The stucco job is complete and looks great. It's called cat's paw and was applied entirely by hand. About 8 people were working at any given time applying a total of three coats to the house. The look is very Spanish and we are pleased with both the cat's paw look and the bright white color.

Our floors have now been scraped and sanded and a coat of sticky goo has been applied which will provide moisture vapor barrier protection. Ken and Jerry applied the goo with trowels and killed their backs and their hands. Blisters erupted all over the hands, backs were aching from bending at the waist to do it and both of them have goo stuck on their skin - knees and hands. It wasn't an easy job. I worked just ahead of them cleaning the floors with brooms and a string mop. We had a long day on Saturday.

Today, I spread straw out under the eaves, under the drip line so that if we have rain, splashes don't bounce up and stain the stucco. I also applied the moisture protective paint to the unprotected fascia around the roof, on the deck and on spots round the house. We called a number of people to come out and give us landscaping bids and contacted the iron men to come and
and adjust our Bali railings so we can install them on the deck and on the stairs.

We decided to go ahead and use the "faux slate" tiles instead of the real thing. The faux slate does not require sealing, doesn't lake and cause other problems. The look is close to slate - in fact, I had to tell the tile man that it was porcelain..he thought it was slate.

Tomorrow will be busy with roof guys, painters and we are having the grove picked - a size pick which will keep Richard busy all day. I'll be handlin the construction stuff - Ken will be laying down more goo and working on the remainder of the finish carpentry...the base boards and trim.

JORGE LIVES

Our tiler is alive! We hired a young man to do the tilework and he turned out to be wonderful. Creative, a hard worker and a genuinely nice man. Last Thursday he was supposed to show up for work and didn't. His wife called on Saturday to ask if we had seen him and we were shocked to hear he was missing. Today we were relieved to find out that he had been arrested because of having an illegal in his car. That would be his assistant.

Many of the construction workers were/are illegals and we haven't been checking them. I think I have sympathy because of having been an alien myself, albeit a legal one. I sympathize with their eagerness to work hard and make a living. I have yet to meet an immigrant that wasn't interested in the freedom to work hard and succeed. Jorge - the tile man - included. All they really want is a chance and when I think of the attitudes of most of the young people in this country, who all want to be rock stars and fashion models and who are encouraged to follow this dream - I'd put my money on the illegals to be the ones who make the wheels turn, the crops grow and to build the future. From their children will come the great new ideas! Not from the dopes worrying about their eighty dollar haircuts, fancy cars and European spring breaks - all provided to them by stupid or unwitting parents too undisciplined themselves to take the time to teach their kids about work.

Maybe Jorge will be able to continue on the job after all.

Decorative accents were added to the exterior - imitation clay pipes, window trim, door trim, a band across the big blank side wall and bands around the deck supports. Everything was given it's brown coat and now sits, curing and waiting for the final coat which will likely have to wait now that we are having rain. 5 days of pretty steady rain, including one exciting hail storm, is a welcome wetting to the grove. The fresh rain washes out the alkali and other deposits that build up from using well water and the county water.

The dry wallers have completed hanging the sheets and are almost finished with taping and mud. The bullnose has been applied and while the walls look nice, the house is a total mess of goopy dry wall clumps on the floors, garbage everywhere. Our dumpster is sorely undersized for this part of the job and we have to fill it and then wait a week to have it emptied. Tomorrow our floors will be scraped to remove residual grout from the old tile. By the end of the week the dry wall will be done and the guys will start installing the finish carpentry.

Today at Trader Joe's I dropped a glass jar of enchilada sauce. I placed it in the cart but the child gizmo was up leaving big holes in the cart through which the jar slid, crashing on the floor. All I heard was a thud but when I looked around I saw that 5 or 6 people were looking at the floor and the spreading pool of red. The experience was telling about how much I'm really hearing.

After spending two hours with the kitchen designer at DixieLine I went on to the Mexican Tile Store where I discussed our quest for a particular design with the owner. He was helpful but tried to steer me to a matte finish tile which I didn't like but had to agree was an almost-match for the tile in the book I'm trying to copy. I brought home 3 samples which we are assessing.

