July 27, 2005

The Hammer

My house from the outside, The Grass is dead from the heat wave but every thing else is the same

I go to my house everyday. I sit on the screened in porch and listen to the wind in the trees and the tiny sounds of the insects...Our neighbors are quiet folk. We have people just moved in on one side... retired teachers from the Bay Area, fellow Californians. The man on the otherside is a professional house sitter, who goes all over the country, staying in homes and caring for pets and livestock while the owners are away. He is gone as many as 9 months of the year...

There is a lot of activity on the circle...A man accross the way is dying, he is elderly and has about two weeks to live now. Even with the pain of virulent liver cancer, he is full of joy at the thought of going home to meet his Lord, would that I would have such faith. Family, Friends and neighbors care for him around the clock

Then there is our house. People are outraged for us that this remodel is dragging on and on, and fear that the work is substandard as well...several of them have keys and have "inspected" the place for themselves...




To get into the porch I must go through the whole house... My living room still looks like this pretty much. I have seen the flooring that will go in and I invision how the place will look...eventually.

I cry a lot. Monday the winds were blowing hot like the Santa Ana of CAlifornia or the Kona winds that blow vog and storm across the Big Island... I would call it "Hell's Breath" for the sulfurous stink and in Hawaiian it is a play on words for the pet name of the island Hamakua or "Breath of Heaven"

I miss Hawaii, especially at the times when Arkansas feels like an alien land... Mind you the people have been wonderful helpful and kind...but this place is unlike anyplace I have ever lived and I have some ajusting to do.... Fortunately, Woody and the cats are thriving in this new place thank God for that.

But "home" has a particular significance for me and to be "out of place" like this for so long is very difficult for me... I am finding myself decorating and doing things in this rental we are in and this "nesting behavior" as Woody calls it, is a fruitless and dysfuntional attempt to make a home here, where I am and that is not a good idea really... as we will just be up rooting again...

The homesickness, rootlessness, idle hands and mind, and this seemingly indifferant attitude by the contractor has had a build up effect on me...and its not good

Well, after a walk around the house... thinking about how long its been since any work was done, I got mad...Mad as Hell....Frankly you dont want to be around me when I get that mad, I yell and sometimes things fly out of my mouth that are pretty ugly. Our best friends on the block, Nancy and Lee saw me pounding my fists on the hood of the van and knew Id just had it. Later they said that they had seen it comming and that the release of tension was a good thing as long as the van wasnt too damaged... now what was I going to do about it...

I went home and got the name of a contract lawyer out of the phone book and called him. He had me read the contract to him and as off the cuff advice said we didint have much to work with. The document wasnt specific enough to penalize them for being so late, but I could just get big and bad as see where it lead..

So we did, Woody and I called for a meeting and fortunately the man that we initially hired (not his boss) showed upa dn was appologetic and seeming sincere in his embarassment over the situation. He promised that the new date would be honored and to not worry.

Well the next day we showed up at the house at 9 am and it was all hands on deck. There was almost too much going on as people were getting in each others way and on each other's nerves...but I could see progress...

Today there were issues going on and yes there were problems but I can see that things are going forward...

The heat wave broke last night too, Its 35 degrees cooler than it was 24 hours ago. As the rain started to fall last night at nine pm it was so hot that steam was rising from the black top as we drove home from our inspection of the days building...Even with the hammer of the lightning flashing all around, there was the blessing of the fullness of rain. I think having been paitent with these men I trusted to help me, the hammer of the law, just the threat of having to deal with it was enough to get things moving again... Its enough to give a girl some hope...