Off Topic: Whining

Well another week of the construction follies here at the homestead. Structural engineers haven’t decided whether the roof of the garage can be patched or if it’s a nuke-and-pave situation. Our record rains came and thankfully went and while I ended up standing out in the rain bailing the pool with a bucket so it wouldn’t explode or something (who says Hollywood Glamour is dead?) at least there were no incursions into the house as last week. Last week was just the bathroom but I think I may have to replace the cheap Home Depot vanity that’s starting to split at the base with another cheap Home Depot vanity.

Those of you who are FacePlace friends of mine heard this one already, but at the height of the crazy rainstorm Friday I was on the phone with a pal and the subject got onto McDonalds. Specifically, that there are apparently new Big Macs. Now, I am not a huge fan of Mickey D’s: They make good fuel on a road trip since whenever you’re in New Hampshire or New Hebrides you will get the same McFood. But for some reason I decided that at that moment I really needed a Big Mac. Maybe a Filet O’ Fish too. I went to the garage and looked out, sizing up the rain. Sizing me up was our electrician, standing by the front gate to the garage smoking, as is his want. He, being a nice fatherly Russian guy of a certain age told me that I was out of my gourd going out in a rainstorm that was causing trees to fall over like old drunks and intersections to look like Lake Ponchartrain in a low-slung convertible the size of a shoe and tried to bribe me with a sandwich he had to stay the F(*( in.

But I needed a Big Mac. Which I got, and took home. I got into my Jammies, turned the TV to Judge Judy and took a bite, only to find that they had left off the meat. Whah-Whah!

So any way, aprés le deluge the landscapers cleared out the front lawn and were going to come (today) Friday to trim the palm trees so the painters could paint. Painters came between storms and sealed all the windows and sliding class doors with plastic and tape as if the place was going to be spending an extended time in the freezer, so I rather feel like I am living in a pork chop and they were also going to come (today) Friday to do whatever they were planning on doing. Electrician, Tile Guy and and anyone else were told not to come on Thursday.

Why? Edison.

Edison decided that it would be a great idea with three days notice to shut off the power to the neighborhood from 8AM to 5PM for “upgrades.” While this would be inconvenient I did think it would mean that I could just cancel everything and sleep in; surely even the most devoted contractors need power, right? I just had to get up early, open the garage gate, power it off and go back to blissful slumber until I wanted to go out to lunch.

Wrong. Landscapers showed up a day early with chainsaws at 8 to trim the palms. Tile guy showed up to work on the bathroom, apparently gnawing through the tiles that might need cutting. Electrician could work on replacing non-functioning fixtures because he’d have to have the power off to replace them anyway.

Then there were the painters.

They showed up a day early with a cherry picker the size of a semi-truck (and no permits, thanks ever so) which they proceeded to drive over my neighbors newly seeded front lawn so they could block the garage gate, front door and most if not all of the sidewalk, all within view of City Hall and the boys and girls at Code Enforcement, whose sole goal in life is to shut down jobs like this, give out hefty fines and make sure that one will be finished with the job sometime around the next presidential election. Since the sun was out and I had no desire to be convicted of (no matter how justifiable) mass-homicide, after a few choice words with the foreman about blocking fire exits, and the stiff fines that might be coming that would be passed onto them in lieu of their fee, I put the top down, got an Ice-Blended Mocha the size of my head and went to Home Depot to buy light bulbs and check out cheap vanities.

Of course you are now thinking “Yes, Tom. I’ve slogged through paragraphs of your (It’s to be hoped witty) whinging about getting some yard word and painting done but this is a PERFUME blog so where does that come in?

Weeeeeelll, sadly it doesn’t. I did get to Scent Bar earlier in the week and got some samples of some new stuff, but I think that bailing out the pool in topsiders in 50° weather wasn’t the best idea. Yep, I got a cold. Not a flat-on-my-back please-deliver-me-soup one, but enough that smelling stuff is out of the question. What is in the question is juice. For some reason I’ve been craving stuff made with ginger and enough cayenne to cause me when healthy to spontaneously combust.

The plus side is that unlike our March, I wasn’t trying to dry out the living room while contractors were trying to unencase the leaking pipe responsible for the flood from its tomb of concrete(!?!) I’m not even going to have to brave the red carpet from Hollywood Boulevard to the entrance of the Kodak Theater (or whatever the hell it’s called these days) for the Oscars in the rain that Action McNews is predicting darkly may fall. I think I may have even cowed the painters into leaving me alone this weekend and not showing up to wrap the building in tinsel or park a ferris wheel in the courtyard in preparation for spackling around the gutters.

Because if the latter happens, I may need an alibi..

Photo: my iPad