rocketbomb

Liver Detox Day 6

Overcooked veggies and unsweetened cranberry juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Who's sick joke was it to add sugar and call it "cranberry juice cocktail"? I want my martini.

Will I survive this? 6 down, 22 to go.

Drive Friendly

Today is “drive friendly day.” Honey said, “Does that mean I can’t flip anybody off on the way to work?”

He was very nice: he stopped so a biker could cross in a crosswalk even though bikes are supposed to act like cars, not pedestrians. He let a car make a left turn in front of him even though he had the right-of-way. He didn’t honk, not even once – not even when we were cut off on the exit.

 “I’m saving up so that with all of the demerits on the way home, I’ll end the day with a zero balance instead of negative balance.”

Drive friendly!

The Longest Winter

It’s been a long winter…as in, going on five years since our last real summer. 2005: community college accounting hell. 2006: business school incarceration. 2007: Bill left us. 2008: house destruction, unsavory temporary living quarters. Last weekend we finally had two days with little to do and lots of sun (even a little heat!), and I’ve started to let myself believe – just a little bit – that summer will be enjoyable this year.

Remembering way back to 2004, I seem to remember that we drank a lot of rum, spent most Sundays on the beach, played Frisbee, got sunburned, and read books. But that’s a little hazy (my old lady brain is having a hard time recalling…).

Some items from my list of summer resolutions (a work in progress):

·         Convince Honey to do a jigsaw puzzle with me OR collaboratively complete Friday or Saturday crossword (reserving Sunday as something to aspire to when the darkness returns. I’m already killing the Monday puzzle).

·         Sing “Time After Time” at karaoke night at the pub across the way.

·         Read A Confederacy of Dunces and The River Why

·         Plant at least one tree in the yard

·         More yoga

·         Finally host my 30^th birthday party: sushi & cupcakes

Changes in the workplace

 

1.       Signs everywhere with pictures and descriptions of how to wash one’s hands. I sing “happy birthday.”

2.       BYO Crock Pot when hosting an all-day meeting. Meat and potatoes steaming in the kitchen, wafting down the hallways.

3.       Fewer familiar, friendly faces than this time last week.

Changing Course

The universe brings you what you need. A blog I read recently told me that I was doing everything wrong when it comes to blogging. Mainly, that I’m not posting frequently enough; that my posts are too long; and, now that my “topic” is obsolete, I need to find a new topic – but not a new blog.

So now that we’re done with the house (yeah, forgot to post that update…and all of the updates between January and March) and I can breathe again and do things on the weekends like reading books, I figured it was time to get back on the horse, spend some quality time figuring out what I want this space to be.

My bestest, most favorite writer of all time, Tim O’Brien, with whom I had the pleasure of working and drinking in the summer of 2000 talks about writing as a ritual, and something you need to practice. Writing is his job, he says. He does it every day, for eight hours or more each day. He doesn’t take days off – not even Christmas or his birthday, he says.

My work at The Gravitron will keep me from giving eight hours each day, but I figure I can commit to eight minutes each day and go from there.

Top 5 moments of 2008

I figured that since every paper and publication is doing it, we should do it, too: the obligatory look back at 2008, including a top-5 list. Before we dive into the top 5 list, I must also give “honorable mention” for a few others. They include:

·         The day we walked into the house and found it was actually warm. Ahhh, central heat. The glory. This didn’t make the list this year because we don’t yet have a thermostat, but for sure it will make the 2009 list, you can count on it.

 

·         New sewer line. Many of you have heard me talk about this most glorious and expensive and shiny amenity that A gave me for my 31^st birthday. I can think of nothing more romantic, and should any one of you ever have to deal with the kind of sewer line we had, you won’t be able to think of anything more romantic, either.

·       Negatory on the asbestos check. As you know, we had some asbestos issues with the old house. After A had spent weeks removing asbestos siding and flooring that a testing agency had discovered after taking samples of nearly every material in the house (flooring, walls, siding, window caulking, insulation, etc.), he thought he would do one final check to make sure there wasn’t anything under the hardwood floors in the main living area. The haz-mat agency had checked everything except for what was under the hardwoods, which were scheduled to be salvaged before demo. A figured that he should check before the salvage company came in to make sure we weren’t exposing anyone to the nasty stuff. The asbestos in our kitchen floor was described by the haz-mat firm as “gray fibrous insulating layer between the linoleum and the floor.” Sure enough, as A pulled up a few of the floor boards in the main living room, there was a thin insulating layer that looked very similar to the stuff he had spent days pulling up in the kitchen. This was not looking good. Though it was a spendy test ($75/pop!), we took samples to the testing center and nearly passed out when we got the call saying it was negative for asbestos.

