Economic Downturn

 This is an old piece of writing from 2012.

So my old friend R. asked me if I had any work I could hire him to do.
It's late fall, work is slow, he has bills to pay. Handyman, licensed
plumber, a little disorganized but likes to do things well. I looked
around, and yes, I actually had some plumbing that needed to be done. I
had a used dishwasher that I had bought several years before, hoping to
install it when I remodeled my kitchen. I had run out of money before I
got to the kitchen, and the dishwasher had stood in the way of
everything ever since.

I worked out a place where the dishwasher could be installed without
rearranging the kitchen. It would be out of the way, and I would finally
find out if it worked. I asked R. if he could install it there without
tearing out the kitchen, and he said yes.

I asked my husband if our budget could accommodate a small amount of
work in the kitchen. He wasn't happy, but it was better than a real
remodel. He agreed we could afford a few days work.

I gave R. the go ahead. He and his assistant A. came in the following day.

Then I remembered one other thing that has been bothering me about the
kitchen. The light in the scullery had been installed on the same switch
as the light in the rest of the kitchen. I wanted to be able to turn it
off separately. I asked if that would be feasible without too much work.

Yes, he said. He would do that too. No big deal. He starts getting under
the sink to work on the connectors for the dishwasher.

Now the sink cabinet needs to be evaluated. It's pretty scruffy. The
previous owner's drain system was a bucket under the sink. There's a lot
of water damage. Should it be replaced, or is it sturdy enough to simply
repair?

It's mostly sound. We'll just put a new base in it.

Good.

I went away for the day. When I came home the sink had been removed.

OK, I figured, that sink was in dreadful condition. This is my chance to
replace it. I'll see if I can find another to pop in. I looked on
Craigslist and at two salvaage yards. Found a cast iron enamel double
basin sink in great condition that would fit the cabinet. Almond. Not my
favorite, but what the hey. Fifty bucks. Not chipped. Not stained. In
contrast to the current sink, it will actually look clean after I scrub
it. Sweet.

When I came home the countertop was gone.

The counter was dreadful stained and scratched yellow formica from the
seventies. Totally delaminated. Accumulates water in the far corner so
it can seep into the wall. Needed to go. OK, as long as it’s out, let’s
replace it. I'll be happy to have tile instead. The almond sink will
limit my tile color choices, which is a good thing. I find unconstrained
choices next to impossible to make.

Still fine. But gee whiz, with the counter off like this, how big a deal
would it be to pull out that cabinet to the right of the sink and pop
the dishwasher in there, right where the plumbing is accessible?

No big deal. But let's get this added cabinet off the adjacent wall to
make room to work.

Sure. That cabinet was temporary anyway. As long as it's off and you're
here, can we change something inside the wall behind it?

The wall between the kitchen and the laundry room is 34" deep, and has
doors on the far side that open into the laundry room. The space inside
the wall is essentially a linen closet that is too deep to be practical.
Let's make the laundry room shelves shallower, and take that space and
open it into the kitchen. We can have kitchen shelves inside the wall
instead of a cabinet extending into the room, without losing any
significant space in the laundry room. Just open it up and slap
something in to divide the kitchen from the laundry room, right?

And in the meanwhile, I'm getting tired of not having a kitchen sink.
Would you take a break from working in the kitchen and install the
laundry sink that has been sitting in my back yard waiting for my
daughter to move her Burning Man equipment out of where the laundry sink
is supposed to be? Daughter be damned, I need a sink somewhere.

OK, OK, now the kitchen has been torn up for a week, but I have a
laundry sink at last. Complete with a dish rack that I didn't expect
across the window above the sink. Eep. Holes in my nice redwood trim.
But the dish rack is what makes the laundry sink usable as a temporary
kitchen sink.

And every time I walk through the kitchen to get to the laundry room I
trip over drop cloths,

I'm realizing that Christmas dinner is out of the question. Fine we'll
go to a restaurant. A roast goose is too much for only three anyway.

At some point the sink cabinet disappeared. Then it reappeared, plunked
down in the middle of the space. Somehow it looks different. But it's
night, and there's no light in that part of the kitchen. I’ll think
about it in the morning.

