally destroyed, the remainder being precious (artwork and photos) but not practical (can't eat off a painting). Elicia and I both work full time, high value jobs in addition to the ongoing reconstruction of our lives. 

For Elicia, that means managing a personal possessions claim involving 120 pages of totally lost items, 15 items per page, handwritten in almost indecipherable penmanship by the team hired to excavate our lives after the fire. Each item requires that she correctly identify it (name, make, model number), ascertain its original purchase price, age, quantity, and replacement cost, and then back that info up with receipts if we have them, going back 7 years. Her process is further complicated by Allstate's insistence that all submissions be handwritten on the same messed up pieces of paper they handed us and their refusal to provide us or allow us to use any electronic means of communication, like a database.

For me, that means managing the complete reconstruction of the house, in addition to the ongoing wrangling with Allstate to get them to pay a reasonable amount of money to accomplish this.

Both, full time jobs, in addition to our full time jobs.

Now, as if we were not burdened enough, Allstate is trying to dump us.

So, other than the obvious lack of compassion, what is wrong with this picture?  Here's what you don't know about your homeowners insurance.

Insurance companies have what they call "underwriting guidelines," basically, the circumstances under which they consider you an insurable risk. They have the right to dump you if you exceed these guidelines, as long as they do so uniformly and without discrimination, ie, everyone gets treated the same. Though these guidelines are registered with the state insurance commission, however, Allstate (and probably your company too) does nothing to make this information readily available to its customers. 

Why is this a problem? Their lack of transparency allows them to profit at their customer's expense by selling products you cannot use.

Here's how it worked in our case. We paid top dollar for Allstate's lowest deductible policy, covering the replacement cost for all losses to our home and personal property above $500. Allstate's unpublished underwriting guidelines, however, allow them to dump anyone with two claims against their policy within a five year period. Last year, believing that I had paid for insurance that would cover me for relatively small losses, I filed a $3000 claim to replace my golf clubs, which were stolen from my car during the summer (the car was stolen and recovered, sans clubs, which were in the trunk). Allstate was very cooperative in handling the claim, and happily applied my $500 deductible before paying me about $2000 toward the cost of the replacement clubs.

Then the house burned up.

Now, a mere two weeks before we begin reconstruction, Allstate has sent us a letter telling us that they are dumping us from their insurance rolls, leaving us uninsured during reconstruction and at the new house, which, by the way, they are paying for. They have decided, and incredible as it sounds, that having filed 2 claims within 5 years (for a stolen car and a destroyed house, neither of which we were within a mile of), that we are a higher risk for filing another claim this year.

So after 10 years of dutifully paying premiums, adios dude.

Now I am out in the wooly world of insurance shopping with claims on my record.  Not fun. No, not fun.

Spring 2

I learned yesterday that our long-time "mow, blow, and go" gardener, Tiburcio Alamillo, is still coming by the house to care for the front yard on Saturday mornings. 

What a beautiful gesture. Trudging over the blackened patch of ash, glass, and plaster that used to be the beautiful fescue grass lawn he had recently installed, he trims and prunes, waters and weeds our two small bits of garden with the same care and attention he gave every week we lived there. 

I wonder what he thinks, as he cares for the roses, pentas, and Brazilian skyflower now appreciated only by the butterflies and passersby. Gardens, after all, are artificial constructs of nature, careful arrangements of the wild into the tame. Though philosophers  have argued the esthetics of gardening at least since the late 17th century, no matter where you fall on the arranged vs. wild-seeming axis, it is indisputable that, like tanks at the Aquarium, no garden exists in nature. In our case, it is merely a floral decoration before a now indecorously charred wooden box.

Perhaps, though, as one acculturated to the careful tending of the land, he knows instinctively that what lives demands attention, and that our future is built on the patient ministrations of today. 

Clip and shear. Fertilize and hydrate. Process over product. Structure follows strategy. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single snip.

Fire! (works)

Did I mention that one of the few things that survived the fire were the fireworks we bought in New Mexico?