Knock down, drag out

                                          BEFORE                                                                               AFTER

When my pal Janice MacLeod isn't writing about dating, breaking up or Paris, I'm sure she's thinking about what her next literary effort will be. I hope she follows through on one idea she told me about awhile ago. We were talking about her dad and the subject of carpenters came up since that's what he does. She started telling me some of his stories, and mentioned she wanted to write a book called The Secret Life of Carpenters (© Janice MacLeod). From what I could tell, it was going to be a scary book, not to be read at night or during room additions.

The reason that conversation's on my mind is we're about to get started on a remodel here at the ponderosa. And for several reasons, it scares the living daylights (family blog) out of me.

First, as my pal Rich Siegel will tell you, there are things Jews don't do (I think we all remember what happened to the last Jewish carpenter). Anyway, in my house, construction is one of them. Even if it was, I wouldn't remodel my own house. But at least I'd understand what they were doing and know what was going on.

The other thing is when I talk to people who've been through a remodel, they just give me the look. It's the same look you get when you tell someone you're getting married, or buying a house, or having children. The one that says you're about to go through initiation and find out what the club you're joining is like from the inside.

And from what I can tell, it's not pretty.

The consensus seems to be it all comes down to time and money. And how virtually every remodel takes too much of both.

We've saved a little money, but in conversations with our contractors—who we like a lot and come highly recommended by friends and people we trust—we can already see we're going to blow past whatever budget we had (Note to self: avoid the phrase, "While you're here...).

The job is supposed to run about four months. But we're starting right around Thanksgiving because, really, what better time than the holidays to begin knocking down walls and living without hot water. I'm sure the workers taking weeks off for the holidays won't delay the job. Much.

Another thing is I have a hard time seeing the finish line. I look at the plans and it looks great. But I know from the remodel of my daughter's bathroom going on right now that when we start the big job, all I'll see are open walls, exposed pipes, dust and more dust, wires everywhere, and people I don't know traipsing in and out of what was once my kitchen and hopefully will be again.

The good news is I hear it's like having my wisdom teeth out: I go through it once, and then it's done and I can get on with my life painlessly and carefree.

Except in this case, they take the teeth out through my wallet.

Hot enough for ya?

If you know anything about me from this blog, and I’m guessing you probably know more than you want to, you know I’m most definitely not a morning person. The reason I’m not a morning person is because I’m a late night person. I’ll stay up until all wee hours of the morning, catching up on shows I have waiting for me on the DVR, binging again on Breaking Bad, or thinking of things to post on this blog.

Which as anyone who reads it will tell you I have mixed success with.

To the point. I had a 10 a.m. meeting this morning. You’d think because I knew about it last night I would’ve gone to bed early in order to wake up early. You’d be wrong.

So when the alarm went off, I shuffled into the shower (no, it didn’t wake or refresh me), got dressed and headed out to the office to be in by 9 to prepare for the meeting.

And by prepare, I mean get coffee, chat it up, check Facebook, read Round Seventeen, and then, if there’s time, take a look at what I’m supposed to be presenting.

Being disciplined and focused has never been my strong suit.

Anyway, apparently I forgot about the fight the 405 south and I had years ago. To this day, it still spends every waking moment trying to exact it's revenge with me. And it succeeded this morning. Traffic was more horrendous than usual, so I was forced to get off and take surface streets into work in order to make it on time.

I rolled into the parking lot at 9 straight up, only to be greeted by people pouring out the doors of the building, a fire truck parked in front of it and people in bright orange vests, who looked like Walmart greeters, directing everyone to the far side of the parking lot away from the building.

Not being awake enough to really have anything register, I started walking into the building. I was stopped by one of the greeters, who told me it was a fire drill. It’s the exercise office buildings are required to go through to make sure they’re ready in case The Towering Inferno 2 ever gets made, and they use their building.

Once the drill was over, everyone went back into the building. Since everyone who was going to be in my meeting was in the parking lot, the meeting got pushed back almost an hour.

Nevertheless, I learned a valuable lesson about fire safety, taking the stairs and staying calm in an emergency.

I also learned to sleep late even when you're not supposed to. It won't matter.