Hmmm, the wood on the front looks different.And there's A., stripping
the old varnish off the doors of the old cabinets. I didn't authorize
this. But gee, it's pretty, and he's half way done. May as well finish
the job.

The next day is Sunday; my husband is home. He gets a chance to think
about the kitchen. He asks whether we are getting new cabinets. No, I
say, you said we couldn’t. Why do you ask? Well, he says, I thought if
we were getting new cabinets they could be taller than our current
cabinets. My husband is six foot five and a half. In order to reach the
sink to wash dishes he has to splay his feet like a giraffe at a water
hole. Having a taller counter would be a very good thing.

So next question for R., can the current cabinets be made taller, or is
it more sensible to build new boxes?

No need for new boxes, we can raise the cabinets you have.

In a day or so I realize that if the counter is going up four or five
inches, that is enough room for a drawer to be added above the cupboards
and the dishwasher. This kitchen is really short of drawers, especially
now with the dishwasher being put in place of the right hand cupboard
and drawer.

Sure. R. was going to raise them from the bottom, but he thinks adding
drawers at the top instead is a good idea.

It's been three or four weeks. They've opened the walls and fixed the
water damage and borated against pests and insulated and repaired the
pipes and taken out extra connectors, added a circuit and installed an
electrical socket and switch, closed off the old cooler and made it part
of the wall, removed the back of the linen closet and made a 4 by 8 foot
box of shelves to put where the wall behind the linen closet had been.
The box is in place in the kitchen where it is going to go. Exciting.

But something looks wrong. It extends past the invisible edge of the no
longer (or is that not yet) existing counter. And it extends in the
other axis past the edge of the dishwasher door. It’s too wide and
possibly too deep. And the top shelf is in the wrong place, offsetting
the shelves below it

And I still have no kitchen sink. And the dishwasher is still in the
middle of everything, getting in the way.

I freak out. Friend in need or no I'm ready to fire him. But how can I
get my kitchen back together? What the heck do I do now? I feel totally
helpless and panic and lose my ability to think clearly.

We can cut the box down to size, R. says. And remove the extra shelf and
adjust the other shelves that are in the wrong place.

Wouldn't it be better to start over and build a new box? says I. I'll
sell the damn thing on Craigslist.

That evening I call a friend for moral support. He's a carpenter, a
mutual friend, in fact, who is sometimes works with R and is aware of
the progress of the job. He comes over and looks at the box. Wonders
whether there is any way to salvage the effort and materials it
represents. Look, you could cut it down a little in only one dimension
and put it on this other wall. Bingo. I feel better. I start to think
about design again, planning the kitchen around the box that will now be
on the East, no longer the North wall.

By 4 AM I have a good plan with elevation sketches of all four sides.

Everyone approves of the plan. Husband, friend, R., all agree it’s good.
I feel better. I start looking for tile to go with the almond sink.

It doesn’t take me long to balk again. There already was a cabinet on
the East wall. What makes the new one any better? Isn’t it just one more
non-matching component in my motley kitchen? All this disruption: dust,
noise, expense, people in the house when we are trying to work, bad
meals out. And what will I have to show for it? A raggedy jumble of a
kitchen. It’s time to stop and rethink the entire plan.

I designed a kitchen in another house and was very pleased with how it
came out, but never got to live with it and use it. This is my chance to
have a well-thought-out, harmonious kitchen. I’m used to the chaos by
now. It’s time to go back to the drawing board. Maybe I’ll even get a
different sink.

The journey? The destination? continued

This recent trip was all journey and no destination. 

The flight was exciting, in that Nels had to return home for his passport and take a later flight, so I travelled

alone, which I seldom do. 

Vancouver has an excellent bus system, with no barrage of messages such as to “Please hold on,” which 

deter me from using the buses in San Francisco, so we rode around, getting a nice rest between stops and 

seeing the different neighborhoods without having to navigate in detail.

I’m sure all the walking did me good. I started out tired, and easily got footsore, and as the week wore on 

my stamina and comfort increased.