Dry wall

This week we had the first coat of stucco applied to the house, the dry wall is going up fast and we picked out the baseboard, window and door casings and crown molding. A lot of time was eaten up picking out tiles and we found one for accents that we particularly like made out of re-cycled beer bottles. The tile is a beautiful goldish orange color and once you know it's beer bottles - the visual clicks into place. We also finished our exterior inspection which meant we could go ahead with dry wall. One tile setter has come up to give us a bid.

Watching the three guys hoisting up the 12 foot dry wall sheets for the ceiling is thrilling. They organize three ladders and each position themselves under a third. They climb up together and yell "turn", then they flip the sheet over so they can nail it to the ceiling.

We've come through three weeks of perfect weather. Warm sunny days, clear air. Rain started to fall on Thursday and the heat
spell is likely broken.

We're thinking about adding beams to our turret ceiling.

Our first cruise together was from Santiago to Rio on a Princess Cruise lines boat. 15 days in duration, it was too long for us and
we found ourselves a little cranky and beset with cabin fever after about 10 days. We did love sailing through the Straits of Magellan and the Beagle Channel and rounding Cape Horn. The glaciers were beautiful and it was thrilling to sit up in the highest lounge and feel ourselves slipping smoothly through the icy water. Of the ports en route, Ushuaia and Montevideo were the most interesting. Stanley on the Falkland Islands was a real dud unless you took a penguin expedition which really didn't interest us too much. 2400 passengers unleashed on a town with 2000 citizens is just too much.

We did like Santiago very much and are now interested in visiting more of Chile. Also Rio was wonderful with our guide Rafi who made the visit most interesting. He took us around to different neighborhoods in Rio, to the park, the lesser known beaches and to his home town of Niteroi , where we enjoyed the most gorgeous views looking back at Sugarloaf and the Cristo. Flying home on Christmas morning was great - flights were surprisingly full but the airports were empty and easy to navigate.

On board the ship we did meet a few interesting people. One was a physician from Napa, Italian born and educated who told us he worked for the movie studios as a financially strapped young medical student. He had the chance to make extra money as an extra on Quo Vadis by jumping from a bridge with his shirt on fire. Even though he was burning up he did not pass up the chance to look behind him as Gina Lollabrigida followed behind him reputedly wearing no panties. His wife obviously bored at hearing this story thousands of times, leaned over to me and whispered that after 30 years together and renting the movie many times, she'd never been able to stay awake long enough to see his "big" scene.

I met a man who was in the business of showing movies outdoors - like beaches and public parks. We met a woman who had assisted a physician do a tracheotomy with a ball point pen. Most of the people however were old hat cruisers and they shared a mentality that we didn't feel part of. Conversations invariably began with the question about how many cruises you'd been on. There was a wide range of ages on the boat but most were in 50's and up. There were about 5 children which most people were grateful for explaining that kids can be a huge nuisance on a boat, riding up the elevators constantly, running around in the dining rooms - generally a noisy, boisterous nuisance. Not so on this trip.

An Irish couple told me about a cruise in the same part of the world that they had taken a few years ago. When they came into the harbor at Montevideo, their captain drove through a bow line, overturning a freighter loaded with cars. The freighter sank in a couple of minutes and the harbor was closed for three days. All hell broke loose as people were missing trains, planes, important events. The Irish couple was already highly upgraded and just enjoyed being even further treated kindly by the cruise line. The captain was taken away almost in irons and the company had hell to pay to the passengers. Because of the delay and the increasingly bad weather (this was the last cruise of the season), they couldn't land in Stanley. One family had taken the cruise primarily so they could go to Stanley and pay their respects at their son's grave - he was a British soldier who died in the war with Argentina.

Our cruise was several hours late arriving in Rio. The Brazilian government took the opportunity to be uncooperative about finding a berth. We disembarked hours late after standing in line for hours. 2000 people were waiting to get on and 2000 people waiting to get off. Chaos ruled. We finally got a cab to our hotel and away from the mess at the port.

Eh? What?

