The Fixer Upper House and Garden

Fresh Air

Early this morning as I was walking my dogs, I experienced the best weather of my life. The lake rippled slowly onto the wet sand like soapy bathwater. A warm breeze blew like flannel cloth against my legs. Tree branches swayed above the bluffs, performing a ballet with their oblong shadows to the back-drop of a turquoise sky. All the while the 17-year-cicadas hummed like a latte maker stuck in overdrive. When I could ignore the signs posted all over town that said "Aerial Spraying Tomorrow," I felt relaxed for the first time in over a year.

Now it's 2 p.m. and 90 degrees. Every window of the house is open, and the breeze that embraced me like a baby's receiving blanket this moring is now blowing papers all over the floor, like a toddler in the midst of a terrible fit. School work; bills, camp notifications; bills. My family-room looks like a dumpster for recycled paper. But I don't mind. I 'd rather sweat it out in front of an open window than wear a sweater in the summer. This is why, several years ago and at the suggestion of my dear friend Louisa, I bought a Mazda MPV. At the time, it was the only minivan with middle windows that open.

Oh, but for those opened middle windows!

A few hours ago, I drove into town with all the windows down, letting the wind toss my hair into a spaghetti frizz. I needed to buy a bug catcher for T's upcoming Indian Princess camp-out, and--because it was the last day of school--I needed a large coffee with two dollops of half-and-half and a packet of Sugar In The Raw. Driving home, I sucked coffee from the plastic lid like a kid guzzling apple juice from a sippy cup when suddenly, a cicada flew through the window and bonked into my face. Talk about the ultimate bug catcher!

"Pfpfitpfpfpfitpfpfitppfifot!" went the cicada.

It sounded like my Irish grandmother cursing the Devil and her husband as she did the washing up after dinner every night.

"Pffpfitpfifpfitpfpfpfpfittpfitit!"

The cicada boinged off my cheek and took another dive into my thigh. I knew there was nothing to fear; like most humans, cicadas are just looking for companionship before the inevitable end. And a little fun. They don't bite or scratch or sting. They cause no disease and mean no harm. But, man, are they ugly! Uhg-Lee! UGLY! They're downright prehistoric looking, with a black tube-like body; lacy, slow-mo wings; and red eyes that bulge like a frog's.

I had to get rid of the cicada. It creeped me out to have it boinging into my body like that. And besides, I needed to pick up the kids from school. So I pulled the car to the side of the road and shooed the bug out the passenger window.

At least one of us is free...for now.

Postscript: here is a picture of T holding a 17-year cicada. She has become their benefactress, moving them from the driveway and yard to trees to save them minivan tires and Milo's sharp, white teeth. Our dog is enjoying these bugs far more than the rice-and-lamb kibble that we dump in his dish at mealtime. Instead of coming to his bowl when he's called , he trots to the back door and licks his chops. Cicada sushi, anyone? . Below is a young cicada emerging from its shell.

Kerplunk!

Last week we met with The Wonderful Miguel to go over last-minute details on the architectural plans. Everything looked really good, and I felt relieved and satisfied to have reached the end of what I thought was the schematic-planning phase. Then I asked: "When will we see the construction drawings?"

Miguel looked as if I just told him to paint the stucco pink. He replied: "These are the construction drawings."

I thought they would be green. Not as in eco-friendly green. Literally: I thought the construction drawings would be the bluish-green color from which the word "blueprint" derives. And I thought they would be terrifically complicated with all sorts of lines and arrows and secret arcane figures and that they would curl up and extend beyond the width of the dining room table. Also, I thought it would take another 2 or 3 weeks to get them.

And just like that, here they are! They're printed on oversized white computer paper, and they do have lots of lines and figures...but they aren't nearly as complex as I thought they would be. On Friday morning, we started bidding out the job. We also applied for permits, which will take at least 8 weeks.

Lots of questions remain: how much will this cost? What will we cut out if (when) the bids come in too high? Whom will we hire? I'm still sleeping fitfully...the finances are exasperating. But like the soft breeze that's rattling the old metal blinds, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

Bearing Fruit

Once when I was 10 weeks pregnant, I ate a pineapple while standing at my kitchen sink. The next day, I had a miscarriage.

My obstetrician tried to convince me not to blame the fruit or myself for eating so much of it in one sitting...er, standing. But even after 10 years and two more (wonderfully healthy) babies, I'm still suspicious of the pineapple.  To me, its thorny crown and sweet interior will always seem duplicitous.

Cause-and-effect relationships are on my mind these days, as I search for blame regarding the situation with my house. The connection is not as clear--or as coincidental--as gorging on fresh pineapple one day/violent cramping the next. But accountability is in order.