Many of the places we made an effort to get to were disappointing. The expensive Chinese garden and the 

tea shop across town both felt dingy, but the adjacent free Chinese garden was somewhat more pleasant, 

and they both were in directions we otherwise would not have gone, which in Van means different views of 

the mountains. The bird sanctuary, though full of lovely falling leaves and very friendly chickadees, had a 

loud industrial noise that precluded repose. At the other place we went for tea the food and service were 

dreadful, but since we were nearby we went to the gemlike, mossy Japanese garden at the BCC campus. 

And while we were there, a coyote came to the tiny stream for a drink. We got within a few yards of her 

before she slunk off under the fence.

Others were worthwhile but getting there made them better. The conservatory was in a park with an 

unexpectedly good arboretum that I didn’t see enough of. On a walk to some totem poles that I never 

reached I passed a lovely lake, so thoroughly ringed by trees and splendid mountains that one could 

ignore being in a city. When we were early to the excellent restaurant we fortunately had a reservation for 

on our first night we took a walk and found ourselves on a bench in a tiny streetcorner park, where a 

friendly local man regaled us with bad jokes. From the Japanese garden we wandered off looking for a 

washroom and a path to the beach, and instead found wonderful totem poles. There I struck up a 

conversation with a woman who told us the anthropology museum was open late. I hadn't planned to go, 

but we were right by it, so we went, and loved it.

We loved the art museum, too. I had found the advertisements for the main show off-putting. I thought I 

would rush through it and spend my time in the permanent collection. But there was no permanent 

collection, and the show, of Canadian women artists, was worth seeing.

Initially, in my fatigue, I found the downtown massively unpleasant; a seeming monolith of enormous 

buildings. But since the buses radiate from downtown I saw the urban core a number of times, and it grew 

on me. The details of quirky buildings began to emerge from the mass of towers. I still don’t like it, but I 

began to appreciate the juxtapositions of odd shapes in the modern architecture of this very new city, 

which aspires to become the next New York.

I spoke to our B&B hostess about a walk I intended to take in a nearby park. She warned me about 

weirdos and naked men, and recommended a different park further away. OK, why not? I had all day. 

There was a naked man anyway, right in front of the ferry terminal. The park she sent us to was worth a 

visit, but I couldn’t hike there, it was too steep for me. So we went to a couple of other parks because 

they were nearby. One was so peaceful we took a very refreshing nap on moss-covered boulders, and 

felt that our journey had been worthwhile. Then on the delayed and crowded bus back to town I had a 

perfect view of the sunset over the Georgia Strait.

I thought the whole trip was a series of mishaps, but as I write about it, I find the list of things I enjoyed 

far exceeds the problems. And I didn’t think about my life at home at all for the whole week.

Staying home sick from school

Staying home sick from school, a writing prompt from Red O'Hare.

Most of this was over sixty years ago. My memories are pretty fragmented.

It seems like many of my recollections include my father. I recall reading in bed, my dad bringing stacks of store-bought, not-from-the-library books to my upper bunk where I was about eye to eye with him. He also made me hot milk with egg and sugar in it, which today sounds to me exactly wrong for my usual symptoms of too much snot and phlegm and coughing. If I was well enough to be out of bed I watched "I Love Lucy" which I always hated, but this was the era of three-channel television, and everything else that was on during the daytime was worse. All these scenes are flavored by the moldy taste of spoonfuls of penicillin, incompletely masked by some kind of sweet flavoring.

It must have been the measles. I'm pretty sure I had the chicken pox earlier, when we were moving cross-country. And if it had been mumps my dad would have been sicker than he was. So, measles, and my dad being home sick at the same time. He taught me to play chess and we played together. Decades later my son was home sick. Not the measles for him, there was an immunization by that time. I got so involved in playing chess with him that I forgot to go to my very part-time counseling job, standing up a client.

One morning I woke up early. This should have been a sign in itself that something was out of whack; I never woke up early. If it wasn't a school morning, I was often still in bed at 11. Nor did I ever do my schoolwork, but since I was awake and there was a big assignment due that day, I got to work. At breakfast my mother must have noticed I looked flushed or something. She took my temperature. I stayed home.

