07 January 2008

Dishwasher Safe


Mom said it was the January Thaw back home, at the house near the little finger of the Michigan mitten. She said it a little doubtfully, though I well recall the annual melt in the middle of winter.   It was common to experience a week or so of moderate temperatures to ruin the skiing, and then the ice-box door would shut again for a few months and the sledding would continue through April.

There are things that do not seem right this year. It snowed and snowed for a month, with fierce gales striking the bluff where the house sits above the bay.

This weekend it was all melting to soup. The days are getting longer, and Little Traverse Bay is still ice-free. The Turn of the blue water from liquid to solid is one of the annual markers of the season, and some years you can drive your car right across to Harbor Springs. The current liquidity is unnatural.

It was something to consider here in Virginia. It had been bitter cold the last week or so, enough that the trek from the distant parking lots to the gigantic aluminum bread-box that my primary client occupies on Bolling Air Force Base. The main runway has been closed for years, and flight operations moved to Andrews, ten miles distant on the Suitland Parkway.

But the absence of trees on the flat land along the Anacostia River lets the wind whistle over the unprotected ears and wraps the fingers in ice.

Sunday dawned clear and fresh, with temperatures rising. I read the morning mail, and got a note from a pal in Tennessee. He was getting ready for the Titans-Charger game, since he retired to former and lived in San Diego when I did.

He was ambivalent about the playoffs, having the mixed loyalties of a career gypsy. Instead, he kept his own council on sports and commented on The Amber Room, which has been recreated after- maybe- being destroyed by fire in the downfall of Konigsberg Castle.

He had been on a cruise last summer, calling at Saint Petersburg, and had actually visited the recreation, carefully copied from black-and-white photos taken in the 1930s, and restored to a place of glory in the Winter Palace.

He said it was one of the ugliest rooms he had ever seen.   

He said it was cloying to the senses, and that the designers and craftsmen felt that if a little was good, a lot would be better, and a whole bunch would be best. In his impression, it wasn't.   In fact, he said, that would summarize Saint Petersburg and all the Palaces; gold leaf was everywhere.

I cannot imagine what the revolutionaries must have thought as they stormed one palace after another; one extravagantly opulent imperial compound after another, in the sedimentary layers of past Czars and Czarinas.

He concluded by saying that the fabulous Amber Room would fit into my condo- he didn't say which one- but that there probably is a Big Pink Condo Association rule against that type of redecorating.

Actually, he would be wrong on that case. The Condo Association is far too busy with other matters of state to concern themselves overmuch about the personal predilections of the residents; whatever they chose to do to modify their units is entirely up to them.

They own them, after all. Things that affect the common infrastructure are forbotten, naturally, since that would involve intruding on the sensibilities of others. There are other issues, of course, and one of the first ones that potential buyers ask about is the washer-dryer issue.

Big Pink is Old School. Thick walls and formality. Frances Freed decreed that there would be two common laundry rooms on each of the eight floors, for a total of thirty-two washers and thirty-two dryers to suit the needs of the residents of the most plush residential building in all of Arlington in 1964.

At Big Pink we are permitted cheerful anarchy on our interiors, but governed by strict rules on what we can display on the outside of our doors.

The great Christmas Wreath debate was as intense as anything you would have heard in New Hampshire on Saturday, with conservatives and progressives arrayed on both sides of the display issue.

The weather was so nice yesterday that I felt obligated to finish some winter-deferred chores on the poolside unit. I had a chance to contemplate the door issue, since I passed a lot of doors yesterday, on the first, second, fourth and eighth floors. Some wreaths are still up, though all are hung in accordance with the Rules, and do not project more than three inches in the common space of the corridors.

I had cause to notice, since I was schlepping stuff around the in the World Famous Big Pink Shopping Cart, which is normally chained near the service elevator for use in moving loads bigger than our little wire folding carts can bear.

It was just like old times, and I shuddered at the thought.   I had the World's Fastest Production Pickup Truck fired up to carry some of the accumulated junk, consisting of the detritus of a former office, and so long as it was running and the weather was favorable, I drove it over to Henderson Hall to use the outside coin-wash.

It had been in the garage since the restoration was complete last summer, but it was a little dusty and needed the fuel tank topped off. I checked the log that Uncle Dick had established when he first bought it and which I have maintained since it came into my custody.