Let us examine the evidence:

Exhibit A: Ralph, a well respected 50-ish architect; runs local design/build firm; highly recommended by our realtor; sits on village historical commission. This latter point tipped the balance in his favor when we were interviewing architects; we thought it would help to have an architect who knows the village's archaic zoning codes.

Exhibit B: Me, for trusting Exhibit A to do his homework.

Yesterday I received a call from Village Hall saying our addition's allowable square footage is half of what Ralph calculated. Ralph said we could add 1,600 square feet and spent four months working on schematic drawings with that in mind. The Village has now laid down the gauntlet at a mere 800 square feet. I won't bore you with the details about why and how, but I will say there is more evidence against the charming two-story, detached garage than there was against the pineapple.

Of course, it's no longer Ralph's problem; I fired him last week before I even knew about this grievous miscalculation. When Miguel, our new architect, looked at the drawings, the square-footage issue was a red flag as obvious as a bloody nose. That's why we had the village development office come out to verify, or in this case, vilify it.

I wonder if pineapple will stain the finish on a lexus?

Flatness

I met a woman named Ginny who moved to my Midwestern town from the rolling landscape of Virginia recently. Over President's weekend she took her children skiing in Geneva, WI., to a resort that came highly recommended by her new neighbors. As she drove nearer and nearer to her destination, Ginny kept turning her head and squinting out the frosty windshield. "Where's the mountain?" she asked her husband, who was equally perplexed by the flat, snow-capped fields. He replied: "Probably the skiing's in a ravine."

As they turned into the resort, they kept thinking there must be some mistake. "Where's the mountain?" their children chimed from the middle bench of the minivan.

Where indeed? What was billed to them as a great ski resort turned out to be, in Ginny's words, "like the end of a run where you're just coasting to the chair lift." Not able to work up a sweat, she shivered the entire day. Her kids, who had never skied, loved it and left feeling as if they'd mastered SnowMass.

But it made Ginny homesick. You can't take the landscape with you.

When I moved to New Jersey from Chicago a decade ago, I used to miss the smell of roasting coffee from the Superior plant on the city's north side. I missed the screech of the El and the anonymity you could get riding on it. I missed the deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's, the gnocchi from Generro's and the many Thai, Indian and Vietnamese foods north of Belmont.

Then I learned about, and came to love, Central New Jersey's many charms. For example, the thin-crust pizza is better there. So is the Madeleine cheesecake, baked in a tiny town called Ringoes, and Lucy's Ravioli. Where I lived just west of Princeton, you never get stuck in traffic if you can avoid Route 1. Hills, pastures, brooks and forests are everywhere you look. The produce at the organic farm in Pennington was so good, my kids even loved beets.

Now we're back in the Midwest. Someday we'll find new great foods--I already like the latte here at Nona's better than Princeton's Small World Coffee; the blts at The Lantern taste great, and I've heard about an organic farm a short distance from town.  I'm looking forward to corn.

Settling in is just a matter of time. That's a small consolation when you're looking for a mountain and wind up shivering on a hill.

Dear John

I am embarrassed to say I have never fired anyone. Not even a tradesman. I once had a cleaning lady who came late, left early and never flushed the blue stuff out of the toilet. How to tell her she's not up to snuff? I moved to a different neighborhood and never gave her the address.

All this is about to change. Tomorrow I'm going to call my architect, and when he calls me back (which will probably be on Monday), I'm going to let him go. The reason? He's just not that into me ... I mean my house.

Should I tell him on the phone, or break the news in the dining room? Should I meet him in town to share a cup of sweetened, milky Chai? Will he know what I'm up to? Will he care?

My husband thinks not. He thinks the guy will be relieved that we're cutting him loose, because he's so busy. Husband reminds me this is a business deal, not a personal relationship. But the truth is: the guy's been in my bedroom. He's been in my kids' bedrooms. He's been in the bathroom when the mirror's still foggy. He's seen my kitchen sink.

After we fire him, that won't be the end of it because he lives in the same town. So I have to keep it friendly. Tell him we need someone with a faster turn-around. Another pair of goggles. A different set of pens.

Someone who'll call me back in oh, less than 48 hours.

It would be so much easier if I could move to a different neighborhood and never give him the address.

Up The Down Escalator

Ask anyone who's ever renovated a house and they will tell you that when everything is going smoothly, something will go wrong. I would like to add to that pearl of wisdom: When nothing is going smoothly, something else will go wrong.

We have not begun to dig in the backyard. The windows and doors are as they were 82 years ago, only coated with numerous hues of paint. The floors, once tightly clad in tattered light-blue carpeting, are every shade of brown known to oak. Permits have not been sought. Nothing has progressed because our architect has thrown our small fish back into the lake and jumped into a bigger, more expensive boat.

