Breathe In, Breathe Out

July 25, 2008

Now that I’ve given you my favorite punch line to a {fill in the category of your choice…I heard it as a blonde} joke, let’s see why I need the reminder (and NO! I have not dyed my hair blonde):

(Adoptive) Mom died. I found out via the lawyer, 28 hrs after the fact. My brother doesn’t want any contact with me. I grieve alone.
The bank said no more money until 93%, 95% or 97% of the house is built. (Umm…)
The school said no more job, but, you can interview at the middle school.
The investments must be tapped to finish the house.
The crew decides they need to wait to see if I have a job, and stop work until we know;
I’ll need the investments if I don’t have a job.
No job, no investments to tap, no house completed. Lose everything.

That was the start of last weekend.

The plumbing inspection was approved, as was the electrical.
Found an engineer to review the plans/truss modifications. He dragged his heels and his ass.
Finally able to contact the architect who ‘signed off’ on house plans, he signs off on truss mods, no problemo. I had to drive to Santa Fe to get this done in timely fashion.
Engineer calls minutes after the architect’s ink has dried, wants $450 for his ‘work’, which I don’t need no mo’.
Door order got messed up, the feud is getting to boiling point. I refuse to fight and shut down the dumping session the you’d-never-know-it-to-look-at-him-but-the-dude-is-WEALTHY door maker wants to dump on me.
Still waiting on replacement windows. One is here. One more to wait for. Both are 7 days after promised—gas prices/full truck deliveries only.

All that is the typical and usual. There’s a lot more of it. Those were just the big chunks.
Interspersed amongst those were little joys that mean a whole lot more to me:

“It’s MY damn investment money and I’ll spend it however the hell I want to!”
“Let’s cut to the chase: I’ll take the job at the middle school if unemployment is the other option.” (I’ve been ‘reassigned’ to the middle school.)
“Toby, I don’t care whose fault it is, I just want to get this door order corrected and be done with it, so leave me alone so I can do that.”
“Do I REALLY have to pay the engineer, or can I just pretend that I never met him?”
“Te amo, querida, mi corazon y mi pequeno tortuga con carino!”

The garage door was installed, and is a monster door!
The special order ‘spa bath’ got delivered!!
The west-facing portal is done & is wunderbar!
The building inspector showed up the same day I called to say we got the necessary signature—AND he signed off on the building permit, allowing us to move ahead with sheet rock, vigas, ceiling timbers and plastering work!!
The fireplace will NOT be allowed, per the aforementioned inspector. Time to contact the architect AGAIN! (I owe this guy BIG TIME!)
The glass blocks are all framed and ready to install.
Three doors are installed. The other two we pick up…

MANANA!

Now Back to Our Feature Presentation

Written July 12, 2008:

Now that I’ve paid some attention to TTC, I guess I can quit stalling and catch y’all up on the haps with the house.

The week started lethargically following the 4th of July three-day weekend. I don’t know what the deal was, but the weather certainly played into it. It’s been overcast with intermittent light rains all week. The temps have been only as high as the mid-80’s, which is damn near perfect working weather. For some reason everyone’s been dragging ass; me included. I’m not on a deadline, however.

Maybe the phase we’re in with the build played into the malaise. It’s not exactly riveting work right now. It could also have been the fact that all the inspections that were scheduled got effed up, or were no-shows. I guess it could’ve also been too many sub contractors tripping over one another kinda took the wind out of our sails. For me, it was daily trips to Los Lunas’ Home Depot. I’m their newest line of fixtures.

I’ve been frustrated beyond words. The crew’s getting short with one another. The work has been necessary but mundane. The lighting sucks ‘cause the electrical inspector wouldn’t sign off on the work done until some changes were addressed. With low natural light due to the cloud cover and no ‘hot’ electrical lines into the house, our moods followed. The nasty florescent lights at Home Depot did nothing but irritate me even more, given how I was there for hours at a time, since no one there makes themselves available, and the few that know what they’re doing are scheduled off that day, or at lunch. I continue to breath deeply and frequently.

