Flash back to one hour earlier... (no shit... this is really all happening)
The phone rings around 11:45 just as my job conference call is ending; caller ID shows it's Fred. I take the call.
There is a problem. The attic access that we had moved (because he had not followed the plans) to inside Jack's closet won't work... there are metal struts that support the beams there. And as the boys' rooms mirror each other in the construction, Kyle's closet is out, too. So our only option is to put the attic access in the middle (not exactly, but nowhere near any of the walls) of the family room. WTF? And he doesn't want ANY attic access. There's no reason for it, he assures me, and it'll look ugly. But what if we need to get to the heater/air conditioner? All this is new, he says; if in five years we need to get to it, we can cut access at that point, and the ceiling will still be beautiful for these five years.
[by the way, the phone is ringing again... it's him again. I do not answer it again.]
I (you can predict this, I am sooooo sure, my reader) don't like this. But I have no options. I ask about the areas to the sides (north/south) of the structure in the family room. Then he pulls an attitude with me and says, "Do you think I'm stupid? I already thought of that. It won't work because of the slope of the roof." This is truly fucked. I ask about the bathroom: nope, that has a separate roof (damn, forgot all about that). He wants to know what to (not) do. I feel we need access. He says that I should ask Lisa. I tell him I'll call Lisa and get back to him.
I call Lisa and interrupt her class (sorry, babe). I tell her. She says to see if they can go in either of the bedrooms, and if not... then it's my call. I vent my frustration with a couple of well-laid F-Bombs, and tell her I'm so done, that I'm not sure I can get through this without venting at him about the lack of following the GODDAMN PLANS. She says that I can calmly do this, but if I get angry that's ok. So I hop in the car and head down to the site.
I get there. He's on the phone. A van of guys is working on the hardwood floor. I leave him and walk in the house. Josef is working on the kitchen island faucet. More than half the boxes of flooring is gone. Josef asks me where the external stuff is for the shower in Dad's bathroom. Huh? They can't find it. They installed the internal stuff, but now want to install the spigot and shower head (like they did for the boys' room upstairs). I have no idea. He seems disappointed and somewhat chagrined.
Fred comes in. Josef speaks to him (in Yiddish? Hebrew? don't know) about the showers; Fred responds half in English something about it could be in the trailer. Great (that horse left town weeks ago).
I begin to head upstairs; I want this over as quickly as possible. He shows me where they cut into the closet ceiling (Kyle's, not Jack's... and we never go into the Jack's closet, but I'm assuming they cut into that one as well)... and there's no way anyone can fit through threre. Damn. He shows me where the attic access can go:
lousy location... not exactly a great set of choices here...
[the phone is ringing again... now it's the Coastline offices. Fuck them, too. I do not answer it again.]
I ask about putting the access inside one of the boys' rooms. He shows me that issue with the "different" roof. He says that we could have gone outside--he takes me onto the deck to show me--if we hadn't had to build the soffits to carry the air downstairs. He begins to take me inside, when I notice two cracks in the stucco next to the patio door. I point these out. He blows me off, saying these happen. I say something about them being patched; his response: "Sure, but they'll come back."
WHAT THE FUCK?
[the phone is ringing again... Coastline offices, again. I do not answer it again.]
At this point, I'm losing cool. But biting my tongue.
He takes me back into the family room, and into the hall. He shows where the access should go (which IRONICALLY FUCKING ENOUGH is where it was on the goddamn motherfucking plans), but it can't because that's where the HVAC unit is.
I stand by where the stair railing should be and stare at the family room ceiling. So, he says, what should we do? It's really six of one, half-dozen of the other. I point to the southern most access point, and say do it there. I shake my head and begin to walk away. And then he says it.
"Don't walk away. Don't act like a child."
And I fucking lose it.
"You know, Fred. I want to act like a child. I want to sleep in my own bed in my own house. No offense," (yes, I actually said that), "but right now. I'm hating all of this." He looks offended. "Look, I've been out of my house for five and a half months now, and it's getting old. And I'm getting tired."
"You think I don't want this job to be done?" he asks.
"Of course, you do, Fred. We all do. But I'm done. I just want to be in my house, and right now I'm given nothing but bad choices. No offense, but I'm tired of seeing us be bitten on the butt because we didn't follow the plans." I point ot the area in the hall above his head. "THAT is where the attic access is supposed to be.""
