rockheart

The House

2008-11-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

It's a done deal!

Two Down, One to Go!

2008-11-18T21:07:00.003-07:00

The ‘boys’ came to work on Saturday and we were good to go for the final inspections on plumbing and electricity.

The plumbing inspector came Monday and neighbor Donna met him, led him around (or followed, I’m not sure) and texted me at work that I got the green sticker. (Green means "go" in the building trades, too.)

The electrical inspector came out today early in the a.m. Donna met him and led/ followed and he left behind a green sticker, too.

ABOUT PHUCKING TIME!

I phoned the county building inspector and arranged to meet him here at mi casa manana for the final inspection. Getting the Certif. of Occupancy is the desired result. I’ll post again when that happens.

Tomorrow will also be a meeting with Leslie, my mortgage broker. A whole new realm of life as an adult will be splitting open and swallowing me whole when we sit down and go over all the documents.

Thursday—ummmm, I’m not sure what happens on Thursday. Maybe I can catch up on grading papers.

Friday I will meet the plumber so he can finish up the last few trailing ends he has to do. The electrician is going to get launched into space if he don’t show up in a few days, vs. two weeks.

Here’s pics of work from Saturday.

And, yes, I’ve cooked a meal, got stuff in the fridge and washed two loads of dishes. Domesticity, here I come!

Since I don’t want to get y’all’s hopes up thinking that the cheery end is near, ok, it is, but there’s still battles to be fought and this is one I left out of my last post due to length: Had my oil changed Friday, went to a doctor’s appt, then met friends at the casino for the crab leg buffet, lost $50, came home, got up in Saturday morning, started making calls to get ‘the boys’ out here to do their work.

I have to go into the garage to make my phone calls ‘cause the casa is so well insulated and I notice something on the floor. Sonovabitch! There’s at least a quart of fresh oil under the Jeep! Yes, there’s a hole in my roof from where I shot through it!

The mechanic had not tightened down the drain plug and it was truly hanging on by a thread.After taking a few pictures (ahem!) I crawled under there, wishing that I’d had radiant heat installed in the garage, too, tightened the drain plug and tossed a ton of sawdust on the oil slick.

I tried calling the dealership every hour all day Saturday to no avail (they’ve cut back on hours due to the fact that they’re going out of business, and there’s a whole torrid litany of allegations against the owners.)

Yesterday I call the dealer, go get my oil replaced, watch their every move and the service manager tries to shoo me away without addressing the oil slick issue. They end up sending their maintenance guy out to my house to clean it up. The floor remains stained. Duh!

I call the dealer back today. I’m told to call one of the owners tomorrow. I ask the dude if I should have my lawyer call. He says to talk to the owner first to see what he suggests be done. I decide that I don’t want to do all the work on this and tell him to have the owner call ME tomorrow. He mumbles out an ok. I tell him that if I don’t hear from the owner manana then they will get a call from my lawyer and hung up on him. I think he’d stopped breathing, so it’s not like he knew that I’d hung up on him. The guy’s a wimp, anyway.

I’m thinking a nice grey with black speckles for the resurfacing, with some insulation underneath and some spongy layering would satisfy me. I need to be concerned about my joints, given my creeping arthritis and all. And a few thousand bucks for the sawdust. And maybe some incentive to bring the smile back to my face.

I’ll keep ya apprised. Expect another posting…manana!

If A Woman Screams In Her Head Can the World Hear It?

2008-11-15T23:21:00.006-07:00

OK, I’m HOT right now, and not in a ‘hottie’ sort of way. I’m writing this on Thursday, November 13. After assurances from the electrician that I would pass inspection, you could say that I’m fairly well torqued right now; the electrician failed the inspection. And, hell no I ain’t saying “we/I” failed the inspection--I didn’t mis-wire this place, or put faulty plugs in.

There were five violations, one we knew of, but it will be resolved on Saturday when yet another trench will be dug to bury the power line to the well. If I wasn’t paying an arm and a leg for this, I’d be not so hot about it, but, ya know….

Now the electrician has to pay for this inspection and for a reinspection before it will be inspected again. I have until the end of the week next week to get my CoO (Certificate of Occupancy) or the bank, mortgage and my finances get PHUCKED.

On the bright side (gads! I’m realizing how many terms for light I’m using as I talk about the electrician. My apologies. That’s just lame writing.)

[this is where I stopped writing, with the ever-lingering hope for a future of living in my house]

Saturday, November 15, 2008:
What I WAS going to say is that the plumbing inspector was going to be here on Friday, but he didn’t show. I’m at wits’ end with all this lack of professionalism and non-service service.

Did I REALLY choose to live here? Sad to say, yes I did. No wonder folks are so thankful when I follow through on a task. I’m a rare bird in these parts. A do-do bird, possibly?

Here I sit, in a cozy chair in an empty Ventana Room, with an unassembled futon at my feet, ‘cause I don’t want to—can’t, legally—look like I’m living in the house yet. I can do what I want in the master bed & bath rooms (and you know I do;) but walking around a mostly empty house isn’t as much fun as it may sound. It adds to the loneliness. Though, the views across the desert floor to the mountains beyond are still stunning.

Aside from going into total bitch mode and haranguing the sub-contractors on the phone in an endless loop, I’m not sure what I can do. Being p-a-t-i-e-n-t sure hasn’t helped me none. Being quietly polite has been fruitless. Efficiency and preparation on my part has only caused money to be spent early, leaving me strapped later. There is no singular manner in which to behave that will get New Mexicans to respond with the desired resulting behavior.

And ya know damn well, that if I refuse to pay the subs, that they’ll slap a lien on me so fast that the bank will own the house in a second and I’m stuck with 15 acres and The Tin Can, seeing as how the parcel I own can’t be broken down to smaller than 5 acre parcels, and the house sits on the biggest chunk, and would have to be sold with the house.

So, while I’ve been doing a lot of screaming in my head, has anyone really heard it?

Let’s have a change of mood, shall we? Let’s talk about the adversarial commenter.

I found the phone number and an unspecified house address on a highway for the commenter to my blog who was inquiring if I had done some horrific acts against the rancher out here. I even used the hybrid Google Maps to scan the length of highway that said commenter lives on to see how many homes I’d have to go to, knocking upon how many doors to find this person. That maps search was just for my amusement while all the banging and pounding was going on earlier this week. The commenter lives about 90 mins-2 hrs away from me, as the highways run.

I called the number Thursday evening, giving the residents time enough to have dinner and be relaxing in front of the tv, or computer screen. When the ringing on the other end finally stopped, I got nothing but the whine of a fax line. Dang it! I was SO ready to tell the commenter who I was, why I was calling and offer my concerns regarding the rancher’s recent spate of hospital stays and then find out why I was being queried about the abhorrent behaviors based on my blog posting.

I had also gone back into the blog archives to find the posting in which I had actually met the rancher, to cite that particular posting to the commenter to see if that specific post had been read.

Of course I got lost in re-reading the past postings and found myself wondering who the hell this person was that was writing this blog about such a thing as building her own house in the high desert of New Mexico? I wanted to cry, laugh, and scream along with her. The poor dear must be completely gray by now. (Had it been me, I would call the shock of gray SILVER, but that’s just my personal affectation and vanity showing.)

I sure hope this woman gets moved into her house soon.

Going back to the house and the present, I realize there is some good news to put forth (I’m still trying to end these posts on a high note) the radiant heat system is working wonderfully. I have three of the six zones heating the master bathroom (the coldest room in the house), master bedroom (for obvious reasons) and the kitchen/hallway/ guest wing zones. The latter is ‘cause that’s the one the plumber turned on first and I had to wait for it to get up to temp first before kicking up the thermostats for any others. I have the thermostats set to 66 and the house is quite comfortable there. Passive solar heating helps that to be.

Please realize that while I’m using a very shee-shee ‘green’ term like passive solar heating, I’m only saying what no one else will tell you in more precise terms: sunlight…the stuff that comes down from the sky, for free, and warms anyone or anything that gets in its way. Yup, Between the warmth of the sun on the walls, and a very low temp setting on the radiant heat, the house is at a comfortable temp, despite what the thermostat reads.

The major appliances should be going in today. For sure not manana—nada happens on a Sunday in this region of the US. I will be haranguing the plumber and electrician starting at 9 am today. Listen for the screaming to start about 9:01 am, MST. It should reverberate long past manana.

There is Nothing to Report

2008-11-11T21:29:00.003-07:00

Seriously. No one was here doing work on the house this week. Unless you count me. Curtain rods and “window treatments” were hung (they’ll never make Better Homes & Gardens as selections, but it keeps the sun and cold out, so WTF?), some art got framed, closet organizers were bought and nearly installed, and some touch up painting got done. Shower curtain, rugs and towels were put in place, window hardware was chased down and installed.

Then there’s the “heating system” aka: Wood stove. It’s working like a champ, tiny and squirrely though it may be. Every day after school I was digging through the scrap lumber pile behind the house, hand selecting the chunks, lengths and kindling that were to be transported into the garage to face the saw.

Yes, everyone, me and a circular saw! The chainsaw won’t be in use until I finish the scrap pile and head over to the leftover timbers and trusses, for they are fairly formidable and way too cumbersome to deal with while I have a pile of scrap as tall as me and twice my height wide. Flying sawdust follows me inside twice a night. The wood stove may be small, but it has a hunger that burns!

My main goal was to get the closet organized and filled, but one look at the cement floor and my feet got cold at the thought of stepping on frigid cement in the mornings, so I’ve now added to my list the great joy that is tiling. Bummer--more tools to buy. Maybe I’ll have it done before the last of the workmen come to finish what needs finishing in the house on Weds. Maybe not. Probably, though.

And maybe I’ll finally get that one last damn doorknob and install it this week, too. The hole in the door that leads to the garage lets in a hell of a lot of cold air, but nothing that cammo colored duct tape didn’t fix. I’m just trying to get to the end here, folks. If duct tape and plastic sheeting are good enough for our government to recommend for protection against ‘dirty bombs’, then by gum, it’s good enough for my house.

Got the fridge Saturday. It took seven hours, round trip. That’s what happens when you pile up your running-around-Albuquerque stuff. Then I extended my evening until early morning by volunteering to go with one of my friends to the casino. WTF? Why not? It’s not like I’ve got an active social life or anything. Besides, casinos are fun. And so is my friend, Kenda. Heck, if she’s gonna help me haul a fridge from Lowe’s all the way into the garage, then why shouldn’t I go gambling with her? Fair’s fair, right?

Kenda found a penny slot machine with the theme of home construction on it and told me that it was calling out for me. Had I have been in a fouler mood I might have struck her. But it seemed fitting, and I sure could use some more schooling in that area, so, I fed it a $20 and the next thing ya know, I was getting 13,000 credits. Yup! 130 bucks. I hit 100 bucks on a quarter slot. We almost tried playing roulette; spinning wheel roulette, not Russian.

The casino was packed, and the tables full, so we bagged it for a slower time so as not to embarrass ourselves too badly in front of so many. There was also the added humiliation of losing our chips in front of a poor old guy, like 100+ year old guy, all bent over in his wheelchair with a diaper on his chest to catch his drool. I told Kenda that in the old days there would’ve been a drool bucket under his chin, but Pampers seems so much more sensible. Modern conveniences. I couldn’t tell if the old guy was having a good time or not—I didn’t want to stare.

