One Step Back, Two Forward

Conventional wisdom maintains that moving is stressful. Moving overseas is somewhat tougher. But moving twice in two months is a real bummer. Advance warning: I'm labeling this blog entry not as complaining, simply venting a bit. One can almost settle oneself two months after a move, and we were fairly settled (for better or worse) in our tiny Kloten apartment. Just in time to pull up those delicate roots and move them to Zürich.

After returning from Paris and spending one last night in Kloten, we moved most of our temporary living items to the new digs in Zürich to join the newly arrived Chicago stuff. Actually, moving most of our Kloten items required three trips because we were aided by two dogs (we watched Dave & Heather's dog Vera while they traveled to Amsterdam over New Year's). Logistically, that was one large suitcase and one dog apiece for 45 minutes on the bus, train and tram for two trips, followed by an easy third trip with merely two large suitcases apiece (no dogs). I really credit Zürich public transportation, though. I coined the phrase, "Well, that couldn't have been any easier...without a car!" and used it after each trip. Of course, there was a fourth and final trip requiring our relocation company's van for Hobbes's enormous airplane crate and a new Euro-compatible TV we purchased on a discount through Hyatt, but that didn't happen until yesterday, 1/9.

That first week living in Zürich, from about Fri, Dec 28 to Fri, Jan 4, introduced the strangest emotions yet on this overall adventure. And not strange good (because so many strange good feelings exist, eh?). Strange like fundamentally unsettled for the first time. Partially an incongruous feeling because our Chicago possessions are here now, but missing key things we sold. Partially because we had just returned from a Paris vacation to Swiss real-life, not the usual U.S. life. And probably mostly because of the enormous pain in the ass of reestablishing life's every little detail.

For example, we started again with no Internet connection, no cable connection, no TV; a new public transportation schema, new grocery and convenience store locations, new bank locations, and new commuting connections for Steph; for Hobbes, new Robidog trashbin locations (not immediately obvious) and a new concrete neighborhood to navigate. There are new recycling locations and trash pickup calendar and different disposal rules; new washer, drier, dishwasher, and oven operations (not intuitive, but with helpful instructions in German, French and Italian--take your pick). The other psychological kicker was previously selling things we now need--vacuum cleaner, bedside lamps, office desk & chair, TV stand, TV area couch & chair.

Other general "apartment culture" challenges in Europe vs. the U.S. are a pronounced lack of overhead lighting and a complete absence of closets. In virtually all apartments, overhead lights are scarce and dim by U.S. standards (fixtures allow max 60W), usually compensated by a preponderance of floor and table lamps, which we never owned or sold because of voltage incompatibilities, respectively. Our first three nights in Zürich were just plain dark, the next two nights (including New Year's Eve) we fared much better by candlelight before finally purchasing our first of what will be several floor lamps. The challenge is that most Swiss floor lamps, while stylish, are still relatively dim for lighting large areas and outrageously expensive. So we needed to search out enough department and lighting stores to facilitate comparison shopping before making a purchase--our ultimate selection was fairly stylish, bright (3x100W) and outrageously expensive. But the norms do help illuminate (sorry, I couldn't help it!) why the U.S. uses twice as much energy per capita than Europe.

Now, please imagine something for me. First stop and count the closets in your house. Maybe there's an entry closet for coats, a sizable closet in each bedroom, an office closet, perhaps a kitchen closet, probably bathroom closets and maybe a closet near your laundry or in the basement. OK, now imagine your house with zero closets. Where would all that stuff go? I'll bet most Americans could build a 20-foot-tall pyre of closeted goods. Steph and I traveled to Europe much leaner of course, our pyre is currently only 10 feet (actually 3.05 meters). Instead of closets, the European system is buying separate wardrobes and bureaus and cabinets and drawers for every room. You wonder how IKEA (Swedish) became a €13 billion ($18 billion) company? Yep, lamps and wardrobes. So we're spending our "spare" time furniture shopping (boring!) and steadily purchasing, but finding the right items and arranging delivery and assembly doesn't happen overnight. Or even over a fortnight, in many cases.

So enough complaining (I changed my mind, I was complaining not venting). Where are the two steps forward?? Never fear, coming right up...

Thanks for 114 Gifts

Good news! Our 114 gifts from the United States arrived on Friday, Dec 21, just before Christmas. Of course, warmest thanks to everyone for sending them! No, wait, actually never mind the thanks, we packaged and sent these to ourselves back on Oct 26, exactly eight weeks to the day--all our furniture and belongings from Chicago!