According to the notebook, last fueling was in August, at Fort Myer, weather hot. I leafed through the book, noting what premium gas had cost seventeen years ago, and shuddered again.

When I got back to Big Pink, I saw a couple bright “open house” signs at the curb, with balloons. With the market being the way it is, any news about what is selling, and at what price, is of immediate interest. I pulled into the dim garage that extends the length of the building and slid the gleaming black beast back into its sleeping spot.

Coming up by the stairway, I stopped at the desk in the lobby to ask Anika which of the units were being shown. She told me in her soft German accent that one of them was on the east end, eighth floor, a one bedroom with the bonus window that overlooks the capital.

It is across from the one where Speaker Albert lived, and when I went up the door was open and I could see the Realtor's pumps horizontal with the floor. She was working her PDA while propped against the wall.

“Realtor Down!” I said heartily, and introduced myself as a resident so she would not have to waste her time on trying to sell me anything. She did not seem to know what to think, which is not uncommon when I meet people, and I asked why the unit was on the market.

The former resident had died, she said brightly, flipping her auburn hair. “That is the only reason units like this come on the market.” Apparently she was an Original Resident, moving in more than fifty years ago, vital and with husband, and left ancient and widowed. She did not have much money at the end, and had left the unit to her care-giver, who wants a quick turn-around.

I wandered around, looking down at Buckingham below, the red earth scars where the big building is going to rise, the bold skyline of Ballston, and to the east, the upper third of the Washington Monument and Maryland in the distance, all the way south to the Masonic temple in Alexandria.

“It is a dream view,” she said and I agreed, it was a complete knock-out. Since the adoption of the County Master Plan in 1980, nothing will ever come between Big Pink and the Monuments, at least at this elevation.


We chatted briefly about the condition of the parquet floors under the new carpet (awful), and the presence of the original convector units against the freshly painted walls.

A woman about my age, with a younger sullen version of herself came in and began to look around as we talked.

I could not tell if the older woman was looking for her daughter, or had her along for self-defense as she sought a safe-harbor for herself against some domestic storm.

I had a lot of sympathy for her, as we discussed the age of the appliances, and whether or not it was possible to install personal washer and dryer. I said it was prohibited, although the conspicuous lack of a dish-washer could be remedied under the rules. That was a safe option, and the Big Pink Secret Police would not have any grounds to blow the whistle. Literally, it was dishwasher safe.

“I have done so myself,” I said with a note of pride, “not once, but twice.”

They were talking to the Realtor about whether the dining room could be converted to a den or second bedroom when I took my leave and walked to the elevator. I thought that they might be able to fit the Amber Room in there, if they wanted, and the Association wouldn't mind at all.

The other open unit was on the second floor, on the front. I knew it well. It was where I had washed up in the building with the clothes on my back, a television and bed purchased on credit, and a card table loaned by a sympathetic friend.

The footsteps from the elevator were familiar, though the carpet and walls are the same as everywhere else. I knocked on the door, butterflies rising in my stomach, and it was unlocked.

I went in, and this Realtor was seated. It was Jackie, the woman who had brokered the rental to me seven years ago. We have both changed over the years, though I recognized her immediately.

She did not know me from Adam. I drank in the light that flooded through the tall glass windows. New white carpet and new appliances. There had been a lot of cosmetic work, new paint. The country-style shutters on the pass-through from the kitchen had been removed. A wall had been constructed down the left side of the room, the one with the walk-through closet that connected the sleeping side of the room with the bathroom.

Memories washed over me. There had been a day-bed there when I first saw it, with a folding screen to give the illusion of separation. Some guy was waiting for paperwork to come through. Now it was physically separated, as many of us are, and the Realtor said that it was a one-bedroom condo now, though we both knew that was a lie.

I looked out those glass windows at Route 50, which is visible in the winter when the leaves are down. The light washed over me. I thought about the fever I had here, and the surgery that laid me up for weeks, and bamboo end-tables from the Good Will, and the shelves found on Arlington trash day that fit under the shelf of pass-through. I thought about the fire, and how embarrassing the whole thing was.

My knees went a little weak.

They want $220K for it, which seems like the market price these days, though why they replaced the appliances and did not add a dishwasher is beyond me.

I consider that a show-stopper, or at least I have the luxury to think that now. Back then, I was happy enough to have the sink and a place to put the dirty dishes.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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