Kenda and I walked out with more money than we walked in with. OK—I walked out with more money than I walked in with, but we both still had a great time. I sure hope Kenda don’t get in trouble for being out so late.

I’ve been promised a new dog. His name is Hudson. He’s a hairy wiener dog. More to the point, he’s a hairy wiener pirate dog; he’s blind in one eye. Yawr! He’s with the mom of the woman who rescued him from MN (and I DO mean rescued from MN, though he’s still in MN, so the rescue isn’t quite complete yet.) Here’s the pics that melted my heart when they were emailed to me. How/Why could/would I say no to a face like that? Exactly! Which is why I said yes! I’ll keep you updated on Hudson.

To update y’all on the commenter to the blog that I told you about last time—the commenter is indeed real. I told Neighbor Donna about the situation and she mentioned it to Red, the ranch hand that’s up this way nearly every day. He confirmed that the rancher has an adult child with that name, but has no idea why the commenter would day what was said. Red said that “they” have no gripes with me, and will mention it at the next meeting with Weldon, the rancher.

Red also said that the crimes that were suggested done by me did indeed happen—decades ago. Even before Red began working for Weldon, so Red was confused why those particular events were even mentioned. Red thinks I should find her number and call her. It’s on my list of things to do. Like…

manana.

And, That’s a…

2008-11-02T16:07:00.001-07:00

Wrap? No. Not yet. Close, though. It’s so close there’s not even very many pictures of new work that’s been done to show y’all this time.

Am I excited yet? Kinda. Hesitantly so. But until I get through the last of the inspections, am handed the Certificate of Occupancy and have a mortgage loan in place, I’m still guarded in my enthusiasm.

The propane guys showed up and completed the yard line and filled the 500 gal. propane tank. The satellite internet provider, Wildblue, showed up and relocated the dish from the construction utility pole to the rooftop and Norbert & Carolyn left on Weds. or Thurs. while Brett, Felicia, 5-day old Skyler and two of Brett’s sisters left yesterday. The trailer park ceases to exist.

Given how one of my neighbors was rattling his saber about calling and complaining about all the activity and trailers up here at my place, I kinda wish I could’ve gotten more folks up here to camp out for a few weeks. He’s been shooting his mouth off to everyone in the immediate area about how he was gonna do this, that and the other to me until they all told him to shutup and leave me alone. It’s good to know there are still some reasonable people left in this world.

I’m still giving tours of the house on a weekly basis. The only people who won’t have had a tour is everyone I know in town, and my lifelong friends. There’s something wrong with that, ain’t there? Ah well, my lifelong friends will get to stay in The House, whilst those in town will have to return to theirs. I consider that worth the wait.

The long sequence of open houses should be starting in December. Here’s the operating schedule as it stands right now (subject to change of course. But y’all know that by now): Manana I go get the custom lighting fixtures. Then, aside from me doing a bunch of detail work (make and hang rain chains, putting up towel racks, hooks, the closet rods, shelving, drawer units, batteries in thermostats, light bulbs in exterior lights, cutting firewood, etc) and running around, there’s nothing scheduled for this week. Well, aside from seeing a financial planner. More on that in a sec.)

The countertop will be installed on the 12th and the plumber will come do some final hookups on the 13th along with the electrician who will be here to install the fixtures and make good on a bunch of goofs and incomplete work. Or he dies. Actually, I’ll just call a local electrician to finish up and duke it out with original electrician later.

As for The House, that will be it! (Not counting the problematic doorknob that is still going back and forth between Toby’s Doors and The House. Believe it or not, I have to have all knobs and locks in place for final inspection!)

Ya remember how I was bemoaning about how I was going to fall just short with being able to pay off the last of the work on The House? I bemoan no mo’. Mom left me one more chunk o’money. The bills can be paid and the trip to the Caribbean is back on! Woo hoo! I thank my mother every time I think of money, which is frequently. The appt. with the financial planner next week is to see if I can’t grow some money with the ‘seed’ money Mom left me. It’s a meeting I don’t mind attending.

One last bit of juicy news: In September, 2007 I posted to the blog the history of Tierra Grande and the rancher who is legend in these parts who bought up the development and free ranges his herd of cattle out here as part of his bailout deal of TG.

For some reason, and through a chance in a billion, an adult child of the rancher came across my blog and happened to read who knows how much of it, but did find his/her (I’m not wanting to give out too much info about this person, please bear with me) way into the archives and read that particular post. S/he sent me the following response:
“Anonymous said...
Are you one who have shot some of the McKinley cows? Were you the one who shot my father's favorite horse? Are you part of the group that regularly breaks into his bunk house?   Your disclaimer at the bottom in no way covered up your hatred.” (The commenter left a full name and relationship to the rancher, which I’m not posting here.)

(All of the above events HAVE occurred, btw.)

What I don’t get is: Why would anyone accuse a total stranger of such horrific acts? And, aside from one being as cruel as the responder suggests, who would consider those acts the act of a woman? Furthermore, if she read that far back in my blog, then has she come across the other posting I did about the rancher and my subsequent interactions with him? If not, ok, then the comment makes some irrational sense. If the commenter had read more of my blog than that single entry, then…WTF?

I was a titch disturbed, to say the least. I WILL be following up on it. I’ll keep y’all posted.

I’ve been sleeping and spending most of my time in The House since I ‘moved in’ over a week ago. I want to get used to it slowly. Maybe with that strategy in place I won’t have to overuse my GPSr by setting tracks and waypoints throughout The House. Here’s hoping. I use The Tin Can as my private movie studio and diner now.

There y’all have it. Instead of the interminable “one month” left with this “adventure”, it’s now down to “about two weeks”. Don’t hold yer collective breath just yet. I’m not. Expect a few more entries to this blog and then I’ll close it off. It will still be available to view, I just won’t post anymore new entries. I WILL be starting a new blog, or three, though.

Another tale from the high desert nears the end as the proverbial sun sets in the west and leads us ever forward in serch of manana.

Post-Buildum Depression

2008-10-25T18:46:00.010-06:00

(NOTE: The bulldog in this post is Molly. She's one of the many animals who let my friends Sheila, Kenda, Bubba, Reyna and Pilar live on their farm. Sheila and Kenda feed me scrumptious homemade meals. They are all VERY good to me!)

We’re in the home stretch—gads! I used a pun. I HATE puns! (They’re the lowest form of humor, in my opinion.)

Let me start again, since it was supposed to be more of a softball analogy and not ‘low’ humor….

The train coming through the tunnel with its headlight blazing has stopped on the tracks. No. That ain’t it neither.

How’s about: The House is coming along nicely, and while there are still some loose ends, the endurance test that is being a Homeowner/Builder for your pal in New Mexico is nearly over. Aside from the house being ‘done’, so will my heartache, roller coaster anxiety levels, retirement funds, inheritance, pride and self-esteem. Y’all, I’ve made so many mistakes on this adventure of mine I can hardly stand to live with myself. So much for analogies.

But, being a true, hard-headed woman born under the sign of Aries, I’ll figure out some way to salvage at least the last two lost items. Arian egos are just too big to allow one to wallow very long in that mire. Unless it’s chemically influenced.

So, the update on The House: The crew was expecting to leave this weekend and are doing a bunch of touchups and little detail jobs. They thought they were going to be able to be done this past Weds., but, no. Now they won’t leave until Tuesday morning. Unless Skyler decides to pop out of Felicia. That’s all I need is a medical emergency and a birth of a child on the land.

The list is shorter: Finish the Powder Monkey Room (garage bathroom) (UPDATE 10/25: DONE.) “Float” the floors (one last going over to smooth out some of the irregularities) and…that’s about it, I think. For the crew, anyway. The propane line still has to be laid, and the boiler and some plumbing connections done, as well as the electrical finished up; but for the on-site crew—they are finito banditio.

The wood stove (I have to quit calling it a fireplace) was installed yesterday (Friday), and I just HAD to ‘cure’ it with its first fire. While they were still finishing up the install of the wood stove, the kitchen cabinets arrived; they will be installed manana. (UPDATE 10/25: DONE!) The vanity doors, save one (missing) false panel, were installed when the cabinets were being unloaded, so that’s (almost) done. Door trims were done, including the closet in the master bedroom, which doesn’t have a door (I’ve explained that reason before.) And a bunch of other stuff that I don’t even have the desire to list.

I did sleep in the master suite Thurs and Fri night, and will tonight and forevermore. The replacement ‘air chambers’ for the Sleep Number bed arrived Thursday evening. Even though the overnight temp on Thursday was somewhere around freezing, there was only a slight chill in the house. An electric blanket kept me from complaining about it. Tonight should be toasty warm, with the smell of wood smoke licking the air.

I know I should sound more excited, but I just can’t. The anticlimacticness of this whole event is overwhelming. There’s still plenty that can, and will, go wrong, and I don’t think a single one of you would dare suggest such platitudes as: “Just be patient” or “Think positively” or even, “But you have such a wonderful house to show for all of your time, money, heartache, trailer-trash living experience.” There’s just so much one can take, and I’ve taken more than I ever thought I could, so there just ain’t no room for no mo’.

But, I have to, don’t I? Take more. I have to take more of it. Therefore, I feel no joy. I barely smiled when the wood stove went in. I didn’t even come out of The Tin Can when the cabinets arrived; I waited until the guys were ready to leave before I ventured into The House to see what they looked like and to be polite and say thank you to them.

I hate feeling dead. And, truly—I’m feeling dead.

Sad, huh?

I still have to mix, haul and spread road base around the outer doors, get some rocks removed and landscape, to a very small degree, all around the structure. I can’t really do that until the propane line is in, inspected, and backfilled. The propane guy shanghai-ed me today saying he’ll come lay the line IF I buy the propane to fill the tank from his company. WTF?! What can I do but say yes? He’s giving me a decent price, but it ain’t the best price out there. He’ll be out this Thursday.

I’m actually hoping a couple of other propane guys will be out here either before him, or at the same time, then I’ll let them duke it out amongst themselves, or just say what they’ve all said to me: “Oh. Sorry.”

Heh, heh, heh. THAT visual brought a smile to my face!!

Oh, and the Christmas vacation is a no-go. I’ll be short when it comes to paying the rest of the bills owed on The House, never mind the closing costs, etc. See why I’m not so excited? I’ve poured so much into building this place, only to fall short. It’s not fun being me right now. And there’s no untapped financial source left for me to go to.

As much as I don’t want to end on a bummer note, one of the main reasons I decided to chronicle this house building experience on a blog was so that all the elements could be fairly well recorded in an honest manner. Well, here ya have it; post-buildum depression.

I think I’ll go buy my major appliances now (UPDATE 10/25: DONE)…I have to have a working stove and kitchen sink in before I get the Certificate of Occupancy issued. The sink won’t be able to be installed until the countertops are done and in—about a week to 10 days from now.

Since Sundays are a day filled with no place to go, I’ll go buy some lottery tickets and a few scratchers….

Maybe I’ll be happier, and richer…manana.

Oddities of Nature

2008-10-19T18:36:00.006-06:00

I’m sure some of you are thinking that I’m going to talk about myself, given the title for this posting. Nice. Not 100% true. It’s still (almost) all about The House. Yes, still.