People can be wonderful. Most everyone I have regular contact with is very understanding about the hearing problem and they circle around me so they can speak in the good ear. Casual contacts are another story. In stores, when you ask people to repeat themselves they are usually annoyed as would I be. In certain stores or restaurants, I can't hear people at all - because of the tinnitus and hyperacuity combination. The choice is between smiling and nodding or asking for a repeat. In social situations, I opt for the smiling and nodding sometimes with disastrous results. I'm learning to avoid loud places, "live" acoustics and things like cocktail parties or other gatherings where there are many voices at once. The book club is even becoming difficult to hear.
I'm looking into hearing aids that might work for AN.

Singapore and PhuQuoc

A two week break from the house in Singapore and PhuQuoc. In Singapore we did the usual things, mostly walked around and ate very well. We stayed at the Scarlet, in Chinatown which was very nice but we like the location of the Swiss Hotel better. On Tiger Airlines we flew to HCMC. Tiger uses the new budget terminal in Singapore which was very efficient although bare bones. In HCMC, we shopped and ate - had eyeglasses made, bought some fake watches and knick-knacks. Only managed one good meal because I was under the weather for much of the time - acute indigestion and my ear was really bothering me. Once we got to PhuQuoc, the ear calmed down immediately as the ocean sounds cancels out the tinnitus. Our resort, La Veranda was beautiful and the ocean was bath-water warm. Everyday we read, cavorted in the waves, ate lunch at the beach shack next door and slept a lot. A most restorative and relaxing time to forget about everything. It was interesting to be out of the country for the election results. Everyone we spoke to was happy about Barack, except the republicans. However most republicans know the party needs a shake-up and a redefinition. This four year period will give them a chance to regroup and rebuild the party back to its basics.

Today the news is breaking that Hillary will be taking the job as Sec of State. Disappointing to those who really expected big changes in the way this administration runs the country. Bill Clinton is now Husband of the Sec of State. Nice job.

Sprinkler system

Turns out that we do have to install a sprinkler system, even though we are under the square footage requirement and even though we are a remodel. Another $6500 expense. Last week we got the driveway jack-hammered out, Gail finished most of the wiring and the dry wall was delivered. The drywall delivery truck arrived at 3:00 and didn't get the load off until 6:00 - pitch black and they had to use the fork lift light to see what they were doing. After they left, the truck pitched off the fork lift on a turn and one of the men ended up with a broken leg. We didn't see this accident as it occured further down on Daily Road. Really unfortunate, but it was so dangerous to be working with this kind of equipment in the dark.

Our doors were all delivered and look very nice but many of them don't fit or have problems. DixieLine is coming up Tuesday to decide what to do with them. A couple have to be returned - one is badly warped.

I'm disappointed with the landscape designer. The plan for the front is very good but the back lacks imagination. We may not continue to the next phase with this group and instead just hire one of the other landscapers to finish it up.

Central vacuum system is installed. This was the easiest of all the subs - he came, he installed, he went home. No muss or fuss.

Recipes for the Girls

The Banar gals invited me to do two recipes for them. Poor Vicki is swamped. I'm doing a Coconut Panna Cotta and a Tropical Fruit Tart. Not too hard. I submitted the ideas to them for the concept. They will get back with approvals of one or the other

Meanwhile Shari is trying to sort out some requests of BB. One was for her to create recipes that will match two photos that the agency had shot. They are supposed to be simple and one of them - a spinach salad should be. The other is a taco that the agency has made very complicated by adding too many ingredients and now they want a simple recipe. Furthermore the photo contains a couple of unbelievable faux pas - a toothpick has been left sticking out of one tortilla and you can see a slice of bread sticking out from under the tortilla..they used it as a prop. Ouch.

I will help Shari with her photos next week for two days. This week she's on her own.

This week I will try to get the bathroom cabinets designed and finish up the kitchen with necessary modifications. I have been suffering with a cold and am just getting over it. Perhaps I'll feel a little more with it.