Two windows had to be special ordered; one due to damage from the storm, the other to accommodate a Rex-mis-sized window frame. Two weeks from now the windows will all be in. I had some trouble with the door supplier, and we’re now politely wishing our transaction to be completed so we never have to deal with one another ever again. I got my five exterior doors; we’ll install ‘em since the frames have to be modified by the crew. Why should I pay $60/door to be installed when all the real work was done by us? Hell, even I can hang a pre-hung door!

Now I have to find a supplier who has the door locks/hardware that I want. You’d think that Spanish style hardware would be easy to find in New Mexico. Ummmmm….NO! That precipitates a trip to Albuquerque or Santa Fe this coming week. Carolyn and I are going to Abq anyway one day this week to buy tile for assorted locations around the abode.

I did find the sweetest gay-boy sales dude when I went cabinet shopping! I tried to give my business to a cabinet/flooring place here in Belen, but after 4 trips and no response from the giggling fools in the back room, I decided to try one in Los Lunas. That’s where I found Randy. It took us 5 times as long as it should have to plan out the kitchen ‘cause we were having such a howling good time with each other. I LOVE gay-boy designer-types. Look at how many I went to art school with! Randy got some pricing to me yesterday.

So, all of those pesky tasks are addressed and in process. The backhoe showed up on Tues, as scheduled. After eight hours of reshaping the land, he still had to come back yesterday to dig a trench for the septic hookup and finish a couple of spots on the east side of the house. The place looks like a war zone again.

The plumbing inspector never showed, despite several calls from the plumber and multiple calls from Norbert and I to the plumber. The building inspector was called, and showed up, but couldn’t sign off ‘cause the other two inspectors (plumbing and electrical) hadn’t signed off on their stuff. He also expressed concern about the modified trusses. Rut-roh! We knew this could be a sticking point, and…it is. We have three options to get them approved, we know not which one, if any, will pan out. We be skwoo-d if none of ‘em do.

It’s not like this sort of modification doesn’t happen all the time—it does. It’s just that none of us have the usual local connections to make this ‘slip’ right through/past the powers that be. If you get my drift. It’ll work out. The mods are done right, it’s just getting the right person up here ASAP.

We should have the other two inspections done Monday. That means we’ll have power to the house, and we can use the toilet rough-ins if we want to. J/K I don’t even have toilets yet.

11:15 p.m.
I just stepped out into another round of gentle rain to cruise around the house. First I find a centipede centipeding around one of the guest bedrooms. He found a hole between two blocks and centipeded out once the beam from my flashlight found him. Then I check out a couple of more rooms (I wander aimlessly through all this newly defined space. It’s become a daily ritual—a necessity to balance out the confinement of TTC.) and head out under the portal to see what I can see, in the pitch black, of the mountains.

A quiet banging and flapping sound spun me around and tugged my gaze upward. I was thinking I’d see a bat. Nope—worse: A sparrow was lost under the portal roof and desperately trying to find a way out. It hung on the poultry wire (formally known as chicken wire, but I guess we have to be PC about wire patterns and gauges now, too) and banged off the beams and planks until I shone the light in the direction of freedom. The poor little thing was breathing heavily from fear and effort, but caught his/her breath as it rested on a crossbeam, then took off into the wet night.

These two incidents were not the only ones tonight. Earlier I had been sitting out on the steps to TTC and heard what I hope was one of the bunnies scratching around on a tarp under TTC. It could’ve been one of the two dozen types of rodents that coexist with me up here, though, too.

Seems everyone and everything is a bit out of sorts out here at the ranchita tonight. I sure hope it settles down and gets back to normal soon.

And, as far as me assigning the sparrow the benefit of being either male or female, but not the centipede—anything with more than four legs doesn’t deserve the consideration of being female in my books.

Just another day in my Tits 2 the Wind life.

See ya in a few mananas from now, y’all. Sleep tight. Don’t let the centipedes, disoriented unlaiden sparrows and frolicking bunnies bite;)

Ode To The Tin Can

Twenty-three feet of you has fit five foot nine of me
For days-- three hundred and forty-seven with more to come.
(There is less of me than before, you know, and see
The weight of me we do not discuss; y’all--forget your sums.)