I’ve reviewed, reflected, been pressured by The-Man-In-Underoos-From-the-Bank and double-checked with Norbert, and my mental meanderings still hold up: There ain’t a whole lot left to do with the house.
The checklist:
--Pay the balance for countertops and cabinets in kitchen, get them installed.
--Buy major kitchen appliances
--Tile backsplash & window ledges in kitchen
--Master bath vanity doors to be installed
--Tile the access panel on the tub
--Paint the formally purple wall in master bedroom
--Finish building the banco seats around fireplace
--Tile fireplace footing
--Install the fireplace
--Wait for hallway floor to dry
--Keep picking straw seedlings out of wet floors
--Wait for lighting fixtures to be fabricated, pay for them, pick them up, & have them installed.
--Electrician to do final wrap up, install rest of lights, fix a bad wire, and pay him AFTER I’m 100% satisfied, and the house hasn’t burned down.
--Plaster Monkey Powder Room (garage bathroom)
--Install & trim out door to MPR
--Apply final coat of sealant to small portals
--Get propane line run & tank filled
--Final hookup of boiler for Radiant Floor Heat
--Test RFH system
--Find cause of reduced water pressure
--Buy garage door opener and have installed
--Get closet shelving
--Get clothes out of dryer!
--Wait for 2 new air chambers to be delivered and set up bed.
--Move into The House.
--SELL THE TIN CAN!!
--Move stuff out of storage.

Ninety percent of that list will be completed by next Friday, Y’all! Looks like I’ll be ready to hand out candy on Halloween; if the critters around here actually EAT candy;) That must mean it’ll be time to have a ‘cold opening’ of The House for the locals.

Let me go get the clothes out of the dryer. One sec…. ☺

That checklist is only 26 items long! That’s incredibly short, considering. I’d give you the list of what got done this past week, but I don’t want yours snapping off your necks and flying to parts unknown. So hold on to ‘em, ‘cause it’s coming up!

Aside from the BIG items listed (electrical, lighting, appliances, cabinets and countertops) this here tunnel has a light that is not a train at the end of it. I can’t tell you how anticlimactic it’s feeling. How sad, huh?

I’m sure that will change after I sign my life away to the mortgage bankers. My life for a house—think of what I have to look forward to!

OK, enough trademark cynicism. Here’s the ‘haps’ from this past week:

--The plumbing is done except what is listed above (the boiler and propane stuff)
--The last floor pour happened yesterday (I can now ask for the rest of the construction loan monies from the bank.)
--I found, and bought, a wood burning stove to serve as the fireplace. (I’m never going to live the motif on the sides of it down, but it makes me laugh, and was the right price and size, so phuck it!)
--The guest bathroom is done. (The pic shows a shocking shade of green. No fear, it will calm down to a nice sage color when dry.)
--All the trim work is done. (Save, of course, for the kitchen cabinets.)

--The hatch to the roof is done.
--All the interior doors and their hardware are done. (Save the MPR, as noted above.)
--Custom banco seating is built.
--Closet doors in guest bedrooms are installed.
--Trim work between beams and ceilings is done.
--Tile work in bathrooms and on step wall btwn guest rooms and the Ventana Room (living room) is done.
--Toilets and sinks are all installed. Only one sink needs to be hooked up, and one toilet needs to have water line switched so it doesn’t flush hot water. (Don’t ask!)
--Window ledges are all installed.
--Two out of three utilities are operational. (Propane is the exception.)

Not bad for a week’s worth of work, eh?

As it should be!!

Critters are loving living outside of the house. Little ones, like the little spiders (baby tarantulas?) pictured here. One bouncy critter sort was pounding underneath TTC this past week, unsettling me enough that I ventured out in the middle of the night with a flashlight and big-ass walking stick to scare it away from TTC and towards one of the other trailers in the trailer park.

I didn’t see what it was, but I told my snake phobic friend, Jane, that it was a snake that made an Anaconda look like a blade of grass. She’s still having trouble sleeping, and she’s in Minnesota! She still doesn’t believe me that snakes are dormant now, and that they don’t bounce off the bottoms of trailers, given how they stay pretty close to the ground and all.

Speaking of blades of grass, I wasn’t joking when I said in my list of things-left-to-do that we have to keep plucking straw seedlings out of the wet floors. We REALLY do! (My pictures don’t lie!)

Landscaping around The House is going to be necessary, but I’ll do that once the crew heads back home. I’ve got enough road base and clay to do around the doorways, which need it the worst, but flagstone will be needed sometime when the funds aren’t already dedicated to other details that the building inspectors deem more important. I may even indulge in some fencing (necessary to keep the cows from scratching on the house edges, and keeping coyotes from eating Lego and Monster when they come to visit.) After the lengthy power outage of two weeks ago, I think it’s time to buy that gas generator, too.

I’ve been having some scrumptious restaurant meals lately, too. The pic is of me with a white pizza @ The California Pizza Kitchen—kinda brand new to Albuquerque, and across from BORDER’S Bookstore—and a demo shot of their gyoza, a personal favorite. I have some good chefs in my life. I’m kept well-fed, when the chef’s around.

I’m heading to the post office this week to apply for a passport. For some reason, perfectly good and decent pirates like me need to have one to travel back to their olde haunts; archaic, Byzantine laws!

So it seems that y’all can start planning your trips to New Mexico. The Day of the Big Bird in November is ok, I’ll be here with Lego and Monster. Christmas is out—I’ll be drinking rum and running sails up the masts somewhere where it’s warm, sandy and has unlimited views of ocean waters. But, after that, you’re free to visit.

I’d say pinch me so I can realize it’s all true, but I do have that pesky last name o’mine, so I’m not gonna let out a holla’ until I get the Certificate of Occupancy. Then y’all can pinch me ‘til I’m black and blue, Awwight? Awwight!!

Siete mananas from now…

Fits & Starts

2008-10-12T13:46:00.005-06:00

If I had the verve I’d be having fits right now. The starts keep trying to come, but the fits take over, and they aren’t mine. The fits seem to have enough inertia to come of their own accord--none on my part are necessary.

What has this past week wrought? Let’s see, all the house doors are now on site. They forgot to give Steve the doorknobs for the interior doors when he picked ‘em up last week. Another trip for me, and bill to pay. To quote a friend, “it’s not like there’s anything to go home to, you may as well go do something.” Too true.

Fireplace shopping went nowhere. That’s at least on other trip to Abq for me this week. The exterior color coat was applied. Cement grey, or as I called it: Still Alive& Kicking Grey, is gone.

It’s now two-toned--Ash (a hint of blue/purple) and Navajo White. Under certain lighting conditions you can hardly tell the difference, but when you can, it’s nice. I like it well enough, anyway. I should, I picked the colors. I think once aging and flying dirt has seasoned the colors they will stand out against each other better. If not—I really don’t care. (See? NO raging fit!)

The backhoe operator who has done most all of my backhoe work was here yesterday and buried the septic tank and leach line. It’s nice not having what appears to be giant ant piles or gopher mounds marring the view to the southwest. He also dug the trench for the propane line. That line should get run this week, inspected afore and aft and then $1,000 worth of propane into the tank and I should be good through the winter. (Here’s hoping, anyway.)

With the propane line in I can go gangbusters with showers and baths everyday if I want. I can also get the gas stove installed, well when the cabinets are in. They’re being manufactured and should be starting to be installed in the next two weeks. I can finally start doing laundry at the house, too.

I just heard a bunch of you roll your eyes, like you’re thinking that I don’t do things like cook and clean. And you are right. I’m not fond of those activities, mostly because I hate repetitive tasks that are nothing but trying to keep up with where you were last week or the week before. But I have come to a new level of understanding after 400+ days living in The Tin Can. Granted, this new consciousness may be short lived, but it will be lived. Actually, I like to cook. It’s the cleaning up part that bugs. Cleaning just bugs by definition.

All the packed adobe floors are poured and drying except for the hallway in the guest wing. The guest bathroom needs to get finished with tiling and plastering and once it is, then the hall will be done and the rest of the floors should be dry enough to start walking around inside the house. As it stands now, the garage and master suite are the only areas we can walk in. I spend a lot of time walking around outside the house to get INto the house. Something ain’t right about that, somehow.

The rest of the floors are all in varying states of drying as they were all done this past week or so. There’s a hell of a lot of dirt in my house! Heh heh heh. I LOVE the idea of having dirt floors. When Armageddon comes I won’t be one of the ones blasted back to the 1st Century—I’ll be there with my dirt walled and floored house. Kind of. Maybe I’ll take up broom making and make myself straw brooms and practice ‘ancient’ arts of stove heating/cooking, ‘shooting up’ my dinner, skinning and drying skins of critters that were dinner, going off the grid. The way this country is going it may be more of a necessity than the addlement of my brain living out here in the middle of nowhere.

And that’s all I’m saying about THAT!

I managed to wrestle the washer and dryer, bed and a few other immediate necessities, from storage and got them up to the house where Ed helped me unload them last Thursday. I seemingly have no friends, as no one who offered to help was able to. Whatever. That much I could handle on my own. I’ll go buy some friends if I have to to get the bulk of the rest of my possessions up here when the time comes. Or, make many, many trips with Booger’s trailer.

As I was setting the bed up and drawing a bath yesterday—work always interferes, don’t it?—I heard the water stop running. SHIT! The lights wouldn’t go on. Double shit! I was going to have a fit and call the electrician about his shoddy work when I decided to check the power availability first. Good thing I did. The power had gone out for over 30 square miles. This was at 4:43 pm Saturday. OK, no water (electrical pump, damnit anyway), no light soon (the sun was still up), can’t putter ‘cause I have power tools, no DVD entertainment, no computer use (except via IPhone). What the hell, I took a nap. Then went to bed after some reading by headlamp lighting.

A very boring story about a very long night made short: 17 hrs and 2 mins after the power went out it was restored. Hurricane Norbert—yes, named-the-same as my contractor--and its residual effects brought stormy weather to central NM. I told Norbert-the-Contractor that I’d be blaming any bad occurrences on HIM. He thought I was joking. I confronted Norbert-the-Contractor with the facts today. He was still laughing. As was I.

So we wait for the floors to dry. The cabinets and countertops to be fabricated and installed; the lighting fixtures, too, the boiler for the radiant heat to come in (correct power source, unlike the one that the plumber brought up this week), the propane line run, inspected, the tank filled and connected; the doors and knobs to be installed, the garage door opener bought and installed, the bathrooms to be plastered, toilets and sinks installed, and about another only 40 or 50 other details and we can ask for the Certificate of Occupancy to be issued.

So, in about A MONTH (that infernal, eternal, perpetual length of time that defines my life) I should be fully moved into The House. Which will bring it’s own fits and starts. Ain’t life grand?

Hang in there, everybody. The end is nigh. And I’m not just referring to The House. But let’s pretend I am.

With rain clouds looming, and the winds sure to kick up--manana, Y’all!

Bathroom Fixtures + Me = Fixation

2008-10-05T21:53:00.004-06:00

Yesterday it was devirginizing the bathtub. And what a thrill THAT was! The calming effects lasted through today.