Yes, our Christmas arrived slightly early as six nice Swiss men (call them Elves) moved our long-since-forgotten Chicago possessions into our new Zürich apartment. And the logistics culminating at that moment are impressive. Everything not sold or given away in Chicago was wrapped up & boxed, loaded on a moving van on Fri, Oct 26, trucked somewhere, transferred to an ocean freight container, loaded onto a boat called the "California Luna" at Norfolk, floated east for six weeks, eventually arrived in Rotterdam, was reloaded onto a truck, driven through most of Germany to Switzerland, unloaded into a warehouse somewhere near Zürich for two weeks, then finally reloaded into a moving van which I met outside the new apartment at 8am on Fri, Dec 21. By 2pm the Elves had delivered every last furnishing and box to the sixth floor, which although sounds brutal really only amounted to a day of abuse for the building elevator. The sixth floor provides quite a view, though (picture above is northerly from our patio).

The feeling was initially quite bizarre to see furniture and the beginnings (not many boxes were actually unpacked) of clothes, dishes, sheets, books, etc., that we'd forgotten we owned.
The funniest part about finally not living from suitcases after eight weeks was that actually, we didn't. That is, Steph returned from work that Friday evening and I returned from the new Zürich apartment to Kloten, where we immediately packed those same suitcases for a four day trip to Paris beginning the next morning; we wouldn't actually move in and start unpacking for nearly a week more. Oh well, no rest (and in this case, no new travel clothes) for the weary...

Newsflash: Snowball Survives Hell!

Chill the Pommery and warm the Vacherin! Today, our six-week anniversary of living in Switzerland, we signed the rental contract on our new Zürich apartment! And we're considering ourselves EXTRAORDINARILY fortunate with the result--the timing, the location and the apartment itself. Although I'm certain the emotion is artificially inflated on both sides, we've rollercoastered from despair to elation in a week's time. We've known for perhaps a week that the deal should close but I've avoided any mention, since jinx avoidance was routinely preached in both my undergraduate engineering and advanced business curriculum.

We knew our fortunes could change quickly but of course never thought they would. Blog followers may remember a recent post regarding our depression-averting assault on gastronomic hub Globus preceded by:

"Steph exited work slightly early on Friday afternoon to join Mr. Mssrli and me for another lovely, large (but expensive!) apartment viewing in a perfect central Zürich location called Kreuzplatz; we're unlikely candidates so I'll spare the details."

Well, for whatever reason (we've stopped asking why), they accepted us! As evidence of the senselessness of the process, we ultimately beat out the applications of TWO sets of fund managers (presumably without 40kg pets) reportedly upset by their rejection. Yeah, well, we know the feeling!

Unbelievably, the location is probably nearly the best of the dozen places I visited, with a neighborhoody feel yet great proximity to transportation including a tram AND train station (really helpful without a car) as well as the lake. And as we discovered that Friday evening, it's an easy walk to bustling Bellevueplatz and the Old Town.

The apartment is large by Zürich standards at 1,400 square feet (134m2) having what the Swiss term 4.5 rooms, which for us means 2 bedrooms, an office and a living room, plus the ".5" which is a large lofted space upstairs. In general the floor plan sizes here exceeded our expectations, so we'll need to purchase furniture to replace some stuff sold in Chicago. Whatever. There are 1-1/2 bathrooms, in-unit laundry (a "luxury" in Zürich) and a good-sized kitchen, always a priority.

The unexpected (and frankly, unrequested) bonus is the view. Ours is the top, sixth-floor unit with a large private patio with views east to the forested hillsides above the city and south over the city itself. As with the apartment, the patio also accepts dogs so we expect Hobbes to excuse himself and stay outside all winter (if he ever chooses to descend, never fear as a building elevator exists, although it's so tiny the entire family might not fit simultaneously). As the top unit, the entire apartment conveys a lofted, slanted Alpine cottage feel, bright and inviting but perhaps presenting some decorating challenges.

The only downside (if you can call it that) is the price; it's the most expensive apartment for which we applied, at the very top of our budget. But we wouldn't have viewed it if we couldn't afford it, and given the astounding event that one's application is accepted for such a property, one does not answer, "Gee, I don't know, can I think about it while fifteen more fund managers look?" Also comforting is the knowledge from viewing a dozen other apartments that, while expensive, its location and size justify the price.