 

·         Those last few dinners shared with friends. The thing we have missed the most about our old house – and the thing we look forward to the most with our new house – is sharing food with friends. Those last few meals shared with people in the final days of the old 628 were so special: birthday chicken, Daphne’s, cider-glazed lamb chops, Cuba Libre, Oregon Pinot… We can’t wait to open up shop again.

 

On with the list:

5. Demo Day

A and I had heard that demolition would be quick, drastic, and so stunning that we would gasp for air. Kind of like the day that Jeff Renner showed up to work without his mustache earlier this year. And while Jeff Renner’s facial hair would be on a list of the top 10 moments from 2008, it doesn’t make our list of top 5.

A and I were told that demo would start before we were fully moved out of the house. Sure enough, when we left for work on June 30, everything was as it had been. When we returned we found an enormous pile of what had been our garden trellis, and the rest of the “cabinetry” that had been in our splitting-down-the-middle-falling-apart-hazard-of-a-garage. It had begun.

But that was just the start.

While A and I busted our asses to get moved out of the house, the demo team was moving ever closer. As in, I was still packing up the kitchen when they started to pull the roof off. But by the end of the day, when everything had been jammed into our little rental and there wasn’t anything else left in the house, we stood by as our trusty friend Ron (who bought the cutest purple digger/destroyer thingy just to take down our house) spent the last 15 minutes of his day tearing the face of the house off.

This was the very moment we realized there was no going back. We were doing this thing. Frightening and exhilarating at the same time, this moment is #5 for 2008.

 

4. Permits in the house

Our delightful architect, who has been practicing in this state for over 50 years, said he had never encountered a municipal planning department as challenging as ours. We won’t say anything bad about this planning department here for fear of retribution or a little bad karma, but it was a trick (and a number of checks with commas) to get our permits. We had heard horror stories about permits taking 10 months or more to have processed. Going into the process, I remember saying that I would be happy if we had permits and were under construction by Labor Day. Ha!

After starting planning and working with our architect in September 2007, we turned our plans into the city on March 1, 2008. We went through one round of revisions (we hadn’t indicated that the smoke detectors were hard-wired…obviously), then I got the call.

A called me at work on June 24^th – just three and a half months after turning our plans in – and said these words: “Um, we have permits, dude.”

We celebrated that night.

 

3. The view from here

In the old house, A spent a good deal of time scrambling up onto the roof to deal with leakage issues and the corkscrew willow that now rests in peace and just to go and check things out. I joined him just a couple of times, and as we sat on patchworked tarpaper a couple of hot summer nights, we looked out toward the Sound and sighed. What a view. It was seeing that view that got us thinking about rebuilding. Well, the view, plus our lack of central heat, foundation, insulation, etc., etc.

As the house was being framed over the summer, we came home one day to find that they had laid plywood over the joists, creating a second floor. A and I climbed up the ladder to have a look, and there in front of us was the most spectacular, unobstructed view of the Sound. It extends from the southwest to nearly due north. We knew we’d have a corridor view of the water based on our rooftop speculation from the old house, but we didn’t know it would be so expansive.

From there, our routine each night after work was to drop our bags and keys in the rental after arriving home, then going straight to the new house to hang out on the second floor for a good hour or more before returning to the rental for dinner and a sorry, sorry Mariners game.

 

2. It looks like a house

This winter has been a rough one for us. The dark has been really dark; so dark that the day after the winter solstice nearly made this list.

In December, we both arrived home just after 6:00 (in complete darkness). That morning when we left for work around 7:30 (also in complete darkness), a team of drywallers was already at work in the house, so we knew we were in store for a great surprise when we went to check out the house at the end of the day.

By this time, the exterior of the house was completely finished – windows installed, shingles in place, and completely painted. In fact, the FedEx delivery driver had delivered a package to the front door of the new house thinking that someone was actually living there. But more than just about any other step in the process of building the house, when we walked into the living room that night after the drywall was installed, it felt like a house. It looked like a house. We could finally see ourselves living there.

We wandered from room to room with flashlights (electrical wasn’t finished yet), becoming more and more giddy with each new room.