Tonight was a three-way: Me, the toilet and the shower. Even the roll of toilet paper had never been sullied. And I got to flush it, too! Maybe that was more of a four- or five-way. A veritable ORGY, and there wasn't even a bed involved! I work in mysterious ways;)

I know all of this seems irrational to y'all, but the way the last year has been, I've got to find joy in what little ways I can. Given the scale of the house vs. the size and scale of The Tin Can, though, the joys were humongous!

The head cracking begins anew, manana.

Soothing My Savage Beast

2008-10-04T23:55:00.003-06:00

Added frustrations (taking the most circuitous route around town to get two errands run, two trips through the credit union's drive up window, no milk at the store) but a funny-ass observation while eating lunch, a nap, a nasty swipe at me via a text from someone I told I was badly in need of a friend today and would she be a friend to me (guess not, given the claws she ripped at me with), too many cigarettes and a long rain shower all somehow brought me back to center after my earlier post.

What a way to try to achieve a dream.

After seeking solace in as many forms of it as I could muster the energy, or interest in, I finally allowed a steaming cup of hot chocolate and an act of defiance to salvage the day for me. Granted, it took until the final hours of the day for it to all coalesce, but I did it. Without any help from any 'friend'.

My act of defiance was (besides being overstated): I took a bath in my brand new, never-been-used champagne bubble bathtub. I may not have moved into the house today, but I will tomorrow. That decision seems more defiant than taking a bath somehow.

I hate having a meltdown, but sometimes I just have to admit defeat and give in to one. Today was the day for it. And, while I'm OK with having let go of moving in today, I'm thinking I should've just gone ahead and done it since the rain started about 6 hours ago. And the winds, though they dropped off after only a couple of hours. Me and TTC in a long, soaking rain. How can I even THINK of experiencing 'weather' anywhere except in my dearly loved Tin Can? Phhhhuuucccckkk!

OK, so this is the price I pay for having a meltdown. It could be worse; the winds could still be kicking up.

The meltdown came from stewing over the installation of my two bathroom vanities. The guest bath's vanity (ain't that a hell of a concept?) was constructed and unable to be used in the guest bathroom due to oversights by the cabinet guys (like they forgot to allow room for a toilet.) Their idea was to use it as towel storage. Not for $360 am I going to do that! I had to pick up a pedestal sink last night after work to replace the custom vanity (which I have since cancelled and demanded a full refund.) I HATE pedestal sinks, by the way, too.

While that was festering, when I came home after hours of ordering lighting fixtures, getting the correct faucet handles (finally!) for the tub, and shopping at Lowe's, I see that the other custom vanity for the Master Bathroom had not been installed properly.

By not properly I mean that they hadn't completed the install (it needed some scribing and shimming done to allow it to fit in the Rex-i-fied {crooked} corner.) Their idea of anchoring the vanity to the wall included a 2 inch gap between the vanity back and the crooked wall with 2.5 inch screws broken off, drilled and redrilled and/or barely reaching the stucco wall, where big 1 inch-plus chunks of stucco had been popped out since that's not how you connect anything to a stucco wall and they kept repeating their mistake about a half dozen times, and using a level seems alien to the cabinet boys. This is not what I'm paying for.

So, my wall's messed up, the vanity isn't level, it's not scribed to fit (as promised), it's also not anchored and I'm supposed to be ok with this!?

Ah HELL no!

I called and ripped Randy a whole new orifice in a bodily location that he doesn't even know exists. I told him to fix it, credit me on the second vanity, do it by Monday and don't call me back with any fuckin' updates or I'd cancel the whole kitchen cabinet order, AND be fully refunded, their policy be damned.

What really torqued me is the eternal question I faced at CopyMax: If you have time to re-do a messed up order, why don't you have time to run the job right the first time? I remedied my work at CMAX so I didn't have to hear that logic anymore, but I'm trying to move into my house and not a frikkin' soul can do enough work, despite all the promises on their part and prompt payment of monies on my part, to meet one gawd-damned deadline! Never mind doing the job right the first time! Sure, they're going to make it right, it'll just take a week or so. HELLO!! I DON'T HAVE THE TIME ANYMORE!

The plumber is getting blasted next. He HAD to have the big chunk o'change two weeks ago to get the boiler and water heater right then so it could be installed and I could have hot water once I moved in. No frikkin' boiler yet, and the plumber was up here twice this week.

The electrician is REALLY going to get it from me--there's light switches that connect to nothing and lights that can only be shut off at the main panel. And there's no surround sound installed, like I reminded him of SIX times; the lighting in the house is nowhere near what the plans called for, so I have to get creative to accommodate for that.

Feeling my pain, y'all? And you all know I can bitch endlessly when I do finally decide to start bitching. And most of you have seen me mad; I KNOW you're glad you're nowhere near the state of NM right now. You each know that I'll calm down, too. And I have. But I'm still in an orifice-tearing mood.

Manana will find me at the storage facility getting out the three possessions I need: bed, washer and dryer. My friends Kenda and Sheila have offered to help me. As have Bea, Nancy and a handful more from work.

We'll get there. I'll get there. I DO have the best friends in the world, and I know which ones of you are seeing me through this, and which one didn't.

This Woman Is SCORNED!

2008-10-04T13:54:00.003-06:00

I cancelled the move from TTC to the house. Too many fuckups, too much frustration and I'M FINISHED with having my chain yanked. Anyone crossing my path is gonna have their head cut off. I'm not filtering my feelings anymore.

I'll update when I'm in a better mood, or in the house. They may coincide with one another, or they may not.

This is my world right now.

There’s No Place Like Home

2008-10-01T22:57:00.009-06:00

OK, so I’m a couple of days premature with the sentiment expressed in the blog title, but, REALLY, what’s a day or two when I’ve been living in “Oz” for the past 396 days? Since I’ve now actually done the calculation, why not move in on the 400th day? WTF?

Y’ALL!! I’M MOVING INTO THE HOUSE THIS WEEKEND!!!

To my most loyal readers, I wouldn’t mind at all if you popped a cork over this, ‘cause you’ve labored over this (kinda sort, in a way, but not really) as much as I have. Go ahead, get the celebratory beverage of your choice, unwrap the cigars, put yer feet up, get randy with your S. O. (s) and find a nice little cave-like hollow somewhere in your house and pretend that it’s all brand new and virginal.

Naw— even I can’t fantasize that deftly. Well, ok…yes, I can, and so can/are you;)

For those of you who have been kind enough to take this bumbling, stumbling, nightmarish travail across uncharted territory with me by just viewing the pics of the journey—you can only indulge in a photograph of some celebratory beverage of your choice. Karma, y’all. Comes back and bites in ya in the butt every time. j/k—Party along with the rest of us. It’s not like the rest of us would ever know that YOU’RE CHEATING. Ha!

The latest pics are fresh as of yesterday. Today I shoulda/coulda/woulda taken pictures to be the freshest I could be in my updatedness, but…I didn’t. Neener neener. I’m the blog wench and I get to make the rules and post the pics. Technically I shouldn’t be moving in at all since there’s no official Certificate of Occupancy issued yet, but FUCK ‘EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE!

I’m only moving in basic essentials: Bed, sheets & blankets, some clothes, EVERY TOWEL I OWN, washer, dryer and my toiletries bag. I can make the trek to and from TTC for stupid shit like the microwave, food, cervesa, some buried-in-the- Mesozoic-layer-of-paperwork receipt that suddenly needs unearthing, garbage bags, laundry, milk, cheese, tortillas and the like.

Breaking down the bed and making it look like it’s just being stored in the garage is a snap—it’s a Sleep Number bed and is nothing but a king-sized bed of k-nex-type plastic planks, a couple of air-bags-on-steroids air chambers and an air pump. My clothes and towels I can just toss on the floor and no inspector in the world will ever see them there, given the gender of most inspectors. Crafty, eh?

Here’s the lowdown: The master bathroom is completely tiled, the tub, shower and toilet are all hooked up and useable. The vanity gets installed Friday. The hot water heater is in, but the propane may not be done until Friday, Saturday, or Monday at the latest.

The master bedroom has the walls mudded, radiant floor tubing installed and the packed adobe floor is in and nearly all dried. The light switches are in and the electricity is connected. The ceiling fan is in and running (so as to help dry the floor.) There’s some door trimming for the MBath and a door and hardware to install (15 mins, tops), but it ain’t stopping me from moving in.

The stripped bark pine post that goes in the corner of the MBedroom will be bolted in and Closet-That’s-Bigger-Than-The-Small-Spare-Room doorframe needs trimming out, too, but no door is being installed. Why have one? I don’t close closet doors EVER! Not since the late ‘70’s when I came kicking and screaming out of the closet I’d been living in then. It’s a morality issue for me. And iconic. Symbolic. ICK!

All of the main living area walls are mudded. The two small bathrooms are cement stuccoed and will be lime plastered in the next (last) couple of weeks. Tiling will be done on the Guest Wing bathroom manana. The rest of the radiant heat tubing started going in today and will be complete manana. Inspection has to happen for the heating before they can pour the rest of the floors. That should happen…manana or manana + a day.

The trench for the propane line will be dug…manana, and Jerimiah (the dirt mover from the Great Qwest Dig Debacle) will bury my septic tank and line while he’s at it. I’ll be stationed between him and the house while he’s operating the heavy machinery. With my shotgun, I’ll be between him and the house. (see I’m a Bitch blog entry)

Lighting is being slowly installed. They brought toggle switches but not faceplates to match, or they brought faceplates but not the toggle switches. Maroons! It’s taken ‘em three days to do A DAY’S worth of work. The plumber installed the water heater, but hasn’t been back to install the boiler for the radiant heat system. He makes me angry, but he does good work. The boiler and its tie-ins are all that’s left to do plumbing-wise. Well, and the inspection. Pffffff.

Is my To-Do list getting shorter, or am I forgetting stuff?

Kitchen Cabinets/Countertops: ordered and being built. Three to four weeks.
Bathroom Vanities: One on Friday, the other in a coupla weeks.
Interior Doors: Ordered, will be picked up Friday. Installed next week or after floors have hardened.
Lighting Fixtures: All necessary ones are installed, electrical is hooked up and working. Rest will be gotten within two weeks.

Plumbing: Completed and inspected by end of week
Exterior Stucco: **Just found out this has to be done. So, by next week**
Bancos: Planned today, built and installed before rest of floors get poured.
Major Appliances: Any damn time I manage to get to the store to get ‘em!
Toilets: Two to go. This weekend, fer sure!

All the trim stuff (shower curtains, window treatments, towel racks, etc.): As soon as I can find someone to go shopping with me to keep my goofy side from overruling my refined taste.
Mexican Tiles: I’m rethinking this detail….(the countertops are to DIE FOR! I don’t want a clash of cultures going on.)
Fireplace: **Another Must Do NOW update**. I’ll go in search of…next week. (Weee!!)
Fencing: Hmmmm. Before Thankgiving. {I may be entertaining Lego & Monsterdog over the Day of the Bird holiday. AND my favorite blog goddess, Jane Devin may be staying awhile with her dog Hanna as they flee the soul-stealing wilds of Minn-a-SO-tah. They need refuge. I have one. They can stay.}

I feel myself getting giddy. I should stop right here.