So we're on Cloud Nine. We move in just before Christmas, the best present possible (apologies to Tickle Me Elmo Extreme). Our container-sized pile of belongings arrived last week, temporarily in a Swiss warehouse somewhere, and should deliver on time. Hobbes and I will miss Kloten terribly, of course--we know every square inch; Steph not quite as much. I won't elaborate on our prior despair, as our persistently sour moods threatened to spoil our entire Swiss experience--we had literally decided that the "unattainable" Kreuzplatz property was our last city-exclusive viewing before changing plans to look outside the city in December and January, a completely disheartening concession. But never mind that junk now.

We owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to relocation agent Mr. Mssrli, who worked every angle and represented us beautifully at every showing. Yesterday after guiding us through the German-written rental contract (lots of rules, those Swiss) and the mostly Swiss-German contract signing procedure downtown, Mr. Mssrli dropped Steph and me at the Hauptbahnhof to catch the train back to work and home, respectively. To be honest, we already consumed our celebratory Champagne and oozy cheese last week after we heard our application was accepted. But never one to miss a celebration sequel, I opted for a gigantic can of Löwenbräu at the Kloten train station and drank it on the bus ride home. As Mr. Mssrli would say, "How civilized!"

Haystack In Depth

At the center of the web of one of the densest public transportation networks in the world lies Zürich's Hauptbahnhof (main train station), an enormous turn-of-the-century structure housing 52 train tracks (we verified this one night by running from Track 2 where we had just missed our train home to Track 52 for the next train leaving in 6 minutes). The main station deposits most of its arrivés south onto the Bahnhofstrasse (train station street), one of the world's most glamorous and expensive shopping avenues--mostly fancy watches, diamonds, and fancy watches inlaid with lots of diamonds.

Bahnhofstrasse burns a bright but brief 3/4 mile south to dead end at the lovely Zürichsee (Lake Zürich). The city center, i.e., the area in which we're struggling mightily to find housing, fans out around the Hauptbahnhof (HB) a radius of ~1.5 miles with the Zürichsee situated at the 6 o'clock position (we initially considered but were dissuaded by our relocation company the idea of living on the lake bottom).

Our apartment search started with Steph's first day at work, Monday, November 5, three weeks ago; the time passed could be three days or three months in our minds. That week I visited 3 potential apartments; the second week provided an encouraging 0 new listings (but plenty of time to blog!); last week the floodgates broke with 5 new candidates! We haven't closed any deals yet, but if the apartment search process here is akin to eating an elephant, last week I ate up to at least the first foreleg knee.

As an exorcism of pent-up frustration and/or celebration of patience, I've compiled a summary of each property thus far, starting roughly from the city's 7 o'clock position and proceeding clockwise. As a frame of reference, all relative property sizes (large, medium, small) are about a 25% decrease in square footage from Chicago large, medium and small apartments. The location names are cryptic code, either neighborhoods or streets or landmarks:

Bahnhof Enge 1 - Steps to both Lake Zürich and a major train station, an excellent modern large apartment. Ours was one of 70 (!) inquiries; we attended an evening open house that felt more like a mosh pit. We were one of ~30 applications submitted. Status: rejected!

Bahnhof Enge 2 - Another awesome large, open apartment in the same vicinity with an incredible rooftop deck featuring 360-degree city views. Listed for less than a day with over 15 applicants. Status: rejected!

Wiedikon - Large new apartment in a residential neighborhood, looks nice enough. Status: appointment on Tuesday

Zürich West - A large inexpensive unit in one of the few old residential buildings in the otherwise ultra-modern, post-industrial Zürich West neighborhood renowned for nightlife--a sprawl of cosmopolitan restaurants, pubs and clubs among steel-and-glass living complexes. Status: application submitted, we're probably not cool enough.

Wipkingen - Saw it Friday. A medium-sized, medium-priced new unit in a quaint old building; a residential neighborhood nearby a train station, the river and urban access. Refuse further comment to avoid jinxing it. Status: prayers appreciated.

Bahnhofstrasse - Jaw-dropping location, amazingly affordable small apartment on the famous street boasting astronomical property values; they could easily charge triple. Window displays of diamonds flanked the apartment front door (definite con: dangerous daily temptation for Steph). Ours was one of surely countless submissions. Status: as yet unconfirmed rejection!

Altstadt - Another dream location in the fantastic Old Town in a 700-year-old building (luckily since renovated). Our plans to attend the open house evaporated after confirming no pets. Status: we didn't want it anyway.

Seefeld - Arguably the most sought-after locale for (relatively) young professionals, a neighborhood feel yet with its own nightlife vibe akin to Chicago's Lincoln Park. The open house for the small apartment lasted exactly one hour one weeknight and received 15 applications including ours. Status: as yet unconfirmed rejection!