Fleetwood, with a Mac, though no Fleetwood Mac,
Your tan and brown skin now pale to my skin tan.
Less of me means more room: In the fridge, clothes and sack.
Flushing TP, long showers and even baths are banned living In The Tin Can.

I light your fire. Not as seductive as it sounds, it’s just your pilot light,
But it’s still a frequent and spontaneous feat, come high winds, bad gas
Or even just your twenty-two years of earthy age, it’s just for the fight
As you thrill at my being battered about, getting revenge upon this lass.

Tendrils of hose, long lengths of wires, even a drain to a hole for ‘black water’
Spawning others as the land’s trailer park squatters mushroom just beyond.
Electricity spurts and glows in turn, powering water pump; yes, Yawn,
Even casting its shine as I sleep, drawing bugs, flying ants and critters un-fond.

Yet, for all of that, My Dear Tin Can, you serve as guardian to Lil’ Bun and Lil’ Bit,
Lizards, ants, babies and adults, Netflix nights and rusty steel parts.
You, of course, have no choice, but these are the joys that keep me from fits.
I guess for those and thats, I should sit and purr, not just sit and farts.

Leaks—there were none ‘til that big storm, now skylight holes from hailstones
Leave fluid upon the sheets, floor, me and thee--whoever thee may be.
Well water is tasting…well-ish but bueno-ish, too; Hey water’s great for the bones!
What with all the minerals, dirt, microbes--there are none, it’s been tested, you see.

Winter’s storms and cold, hurricane-force winds nearly every day,
Scorching sun, no trees, a quarry’s worth of rocks and then some—
In this harsh Neuevo Mexicano desert, You, My Tin Can, I must say,
Have been my salvation, friend and foe to which, most days, I duly come.

How can a rural high school teacher such as me bemoan your shelter?
Though I wish to hell I could burn you, I can’t afford to; You would not
Burn if I did—You are just that way. Can we all say Helter Skelter?
I knew you could. I would, if not for the bank man in Underoos, his money is sought.

Desperate nights and days rollicking upon unseen waves of air, the soundtrack
Of The Wizard of Oz keeps me so often in the mood, version MP3,
Otherwise, a worn out record groove. Tin Can, you are a cruel mistress-hack!
Air mattress, full-sized, upon a two-tiered slab offers merely a place where NOT to pee.

Six steps from horizontal oblivion, through kitchen, dining, closet/storage to the loo.
(The house will seem so gargantuan!) Six stumbling steps, with my greatest hope
Being that m’head ends up in the shower, while me bum settles in position to poo
In the hole versus the tub. Though m’hair could be washed in either place, given soap.

The fridge freezes, the freezer suffers not from global warming, as its ice floes
Grow and grow and grow. One more month, I tell myself. One month more!
But I’ve said that for six or seven months now. And the winds they still blows.
Seasickness IS possible in this high desert abode, my psyche is sick and ego sore.

Six hundred and seventeen square feet, most of it pressed chip wood and veneer.
Cold as outdoors in winter, hot as Hades in summer, without propane and a/c
My weather beaten body wouldn’t’ve been found until sometime next year.
Oh! Tin Can, what a conundrum ist thee; an eyesore, but rent-free you be.

I cannot glorify this life of trailer trash any more, I’ve had it, and so it shall be,
That when the house is done so will this saga of headstrong choices—naw!
For though I can cite many life experiences, most of which common folks cannot see,
For this adventure, I will remind, was never meant to last. Where the hell is the saw!?

The Monsoons

As if this saga of me and m’house hasn’t been rife with twists and turns already, and I’m only casually referring to the linearity of the walls of the house, here, the biggest turn of events came yesterday at about 6 p.m.

The building process has been going swimmingly along. I can’t keep up with it in detail in the blog, but y’all are getting a pretty good snapshot of it, especially since it hasn’t been real riveting descriptions given the phase of work we’re in. I have tons more photos than I have patience to download, transfer and cut and paste into place on the blog page. (Ya get the best of the best in that category.)