Bottom line: By the end of October I should have a Certif. of Occupancy and be fully enwombed in my Tits 2 the Wind Ranchita, running wild through a freshly completed house, following the LED glowing screen on my GPSr with the electronic crumb trails to guide me from Guest Wing to Master Suite, kitchen, Ventana Room, studio, Powder Monkey Room, garage and beyond!

Don’t nobody snort, snore, grouse, grumble or pooh-pooh this dream I’m having! I wanna enjoy it for just a bit longer before the pinch of our greedy, money-grubbing, oil-encrusted, total-waste-of-protoplasm national ‘leaders’ manage to foreclose on me in their huge ruse of a bailout scheme effort to save their rich pals’ golden parachutes.

Awight?
Awight!

Thanks for traveling along this dusty trail alongside me, those of you who’ve trusted me and stuck it out with me. You’ve earned a free night’s stay! The rest of ya? Well, I let the kids ‘earn back’ grades/trust/their souls, so why not YOU, too? WTF?

Manana times four mijas y mijitos = THE 400TH DAY!! Imbibe some fine rum instead of yer regular swill on that day and know that I’m running Tits To The Wind through mi casa!

I’m A Bitch

2008-09-21T08:16:00.009-06:00

Tangible. Today's blog show is brought to you by the word: Tangible. As in results. I may yet be free and not gain status as A Guest of The Great State of New Mexico, as it appears that I will be moving into the master suite by the end of the month! I may not have hot or running water and there will be no stove, or refrigerator, but I won’t be buffeted by high winds. I guess there’s something inherently good about that.

To start, the kitchen is mudded and I'll order the cabinets and countertops next week, when I have money again.Aren't those ladders, all set up for a Ladder Family portrait the cutest? And they were left that way, I didn't even set it up. Cracks me up!

We put in a 'truth window', too. It's a thing that straw bale homes have to prove that the walls really are made from straw bales. I like the idea, and since the lava block is a new and unique building material, I decided I wanted a truth window, too. My friend Pam in Tucson will be making the decorative pieces for the truth window frame using her metallic clay expertise (she's a Master Metal Clay artist) as soon as I give her the dimensions of the truth window. Women's art will be throughout the house, just in case anyone had any doubts about that.

The master bedroom now has mudded interior walls. I’m not fond of the color it showed itself to be when the mud dried, however. The crew and I will have to discuss what to do about that.
The master bathroom now has a tiled shower, the tub is installed and tiled in its custom-built box
and all that remains to do in there is to connect the water up to a water source, which I have, and to mud those walls, tile the floor and buy a door. And a door knob. Oh! and a toilet. And a water heater as well as a boiler for the radiant heat. And build a stand for the copper sink. (I have the sink and faucets.)

I’m telling you, there are so many frikkin’ details to this build-a-house experience. I will not be returning to THIS school of learning, of this I’m sure.

Monday should see the radiant floor tubing installed and the mud floors getting poured. They’ll need a week or two to dry.

I’m naturally going into my mental reminder banks realizing what moving into the house entails and trying not to feel the frustration and fatigue that comes with the reality of going to storage and loading up the necessary accoutrements that one requires when one is living in a house vs The Tin Can. I’d better go out and make some more friends☺

Since we went with un-pigmented adobe for most of the interior walls (cost restrictions) we’re using the arroyo dirt au natural. I was kind of worried about so much brown and dark tones in the house, but as I said in the last posting, it feels like a cave. A ‘kewl’ (modern spelling of ‘cool’ for those of you who are showing your age) cave! It has more intimacy to it; almost womb-like, albeit a womb with posts and beams. There will be some areas of color on the walls, but they’ll be more like small visual relief splashes. Much of the floors will be colored, so that'll help, too.

Last Sunday had me painting the upper clerestory walls. I figured it would take about 4 hours. It took five. Not nearly so bad as it could’ve been, but ladder work sucks. I discovered that there still is muscle mass in my gastrocs; my calves were killing me after the 3,478 trips up and down the 3 ladders I had to use to complete the task. But the clerestory now has the correct color upon its walls above 8 feet. And it looks good.

We had another burp in the scheduling when the plumber made the point that we should probably mud the wall of the garage that will be behind the boiler and water heater. “Yup. I guess so,” was all we could muster. One wall in the garage got a nice cement stucco layer upon it today. I guess it really doesn’t matter about order or sequencing at this stage of the build—just getting it done is sometimes the best we can hope for.

Putting down tile before the tub goes in and installing the toilet flange before installing the toilet are good steps to complete in the proper sequence, however. And we’ve done a pretty good job overall with those niggling bits.

Coming home from work one day this past week I came across a huge hole dug out in front of Donna & Ed’s house, and their fence ripped up. Orange tags from Qwest Communications and orange spray paint marks on the dirt belied who was behind the digging. Ed was out looking at the wrecked fence and I told him I’d go get my camera (I’ve learned to take photos of EVERYTHING!) When I got to the ranch road to turn in to my parcel of land, the offending backhoe, backhoe operator and his assistant were digging a good sized hole across the road from my house.
“Whaddya guys digging for?” sez I.
“Putting in a phone line for this new house,” sez they.
“But I don’t WANT a phone line,”
“We have an order to put one in.”
“ Well, if you’d’ve done this a year ago, I would’ve been thrilled, but not now.”
“The engineer said to run one.”
“THE OWNER says no!”
--They show me their paperwork, I reiterate my refusal, they make a (cell) phone call.—

“The engineer says…” they start again.
“You’re a year too late.”
“Well…”
“Look, guys, Qwest has told all of us in Tierra Grande that no phone lines would be added, and we should just depend on our cell phones AND I waited a year for your engineer to decide that I COULD have a phone line. Uhhh…NO! Qwest can kiss my ass. Fill the hole in, or do whatever you have to do, but you aren’t digging a trench OR putting in a phone line to my house,”
“Are you the owner?”
“Yup!”
--another (cell) phone call—

“OK,” says they. “We’ll just finish this up tomorrow.”
“You’ll finish up WHAT tomorrow?”
“We’ll leave a junction box here for future growth. That’s what the engineer says to do.”
“And you’re not going to run a line to my house, right?”
“We can…”
AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!

They didn’t run a line to my house. I stayed there until they packed up to leave. The guys asked to park the backhoe on my land overnight.
“No. I’m not your fairy godmother,” I sez. “Leave it where it is, ain’t nobody gonna mess with it over night.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” (I’m guessing the evil twinkle in my eye slpped by this pair of Brain Trust inductees.)

Then I got on Booger and went with my camera down to Donna & Ed’s to take pictures of the damaged fence. The backhoe guys stopped by when they saw us all gathered there and said they’d be back manana.

They never said they were going to fix the fence manana, and they didn’t. They came back to get their backhoe and we didn’t see ‘em for a whole ‘nother day. They ran the line to D&E’s. D&E had only waited 6 months for their request to have a landline run to their house. Guess I’m a bitch. But their fence still isn’t fixed.

I got a phone call from the secretary at the school that night of the Great Qwest Run-in. She, teasingly, harassed me for picking on her ‘baby’. I told her I’ll pick on any damn person I want to and who the hell was her baby?

Y’all got it—he was the backhoe operator. He went home and squealed to his mama about me “yellin’” at him! I thought I’d recognized him, I just couldn’t place him since I’d only ever seen him at the bar bummin’ drinks from his mom and cigs from me.

She then asked me if I needed any backhoe work at the house. I said I would, in a month or so, but it was more like Bobcat work. Why?
“Jerimiah will do it for you.”
“How much does he charge?”
“It depends on the job.”

I asked her if she knew that he tore up my neighbors’ fence.
“Jerimiah! Did you tear….” I heard her call him out. I said ‘bye and hung up.

Another day in The Land of Manana, y’all…

That’s a Lotta BULL!

2008-09-14T21:21:00.004-06:00

(Jane—skip this first paragraph, ‘k?) Neighbor Ed told me on Friday night about the four-foot bull snake he killed this week on the ranch road that borders on my property. The weather this time of year is warm during the day (mid-80’s when its not overcast or raining) and bordering on cold overnight (mid to high 50’s). Only half of the day is weather the snakes like. Seems that this monster-sized bull snake was sunning on the flat ground of the ranch road when Ed and the dogs came across it. Sarah the dog walked right over it, then Ed noticed it and started giving it a few good whacks with the short cholla stick he carries for just such emergencies.

(…and this one, too, Jane) Ed had to get Neanderthal on the beast and started chucking rocks at it, when Norbert came across them and expressed his astonishment at the hugeness of the legless wonder. The snake didn’t have a chance and was wasted in the onslaught, at which time Ed chucked the carcass off into the wilds of the neighboring property so the crows could dine in peace.

(Jane: Nope! Though this one’s pretty amusing…) Seems I’ve been having concerns regarding snakes up here. Concerns I never knew I had. I know I have snakes slithering about, but I’ve never been bothered in the least by them. But then, I haven’t been around much this past week, so what do I know?

(…Jane: umm…no!) Bull snakes aren’t poisonous, but they give one hell of a nasty bite I’m told. Snakes, poisonous or not, pretty much go by my adage: Live and let live. This gigantanormous bull snake was out for some last-o-da-season sunning and got caught out in the open and too chilled to get hisself moving to a safe space. Paid dearly for it, too. I wasn’t too pleased to hear about the encounter and resulting end. I’m concerned with being confused by the karmic observers who may mistake me for Ed. But, I trust that Ed wouldn’t kill anything without good reason. Why, even I had my share of kills this week.

Coming home after dark is nothing I like doing living out here where there are no street lights and many creatures that have lived here longer than I ever will. One night coming home from dinner at friends’, I ran over two rabbits. It rends my soul when it happens, which is why I don’t like coming home after dark. It’s almost a given that more than one critter will die under my tires; its just how the odds play out up here. I know about the rabbits, but I’m not going to even attempt to count the little rodents that cast themselves under my tires and go unnoticed into oblivion with nary a bump in my travels. However, the dung beetles and grasshoppers don’t even bring an “I’m sorry” from me when I squash them.

On the upside—I’ve seen a pair of golden eagles hanging around a few miles down the road toward the flatlands. Friday morning brought me a birder’s thrill: The two goldens and seven hawks. It must’ve been the prime viewing time for the winged hunters in their search for brekky (British: breakfast). It was prime viewing for me. I almost turned around and went home I felt so privileged.

Rainbows have been splashing across the skies aplenty this week too; one a day nearly every day this week; three within an hour, one day. And, yes, there’s been rain. No high winds since a night full of them last week. They did make for an interactive night for watching a movie. I felt like I was right there in the action of the movie while The Tin Can pitched and rolled.

While I’m sure I would’ve paid an inflated price to experience that in a theatre, it was the last straw. The master suite is being built as fast as the crew’s mental state will allow them. The tub’s frame is built and cement board-ed. Tiles have been cut and patterns experimented with. An urgent run to Albuquerque for a faucet for the tub rendered me the faucet I’ve coveted for months now. I saw it as a lavatory (sink) faucet at Homo Depot, which I was trying to convince myself would serve me just fine. Ummm…no. Water flow issues. So I was directed to a wonderful specialty shop and got nearly exactly what I wanted; its not a copper finish, but no one will notice.