Römerhof - We probably could have landed this one. Good location just "up the hill" from Seefeld. Excellent patio and skylight city views. As the top floor unit, virtually every room had maddening sharp ceiling angles limiting its utility; even marginally-tall visitors would suffer frequent cranial contusions. I actually visited twice (unheard of!) over the three-week period as the ongoing gut-rehab made visualizing its finished state nearly impossible. Despite the flaws, we probably would have pulled the trigger but...overpriced. Status: no application submitted.

Burgwies - Small older apartment way up the hill from Seefeld and Römerhof in the quite residential but purportedly desirable "Gold Coast" area. Genial landlord. Phenomenal lake views (you could actually see water) added at least 500 CHF to the monthly rent. Simply too remote with no car and only single tram-line access, and my daily bicycle ride home from the grocery store
would conjure images of Lance Armstrong conquering France's torturous La Mongie mountain (difference being he reached the top). Status: no application submitted.

Whew! Well, I feel better. It's obviously a numbers game and at least we churned some last week. The good news is that due to our current mega-flexible living arrangement, our fortunes can and will literally change in a day--the inevitable day soon that some benevolent and perhaps desperate landlord finds the one "Accepted!" stamp in his/her drawer of fifteen "Rejected!" stamps.

Hausherr House Hunt

Contrary to the news reports, life as ein Hausherr is not all fun and games. For example, without my advanced education and hardcore wilderness training, we could encounter real trouble here. From Psychology 101 and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I'm acutely aware that Stephanie and Hobbes will never achieve the pinnacle of Self-Actualization unless the basics of shelter, water and food are consistently met (clean dishes and straightening the bed are somewhere in the middle of the Hierarchy, if memory serves me). And backcountry survival teaches that humans will live without shelter for only 3 hours, water for 3 days and food for 30 days. With those responsibilities burning like a brand in my mind as soon as I'm capable of rolling out of bed each morning--and often self-sacrificing dire personal needs like shaving and showering--I battle daily with whatever the city with one of the highest global standards of lifestyle comfort can throw my way.

Per my training, I focus first on supplies of mineral water (with gas) and other necessary liquids--wine (preferably one bottle each of white and red), beer and coffee. Then I attack the puzzle of an optimum daily macronutrient profile to supply enough carbs, protein, vegetable fat and animal fat, usually consisting of fresh bread, cheese, occasionally olives, ham and lately, ice cream. Of course, the most critical need is also the hardest to obtain, that is, procuring long-term shelter for the rapidly approaching winter, otherwise known as the Great Zürich Apartment Search.

The city of Zürich apartment market is exceedingly tight. Unfortunately, since everyone here is rich, throwing money at the problem doesn't help but we're doing it anyway. Think New York housing prices. Swiss mortgage lenders require a minimum 20% down payment to purchase a house, with both the properties and the cost of living being quite expensive, resulting in 80% of the Swiss population renting housing instead of owning. So the good places don't flip often and when they do, people descend like a pack of Golden Retrievers on an open bag of Eukanuba.

My real daily job is maintaining vigilant "on-call" status so that when Mr. Mssrli from the relocation company rings me on the temporary cell phone, I'm ready in my nice pants and sport coat (I'm not always a slob) to visit an apartment downtown with two hours' notice; the trip to city center Zürich takes maybe 45 minutes door-to-door via bus and train (very much like O'Hare). Apartment openings in the neighborhoods where we're looking (the nice areas!) are usually posted on real estate web sites in the morning and removed by mid-afternoon because 10-15 showings have already been arranged. One very nice apartment a mere two blocks from Lake Zürich had 70 inquiries (!) and an estimated 30 showings at the open house (including us). Landlords post properties only three weeks (or less) in advance and don't provide the "winner" with notice until a week before the move-in date. In real estate terms, I think that's called a sellers' market. And recall our acceptable range of monthly rent runs from--on the low end--our mortgage payment in Chicago (and we weren't living in a dump) up to a 30% increase.

Today is Tuesday, so in our seven workdays here I've seen three apartments that meet our requirements. Not exactly a blistering pace. The good news is that within our price range, places are either brand new or immaculately maintained and surprisingly sizable (around 140 m2 or 1,500 ft2; our temporary pad in Kloten is a microscopic 450 ft2), including in-unit laundry. Our relocation company has been extremely helpful at pulling all possible strings--we wouldn't have a prayer without them. The System is that once an open apartment has its pool of suitors, applicants submit their information and the landlord picks one. We have two disadvantages, one being our enormous hairy child and the other our residence visa status (we're viewed as potential "short-timers," a mere one- or two-year rental). Sterile pet-hating Swiss-national applicants have a massive upper hand.