The journey? The destination?

Thanks to a combination of popular acclaim and some people's difficulty accessing my blog site, I am continuing with these emails, as well as trying to make them into a blog.
According to my friend Susie, it's the journey, not the destination. I am often of the other school, finding the journey to be the uncomfortable parts, the diesel fumes, the cramped airplane seat, the ugly streets and interminable standing in line on the way to the scenic attraction. But how do we distinguish a destination from a journey? Videy Island was a destination, but we wouldn't have had the chance to go there, nor even heard of it, if we had not stopped in Iceland simply as a break in the journey. The Notre Dame likewise: fabulous, but we were in Paris on our way to Poitiers. Though we had to fly into somewhere (that makes it a destination, right?) once we had determined that we would be there, we stayed a while and enjoyed it. And that's where we left off those emails, with me stumping around Paris with a cane and my brother suggesting I take my life in my hands and rubberneck from a Vespa.
We took a bus to Gare Montparnasse and a train to Poitiers, where Nels's friend Shauna picked us up and took us home to Lusignan. We had no idea she didn't live in metro Poitiers, but I am delighted.
I guess Lusignan counts as a destination. Paris and Barcelona are simply the airports we are using along the way. We wrote to the three people we know between us in Europe. One didn't respond. One was going to be away. Shauna said, "Come. Stay as long as you like."
Lusignan is a village of a few thousand people on the old pilgrimage route to St. Jacques de Compostelle. I have thought of walking that road, as it clearly antedates Christianity. Sitting on the train I was thinking that an hour on the rails would be several days walk. So I'm glad to touch it tangentially.
It's gorgeous here, with ruins of the old castle and a view over the wooded valley. The people here trace their heritage through Melusine, who was an ondine or a serpent goddess or I guess both. My kind of people.
From the train we see wheat fields, cows, red poppies, little islands of wooded land among the ploughed fields. Old farmsteads with courtyards enclosed in stone walls. Rural and small-town France seems to me the epitome of the good life, permaculture in action not applied remedially to industrial ugliness, but as carried forwards from a time when building a life that endures was the only practical - or perhaps even possible - way to behave. It can be constraining, of course. The new buildings mimic the old. But constraint is a necessity for life, and creates a visual harmony that highlights both the little variations of detail and the life that the stone walls enclose.
France is not as bad as Iceland for the air quality standards, but still not California by a long way. All these Peugeots and Renaults and Citroens. Why don't we have them at home? Do they not measure up? I miss my 404. Of course even here, those are so old one doesn't see them.
We took the train to La Rochelle, accompanied by Shauna's thirteen-year-old daughter as our translator and guide. Lucky for us she had stayed home from school with a tummy ache. Saw the old towers and wall that defended the harbor in the days before cannon. Walked barefoot on the little sand beach by the port, but couldn't actually get out of the inlet to the ocean.
Went for a fancy dinner in Poitiers for Nels's birthday. Walked around the town a little first, medieval church with someone practicing the organ, 15th century university (loved the old stone staircase, was happy to find the unlocked washroom underneath), hilly nonlinear streets of half-timbered houses, beautiful green river with big fish, Worried that we wouldn't be able to be seated in the tiny restaurant we had chosen, so we got a reservation, but as it turned out we had chosen wrong. I don't know whether the food was as bad as it seemed, or whether the ugly mural and cracking plastic menus affected my appetite. Oh well. It didn't bother him as much as it did me.
Almost 50 degrees north, three weeks before solstice, it stays light too late to enjoy the stars. Many weeds I don't recognize. Many local foods I haven't tried. Seems like we are mostly taking it easy and staying home, but tell that to my knee. Want to go canoeing in the local marshes and canals, but not alone, and I have no one to share paddling. Lindens coming into blossom sweeten the warm air. Swallows, woodpeckers, bats. Tomorrow we're off to see chaateauux.

