Yes, the electrician came.(current events)

The excitement here is at a fever pitch. The Queen came by yesterday to see how things are going, and she was followed by several folks of note in the worlds of arts and letters, science, and global affairs. Bill Gates came by to ask me for some advice and got into it with Donald Trump who was already here for a cup of coffee. A start-up movie company is filming with some of the local talent in the back room and is claiming odds of making several millions of dollars. Oh, and my brother finally came by to move his stuff and direct the gardeners to scalp the back and front yards preparatory for new plantings and laying sod.

OK, I'm just a little bored and tired of the tedium here, and of all of this only the last line is actually true. But because of the waste generated in the scalping process, I had an exciting time at the dump. You see, instead of putting all the waste in easilly tipable containers, the landscape workers had just thrown everything, dirt and plant materials, in the truck. That makes for an impenatrable mass of muck, unshovelable and barely rakeable, if those are actual words. Of course, arriving to unload at the disposal facility, the tail gate of the truck wouldn't open.

All told, I spent two hours unloading the darn thing. It was a rainy day, and yes, the dump is such a lovely place to spend one's time. Two different imense tractors scared the daylights out of me as they charged by, honking loudly, bleeping, and pushing heaps of splashing, smelly debris into a monumental pile. I actually swore a few times, loudly, before someone came along who had exactly the right tool for getting the tail gate down. Serendipitously, he was a house painter and I got him to come and give an estimate on some exterior work. Turns out he is also a trombonist in a local orchestra and I got an invite to the next performance. Anyway, the truck mess won't happen again, as I had some carefully crafted explanatory words with the guys. Some of my crews in Arizona used to try to load trucks that way in order to get more hours. Unfortunately, my somewhat inexperienced brother was directing these fellows and the truck was loaded by the time I looked out the window to check on progress. My bad.

The interior paint job here looks great, and I've even had a few requests to do work from some of the contractors who have been here. But I've already been here in the States too long, but have to see this through as far as I can. I also won't be able to see the passport people until Wednesday next week. As my Mexican crew in Arizona used to say: "Mucho travajo!" Nevertheless, I'm thinking I might do a faux stone finish on the red brick fire place here to make it look classier. Right now it looks pretty sad compared to the improvements around it. I think I will do some kind of keystone pattern. Not sure what kind of rock I will make it look like, but a gray fieldstone would look handsome as a contrast to the mushroom colored walls and white trim near it. Oh, and by nearly unanimous consent, the outside of the front door will be a dark red brown.

Another issue is my brother's former room, the so-called "cave," which he has done in very realistic and thick faux stone. An excellent job, I might add. Almost without exception anyone who has seen it has recommended to leave it alone and price the house to include a renovation of it if necessary. The only opponents to this scheme are the realtors. But as the electrician who saw it said, "Oh, they all just want to paint all the walls white and put down beige carpets!" He may have a good point. What do you think?

We have had some colorful folks coming through here, and who knows, they may be more entertaining than the imaginary dignitaries I mentioned above! For instance, Brian, who came to estimate sanding the parquet, told of a job he just did up in the wine country in a town that is completely Amish. That was just after he did work for a coven of witches, a story that I won't even start to repeat.

There is no alcohol available there in that Amish town, nor meat even for sandwiches. He had to go vegatarian or bring his own lunch. But the contract, he claims, despite the thrifty, restricted, and archaic environs, was in a veritable castle. The owner answered the door, he said, swirling a cape that was two shades of violet, and he was brandishing a sword! Brian was sure that this character was loony tunes, so sketchily got his information and was about to make a quick exit. The swordsman/owner stopped him and proferred a check for $1000 for his bit of time scoping the site. Brian refused it and went back to his office to call his friend who refered him to the job. Well, it seems that he could hardly talk from laughing as he told what happened. He was nevertheless urged to take the work despite his certainty that his prospective client is nuts, as his friend had done installations there and had come away both with his sanity and large checks. So Brian called cape-man's banker to see if the money was good. The banker remarked about the thousand dollar check that "It would be good even if it had nine zeros on it!"

So, he takes he job and finds that the castle owner wanted his office done in quarter sawn oak. Quarter sawn is a pretty rare way of getting wood these days. It is an invloved, and in these ecologically sensitive times, a wasetful process. When he asked the mill about availability, they nearly ridiculed him. So what happens? On hearing that quarter sawn is not available in the needed quantitiy, castle guy calls the mill himself. To make it brief, he paid nearly a half a million dollars to put on a night shift to make his planks. Brian installed it, along with an inlay pattern around the edge to frame the antique and pricelesll Persian carpet to go there. That inlay was of exotic woods chosen after our floor guy did a complete installation of five samples, sanded and finished, in situ, all to be ripped out and restarted after the selection was made. The end product included four griffin inlays, one in each corner, at a cost of $8000 each, above the similar cost of the samples! Good thing this installer is a friend of the family, otherwise I don't think we'd get him to work here. This place is no castle, lol!

After all this excitement, I'm going up this Saturday evening to my sister's in Diamond Springs for a murder mystery dinner. Each course comes with three clues, and at each table is an unknown shill who tries to misdirect your guesses. After following the twists and turns of the above story, plus figuring out what some of the contracors were thinking when they did what they did, and managing to keep my sanity through it all, my guess is that I will solve the case. More next time!