Ironing

We had to choose an ironing "center" today. A built-in unit for the master bathroom. We chose one with a swivel board and a timer and a spot light. The iron can be plugged in at all times and you only have to turn on a timer to get started. Once done, you put the iron in the rack provided and close the door. It will turn off at the designated time. This is supposed to eliminate the "left the iron on" anxiety that we have all suffered. We'll order the iron tomorrow along with the steam shower - a Thermasol. Once again we are having to learn more than we'd like about all the options. 10 years ago there was only one hide-an-iron called Hide a Board. Now there are about 10. It must be a lucrative business because there is not much to them and the price is high.

We cleaned the rancho today...drywall and crap everywhere. The workers are just throwing their empty food containers and bottles off the roof to wherever. I carried drywall and insulation and will probably get asbestosis now on top of my other problems. Richard worked on filling the dumpster. He picked flowers for me which were in the car when I left with Pinkie. Buster stayed at the rancho on the watch with a Kangaroo Rat, flushed out of one of the closets. He was mesmerized.

Beautiful day today..about as good as it gets. Are we lucky to be living in this marvelous climate. And the bail-out bill was restructured and should pass tomorrow. Does that mean happy times will be here again?

Note to myself: watch out for the ruskies. I think they are on the move again, big time.

Pork tenderloin, baby zucchini, baked potato and a nice salad with hand made croutons for dinner. Life is good.

Big Bail out

Today congress passed the big 700 billion dollar bail out. We have reached a disgraceful place in this country. What a mess. The government blames greedy lenders when the problems rooted in the congressional meddling in the whole process to make fair housing available to the poor and needy. Right.

House-wise, we are getting stucco bids. Lots of plumbing going on...laying pipes and running wires. The roof is stacked with tiles and the felt is on. The upper deck has been water proofed and tomorrow Ken and the boys will be over to hand the big slider and to build the roof ridges, the shower framing and lower the roof in the bedroom. I have a cold and am experiencing some anxiety over the tumor. I'll be happy to have my meeting with the neurologist over with so that I know what I have to deal with. Daily I think my buzzing is getting worse and hearing worse..but I don't know if it's my imagination.

I'm busy with cabinets, appliances and have to make tiles and counter choices. More shopping.

Sssstresss

Stress this week with the arrival of the big beams from Vintage. Instead of 400 pounds which they claimed the big beam was, we estimated closer to 800 pounds. Five guys could hardly budge it. We decided to cut it in half and use half of it on the underside of our arches when you walk in the house. Things are starting to look hunting lodge like but we like it. The massive fireplace and beams are a nice contrast to the La Cantina door. Once it was up, I wished we had bought another for upstairs.
The whole wall looks like glass.

Ken was very shocked at the size of the beams. He thought we meant small beams and got lost in my changing back and forth from fake to real. I only bought the beams because he assured me he could set them. If I ever did something like that again, I would make sure the contractor knew what I was talking about.

The sliding doors were set, the beams raised and the bathroom prepared for the new walk-in shower. We decided on a glass brick wall for the guest shower/steam shower and on the jacuzzi bath tub for upstairs. I have to decide on whether we will wax the beam or not. I know I have to get some stain to touch up a few spots on the wood which are just too stained to be really nice.

Today we have to cover the thresholds and the door edges so the "animals" don't wreck them - that would be the stucco, dry wall and roofers...everybody who comes stomping through.

My New Reality

In Lowe's today, looking at outdoor lights, a man walked past me and I heard, "mumble, mumble, grumble." I asked him, "Are you speaking to me?". He replied, "Mumble, mumble, mumble." I said, "I'm sorry could you repeat that?" and moved closer - again, a mumble. So I told him I couldn't hear in one ear. A look passed over his face and he said "I LIKE YOUR SANDALS!" in a big, loud voice. I laughed at the reaction because it's becoming familiar. Why wouldn't somebody be frustrated after repeating an innocent little compliment three times until it's importance is blown all out of proportion? People run out of patience very quickly. So do I when someone dares not to hear me!!!

I'm thinking of getting earrings that say on one side, good ear and on the other, bad ear.