The crew’s getting edgy and short fused. I hope they take a break this weekend and discover yoga or sedatives. Or both.

The plumber has been dragging his ass and, while not exactly holding us up, he sure ain’t pushing forward towards the necessary housing of me inside four walls by the end of the month. He’s getting a call from me on Monday. Hunting and ‘plumbing emergencies’ during a slow building phase for him doesn’t mean that we aren’t sincere when we call and tell him that we’re ready for him to come make some connections.

I’m so tired of having things to bitch about. I’d like to be able to get back to recreational bitching; its so much more entertaining.

I’m resistantly taking in the current political developments, and only then because there’s no avoiding such pervasive idiocy. Neighbor Ed has the best name EVER for Sarah Palin: Caribou Barbie. Hysterical!

OK, so the house may still be under construction, but we’re at another slow phase. (You sensed that, eh?)

There’s only one thing that will keep me from becoming a guest of the State of New Mexico in one of its non-escape-proof prisons: Being ensconced in the master suite by sundown on the 30th.

The earthen tones of the interior mudding of the walls is lending a discernable sense of being inside a cavern. Mmmmmmm! This is going to be such a delicious location to be writing and creating some art.

Until the next installment of Blood on the Rocks ~or~ Coming to You From the Tub… manana y’all!

What Do YOU Believe In?

2008-09-07T17:01:00.005-06:00

As we return to our continuing saga of The House, we find that there’s ‘stuff’ all over the place around but is ever changing and, magically, there’s more actual HOUSE forming.

I need to unpack my ‘stuff’ and find one of my magic wands. I collect them, and use them in the classroom. It’s a visual aid and allows me “teaching moments” when the children decide that I can work miracles for them. As with all belief systems, sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t. The wands just prove my point—sometimes I CAN make homework disappear, sometimes the homework just keeps on piling up.

And so it is with The House. Small miracles appear from out of nowhere, but most times, it just sits there and drags its foundation and mocks me.

I need one of my wands to move this project along. If I could do it by sheer willpower, it would’ve been done 7 months ago. We seem to be stuck at an eternal ‘4-6 weeks’ before it will be done. The wand may have one miracle left in it and I’d really like it to use it on The House.

Alas, the wands are all in storage. And I made the trip to CO this weekend to get the rest of my ‘stuff’ that I had to leave behind until circumstances allowed for me to have a place to put it all.

I have about 6 times the square footage of TTC in storage space down in town. One is lightly packed with furniture, a second is packed roof to floor and wall-to-wall with books and the third has pieces and parts for The House, as well as ‘stuff’ I used while living in a small house before TTC appeared in my life.

More than 1,000 miles, and maybe six times that in mass weight of ‘stuff’ moved out, loaded up, unloaded and soon to be unpacked is what my three day weekend was all about.

The past week saw me signing my life away AGAIN on a three month extension of the construction loan, and then submitting for a credit recovery process since what was once golden (my credit rating) has been shot to hell thanks to the ineptitude that pervades our service industries. I get to suffer the consequences for being considered guilty by association.

WTF! Who cares anymore?

BUT isn’t that what THEY want the masses to succumb to? I’ll perk up and get feisty again soon.

The crew has been begged to be PLEASE be done by the end of September.

C ‘n N came to me this morning with a Master Plan. They will finish the Master bedroom, bath and closet so I can move into it ASAP. I can cook in TTC, but I can bathe with more than six gallons of hot water, splash around in the tub and stay out of the way of the high winds. I’m glad for this attempt to save my life and sanity, but I really wish the whole build would be finito bandito. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of watching it. I’m not enjoying the day-to-day creeping progress

Don’t get me wrong, Y’all—it’s looking wonderful as one room after another’s walls are getting mudded. I just…am…so…tired…of…it.

The Powder Monkey bathroom, Master bed and bath and guest bath have all got their cement stucco layer done. The finish layer in each of those rooms will be a lime based ‘mud’ for waterproofing reasons or deep color consideration in the case of the Master bedroom walls.

The studio and small guest room are all mudded with adobe and awaiting nothing more than radiant heat tubing and floor installation (and light fixtures, switches, thermostat wiring. OK, so it’s not THAT close to being done.) The large guest bedroom has three walls mudded and the 4th would’ve been done this week except for the Master Plannus Interruptus. It’s all good.

Niggling little details are still creeping up and around. Lighting in the living room was screwed up by the electrician, but a quick-fix retrofit was created by Norbert and I on Friday. A new paint color for the upper portion of the clerestory is awaiting application since the initial color I chose made it look like a bordello in there. Not that I mind it looking like a bordello, but the crew thought I should keep that proclivity to myself. Not a good thing to be sharing, I guess.

Less bills and more money is what I’m aiming for the closing phase of this gig. It’s stumbling in that direction, anyway.

And, I gotta tell y’all: When I walked into the studio at the end of the day the room had been mudded, there was such a calming, essential and visceral response in me when I found myself surrounded by the true earthiness of the scent of wet clay and sand that now lay upon the walls of my sanctuary. I couldn’t get enough of it. Still can’t.

And don’t go freaking out and thinking its gonna smell that way all the time; it won’t. It’s drying well and crack-free. And the natural color of the clay, untouched by pigments, is so deep and warm that even though I’m not fond of the brown section of the color wheel, there’s something so elemental about having native dirt in my house that I’m deciding that browns are now o-tay with me.

I won’t talk too much about how many flies C ‘n N told me came to light upon the freshly mudded walls as they were applying the adobe. But if there’s an impression of some buglike being in a wall when any of you are here visiting, please know it was just a fly, not some wicked, evil beast fossilized from five million years ago. It was just fresh fly. ‘k?

Muchos gracias, y muchos mananas, y’all!

Time Flies

2008-08-24T22:34:00.007-06:00

We’re in the phase of all interior work on the house now. The master bath and the guest bath have both been given their base layers of cement stucco and are ready for the lime plaster to be applied. Then, since there’s a bunch of stuff sitting around, like the bathtub, faucets, tiles and such, the plan is to start putting the bathrooms together so we can have room to start plastering the walls and leveling the floors.

The floors will have more road base added, moved, relocated—whatever—so that the packed adobe floor starts going in and then the radiant floor tubing can be laid down. A final layer of 1” tinted adobe layer will be the final layer of that. Should be a couple of weeks for all of that. After the bathrooms of course.

So that’s three weeks of work (probably more, if history serves.) The plastering should take more than a week, and that brings us to four weeks. Interior doors, kitchen cabinets and countertops, appliances…the list is getting shorter. The time seems to be expanding well into fall. This doesn’t please me. Another fall in The Tin Can is not a happy-making thought for me.

We won’t talk about the costs, OK? We’ll just say that it is all going to be do-able very soon;) OH! And a fireplace is back in the picture and budget!!

This past week saw the rough cut planks and vigas get installed, lathe placed around all the windows and doorways in prep for the plastering and I even devoted most of my weekend to getting some ceilings and the master bedroom closet painted.

Some of the colors that Carolyn played with are plastered up on various walls around the abode. I think she’s finally having fun, since the color and plaster stuff is more her forte.

Damn if this structure ain’t looking like a house now!

I guess there’s not much to bitch, uhh, write about this week. We’re just moseying right along.

I suspect that Lil’ Bit and Lil’ Bun have run off together—no one’s seen ‘em in a coupla weeks. Rusty is still around, looking lonely and racing further afield than usual. Maybe the Lil’ ones will come back with a brood of baby ones and a ‘friend’ for Rusty. And, no, thoughts of coyotes dining on the bunnies are not in our mindset here at the Ranchita!

Friday night was gorgeous, with no threat of rain or high winds so I hauled a bunch of necessary items up to the roof and spent the night up there. I can’t begin to describe how magical the night was, from the stars to the shooting stars and other heavenly bodies aligning, small surprises and light breezes that came from one direction or another.

Southern breezes brought warmth while the eastern and western winds were cooling. Northern winds brought a hint of rain, but no clouds any closer than somewhere over Albuquerque. It’s nice to be in a place in my life where I can take the time to slow down and enjoy all that life here brings with it. And even that which just suddenly appears. I do love a good surprise.

And we won’t talk about life in town, either, OK?

I feel like I’m forgetting something, but it’s nothing major to do with the house. So we’ll leave it at that.

Mmmmmmanana!

The Nightmare Before Autumn

2008-08-17T08:28:00.008-06:00

After weeks of tedious fix-all-the-screw-ups from crew #1, we have finally gotten to a point of visible progress on the house. And I’ve been having leaky eyes for three days now. My ‘vision’ is beginning to reveal itself and I am speechless. Yea, yea—I know. Me being at a loss for words is a treat, uhh, rare event—but its true! Except for the final color layer, the exterior stucco work is complete!

All of the ugly, cracked, gapping lava block is now a non-issue—until you walk inside, then its still offending everyone’s eyeballs. HOWEVER! There is progress happening inside very soon. Yes, folks, its time for the interior plastering parties to begin!

While Carolyn mixes up her concoctions of clay, colors and trade secret ingredients for the earthen plaster, the boys are doing stuff like cement window sills (oops! That’s another fix-the-screw-ups task), installing fan patterned rough cut timbers for the clerestory ceiling and then the vigas atop the timbers. It is a beautiful sight. Tub, tiles, fixtures and a gaggle of other assorted goodies will start finding their proper places very soon.

When we’re 93%, 95% and/or (?) 97% complete I can get some more money. Norbert is going to start on the floor pretty soon, since that’s the bank’s gauge as to when we’ve hit the magic number to release more funds. I like 88%, m’self….

When I came home yesterday, after the first day at school with the children, I walked into a whole pod of workers—more than a dozen of ‘em—just my added presence tipped the scale and each team of laborers went running to their favorite niches to try and find some space. Between the sheet rock guys (about 5 of them), the stucco guys (8) and my team of 4, I found myself standing alone in the kitchen, but the energy buzz was still palpable.

Manana will find the worker population here at Chee Chees del Aigre back to its usual four. I will be in town tackling Day 3 with the chil’ren.

Cement grey, or what I’m calling Still Alive & Kickin’, isn’t the most beautiful of eye candy colors, but I think y’all will agree that The House looks a far sight better than it did before. It sure has warmed my heart to see it.

Now that we are back to cooking with gas, as the old commercial used to proclaim, I can fill you in on the Nature Tales here at the Ranchita. After many weeks of some sort of daily rain showers an edible ‘green’ started sprouting. Norbert got all excited when he saw it, picked some and told me to eat it. Being the world-traveling adventurer I am, I did. No questions asked (Norbert used to be an organic farmer.)

The green had a slightly bitter taste to it, is chalk full of beneficial fatty acids and ain’t half bad. So, it turns out that I’m growing this free-range green called purslane. (We believe in diversity here on the land;) I was enjoying daily ‘hits’ of my new, free-range veggie until the bunnies discovered it. Now we’re in competition with each other to get the biggest, tenderest leaves. Good thing I have acreage.

The bunnies are still happy and hopping around. Plenty of collared lizards sit amongst us while we work, blithely sunning on rocks while we labor away.

I spent every night for the past 10-12 days sitting out on the trailer stoop and counting shooting stars. I averaged one a minute. I can’t talk about the lights that I saw. My understanding is that if I do, I would be transmogrified into bits tinier than quarks. Just know that there were more than the average number of those ‘sightings’ as well, ‘k?

