Christmas '96 Newsletter

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Well, as you can tell by the excess postage, there's no dearth of news to report this year. Still no kids, no wedding ring, and no religion, but Dawn and I made a much deeper commitment than all that: We bought a house.

Not just any house, mind you, but the best house in Los Angeles, at the foot of the Palos Verdes mountains, in a beautiful suburb called Lomita. Okay, okay, Palos Verdes is just a hill and we're on the wrong side of it, we're less than two miles away from the cesspool of Harbor City and less than two blocks away from an apartment building. But it sure beats the hell out of Lawndale, and it's a really cool house.

Since almost nobody came to our housewarming, I'll include a brief description. In the early 70's, a late-blooming hippie with a penchant for working bought a small house in Lomita. It was apparently the first house built in Lomita, and it looked it. John, the new owner, spent a great deal of time restoring it, including the bathroom. He built an eight-foot, all-wood, raised bathtub, and celebrated its completion by lighting a sand candle and hanging it over the tub. Later that night, the sand candle burned through the base and fell into the tub, burning the house to the ground. John got out safely, and he probably could have saved some of his possessions, but he was too busy in the backyard, destroying some...plants...before the police arrived.

One neighbor told him this was a warning from God, but the other neighbor (whose father was a general contractor) offered to help re-build the house. John pitched a tent in the front yard and, nine months later, had built his baby. Downstairs was a huge split-level living room with fireplace, a large kitchen with built-in hardwood cabinets, a separate dining room, a utility room, two bedrooms, and a full bath (including another oversized tub--this time in porcelain!). The master bedroom was a huge loft upstairs, with en suite and another fireplace. There were three decks--a large deck in the back yard, a small deck off the dining room, and a little alcove off master bedroom, plus four sets of french windows. In fact, the house had more windows than legally permissible; some had to be sealed over until after the inspection. And the crowning touch was an atrium that extended to the second floor, which was perfect for Alex the iguana. (I know John wasn't thinking about this when he designed the house, but I am amazed at his perception.) There was a huge two-car garage with lots of storage space, although oddly there was no door between the house and the garage. John had planted two pine trees and one pepper tree in the front yard, one pepper tree on either side of the house, and a pine tree in the middle of the back deck. He also planted bougainvillea in both the front and back yards to add color to the ivy that was already there.

One of the people who helped build the house was gay, and John let him "borrow" the house one weekend when he was away. Apparently, there were throngs of naked men on the back deck, right outside the bedroom of the neighbors who had warned him the fire was a sign from God. A week later, the neighbors put their house up for sale. John decided he wanted to decide who his neighbors were, so he bought the house and rented it out.

His parents and sisters had all left Los Angeles and moved to Oregon, and one day John decided to follow. His house sold immediately, but he could not find a buyer for his rental so he just continued renting it out. Two years later, he found he couldn't make a living in Oregon so he kicked out his renter and moved back to Lomita. Then he discovered what a horrible neighbor the new owner of his house was. 

Eighteen years later, after the market fell out of the Los Angeles real estate market, his neighbor abandoned the home (it was worth less than was owed). It was apparently quite the mess, so the bank cleaned it up and put it on the market. Eight days later, we went on our first house-hunting expedition and it was the second house we saw. It was much bigger than I wanted, much more expensive than I wanted, and Dawn thought it was perfect. I agreed on the condition that we could put a hot tub into the deck off the dining room and a door into the garage. A week later, the bank accepted our offer, which included $5,000 in termite damage and $4,000 in closing costs, and we had a three-week escrow.

In the middle of all this, Dawn and I took our planned trip to Pennsylvania for her father's 70th birthday. This year, we flew into Baltimore instead of Philadelphia and got to stroll around the inner harbor for one day. The week was over far too quickly, but we had to come back to close escrow. Our financing came through, but the bank hadn't finished the termite work and we were delayed a week. I had already told our landlord where to stick his last rent check, so it was with great remorse that I called him back and told him we'd be a week longer. He took great delight in this, even nailing a "For Rent--Please Come In" sign on our house before we'd moved out. (We actually took him to small claims court, but the judge refused to award damages. Apparently "being a jerk" is not a crime.)

Escrow closed on February 29, we moved in March 2, and we were hard at work on the house by March 4, painting the eves that the termite company had replaced. We didn't let up until September 15, when we had our housewarming. We had removed about 30 years' worth of ivy from the back yard, replacing it with ficus trees, a grass strip, some hibiscus bushes (iguanas love the flowers), and a little vegetable garden. In the front yard, we replaced the front fence and planted some passion flowers and a lawn. Inside, we tore the decking out of the atrium and put in a koi pond and a large ficus tree. Outside, in front of the atrium, we planted some ginger plants and tree ferns, and then we covered any remaining dirt with mondo grass. (We'd actually had a garden designer come in; I wouldn't have known the first thing about planting.) It was a lot of work, and we wouldn't have been able to do most of it had it not been for -- John, our neighbor and original owner of our house. It turned out, after building this house, he went on to become a general contractor himself, and he helped us every step of the way.

In October, we crashed. I had been doubling and tripling my asthma medication for six months and my nervous system was wired to blow. Dawn was responsible for yard maintenance, because if I looked at a blade of grass I went into anaphylactic shock. About the only thing we hadn't done was the hot tub and the door to the garage.

