Driving down our alley after work today I found this pile of wood sitting in what will someday be our new garage. That pile does not look like a two story house to me. But what do I know, we’ve never done this before. Maybe that pile is a whole house. Rumor has it they are going to start framing tomorrow. David and Opal leave on a road trip to Palm Springs tomorrow. I leave on a jet plane on Thursday, also to Palm Springs. We’ll all be gone until after the New Year when we all drive back together. I’m sad they are getting to the exciting part while we will be out of town.
This is the apple juice (referred to in The Letter) that I can’t stop drinking. I love everything about this product. You know how I’m always asking for ice? No matter where I am? Ice water, a side of ice with my cocktail, I just crave super cold beverages. For a while last year I was adding ice to this apple juice in the morning to get it colder than the refrigerator does. But then I started doing something else. I started pouring the apple juice in a glass and putting the glass in the freezer while I get ready for work. I started out setting the kitchen timer for 5 minutes but realized nothing was going to freeze that fast. I moved up to 10 minutes, then 13, then 20. I am now holding at 20 minutes. It’s super cold, but not slushy, after 20 minutes. The timer works. Only once did I not hear it – I was in the shower. The next day I had an “ice cube” of apple juice that I drank as it thawed. I want an ice maker in our new home. But I don’t think one is in the budget.
Well, a full year later. I just went back to one of the first posts on this blog and noticed it was from December 17th of 2016. Today is December 18th of 2017. A year has passed. Today was “Get The Letter Out” day. I had six boxes of Washington calendars, three boxes of printed letters from Kinkos, and two boxes of envelopes from Girlie Press. It’s quite an undertaking. My friend Tim Allen showed up as he always does and he and I and David, along with my wonderful and amazing office staff, Tracie and Jeannette and Lindy, knocked this project out in record time. We finished by lunch time. (I treated since it’s my work party!) After lunch everyone drifted off and I sat there and patiently counted every piece of this mailing. I kept them in perfect zip code order for Renee who will pick them up tomorrow and take them to the dreaded Bulk Mail Unit at the post office. I stood them on end ever so neatly in eight boxes. The lowest zip code was the first calendar in box one and the highest zip code was the last calendar in box eight. Total count this year: 565
You’re looking at the patio and the slider doors that open onto it.
You’re looking at an outdoor deck that has three doors onto it.
And by that I mean we are waiting for the framing lumber to arrive. In case you were wondering, this is what an obsessive compulsive homosexual building site looks like. All of the digging is done, the downspout drains, catch basin, and sewer connections were all finished but the site was a muddy mess. I couldn’t walk around it without either getting 5 inches of super sticky mud on my shoes or without having my shoe get stuck in the mud and come off. So I called my guy and last weekend we picked up all the trash and debris left behind by the various crews who got us this far, we leveled the site, and then we spread wood chips. David, and a few of our neighbors, and our builder, have all made fun of me for spending time and money doing this since it’s likely to get trashed as soon as the next crews arrive, but I don’t care. It can’t be as bad as it was. And it looks so nice. As I said to Elliot, quoting Oprah, “When you know better, you do better.” My point being when the next crews arrive perhaps they will SEE a higher standard for this job site and then work towards it.
As for waiting for wood . . . David and I have been joking about that phrase since the foundation was finished. We learned that the phrase, which we both like and find funny, is common in the porn industry from a New Yorker article years ago. Waiting for lumber finally gives us the chance to say it in day-to-day conversation!
I finished writing the letter last night, Wednesday. I dropped it off for “printing” at Kinkos today. It’s the same skit every year. They ask what I want and I show them the originals and say, “Front to back.” They say how many and I say, “575” and they stop cold and say we can’t possibly do that today because . . . . blah blah blah blah. I explain that I know it might take a day or two and to just do the best you can. I plan for this. My stuffing party isn’t until Monday. Today is Thursday. “I’m calm, I’m calm, I’m perfectly calm, I’m utterly under control . . . ”
As soon as I was in my car things that I forgot to mention about 2017 started popping into my head. All of a sudden little stories are floating up to the surface. Great. Where were these floating thoughts when I was in the midst of it and feeling pressure? I’m exhausted now but perhaps later I’ll start a PS segment on this blog. PS as in “post script,” NOT as in Palm Springs.
Well I am very happy to say Phase One of this project ended on a very high note today. I came home from work before dark to take these six photos. You may have noticed that the day we got our permit from the City I took six photos in very specific locations. (Scroll back, you’ll find it.) Throughout the building of this house I plan on taking the same six photos periodically. We just wrapped up all “the dirt work” on this house. Our project manager keeps saying, “We are out of the ground.” Obviously the 38″ thick foundation is complete. But also all the drainage pipes have been run for all future downspouts and all site water retention issues have been addressed. It has been a muddy mess around here (dirt work in October and November) but now it’s done. The ground has been leveled and all the construction crap is out of here. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
This is what it looks like when you donate your car to NPR. That is my 2005 Ford Escape. We managed to run it without oil. But not for long. I now have a new car that uses neither oil nor gas so that should be better for a car idiot such as myself. Anyway, back to NPR. I listen all of the time and I hear them make it sound so easy and simple to support NPR by donating your old vehicle. They will make it easy and take care of everything. That’s what they say on the radio. Actually doing it is a let down. I was hoping Lakshmi Singh would take my call about the donation and we’d chat a bit and then perhaps Audie Cornish would come meet me and get the keys and then she and I could chat. That’s not how it goes down. I’ll skip the annoying details but know this, the Hybrid Escape is a thing of the past. The paper trail here is not what I would have hoped for. I’m going on NPR faith that this will be okay prior to April 15th!
Wow. We are on our 43rd day and no cement trucks are anywhere in sight. These forms are being built on top of two feet of rock. (See the rock all around?) And they are 38 inches tall on average (I’ve been walking around the whole thing with a tape measure checking). This foundation is called “a raft” because (as Swensen Say Faget explains to me) it is meant to float on the liquified soil when the big one comes. The cost of this much cement is insane . . . . it’s over 10% of the total budget for the house.
Yup, I am numbering the days in my calendar from the very first day that workers actually showed up here. Today is Day 37 and we have some progress! We passed our City plumbing inspection yesterday. Now rebar starts going in. Our contractor, Elliot, is talking about concrete by the end of the week. I’m hoping it is two days late as I’ll be in Miami at the end of this week. So this is when a delay would be in my favor as I’d like to see this cake pan filled with batter.
The surveyor showed up. He spent a day with tripods, laser beam machines, and other magical devices and then, towards the end of the day, there was a lot of good old fashioned hammering. As soon as he left I walked the job site and found 2″ X 2″ wooden stakes pounded into the rock at each corner of the house And this house has a lot of corners, fourteen of them, I counted and then I double checked. Twice. He sprayed each of the fourteen stakes bright pink. Now we can move on to the foundation walls. Finally.