 

1. Wish

Last December A and I were taking a hard look at things. There were many unknowns – we weren’t sure we would get the permits or the financing, or that even with both, that we could swing the financial balancing act that this project has required – much less the emotional investment. Both of us were a little scared. We told our architect that we wanted to take the month of December to re-think our plan.

At Christmas dinner, my lovely hostess-with-the-mostest mother-in-law had included small silver ornaments at each place setting. They were perfectly round and opened like lockets. Before we started dinner, she passed around slips of paper and pens and told us that we each had to write down our wishes for 2008 and put them into our ornaments.

Even though it scared me, I wrote mine down. At that point, and at many points between then and now, I wasn’t sure it would really happen, but I can say today that my wish is coming true. It’s here. I can see it.

An important first

Many of you know that the one thing I can’t live without is my slippers. I’m pretty sure that my first pair of shoes were slippers. When I travel on business – even when it is for a full week – I’ve become really good at fitting everything into a single tote bag. But the one thing that always has room in that bag is my pair of slippers.

 

We’re enjoying (finally!) a warm summery September, and this morning we both woke up just before 7:00 to a clear morning. We brewed a pot of coffee, then headed over to the house. We scrambled up the ladder to the second floor (built this week!). The view is better than we imagined – really spectacular.

 

At the top of the ladder, I slipped off my shoes and stepped into my slippers. A first for this house. Feels like home.

 

Note that I’ve posted more pictures of demolition. RSS feeds didn’t pick up the post – not sure why. More pictures to come. The first floor is framed, as are the exterior walls of the second floor. Roof trusses are coming next Thursday.

The Giant Pool of Money

In a post in February I made a passing comment about our challenges with getting financing for our little project. It’s been fascinating to see the current credit crisis (read: no longer called a “mortgage crisis”) evolve, but a little frightening to feel the effects in a very real way: we are a dual income family, both of us have been in the same line of work for over five years, we both have terminal graduate degrees, excellent credit, and our only debt is student loans – and yet, we struggled mightily to find a bank who would finance our project to build a modest home, designed by a moderately famous architect, in a highly desirable area of a very strong real estate market. At more than one turn in the road, we had lenders who backed out, cancelling their construction loan programs. We finally found a local bank who would work with us; we were the last construction loan they financed – they have since stopped their construction lending program.

Our first mortgage was one of those fancy loans WaMu used to offer – our first mortgage rate (admittedly, it was adjustable) started out at a measly 4.25%. While we realize that there are lots and lots of people who signed up for these loans who are now in a mess of trouble, we do feel fortunate that these types of loan programs were available to us when they were – otherwise, it probably would have taken us a lot longer before we could purchase our first home…and who knows, someone like the Valentines could have purchased our little house.

As for rising interest rates over the last few years, we were really, really lucky to sneak in at just over 7% for this project. Our loan officer smiled politely, but had no empathy in her voice when I lamented this “high rate.” “I remember the 70’s,” she said. Right. I guess 7% does beat 17%.

My most favorite show on radio, This American Life (Ira Glass is totally getting an invitation to my 30^th birthday party – which is likely to happen once the house is finished, some time before I turn 32), recently devoted a full show to explaining what exactly happened to the mortgage industry over the last six years. The episode is called The Giant Pool of Money. Please, please set aside one hour of your life to listen to this podcast. It is fascinating stuff, and will convince you that you should have locked in that 4.25% rate for 30 years way-back-when.

(If you like what you hear, you may consider subscribing to the weekly podcast. You may also consider making a small donation to TAL to support their podcasting program – which they deliver free week-after-week.)

As a follow-up to the TAL piece, there was a great story that ran on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning: Grim Anniversary: Credit Crunch Is 1 Year Old

And also a story on Nouriel Roubini, the “crazy” economist who predicted that things would come crashing down, which appeared in this week’s New York Times Magazine. As an extra teaser, I’ll tell you that toward the end of the article, he does offer a prediction about what will come next. This prediction is not too far off from the conclusion to The Giant Pool of Money.

This may seem like a lot, but its great stuff. And it’s good for you.

Why we're here

A and I were heading out to dinner on Friday after a great visit with our phenomenal, spontaneous, clairvoyant, nomadic friends Lainie and Mike (they’re heading for Colorado at the end of the month. Not sure where they’re going – just toward Colorado).  As we walked out to the car, we waved to our neighbors Scott and Amy, who are trying to populate the world with gorgeous children (Zoe, Ella, Oliver).