I do not like this man.

And so we are looking for a new architect. We are back to interviewing architects! I feel like I'm riding an escalator with my shoes untied.

Right Place, Right Time

We were pulling into the driveway of our home the other day when my 12-year-old daughter said "Mom, could we PLEASE get new shutters someday?" She wants new shutters with the same urgency some girls her age want new Ugg boots. "Why shutters?" I asked, thinking of a litany of other things this old house needs. "Because," said my daughter, "the black shutters make the house look like it's wearing heavy eye liner."

The girl's got a point. The house looks as if it's spent a few too many late nights with the Goth crowd. This made me feel even more sour about it than I did last week, and I started settling into a really dark and grumpy fuss about my Goth house. But then I remembered something that happened on Friday that made me feel I am where I am supposed to be, regardless of whether or not I want to be.

What happened was a simple coincidence, which I believe is God's way of saying you're in the right place at the right time.

On Friday I met a woman who knows someone I know named Stuart. I said "If you know Stuart, then you probably know Hank." Hank is an old friend whom I have not seen in over a dozen years. It turned out this woman did not know Hank, but the conversation progressed along nicely anyway.

Later that night my husband said: "You'll never guess who called: Hank." Hank is a gregarious fellow who peppers conversations with exclamations such as "So  strong!" (as in "the band was So Strong! The 18th hole is So Strong!) and my husband talked with him for 45 minutes at the same time I was at a party mentioning Hank's name. Then the next day, husband and I were downtown with our kids, and I randomly suggested that have dinner at an old Italian restaurant we used to go to years ago before we moved away. "But that's why Hank called," said my husband. "He was watching TV and they did a review of it."

Coincidence? I like to think it's a glimpse into the order of things.

three degrees

This is what 3 degrees looks like: bright sun, faraway. naked branches. streets as white as morton salt. monochromatic cars covered in chalky film. frozen snow pocked and rocky, like the moon in a b&w news clip. wispy snow blowing off the frozen lake, darker than steam.

This is what 3 degrees feels like: someone's pinching your thighs. toes curled in fleecy boots and charlie-horse cramps. nose as cold as a sled dog's. cheeks hard like frozen salmon. fingers stiffer than modeling clay. Soft rabbit fur hugging my head.

This is what 3 degrees sounds like: "Shit!" bang, clang, the vvvvvvvvvvv of an electric saw. water gushing. husband swearing. blood drip drip dripping into the sink. frozen pipes, and the plumber can't come till the morning.

All Wrapped Up!

When we decided to move last spring, I spent a solid month purging our house of all things inessential. I went through every closet, every drawer, every box, every pocket of every coat. Out went the puzzles with missing pieces; dolls with eyes stuck in blink; hula hoops split by the lawn mower; shabby clothes; tasteless clothes; flannel shirts from the 1980s; picture frames with chipped edges; a moldy hammock; a bike that never worked; 80 cans of paint; everything I ever bought at Target...I think you get the picture---the end of my driveway was not pretty. But the resulting emptiness lifted my spirit. It's amazing how fulfilling an empty closet can be! I vowed that once we got settled in the new house, I would not fill it up with so much stuff.

So why, I ask, did I just spend the month of December buying and filling my house with more stuff? Every day I was off on another consumerist mission to buy a gift, or clothes or something like gum drops for the third-grade gingerbread-house craft. One day, my 9-year-old and I spent four hours in a mall searching for holiday outfits, including shoes, for her and her sisters. (Will someone please invent expandable party shoes? They only wear the things once and halfway through the party you see them galloping toward the ice cream bar in their stocking feet because the patent leather ballet flats are "too pinchy") ...

But anyway. When DNo2 (daughter number two) and I finally left the mall, slumped from the weight of our bags and pale from lack of sunlight, I totally, completely and absolutely could not locate the minivan. It had disappeared, like my husband's December pay check.

The only thing we were certain of was that we passed an enormous display of chocolates when we entered the mall. I can lose the car, but will not forget chocolate. This helped narrow the field and eventually, with the help of a rotund security guy (who also knew about the chocolates), we located the car.

And as soon as we got home, we filled our closets with new stuff.

Aerial View of the Dining Room Table

Christmas is here, bringing good cheer....Merry What?? My house is such a mess and I don't feel cheerful! I want to take the tree, ornaments, nativity scenes, the nutcrackers, snow globes, the art my kids made in preschoool, the pictures of our dogs in santa hats....and stuff them up the chimney with the grinch! And we haven't even opened our presents yet!

This is an aerial view of my dining room table. It is a good thing we are going to my sister's house for Christmas dinner!