07 September 2007

The United Nations


Summer is going to linger another few weeks, but the season is just about in the bag. The weather was glorious this week, but no one was free to enjoy it. The Congress is back, and the bickering has begun once more. People like me who make their paychecks on international woe have to get focused once more, and leave the summer behind.

I looked at the gray hair on the man who looks like a walrus in the mirror this morning and wondered if I should color it. Osama apparently has discovered Grecian Formula, since his latest recorded video shows a dark vibrant beard. Last time we saw him it was shot with silver.

Maybe the new look is helping him with the ladies of Waziristan, and perhaps I should take a tip from him. He did not explicitly threaten me, which was a change. He seemed to be asking me to take up a man's hair coloring, along with the more straightforward admonition to embrace Islam as a way out of our current predicament.

I'm a creature of habit, so I think I will decline. But so many habits are going to have to change with the season that it is a little bewildering. I ended the week with the regular Friday conference call, which is not a religious event, though it is the holy day where Osama is hiding out.

It was kind of emotional. I had to announce my resignation from the company, and my allotted time on the call is deep into the list of associates. I submitted my second-to-last time card on-line while I was waiting for my couple minutes of regret and contrition, while remembering to praise the wise leadership that I was sorry to be leaving.

It was true, in its fashion, and eventually the call ended, the beeps of the broken connections rolling in sequence. Then I sat at my desk, wondering what the Peruvians were doing in my kitchen.

This is precisely the wrong time to be in the middle of a construction project. I have not heard from the carnivorous attorneys in a few weeks, though I suspect that “no news” does not constitute “good news” in legal matters. I don't know how close to the precipice of disaster I am walking at any particular moment, which gives life a certain surreal quality.

When I signed the contract to have the kitchen updated it was January, in the heart of the winter, but I was flush with optimism.

It had been quite a long road. I had washed up at Big Pink as the world changed. Divorce and terror attack coincided with my rental of a one-room condo, no balcony, on the Big Pink's second floor.

As a homeowner, I was forced to be a handy-man of modest proportions. It frustrating that I could change nothing in the little apartment. Plain and unadorned, that is exactly the way it remained when I got thrown out after fourteen months.

It was a legal matter. The landlady had lost her home to some evil stepdaughters after her husband died and she needed a place to come back to. Big Pink is a place of refuge.

I was lucky enough to find a place to rent on the fifth floor, although the timing was tight enough that there was some unpleasantness in the hallway as I hauled my books in a shopping cart to the elevator.

Once burned, twice shy. I resolved never to be at the mercy of a landlord again. When the little unit at poolside came on the market the next year I bought it. It was a hovel; completely unchanged from the day it was constructed. It was painfully small. But it was mine, and there were just a few things that needed to be fixed.

The first thing was to replace the ancient radiator with a new convector unit for cooling and heating. The old one had a propensity to flood, and I found some Russians who could replace it.

Safe from water damage, I then had the plastic blinds on the tall glass windows replaced by solid plantation shutters for privacy. A guy from Kentucky did that, his accent as impenetrable as that of the Russians, or the Czech lifeguards at the pool who plug their computer into the outlet on my patio.

I installed the Murphy bed with sliding book-cases so the place would not be dominated by the sleeping arrangement. The project arrived in three gigantic flat cartons that were dumped, unceremoniously, in the single room by a burly man from Senegal.

That took a few weeks to sort out, sleeping with my power screwdriver and tools on the floor, but when it was done it was pretty slick. The bed disappeared into the wall when I was not in it, and I no longer felt like I was living in a Motel Six.

Luis and his day-labor crew from Colombia re-did the bath and tile work, raising clouds of fine dust that worked into everything.

Only the plain stark kitchen with the battered steel sink reminded me how far down I had come in the world. It was a small box in the larger box, unchanged since it was built in 1965.

There was no counter-space, the toaster oven and the cheap microwave left only a narrow space next to the sink to work with.

The cabinets had been painted a couple times in the last forty years, but otherwise were exactly as they were in the Johnson Administration.

Fixing the kitchen was the crowning touch on the project, and the most expensive one.

The front man for the contracting company is a Virginian with a proper English name. I suppose that is to lend credibility. The business guys are Lebanese, I think, though they could be from anywhere in the Levant. The one who dealt with me was named Shaun, for reasons known only to his parents.

Months passed after the contract was signed. I would get calls from the contractor periodically, explaining why they could not get to the construction in the Winter, or the Spring, or the first months of Summer.

When the legal issue exploded two months ago, I tried to get out of the contract and get my deposit back. The Lebanese fellow with the Irish name was courteous, but he explained that there would be a restocking fee of several thousand dollars, since the cabinets had been custom-ordered from the supplier.

I told him I happened to have an attorney anyway, and would be happy to pursue the matter that way, if he preferred, and he offered a discount in response. It was exactly like buying a hand-knotted rug in the Souk, and he took no offense.

The work needed to be done even if I am forced to sell the place, so I sighed and accepted.

The prospect of legal action apparently changed the priority of the job, and prompted the arrival of The Mexicans. Two of them showed up two weeks ago with crow-bars, and the next thing I knew, the entire contents of the kitchen and the living room wall was heaped in the middle of the big room, and the wall-to--wall carpet was ripped up along with the parquet wood tiles that were cemented to the concrete.

The kitchen was down to studs, and I was surprised to find that Big Pink, for all its massive bulk, is divided up into our units by wood studs, ancient decomposed insulation and wall-board. I was impressed to look at the back of Joe's electrical outlets next door.

This was way beyond the contract, and I wanted to keep the wood flooring that was left. I called the job supervisor- he was a Chinese guy- and protested. He showed up a day or two later and looked on with concern. He said he could have the missing wood replaced at no charge with ceramic tile that would match what was going on the floor in the kitchen, and he introduced the two Peruvian craftsmen who would be doing the actual reconstruction.

We tried Spanglish for communications, but I was uncertain if anything meaningful got across. The trash pile mounted in the living room, reaching up to the ceiling fan, which ominously rapped some of the wreckage with the blades.

The Peruvians worked through the weekend. They took Sunday off, but labored on Labor Day, which caused the Ironworkers Executives who live part-time at Big Pink to give me a lot of shit. I waited for the Condo Association Security Squad to arrive, since this is clearly a breach of the quiet hours, but they let the saws whine all day as we basked by the pool.

I think they are going to try to wrap up today, and it is a mix of sadness and relief.

Now there are black marble counters, and crisp white cabinets that go right to the ceiling. There is a new deep stainless sink with a handsome Moen tap perched bird-like over it. The ice-maker works, and a dishwasher has replaced the drying rack.

The new micro-wave is built in, stainless faced and dual-function, convection and radar, and there is a fine place for the liquor bottles and cocktail glasses under the marble breakfast bar.

After I kite the check to pay for the last of it, I will probably have to get rid of it.

It is not like the United Nations, where someone else winds up paying. Easy come, easy go, right?

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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