Nonetheless, the game just started and we're not punching the panic button yet. Hyatt so far appears sympathetic and isn't pushing. So stay tuned for the inevitable joyful blog post that we've nailed down our new Swiss home!

Doomsday Averted

The single biggest missing piece of our move appears to have fallen in place--we received, renegotiated and ultimately accepted an offer on the house on Wednesday! Just over two weeks on the market. A woman who attended the open house on Saturday (one of two parties that showed up during the three hours--how's that for a slow market?) apparently fell in love with it (just like we did) at first sight. She spent over an hour casing the joint, including an all-important 30 minutes talking to upstairs neighbor Gayle, understandably to evaluate their potential compatibility and get the low-down on the neighborhood. Fortunately they hit it off just fine. The poor woman apparently toured 20 places all over creation in Chicago this weekend, thinking she'd prefer the South Loop (sorta the opposite of Roscose Village) then woke up Monday morning deciding she still loved our place best.

So we're set for a November 15 close; she's pre-approved and the financing appears solid; we're in fast forward mode with the inspection already on Friday. We really couldn't expect things to look any better.

The absolutely crazy thing is that Steph and I are responding exactly the same to this wonderful news--without any joy whatsoever. To "celebrate", we met for a glass(es) of wine on Wednesday night at our local wine bar, as I was returning from a business trip and she from her going-away work-friends dinner that evening (at Nine, incidentally). By our demeanor at the bar, you're more likely to have thought that the house collapsed instead of sold at exactly the price we wanted. And our dour mood certainly wasn't the wine's fault, it was awesome--a Spanish txocoli (some crazy white varietal) and a nice Oregon pinot noir.

So why is that? I guess I don't know exactly (my psychology career ended abruptly after Psych 101 in college due to insufficient electives for engineering majors). Maybe because the market still really stinks and we've heard too many stories of places under contract that ultimately don't close. Maybe because it seems too good to be true. Maybe because we adore our place and are heartbroken to let it go. Maybe because we're so busy and it's just another item to check off the list. Actually it's probably a combo of all of those.

Fire Sale!

Wow! I haven't blogged in a while, I guess with some recent traveling and hitting the wire with the move there's less and less time! So we had our "We're Not Dead Yet" estate sale on Saturday morning with great success. Lots of neighbors and friends of friends actually showed up to peruse the assortment of items that we're not taking to Switzerland, everything from our 50" TV with surround sound stereo down to cookie sheets that don't fit in tiny Swiss ovens. Virtually every object in the house was marked with a sticky note, either green for "It's yours!" or red for "Hands off, it's still ours!"

Amazingly, every large item that we really needed to sell actually sold. Our family room couch and matching chair, three tables, flat screen TV with stereo receiver and speakers, 72" dining room table, a humongous credenza--all of it! And some smaller but bulky kitchen items, too, including a griddle, waffle maker, ice cream maker, coffee maker, cake decorating supplies (!), pizza stone, etc., etc.

As with so much else with our pending move, the event brought some mixed feelings. On one hand, we feel quite liberated (and suddenly quite cash rich too!) getting rid of so much stuff . But on the other hand, watching people walk out the door with items we've owned and used and enjoyed for years brought the first true deep pang that we're actually leaving.

The only caveat along with our slashed prices was that all furniture items must remain until October 25th, when the movers come, so that we can continue to show the house furnished to potential buyers. Speaking of which, after the sale we had exactly one hour to prepare for a 1-3pm open house showing that afternoon. Our realtor showed up Saturday morning to briefly observe the chaos and departed with genuine fear in her eyes, but we had the place sparkling again by her return at 12:55pm. Steph and I are so efficient these days it's scary..!

Die Adresse (temporarily)!

Exciting news! We received our temporary Swiss address today (also exciting is that 'address' is one of the 50 German vocabulary words that I know). This will be our fully furnished residence during November and possibly December as we scour Zurich for that elusive apartment that accepts both Americans and gigantic dogs, and also while our every belonging bobs merrily towards us on the Atlantic for six weeks.