This…idea/dream/psychotic episode of mine has certainly taught me a lot. The most impressed upon memory is that dreams require nightmares to come true. Next is: Even well conceived grand ideas require nightmares to become real. And, thirdly: Psychosis is a nightmare. (And to think of what I spent to come to those realizations! Shoot me NOW!)

Wildflowers are still bustin’ out all over the place, so here’s yer chance to enjoy them alongside me, electronically speaking.

Mananas, mijas y mijos!

Please Hold While We Connect You

2008-08-01T18:59:00.002-06:00

I have intentionally NOT included pictures with the last few posts because it just got to be too much explanation and not enough evidence of progress. The build has also been coming along, but we have reached a state of stasis until I can get connected to those who hold my monies.

NEVERTHELESS…despite the overwhelmance of my emotional, financial, spiritual and physical states, I am still here, pulling my hair out, smoking waaaay too much, and stressing more than I ever remember and using up every last one of my 2100+ accumulated rollover minutes to make myself liquid. Financially liquid, ya jokesters.

If one more person asks me to have patience, more patience, or even suggests that I haven’t been p-a-t-i-e-n-t, I’m gonna show ‘em what I’m like when I’m impatient. And I ain’t pretty when I’m in that state.

So, enough about me, let me tell you about my House.

The House is fine, thank you very much and she thanks you for checking in on her. T2tW Ranchita and House are pleased to announce that she is all prepped—except for one lousy, stinking window—to be coated in her glorious and fabulous tri-layered exterior stucco. House has given Owner Julie permission to have the final finish coat be a nice light warm shade of yellow known as Candlelight.

When she has the money to do the final coat.

Until then House will be in stealth mode as she sits near the Manzanos in her dual layers of adobe and cement grayish brown. A shade I’m calling Still Alive and Kickin’. House will match the mountains. For now.

The sheet rock and insulation is due to happen next—in parallel to the stucco work—and will happen (here we go again) when Owner Julie gets the money to pay the nice men who will come and install the ceilings and closet walls.

Once those tasks are completed, then House will have several soothing and calming layers of hand applied earthen plaster applied all over her inside walls. It may feel like an annual gyn exam, except that houses don’t get those kind of exams, but, Owner Julie is feeling like that’s what one of those exams would feel like on a grand scale. Owner Julie will speak soothingly to House to ensure she stays calm during this time. We don’t need no cracks showing themselves at this critical time. That’s the end of the next phase of the build. There’re two more phases after that.

For now we have the following completed: All exterior doors are in and have been lovingly caressed with linseed oil to bring out their natural and unique wood grains, except for the one fiberglass door. It’s just functional and to be ignored. It just had to fit in a hole, and so it does. I’ll install the locksets and dead bolts—very nice ‘oiled bronze’ egg-shaped handles and bolts. I like ‘em. They were the closest to a copper tone I could find.

The small portal over the exterior master bedroom doorway is up, tarred and waiting for the top layer to be applied. The other portal over the west-facing doorway is in a similar state of existence.

The glass blocks are all installed.

The fireplace is coming out and banco seating will be in its place…until I get some more money to buy a UL approved, manufactured fire insert, wood burning stove or other acceptable UL approved, manufactured wood burning fire structure.

Ya know how most of say, a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do? I had to live that with the (temporary) loss of the fireplace. ~sniff~

So, with all my due and diligent work, p-a-t-i-e-n-c-e and summer vacation time, I am very close to getting some money so that we can proceed with the rest of the build.

Lil’ Bit, “Rusty” (a new bunny to the family) and Lil’ Bun are all racing around in front of me as I sit here on the steps to TTC. They are practically fearless and amuse all of here at The Ranchita. I just wish they would sit still and have their picture taken. For a family portrait and all. They get within several feet and don’t spook, but just dang well won’t sit still. They must be part of my clan, as their behavior is mine.

BUT! The House is going to be faboo when it’s done. Give me a month. Or three. Until then, from The Tin Can, I sit and wish you all a better manana. Te amo, one and all!

Breathe In, Breathe Out

2008-07-27T21:50:00.001-06:00

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

2008-07-15T23:01:00.000-06:00

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

2008-07-12T21:28:00.001-06:00

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

2008-07-04T17:42:00.009-06:00

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!

Schizophrenia High

2008-06-30T09:50:00.004-06:00

Lots to cover today—let’s get to work. Yipes! That sounded like a schoolteacher statement didn’t it? Egads! That persona is supposed to be on vacation. What the hell is SHE doing appearing in my blog?

The down and dirty: (There! That sounds MUCH better!) Loads of stuff has gone on since the beginning of the week. I feel like I’ve lived two lifetimes since school got out; one whole lifetime just this last week. I need a vacation, not just the ones I take inside my head—which are perpetual.

I know I’ve been promising a roof was going to go up since, like, last October and no one more than I has looked forward to that; heck I’m probably the ONLY one who’s been looking forward to that, ‘cause, as with most of this adventure, there’s not too many scintillating ways to describe the construction trades/work . At least not until the structure is done and ready to move into.

However! That there pic proves that the roofers were here this week. And the pics below show that there’s actually a roof covering atop the house now. I had to take to my bed I was so overwhelmed. (I truly did take to my bed, but it had more to do with lack of sleep and the unrelenting heat than the fact that the roof was going up. I think.)

OK—here’s the construction-speak of ‘da haps’ here: The trusses are all up and secured with hurricane ties. The decking (plywood layer between the roofing outside and the sheet rock/rough cut planks inside) is all in place and unsecured. j/k It’s all nailed or screwed down. And in place, too. The portal (por-TALL, as we Neueva Mexicanas pronounce it) is posted, beamed, planked, decked and roofed. AND: THE WHOLE ROOF IS UP!! I’d do the ‘raise the roof’ arm pumping motion, but I’d like the damn thing to stay in place for at least ONE day. Now that THAT benchmark has been completed it’s all kind of anticlimactic. It didn’t bring any welling up and falling of tears like the trusses going up did. I must be desensitized to it all anymore.

Maybe I’m too attached to my life as trailer trash….

The Tin Can seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the day. Must be shrinking from the heat. Or the 11 months’ worth of accumulation that won’t fit into the storage units, BB The Jeep or my new classroom (though I’ve put plenty in there of late.) It took me 2.5 hrs to go through house receipts last night. I couldn’t go to bed until I sorted and filed ‘em all since the full-sized air mattress that serves as my bed is the only space big enough for me to pile all that dead tree matter. I only have two more months of it. I’d burn TTC, but it’s worth about 3 mortgage payments. I won’t be sad to see it go, though.

Since the roof is now done, the outside plywood sheeting on the parapets will get done when the crew returns on Monday, then the stucco crew comes and does their thing and covers the outside, and anything not covered in the 10 mil white membrane that serves as the roof covering, while we start putting in all the windows I’ve had so carefully had hauled from Colorado and stored for over a year. Exciting as this stage is, it’s doubly so for me since I can now move all my winter stuff out of TTC and into the freed up room in the place where the rest of my stuff lives—in more square footage of room than TTC offers me, I might add.

Then we’ll do doors. I guess I should go buy them sometime soon, eh? Yea, yea. I’m getting there. The sheet rock will go up somewhere in there, a compromise I made due to costs and the near give-away prices of sheet rock now since no one is building. Then the interior plastering gets applied. That’s going to be really cheap since 90% of the materials for it came from my arroyo. I still have a bit of that pile o’dirt to sift. Guess I should do that, too. ~Sheesh!~

Then the cabinetry and finishing work. Then: WE’RE DONE! (Y’all know better than to hold yer breath for that, don’t ya?)

Electrical is nearly done as of today, too. And the plumbing, as well. (Can we see tons of money flying out of my hands? It is.) Inspections for those will happen mid-week next week.

Naps to stave off sunburn and windburn have become de riguer for me. Except for spending last weekend in Clovis and Portales, NM. A true MUST-NOT-DO for any of you who may dare to venture out this way someday. SKIP those two burgs. (Though Lake Sumner, near the town of Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid is buried is quite nice!) I can mark them off my list of places to see/do in NM, and with glee I have done so. I have also been able to mark off the town of Grants, up north by the Rezs. It’s unremarkable as well, which is not what can be said for seeing the Acoma Pueblo, nearby to Grants. That place is a must-see! But I’m being tangential.

I went to sleep in between geocaching around Clovis and Portales during a geocaching weekend event that went on last weekend. I went with three other geocachers I know pretty well and we were geocaching snobs and refused to play the wonderfully intricate geo-game that the host cacher had devised (on a grand scale) and we were, pure and simple, geo-sluts. We just raced all over the area finding as many caches as we could in two days. We even ventured into Texas (“Proud home state of Dubya”) so we could say we’d cached in TX. It’s a…thang with us cachers. Please don’t try to understand it. We didn’t linger in that ‘republic’—grabbed 2 or 3 on the TX side o'the border and scampered safely back to the Land of Enchantment before Homeland Security found us crossing state borders without a national ID, passport, wads of cash (all the better to bribe them with, or is that Mexico?), eye scan records, reproducible fingerprints (none of those hi-tech fake plasticized ones that the movies tell you are viable—they’re not. All because us New Mexicans are considered to be part of Old Mexico, so, nationalistically, it makes ~sig heil~ sense that we be ‘documented’.

Oops! That should trigger a few red-Fed flags. (Please write to me while I am an unrecorded guest of the US Federal Government at an undisclosed—open secret—location somewhere near Gitmo, or since I’m a woman, teacher, non-supporter of “Our” pResident [typo is intentional], non-supporter of the ‘war’, ad nauseum, I’ll probably be sequestered in the Bermuda Triangle. Waaay kewl!)

See what living next to TX does to me? I foresee no further need to ever set foot there again. Nor will I. And they can all stay in TX, too! Damn Texans! They give Californians a good name.

OK, my tangent is over. So, I had fun caching last weekend. I found 44 more caches and am now the proud claimant to 591 of the dastardly buggars. It’s fun. Y’all ought to try it. (JLK: They even have underwater caches that require scuba gear!)

OK, here’s a better lizard pic for y’all. No bunny pics, there’s too many of ‘em to catch in digital format, but they are bounding all around out here. They are everywhere. And two of the newest ones were chasing each other around the other evening. They even tried to make even more bunnies! Right in front of me!! (Must be high school aged bunnies. No boundries, scruples, or bunny motels.) No rattlers. Yet. At least not around The Tin Can. Booger and I have gone on a few jaunts. That’s been fun.

Enjoy the pics, as ever. Siete, more or less, mananas Y’all!

If I Had a Hammer--June 18th,2008

2008-06-23T13:16:00.006-06:00

…I sure as heck wouldn’t be spending my week in a classroom at the University of New Mexico (UNM)! Actually, I have 2 hammers, and they are both well cared for and well used. Just not this week. Crew #4 has only the 12 foot high clerestory trusses, decking and other little carpenter details to install as far as that work goes. There’s some other bug-like things that they’re adding to keep any water on the roof from gathering in corners (crickets). It ain’t gonna be the flattest roof, but it also ain’t gonna be a 12-5 pitched one neither. I’m having a super heavy-duty membrane roof put on, (once again, y’all—NEXT WEEK. This time, truly, it’s for real!) so I decided tonight that I’m just going to run a hose up there and make an oversized slip ‘n slide out of the kitchen roof and portal area. I guess that ‘water element’ (read: pond) I was joking about a few months ago should really get built so that I have someplace to land without getting hurt. It’ll be FUN!