The windows are going in/up is the big news. The ‘guest wing’ (that just cracks me up! It’s not like this is some estate with a mansion that has ‘wings’ to it, it’s a 3 bedroom, single story Santa Fe style layout. It’s just a wicked cool design with faboo design elements to it. And curved walls—oooooo!) is enclosed, save the 5 glass blocks that are going in the bathroom wall, so I guess that really means that only the two spare rooms are windowed. (So much for sounding so high-falutin’.) The big windows in the living room/’round room’ went in yesterday. Blocking of the trusses and running stringers and nailers for the sheet rock installation next week was also being done in parallel by Steve and Brett.

I was getting more in the way than not, so I opted to go to Albuquerque to do a little shopping. I have the opportunity to give some private art lessons and went to get supplies for that venture and, since I was in the area, to pop in at Borders to see what new offerings there were in the world of literature and trashy novels.

No sooner had I left Borders and it starts raining. No problem, it wasn’t much, and I hadn’t parked that far away. It rained about halfway home, then another rain cell hit me in Belen, still NP. But, as I glance towards the Manzano Mountains, the foot at which the house sits, there was one mutha’ of a low, dark, already dumping rain cloud mass.

“Woohoo! Another round of monsoons!” sez I, to no one but BB The Jeep, and the 2 bags of books from Borders (and one from Michael’s, of course.) But there’s something about this one that suggests that not is all well in the Land of Manana/The Manzano range. And then the hailstones start flying like softballs at a 4th of July tournament. They weren’t as big as softballs—I don’t embellish THAT grandly—but there were a lot of them. I bound down the road, turn onto the ranch road that serves as my private drive, and fortuitously find that the crew has cleared a space for BB in the garage. Perfect! I jump out and the full fury of when a cold, wet air meets hot air waves and the meeting is more of a collision, on the scale of a plane vs. tall building, hits me. I stood and watched Mother Nature have it out with herself.

To quote my texting students who can’t separate from their phones and the traditions of the written word: OMG! (Oh My God, for you septagenarians &/or non-texting purists.) The hailstones had mutated into lima bean size (I figure that’s not a size most of you are familiar with, at least not with that reference. Too bad. Go get some lima beans from the frozen food section and try ‘em; they’re good for you. AND, the size will be evident) and came out of the canales (Spanish for drainspout) in sheets of white. The associated torrents of rain were unrelenting for about 40 mins. First they came from the east. The winds shifted and the rain pounded from the south. And, yes, it shifted two more times and the ‘liquid sunshine’ flung itself from the other two cardinal points. It was all I could do to keep track of its movement.


Then the flooding started. The ground outside was a solid sheet of water in no time. There’s a couple of ‘ponds’ that the rancher had dug and while one did its job and held the water and drained into the arroyo, the other drained into a self-made river which, of course (Murphy’s Law) found its way to Rex’s half-assed backhoe work and raged under the portal and into the house. Eight inches is the watermark on that east side of the house! And a couple of windows got broken from the wind/hail/whatever. They hadn’t been installed yet. There’s an $800 expense I could do without re-spending. Oh well. C’est la guerre.

It was a doozy, Y’all!









The best part was that both of my arroyos, and their tributaries were all ‘running’. That was a beautiful sight!

When the rain had subsided to a steady, fairly gentle downfall I traipsed around the property taking pictures, taking note of drainage runoffs to the arroyos, and generally just filling my lungs with the scents of the wet desert and trilling with the sensation of rain rat-a-tat-tatting on my rain gear and exposed body parts (I was wearing shorts and sandals, Y’all—don’t be thinking Lady Godiva here). Another stunning experience.






A forty-plus minute deluge, with everything but flying cows and monkeys, and an hour later the earth had reclaimed the waters to begin the filtration and recycling process. As the state inspector for the wastewater department said when they came to inspect the septic system: “You’ve got excellent percolation up here.” As I should. It’s nothing but rocks and fine clay—excellent clay, as C ‘n N have deemed. It’s not the sticky-ruins-everything-it-gloms-onto kind of clay, but one does sink quickly and deeply into it when there’s A FLOOD.



























There it is: The good and the bad. The costs and the rewards. I wouldn’t change any of it for any price. I’m home.
PS: What IS it about nature up here at Chee chees del aigre Ranchita? Here's two damselflies (I think) "doin' it" on BB's antenna. I'm tellin' ya...this trailer park o'mine is one BAD idea! ;) Mananas, mijas y mijos!