Goodbye Jaime

Richard had a trying day. Jaime finally just stopped working. Oddly, he slashed his time sheet to ribbons and then went off to sleep in the grove. When Richard confronted him, Jaime cursed at him and flashed his knife. Richard calmly told Jaime he was fired and to leave. There was an outburst of profanity and name calling to Richard, who warily kept his distance and remained calm. Jaime left only to come back because he had left his cell phone behind.

Jaime was a good worker in that he did a job, any job, very well. He completed jobs including clean and putting tools away. he had become more trouble than he was worth - in summary, Richard's complaints:
Jaime at one point, virtually lived in the truck..he would do his laundry and hang it in the garage. The truck stank of Jaimes stinky clothes He never worked 8 hours. It was 7 1/2, then 7 then 6. He was arriving later and later and much of his time was unaccounted for; Richard found that he was coming to work, signing in and then taking off to collect cans around the neighborhood. Somehow, Jaime expected Richard to be benificent, bestowing money on Jaime just because he asked for it. He stole fruit from the grove a bit of a time and then became profligate about it taking as much as 50 pounds a day. We believe he was siphoning gas out of the truck - the tank emptied out awfully fast. He always had his own agenda. He preferred for example working with the construction guys and at one point was acting more like Ken's laborer than ours.

His parting shot was to slash up Richard's little tomato bush - we don't know everything he did - Richard will find out what was stolen and what ruined over the next few days. Richard believes Jaime to be insane or at least out of control. We are relieved to be done with him.

Equal and Cedar Rapids

Shari and I went to Cedar Rapids this week to do a presentation at Swank for Equal. We were not well prepared as neither of us were particularly into it. Our contact at Equal is gone, replaced by an unknown quantity and so our work there is probably over. I guess that's the reason we were so unenthusiastic. However, Shari and I enjoyed ourselves in first class both there and back which made the travel much easier.

Our little presentation went OK but I felt we were faking and dodging most of the questions. I particularly can't get behind the product at the moment because of my own anxiety about my AN. This may be distracting me in a bigger way than I acknowledge. I find if I keep really busy I don't notice the buzz so much. Coming down in the aircraft to Minneapolis, my buzz turned into applause for a while which was scary but it settled down in a little bit.

Shari and I shared a pork tenderloin sandwich and we also ordered cheese balls which were deep fried. Not exactly the most nutritious meals you could experience. Pork rules in Iowa.

Mid-September

This week marked the completion of the fireplace stoning and we picked up the mantle from Vintage Timer and appied the stain. It looks pretty good, full of character. The fireplace also turned out as expected. Now we are stuck waiting for the plumber to give us a price on jack hammering out the bathroom shower floor to replace it with the correct pitch for drain so that our shower can be a walk-in one. Gary is a nice guy but a lousy communicator - he simply does not return my calls and I have to ask Dan to intervene whenever I want him.

The roof is progressing and some of the paper is already on. They will load the tiles sometime during the week. We have one stucco bid but require a few more. I've decided against Cats Paw as I think it will be too busy with the wrought iron and our ultra fancy roof. Just too much going on. Now to convince Richard.

Our Anderson windows have been checked out by the Dixieline rep. He was surprised that some were as bad as they were. One has to be replaced completely. He repaired the latches that fell off immediately after coming out of the boxes.

In Bali they are working on our stair railings and should finish up this week. The whole order will then be shipped and will arrive within two months.

Gail continues to work on the electrical and has many questions..all good ones and all of which will help us get some really good lighting installed. Both Richard and I like well-lit houses so this part is fun.

Framing Finished

Ken and company have almost completed the framing. They have yet to do a few things and install the beams. Most of this should be completed next week. Jerry made a very nice arch for over the bedroom door and he added some bumps to the chimneys, finishing them off.

The foreman from Dan's roofing has been by and is planning to put the felt on next week. We have a lot of under belly stuff to do this week before we move forward again. Hot mop on the deck, before the sliders can be installed; shower pan to be resolved, before more plumbing can be done; a steam shower to purchase and a bathtub for upstairs.