So, yea, the roof will be installed next Weds and Thurs. I still don’t think I need a roof, but everyone says I do. Whatever. It’s been so hot up here this past couple of weeks (in the low 100’s) that when I go out to find some shade under the decking to read my ‘required summer reading’ for my AP classes for next year, I sit on the raised footing of the kiva fireplace, lean up against one of the log posts, light a cigarette and settle in. And before I know it my trailer trash park residents are slowly meandering over and into the house. Ya know—it NEVER fails! I pick up a book and all of sudden everyone decides it’s time to chat. ~sigh~ I knew there was a reason I hung out in hidey spots, remote wildernesses or libraries for a reason. But, the house was well planned by the architect (ME) for great air flow and I was hogging it all, until the doorways got blocked by one of the crew members. No respect!

The next thing you know it’s a full-fledged party and the beers get hauled out of the fridges and no one brings a bottle opener so I just pop ‘em off by laying the edge of the cap on an edge of the fireplace frame and one good solid smack with the heel of my hand and the beer is consumable. I haven’t broken a bottle neck yet. BB’s trailer hitch works well, too. (None of you ever use the word ‘sophisticated’ to describe me, do you? I sure hope not, ‘cause you’d be wrong.) It’s nice having everyone up here, but there are times that I wish I had by solitude and aloneness back. I also realized I should be charging these folks rent! I’m too magnanimous for my own good.

Stephanie the carpenter left for good today. I was sorry to see her go, but we all need to do what’s best for us in this life. I wish her well and am still thanking her for all of her hard work and high level of skill and interest she took in building my ‘trophy’. She’s definitely invited back to see the finished work of art. I may even let her on the Slip ‘n Slide;)

Since I’m back to a roof reference, Brett and Felicia have been heading up the ladder to go catch some of the cooler air in the evening up there on the decking. I found myself being very possessive of it. I should be the first one up there, but this ain’t possible since it wouldn’t be in place if the crew hadn’t been atop it to install it. Dang it anyway! I’ll have it for a good long time. I guess I can let the two young things and their developing fetus enjoy it while they’re here. I guess. ~Harumph!~ And NORBERT wanted to sleep up there last night ‘cause his trailer was so hot, still, at 10 pm. I think he ended up just sleeping in the bed of his truck on some blue foam sheets and a blanket. We’ll all be up there if the overnight temps stay the way they are. The 30 mph winds that kick up around 1 am every night are a bit of a deterrent, however. None of us want to go chasing bedding as it flies aloft and heads for the neighboring county.

I’m trying to come up with some really expressive ways to describe the progress on the house, but there’s only so many ways I know of to talk about a long, arduous process that’s just more of the same. 2100 square feet of lumber and its installation isn’t really much I’ve read many glorious or glowing stories about. And I sure don’t want to start a whole new genre. Not yet, anyway.

I’ve been at UNM all this week, and through Friday, for my Advanced Placement teacher seminar. It’s been pretty good, but it’s tough being a teacher being taught by a teacher who’s stretching out the material because too much time as been assigned for the amount that needs to be presented. As teachers we all know all those tricks that the instructor’s been using, and we’re acting just like the kids do when we, ourselves, do it. I’ll get the REAL down-and-dirty details when I meet with a couple of the other AP English teachers next month. Alcohol will be served, so it should go really fast and in a really fun way. I may want to record the meeting since I may have trouble remembering what we’re there for. The two I’m meeting with are great fun, so who knows how many meetings we’ll have to have?

The news on the Mom front is just frustrating and beyond ridiculous. I have no desire to cough up the ludicrousness of any of it. I did spend last week in Phoenix with Mom. That’s all there is worth mentioning here.
Some cactus blooms fer y'all to enjoy. Bunny and better lizard pics in the next bang-bang/back-to-back posting.

And the fun ends here. This time, anyway.
Muchas mananas, muchachas y muchachos!

Reveal: T2tWRanchita

2008-06-04T22:10:00.010-06:00

That's me just below center and to the right--the orangey-red blob.

OK. It’s time to reveal what T2tWRanchita means and why I named my hunk o’land and house with such a “thoroughly modern Milly” moniker. I’m sure many of you would expect me to name it some nice, warm, fuzzy name like Lavender Ladies Land or Old Rugger’s Retirement Roost. Fuggedaboutit! I named it, and modernized the acronym ‘cause it’s totally how I want to live my life from now on. And, it’s also how I think I’ve lived a good part of my life up to date. I just never found a succinct enough phrase until I started thinking about the profundity of actually having a house of my own sitting on terra firma that I hold the deed to. When an event like that happens to a bastard child like me, the adult bastard child has to get creative.

Tits to the Wind Ranchita. That’s what it is. In modern English. I guess I could use Olde English font to give it some sense of it having some historical significance, but…naw. It’s a damn ugly font, for one. It’s also harder than heck to read. I’d also have to get all Shakepearean with it. Ick! Could you hear THAT interpretation? Ye Olde Swinging Mammaries In Ye Olde Aire Estate! Ha!! Or how about: Ye Olde Hag’s Wind Swept Teats Castle and Keep! Modern is the only way to go with this. Truly.

Now that THAT English lesson is done~whew!~ Let’s get on to what’s been going on up here since the German ‘n his Gal and their interns have been here. There’s now 2 more caravans (trailers) on the land and a Vanagon that comes and goes each weekend. I am assured by Sue at the TG Homeowner’s Association that no one is complaining about my new ‘ land venture’. She says she’d shoo ‘em away from their grumpiness if they did call her about it. She’s such a gem; my most grateful thanks, Sue!

Bank Boy in Underoos is still being a petulant child with an overidentification disorder of the Superman images on his tighty whities. So be it. I’ve found a couple of options, and the math the bank gave me shows me in better shape than what they last told me. I’m still over the 80% ‘limit’ in my usage of monies, but, Who the F*** cares? Why put out a number that’s only worth 80% of what’s offered? I still have options, so I’m still fluid. Sweating, still, but fluid.

Crew #4 worked 14 hrs. one day last week to have everything done for the mono-pour of the bond beam on Friday!

I got to learn how to read a transit so now every wall is level—at the top. We won’t go into detail about what’s between the footing and the bottom of the bond beam, ok? I’m trying to stay positive here. Anyway, the bond beam does exactly that—it makes many of the mistakes not be an issue anymore. Or as much. And the roof will lie properly. Or something along those lines. All that matters is that the forms for the pour were diligently done, the pour took 5 hours of non-stop labor on the part of 5 crew members and I put myself on the payroll and did some of the grunt work while they did all the true construction work. But, hey! I got covered with some cement, too! I’m one of the gang now!!

It’s an amazing event, bond beam pouring. This crew didn’t stop to breathe for the entire 5 hours. The guy who brought the pumper truck even helped out, especially when Carolyn had her ladder fall out from under her and was swinging from the forms. She has nice ladder step marks down one leg.

The cement truck guy got a bottle of water from me, along with everyone else, even though all he did was sit the whole time. There’s always one at a construction site, isn’t there? I shoveled up the over-pours before they dried to the block. Yup, tough work, I know. But I broke a good sweat down there on the ground while everyone else was up on ladders or scaffolding where they could catch a breeze. I did some other stuff, too. I just can’t remember what. It wasn’t much, trust me.

OK, so the bond beam cured over the weekend. I got 4 showers a day while it was acting like bacon, tobacco, venal sinners who visit Lourdes (curing…get it?) I took my usual shower as daily hygiene demands in the desert, then three more through the course of each day as I sprayed down the cement with water so as to keep it happier. Or something like that. Cracking, heat reduction, fever blisters, I don’t know. Something. My dad loved to water the lawn and sneak cigarettes while he watered. He was always happy making his escape from the house and getting away with something. I thought about him a lot while I took my soakings. I was pretty happy watering, too. His ghost and I laughed a bunch as we played at making rainbows with the water spray. I had the best ones since I had to shoot the water up high enough to hit the top of the 12 foot clerestory. Water droplets on Transitions lenses make for some interesting viewing, btw.

The crew returned from the various corners of the state that they escape to on weekends (except Carolyn. She stayed behind this time, so we did laundry on Sat. and went to Albuquerque for shopping at Michael’s on Sunday) and Monday saw the forms come down and some other tedious pooh-pooh-ca-ca tasks. I was driving all over hell and back doing more errands so I couldn’t help ‘em. Bummer!

Tuesday saw the top plate (2x4s set atop the cement beam with low grade munitions so the trusses have something to get nailed/screwed into) get partway done, two trusses were temporarily erected over the garage and a third log post and two 6”x12” timbers got cut, notched, placed, and pegged into place. I’m having a hard time getting used to having anything overhead, so I’m ducking as I walk around inside the house now. It’s making me somewhat grumpy, too. Do I REALLY need a roof? I mean REALLY? I like being able to see the stars every night from any room in the house. Shoooooot! I guess I’ll be ok with it; just not yet. It’s just WEIRD!!

The posts and beams look totally kewl, though! Impressive, actually. Guess I’ll quit bitchin’ now, ‘cause I really DO love them.

I worked out a new design for the kiva fireplace. I’ll wait until it’s built to show y’all what it looks like. There’s also going to be little secret compartments built in;) (Hey! A pirate queen has to stash her booty somewhere!)

Carolyn mixed up some tints and adobe clay to do test colors and mixtures. Yes, we’re actually far enough along to have to address the interior plastering. Woo hoo! Sadly, though, I can’t have my pirate themed master bathroom as detailed as I had hoped. Guess I’ll tone it down and go for a higher level of sophistication. Yea, right!

Tomorrow more trusses will be installed. The top plate will be added as we go/complete the different roof sections. The roof (I know, I’ve been saying this since October…) will go on in the next week and a half. Banker Boy says he won’t release any more funds until that is done. Idiot that he is, I planned for that and we’ll have enough money to cover us until the roof is ON! So there!! The guy is SUCH a moron!!

Speaking of morons--Here's a compare/contrast pair of pics for you. The Rex version of a 'finished' viga and the truly finished version of the same damn log, as done by the stellar crew #4. I LOVE THIS CREW!!

On the Mum front—I’ll be there next week. Let’s just say that the ugliness that has always been directed toward me in my relationship with/from my younger brother Paul has been released from the dungeon that I had wrestled it all into over the last 30 years or so. It’s gonna get nothing but uglier as he gets more panicked about maybe actually having to WORK soon. Poor dear! Can you say litigation? Can you say Mum’s being held hostage in her own house? Can you say Paul won’t let me talk to her on the phone anymore? I knew you could….Today’s blog has been brought to you by the letter W (w is for water) and the number 4.

Great sunset pic thanks to the smoke from the obviously-gone-out-of-control controlled burn that’s been burning since Friday on Mount Ladron, 60 or so miles west of me. We’ve seen the burning hot spots from here!
And there’s a bunny picture for you. And a lizard pic, too! Enjoy! Muchos mananas from now.