Ah, Paris

This is such a meeting place for the world. One hears so many languages on the street. I'm not nearly as embarrassed by my poor French as I was, nor is it as necessary as last time. So many people speak English, locals and tourists alike. Of course we are immediately spotted as English speakers. We were standing in line at the Notre Dame and the gentleman in front of us asked us whether we spoke English; he had some questions. I asked where he was from: India. And I laughed in sympathy with a tired middle-aged Asian woman in the Orangerie elevator. Not knowing her language I didn't comment aloud. But she spoke to me in English. She was from Hong Kong. Then we struck up a conversation on the bus with a couple with a strong accent, who were complaining about the heat. That surprised me; they sure looked Indian. But having lived in Minnesota for over 25 years, 90 degrees was as wilting to them as it was to me.

The scooters are bigger than they used to be; I keep mistaking them for motorcycles. And now there must be helmet laws. It amazed me to see a woman wearing a motorcycle helmet and rhinestone sandals. 

Fewer people smoke, and it doesn't seem to be all Gauloises. And in fact, it appears to be an outdoor activity. Maybe it's no longer OK indoors.

Last time I was here I was struck by the uniformity of dress. It seemed there was one general look, and every woman wore a variant of it. Now I'm hard put to find any commonalities. Every possible skirt length and dress shape, A few possible themes I notice, or make up out of what catches my eye. The color of the season seems to be a brilliant vermillion orange. Sheer black overskirts or tunics over shorter black garments can look either graceful or absurd. And it seems torn jeans will never go out of fashion, especially over fishnets. or other underlayers. But perhaps the most noticeable to me was a young man (20's? 30's?) in what looked like a fairly form-fitting (nice butt) toddler's sunsuit in a print like a geometric tie.

So what's the difference between a 55 euro dinner and a 110 euro dinner?

For one thing, one claims 8 courses, brings 4 at once, then two separately, then two together, for a total of 4. Okay, five with the bread.

The other claims 6 courses, and brings 16 separate items, one at a time. Well, it's true I'm counting the bread, but they brought three successive breads, and butter with the first, for which we had to ask at the other place. 

I loved the fancy one. Nels preferred the somewhat more simple one. A treat to try both. Our neighborhood restaurants seem consistently good also.

The Orangerie at last. Monet's Water Lilies. The last time I was here was 49 years ago with my father, who adored Monet's work. I believe I can see more in the canvases now, despite my ageing eyes. No wonder my dad was excited about those canvases. They were contemporary with his youth (painted 1920 -1926). I had thought they were historic, even to him.

There were two things I like better in Reykjavik than in Paris - the botanic garden and the weather. It's in the 90s here the past couple of days. The peonies were barely in bud in Iceland, and already lost their blossoms here. Ah, Paris. Was walking home from the botanic garden. Got tired, found a cafe, ordered ice cream and tea, looked up and across the river, there was Notre Dame. Pulled out the binoculars, studied the details of the part we could see between the trees. Later went inside. While we were looking at the carvings they started playing the organ and singing. And we walked out into the sound of bells ringing for mass.

Nels likes it here, we briefly imagine living here. Then I realize how I would miss my garden.

Dorothy, we're not in Iceland any more

Was walking across the Seine, footsore, when we realized that the long spring evenings were fooling us and it was dinner time. So instead of getting on a bus and heading home, we kept walking, looking for a place to eat.

Just as I was thinking I couldn't go any further, the next restaurant we saw seemed to exude an air of calm that drew us in - possibly because it was somewhat more expensive, so it had fewer patrons than the ones we had passed. First we sat outside to watch the street life and enjoy the evening breeze, but soon we realized that the evening breeze was 80% cigarette smoke and the street life consisted of motorcycle noise. So we moved inside and found an Art Nouveau fantasia of wood and mirrors and paintings and tile, with wrought iron coat hooks and a stained glass ceiling. The waiters dashed about so briskly I felt I was watching a floor show. Nels liked the food better than our fancy meal yesterday, but I would choose the other any time!

I walked with my cane yesterday, which helped somewhat and also got me a seat on a crowded bus (thank you!). Still walking more than I ought, but I hate being left behind. And my idea of visiting a city is to wander about. Maybe I can take more busses.

I think the jet lag has caught up with me. I got up this morning around 7, and went yawning back to bed at 9, which would be midnight back home, and slept for hours.