Elbow gave us a reduced bid for the front wall. $7500.00. The partnership between him and Oscar has fallen apart and Elbow now wishes to pretend that we are paying him by the hour for future jobs to cut out his mordita to Oscar. Another construction politics - Ken fired Jeff off the job. Rob fired Dan. Are we bad luck or is this just the way it goes?

My left ear

My ear problem turns out to be more than expected. An MRI revealed an acoustic neuroma, a benign growth sitting on the vestibular nerve. These neuromas occur when a certain protein, effective against tumor growth and controlled by a gene on chromosome 22, ceases to be generated. It is a genetic mutation. Schwamma cells, a thin layer which sheaths the nerve start to grow. Eventually they form a mass...mine is the size of a BB at the moment. They are unpredictable..some grow slow, some fast. Some grow fast for a while and then slow down. Some grow fast and then slow and some disappear.

I've had a few days of gathering information to the point of overload so now I'll just leave it alone until I see the neurologist and get the info straight from the horse's mouth. For now I'll bet I get put into the W & W group - watch and wait. From my reading the treatment I'd select would be radiation knife. Risks abound no matter what path you choose.

Bottom line is the tinnitus is with me forever so I get used to it.

Goodbye Infiniti

The end of an era. Richard owned the Infiniti for 13 years and he sold it yesterday to a very tall chap from Escondido. He bought it for his son who crashed his car. We advertised it on Craig's list
with no result and finally he put it in the Penny Saver which yielded some results this week. He also lowered the price from the original $5000, to $3000. It was sold for $2750.00.

What a great little car! It took us to the airport inumberable times and waited for us patiently to return enduring all the indignities of public parking lots - sometimes even bearing inclement weather when parked outside. Never failing significantly, the only problems I had with it were purely operator error..forgetting to turn the lights off on two occasions. I loved the car - it was a "don't care" car and I could park wherever I wanted and not worry about door dings or renegade shopping carts or rock dings. Of course, little happened to the car no matter where it
was put.

I hope it likes it's new home and the young man who will operate it will be careful with it and get another 100,000 miles of service.

Friday night and a movie

We seem to have little time available for recreation now. I can't say we aren't having fun with the Rancho but it's very demanding and eats up all of our time. In a rush, we left the Rancho together and got down to the auto repair place where Richard had left the SUV for removal of over-spray. Side bar: Jaime damaged the truck one day while working on the stream. Oscar knew of a cheap auto repair place in town. Meanwhile Richard backed the SUV into the truck and further damaged it plus made $5,000 worth of damage to the SUV (conventinal estimate). SUV was repaired via the Mexican underground economy for about $2000 while truck repairs were about $1500 - $1000 our damage and $500 Jaime's.

Car transfers were made and it was 4:45 when we ran out of here to Temecula for the 5:00 movie. We made it by 5:20 and missed a bit of the movie opening. Traitor, starring Don Cheadle. I liked it very much except for another sappy ending. Nobody seems to be able to write a script with a satisfying, not sappy, conclusion. Plot was fast-paced, very current (Muslim terrorists)and chilling. The essence of the plot was an attempt by terrorists to have 50 suicide bombers on 50 buses right in the heartland of the US and they chose
Thanksgiving Day for the show. There's a good twist in that Cheadle puts the bombers all unknown to each other, on the same bus!!

After the movie we ate a good dinner at a Japanese Teppanyaki House in the Bellagio shopping center. We entered with some reservation, not knowing what to expect. The restaurant has a bar up front and a passageway into the place which follows a large stream. At the end of the walk, the restaurant opens into a large noisy hall, with about 12 teppanyaki stations each seating about 20 people. All tables seemed full. We ate in the dining room and ordered off the menu - calamari, gyoza, eggplant, 10 ingredient fried rice, Richard (one unagi). Food was excellent - piping hot, right out of the fryer/oven whatever. Service was excellent - our little waitress was appropriately pleasant and just personal enough (telling us that she doesn't eat raw food) to make you relax and trust her - this is quite a trick. She brought the food quickly, checked back on us a few times, cleared the plates away swiftly. It was a good experience and we will go back. A nice surprise and a good evening out together and leaving El Rancho behind for a while.