Amy and Scott have lived two doors down from us (well, now three doors down) for four years. They are lovely people who share our fear of men with chainsaws who cut down trees on Dayton Street after 10pm, and our dislike of Mexican pipe organ music paired with Ice House that sometimes get together in the VFW on the corner and party late into the night.

Amy and Scott and A and I were two of three couples on Dayton Street who have enjoyed each other’s company over the years; the third couple, Kim and Lucas, moved away to Idaho (see earlier post “My Funny Valentine” – they report that the Valentine family is a good representation of some Idaho folk) about a year and a half ago. We all miss them.

Scott and Amy waved us over and invited us in for a drink: Kim and Lucas and their son Angus were visiting – and on their way over for dinner!

Long story short, we stayed for a drink, then another, then pizza and salad, and about three hours later, found ourselves sitting around the fire pit in their backyard, roasting marshmallows and washing them down with red wine.  While we talked about the neighborhood and our house and Idaho and the RSO who lives across the alley, Zoe, Ella, and Angus (Oliver was long gone to bed) ran around the yard in the dark shrieking playing a rousing game of hide-and-seek (which was mostly just “seek”), taking occasional breaks to beg for more marshmallows.

We learned all sorts of juicy tidbits… Turns out that the mommies in the neighborhood (there is a very cute day care half a block up the street, so lots of mommies) had concocted a story about our house: clearly we had been foreclosed on, and it was a fire sale for the lot – which was bought by a developer who couldn’t see the charm in the old house, so immediately tore it down and is building a great big spec house. I love it! We are the gossip!

As we walked back to the little red house after dinner, I had an overwhelming feeling that we’ve done the right thing. For all of the uncertainty and expense and stress, we’re here because we love it here, we’re surrounded by good people, and this is a beautiful place.  Our house will fit right in.

Fraggle Rock

We live in what’s called “the bowl.” Our friend Steve, who has lived here forever, once stood on the porch of a friend’s house with us, beer in hand, and said, “Just look what God’s given us. Now we need to protect it.” He’s right – it’s gorgeous. Everyone gets a view because we live on a slight peninsula that gives us sweeping view of the Sound from the very tippy south to the very tippy north. Steve is an elected official who has been a staunch supporter of the most restrictive height limits that ever existed…anywhere (Bob, our architect, is still in disbelief): 25’ from the highest peak. Steve, bless him, is the reason that we are having 300 cubic yards of soil removed from the site before we build. And that, my friends, is a lot of dirt. So thanks to Steve and others, we will also have a gorgeous view when the house is finished, but from a slightly lower perspective than would otherwise have been convenient, and at some cost.

Anyway – that’s not the point of all of this. Let’s think. In terms of geology, what causes a giant bowl to occur in nature?

Our contractor warned us before we started the project that we wouldn’t know exactly was under the house until it was down. We’re talking dirt. The soil engineer had already tested and told us that it was 98% sand – which is good – great percolation properties (Funny. I never thought I would ever use that phrase in my life. Ever.). But Paul told us that it could be much sandier, and even told us a horror story about having to do three times the excavation work on a site because the sand was so fine, and kept collapsing into the trenches.  As someone who has been digging in the dirt on the site for the last five years for the sake of the garden we just tore up, I didn’t believe it would ever happen to us. Ha!

See, as it turns out, the geology of this place is much like this:

This is Columbia Glacier in Alaska.  This is what Edmonds used to look like. This is why this place is so sandy: it’s a river bed – and we’re at the very bottom of it.

We had an inkling that things were not good when we came home from work to great big Fraggle Rock piles of sand after the first day of excavation.  We wanted to survey our land (is this an American thing?), so we trekked across the site, stopping here and there to put our hands on our hips. “Yup, looks like they’re working,” we said every 20 feet or so. Our toes, meanwhile, were sinking into the sandy stuff, and we both had to hose off our feet before we went into the next door house.

We got the news the next day. “Too much sand,” Paul said. They needed to dig down an additional three feet, lay gravel, then start pouring the footings. The soil engineer came back to take a look, too, and said that with the additional work, we would probably be the only house still standing on the block after an earthquake. The additional work, of course, will be a might more expensive than originally planned, but the good news is that A and I have been scavenging daily for river rocks surfaced by the excavation. We’re going to have a killer rock garden. And sand box.  

The additional trenching and gravel work is due to be complete by mid-week next week, when they will pour the footings…and finally, after five years, we’ll be just days away from having a real live foundation!