It's actually in a suburb of Zurich called Kloten, very near the airport and also Hyatt's new office. In fact, we may need to avoid landing gear hitting us in the head. Probably not the neighborhood we'll choose for our more permanent abode. But fantastically, our only one real requirement for the temporary digs appears to have been met--they take dogs! Which means that Herr Hobbes can make the trip and be immediately angry and resentful towards his terrible parents instead of staying in the U.S. for two months and building up his anger and resentment for later. This is a HUGE relief because Hobbes enjoys child status with us and therefore we have to worry about him incessantly. Of course there's always the possibility the landlords will change their minds when they see his size and hair count, but we'll cross that bridge later if necessary and for now we're as pleased as sauerkraut on a sausage.

By the way, the address itself is Hohstrasse 4, 8302 Kloten. Nice, huh? Scroll south and a little west to see Zurich...


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Party Pooped

Well, another wonderfully successful International Wine Bash concluded around 3am last night. Total attendance wasn't quite as large as we'd feared, probably around 100 people like last year. Only four broken wine glasses and nobody drowned in the pond. Special guests included Steph's sister and brother-in-law visiting from Washington DC (they didn't quite beat last year's travel record set by my work friend from Caracas, Venezuela). Everybody seemed to have a great time and the weather was absolutely perfect. The crazy dogs were sorely missed but our risk management strategy appears to have worked as neither has yet coughed up any corks or bottle caps.

The aesthetics were enhanced by numerous gorgeous floral arrangements significantly discounted by a neighboring florist, including an enormous and intricate creation standing atop a 3-foot-tall glass vase displayed on the wineglass table as guests arrived to the patio. The not-quite-kosher but very official "City of Chicago Streets and Sanitation Dept." blockades worked brilliantly in the alley. Although we're our own worst critics, most of the food turned out great and we appreciated lots of help with extra dishes this year. We DJ'ed in the garage until late, until one of the small but heavy Bose speakers precariously perched in a windowsill fell smack on the computer playing the songs, breaking it (it was my work computer...oops). Heaven only knows how THAT happened, after people had been drinking wine for eight hours. So the hosts and other stragglers finally decided to call it quits.

Although not feeling too spectacular, we luckily functioned well today spending all day (unless my waking up at 1:00 pm somehow negates the idea of "all day") cleaning up AND then prepping the house for sale--going on the market tomorrow (!). There was one fascinating development Saturday night in that a party goer friend-of-a-friend of upstairs neighbor Gayle is currently house hunting and potentially interested in our place; the price tag didn't scare her away and she's returning later this week with a realtor. So we're not raising our hopes just yet, but its a start. Of course, the housing market is extremely sluggish right now as many buyers and financiers alike are suffering their own hangovers from the past several years' real estate partying. There's never a dull moment around here, so we'll see how it goes!

Honest Day's Work (for once)

We extended our Labor Day weekend by an extra day today, primarily because we had planned to be vacationing in Mexico anyway, but also because it was a perfect "house prep" day. With approximately 55 days before departure and resolute in our (heartbreaking) decision to sell, we need to get this sucker on the market.

The biggest task at hand was gutter inspection work, since drainage was such an issue during Chicago's repeated pummeling by monsoons and tornadoes this summer. Also needing attention were some very useful 3" holes cut in the aluminum siding at the very top of the house--very useful, that is, if you need to fly in them for laying and hatching eggs in the springtime. Typical Chicago construction...who really knows why?

Although I was raised under the firm white-collar family motto "Subcontract first, ask questions later," our last experience with a Chicago subcontractor was so terrible that I couldn't bear paying some dope $500 for a few mindless (albeit elevated) tasks. So we rented a 32' extension ladder for the day, delivered from the fantastic Industrial Ladder Co. after a 25-minute phone call to the local Home Depot proved they couldn't locate their own Tool Rental department.

I've never done elevated house repair (yes, I've not done much house repair, period, thank you) but Steph reminded me that I have completed one of the world's longest bungy jumps, so I shouldn't fear. At least I'm good at free-falls..? Even so, we decided to bolster my courage last night by polishing off a bottle of Bordeaux.

Since I'm not writing from a hospital bed, obviously everything went OK today. Dealing with heights is all mental, and I did some of my best-ever work twenty five feet up. I found a half-moon shaped piece of tile that was perfectly angled over the roof drain, obviously strategically placed there by someone who hates me; removing it should solve the drainage issues. And I managed to plug the bird holes without any grievous peck wounds or permanently caulking my thumb to the siding.

After re-carpeting the downstairs bedroom on Thursday, with any luck we might have the house on the market by Sunday, after the Lake Geneva triathlon on Saturday. Wish us luck!