"But, Bill, the heater is there in the plans, too."
As you can see:
NOT the case, the top oval is the unit, the bottom oval is the access. Now, I'm not accusing him of lying... but I sure as shit am accusing him of NOT "knowing (our) plan like the back of (his) hand" as he did in June.
I shake my head, and wave my hands.
"Fred. I'm done."
His demeanor changes completely. Abrupt.
"I don't want to talk to you if you're going to have that attitude." He walked by me and headed down the stairs. "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. You leave and I'll call you later."
Whatever.
I head down the stairs, not to follow, but to leave, and hear him growl out to Josef, "Cut the ceiling."
And I leave.
I stop by school (interrupting again) to tell Lisa what had gone down.
"I'm FUCKING done with him," I say (so very fucking proud of swallowing every profanity I was thinking ... INVISO text on!). "I'm not talking to him, the sonofabitch, I'm not taking his goddamn calls, I'm not fucking meeting with him, I don't want to see his fucking face. When he's there, I'm not. You can communicate with him, you can write the checks. But I'm absoulutely posifuckingtively done. I'm going to move in and never think about him again."
She hugged me and I came home to write this... that was forty five minutes ago.
I just checked voice-mail... four calls and not a single voicemail... Guess they don't much want to talk to me, either.
Suits me just fucking fine and dandy.
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UPDATE:
It's an hour and a half later. And I feel ...
great.
Really. For the first time in a couple of months, I feel light (save for the fact that I need to order the wreath for Ma). I found myself smiling when walking to pick up Jack.
Coastline left a voicemail on Lisa's phone: Not to worry about the attic access. Also, about our concern over the schedule (I didn't say ANYthing about the schedule, though Lisa MAY have alluded to it in her email... ): even though the contracted date is February 15, they are making an attempt to finish by the end of next week. [of course, I found that preamble about the February date a veiled threat, the kind of thing that I worried about WAY back on OCTOBER 1, but fuck it, I don't care.] Though they didn't leave a voicemail on our condo line, they seemed savvy enough to try Lisa's cell (they didn't even try my line); guess they've given up on me like I've given up on them.
I feel like a burden has been lifted.
Of course, that load could get dropped on me (and to paraphrase Dodgeball, they just don't make a "I just got killed by two tons of irony dropped on my ass" card, do they?), but for this moment, for the first time in a long time, I feel good.
[the only thing that lessens my--OK, I can't call it joy--vibe right now is this: now Lisa is trapped making all communications with Coastline (like returning Dana's call). She doesn't seem thrilled by it, but she doesn't seem disgruntled by it, either... thank goodness]
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UPDATE:
It's night now... after dropping Kyle off at swim and before I return to pick him up.
Have added Lisa as an author (since she'll have more first hand experience with the contractors now)... she's wiped out so she probably won't blog today. But here's the update:
Lisa returned Dana's call. They reviewed the email. They are shooting for the end of next week. Lisa raised the "fissure" issue on the granite (and I realize now that I hadn't blogged that yesterday: Lisa found a thin crack in the window-side granite... but research has shown this might be a meaningless fissure... or it might be a crack), and Dana said she'd tell Fred.
He called her back immediately and said he'd check it out in the morning. He also apologized for this afternoon. Thankfully, Lisa didn't return any apology from me (as there isn't one). He said that he'd open a hole in the hallway.
Lisa met me and the boys at the house just before dinner. More of the floor was in. And they began to work on the steps... I took some pics... I'll try to get them up late tonight.
After Fred's apology, Lisa said that I was feeling better about all of this (TRUE). She said that it was because I had gotten some of this stuff off my chest. When she told me this, I had to laugh. That's not why I feel so good. I feel so good because I don't have to deal with him anymore. She was, I think, a little disappointed in this.
Sad, but true.
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UPDATE: late night... the pics I promised:
The entry way:
The floor in the hall
with protection down
The Master Bedroom floor
The beginning of the stair flooring
The edges of the steps (I don't know the technical term) will be stained to match the wood.
The wood looks good, nice and rich, without too much red (but just enough not to clash with the cabinets, I guess).
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