Catch-Up

Friday, no one was at the construction site in Malibu, so we left a message for Dana about setting up a hand-off time early this week.

The weekend was less than stress-relieving: Portland pretty much sucked... it's where hippies go to die and be re-incarnated as... younger hippies. A little more color diversity would be nice. As would be streets that don't change names and then change back again (we became lost EVERY time we drove in the city). Even Lisa wanted to tell the young (seemingly VERY able-bodied) girl pan-handler to "get a job." So by the end of the weekend, I was stressing hard that I had wasted a weekend that could have been spent packing.

Sunday, after we flew home AND spent TWO HOURS driving home, we picked up the keys to the Surfside condo... and Lisa is depressed. It's small and dark and dingy. The walls have been painted, kind of... covering spots, but thus leaving spots.

Sunday night, Monday, and today, we've spent times packing, shuttling small stuff over to the condo, dropping off big donation loads at the local goodwill center. Yesterday, I broke down the bed in the master room. I was about to break down the boys' bunk bed (so that we could shuttle it over to the condo tomorrow) this afternoon when Lisa brought Kyle back from junior lifeguard.... with a broken foot. OK, so much for that. He's devestated (as this will put the remainder of the water polo season in peril), and we're off schedule again.

Fred came by this afternoon and picked up the plans. He's a little concerned about the amount of work we've already done in packing and moving; the whole reason he's sending two guys to help us move on Friday is to keep us from hurting ourselves. The two guys will arrive 8am Friday with a truck (so I don't have to get the UHaul). On Monday, they'll start slow... scoping out the job (as he put it, the first day won't be filled with "sixteen guys, loud Mexican music and swinging hammers"). I asked him about keeping fixtures (the sink, windows, lighting fixtures, kitchen cabinets [for the garage later?]); he said that on Monday, his "eyes and ears"--Jose--will be there... we should walk through with him and provide a list of the stuff we want to keep. They'll make every effort to save them, but no guarantees can be made (especially the windows). As for the California Closets, he said that Jose could handle that, too... I said we had contacted CC to un-install them, and he was very happy with that (it'll be less for Coastline to handle). We spoke briefly about the fire sprinklers. He said that there may be some question as to the amount of water necessary to drive the sprinklers (two street valves); I explained about the Form 126A situation... with that in mind, it looks like the drawings could be done in a week.

After Fred left, Dana called to say that the fire sprinkler contractor said he had already talked to the City, and that I needed to pick up a Form 126A and fill it out. I told Dana that I already had done that, and that the "job site" copy of the County paperwork was in the papers I gave to Fred this afternoon. That seemed to make her very happy.

If I could only be that happy... but there's more dismantling and packing to be done.