Iceland Report

I got to the airport and found I did not have my wallet. Brief panic. Did have my passport, so I guess I'm OK until I need to rent a car in a month.

Flight was OK. Little sleep, but no sciatica, no back pain. Yay!

Got the bus to Reykjavik, two o'clock there, five AM for me. Got a bowl of soup at the bus station and amazingly it was good. Encouraging. Found our lodgings. Listed as nonsmoking, but stinks of old tobacco smoke. I'll live, too tired to regroup. We are fifty yards from a greenspace along the water.

Iceland smells like alders, though I have only seen birches, which are halfway into leaf. I guess they must smell similar, they are related. The birches are lovely, with a coppery bark that has a ringed effect from how it peels.

Took a bus downtown looking for dinner and a SIM card for Nels's phone. Excellent dinner, nice walk around town, Great walk home with lots of water birds at the pond. The terns, mostly arctic terns but some others also, are spectacular to watch.

Knee is holding up great so far. Slept adequately too, despite time change. It gets dark about 11 pm, and light again around 4.

SIM card didn't work. Can't plug anything in (did we lend you our converter?). Went looking for a converter, and started getting a little more familiar with the bus system and the layout of downtown. 

Went to a sculpture museum, not great but a fabulous building, domed and white with many windows and extraordinary light. Walked to botanic garden, which was wonderful. Beds of volcanic stones with alpine plants from around the world, some blooming, many I had never seen before. Many species of woodland flowers and perennials that I was familiar with but had no idea there were so many species. A few old friends: dicentra formosa, labeled as to place "Kalifornia", trillium chloropetalum and ovatum bloomng now, in bloom at home two months ago. Unbelievable numbers of pulsatilla and anemone species in bloom, and I want to come back for the peonies.

Another good dinner, and a walk on the beach coming home. Growing among the grass, where you might find fennel at home, is angelica! 

Though it looks like open water here, between Reykjavik being very protected in almost every direction along a west-facing bay and the wind being out of the east, the water of the Atlantic here is amazingly flat. I can't think of open water on the Pacific I have seen it so still.

Having you to write to helps me appreciate my visit here.Second day in Iceland took a ferry to the island of Videy. No cars, thirty species of nesting birds, the industrial bustle of Rejkyavik visible and audible just across the water, but totally idyllic. I'm still trying to figure out what bird it was that darts about beating its wings rapidly and then swoops saying Hootle hootle hootle.

The eiders are gorgeous and make kind of a single hoot that is amazing to hear in chorus.

I keep being told, it's the journey, not the destination. But that was definitely a worthwhile destination, with a rather ugly journey. I'm not fond of Rejkyavik, which feels kind of like Eureka with more industry - everything is being torn up - and more restaurants, and fewer Victorian houses.

Last morning there, went to the swimming pool, just to live like the locals. Dissapointed that the water did not smell of sulphur as the shower at our lodging does. Did find the alders I was smelling, though.

Now it's our second morning in Paris. It's pretty hot, and the neighborhood is noisy, so I've been going to sleep late and waking late. Last night there were people outside the window stealing bicycles.from the rental-bike stand at the corner very loudly with lots of banging.

Got home from dinner at midnight anyway. Restaurant David Toutain, fabulous one-star, six courses, but really at least two dozen plates, all very imaginative and incredibly tasty. Ate from eight to eleven, then a walk home. Realizing how much I am enjoying walking in the evening, either by twilight or soft streetlights. I experience the bright LEDs of Berkeley as an assault and have started staying indoors at night. So good to feel free to wander about.

Too many museums! Too many restaurants! Too much to describe or photograph! Making myself lame, taking it easier today. Saw a wonderful show of Camille Pisarro's work from the 1880's in Eragny, he was such a master of light! Then had to also go to the Orsay, which I think was still a railway station when I was last here, with lots of everything, including Van Gogh's amazing Church at Auvers which stopped us in our tracks as we entered the room, and several of his wonderful portraits. Was also floored by Nature Unveiling herself to Science and works too diverse to mention.

It may be time to leave the apartment in search of lunch.