As if this weren't enough, Dawn decided to start her own business. She had already passed the Certified Legal Assistants exam, and along with her Notary Public she felt she was now ready for public appreciation. She bought a beeper, a message service, a fax machine, and an ad in the yellow pages. Then she gave me two weeks to buy a new computer. (I had sold my old computer just before we bought our house, not realizing that my future earnings would be tied up through 2026.) I scoured the magazines and the mail-order houses, and finally pieced together the perfect system from four different vendors. The stuff from three vendors arrived on time; the package from the fourth vendor was six weeks late, and when it finally arrived it was incomplete and they had over-charged me. I sent the package back and refused to pay for it. I felt I had stood up for myself and done the right thing. Dawn just pointed out that I was four weeks late and she still didn't have a computer.

My work was going very well. I was promoted, given heaps of new responsibilities, and even selected for the Presidential Quarterly Award. Dawn keeps pointing out that if I am a good employee, then the company is in big trouble. Dawn is still working in family law; it's amazing she hasn't gotten blown away by some disgruntled petitioner yet. She is slowly trying to wean her way into another field of law but finding that, like any professional job, it's not what you know but who you know.

Alex is doing fine; she only gave us one fright this year. Dawn finally talked me into hiring someone to clean the house once a month. After their first visit, Alex did not eat for two weeks. Dawn finally took her to the vet, who explained that iguanas are very territorial and can become extremely upset when their environment is violated. Otherwise, she loves the atrium, and has even discovered that she can jump down from the second story into the ficus tree. So now most of the ficus is broken, but I'm sure it will recover next year. Alex even goes into the pond for a little swim. I'm not sure what the koi think about that.

In November, Dawn and I went to San Francisco for a long weekend and managed to squeeze in Alcatraz, the Golden Gate bridge, a cable car to Nob Hill, the Fairmont, Lombard Street (twice, but the second time was accidental), Golden Gate Park, a ferry to Vallejo, a day at Marine Park/Africa USA, and a tour of a WWII submarine. We had breakfast at the Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental, lunch on Fisherman's Wharf, and dinner in Tiburon. On the way home, we shot over to San Simeon and took two tours of Hearst Castle, then ate dinner at the Madonna Inn. So much for these "relaxing" mini-vacations....

We made our annual trek to Tucson, Arizona for Thanksgiving, and I finally got to meet my mother's cousin and cousin-in-law. Unfortunately, Dawn discovered Kachina dolls while we were there. Not the $40 "tourist" kind, mind you, but the $2,850 "collector" kind. It took a very large stick to beat her out of some of the shops, but the only things we took with us were pictures. Of course, Dawn reminds me daily of my promise to visit the Hopi reservation next summer for another "mini-vacation"....

We're going to be back in Pennsylvania this spring, and maybe we'll do an extended vacation around New England. I still plan on flying my east coast relatives out to L.A., no matter what their doctors' say. We're talking about fencing in part of the back yard so Alex can wander outside when she wants. And I am going to get my hot tub and a door into the garage.

[addendum]

When I sat down to write this year's Christmas letter, it was with the assumption that everything that could have gone wrong, already had. I had completed my Christmas shopping, our weekends were filled with Christmas parties, and Dawn was going to cook the Christmas dinner. We had a beautiful tree in the garage (we bought it one night just after it had rained, so we were drying it out.) It looked like smooth sailing through Christmas.

We inspected the tree the next day and found half of it was dead. We put it up anyway, with the dead half against the stairway. The next day my face broke out in hives. Then while Dawn was inspecting the tree, she noticed the brown watermarks on the ceiling: Our upstairs shower was leaking.

I had just started a new project at work and hadn't quite stopped working on my last project, which was pretty stressful. I was putting in twelve-hour days, which Dawn wasn't happy about. When I got home at ten o'clock one Tuesday night I was expecting a tongue lashing but instead Dawn said, "I don't know how to deliver bad news, so I'll just tell you: Your aunt had a stroke. She's dead."

The funeral was for Friday at two o'clock. I tried to get a flight to Savannah but they were all booked because of the holidays. I finally found seats on a TWA flight for Thursday night. Meanwhile, on Wednesday I had a client release deadline that I was responsible for. I was still learning the system and everything was blowing up in my face. I nearly broke down and started crying. I couldn't even bring myself to tell my client that my aunt had died and I would be taking some time off. It's amazing how quickly the sensibilities go under times of stress.

On Thursday, I put in a few hours at work, and headed home after lunch, only to hit holiday traffic. I was late and my throat was sore from yelling at other cars. We couldn't get an airport shuttle, again because of the holidays, so we drove to the long-term parking, which I'd never done before. When we got there, there were no signs so Dawn went and asked someone and told me to park by the blue and white building. I am ashamed to admit it, but something snapped and for no reason at all I yelled at Dawn: "I don't see a $%*&ing blue-and-white building!!!"

In five and a half years I'd never raised my voice to Dawn, and now I did so over something as stupid as parking directions. Oh, and did I mention my mother was sitting in the back seat? I'm amazed I still had a relationship after that trip.