Windows

I've lived in my house for 27 years--a gift-that-keeps-on-giving present from my parents. I know every inch of it and could point out the cracks in its concrete walls with my eyes closed.  When I first moved in, all four interior doors hit each other in the tiny space called a "hall." I had three of the doors removed, making this a one-door-inside house. 

It has its flaws, but I wanted a house with flaws, things I could fix a piece at a time.

For all these years, the windows have been un-openable, single panes in metal frames.  Long before I moved in, the crank handles were missing, so even if they had not been painted shut, they were impossible to open.

Enter Ramiro, the glazer.  

The company I hired to paint the house recommended Ramiro.  You won't want to ask for his number. 

After he had finished glazing, I shouldn't have paid him until the head of the company checked it out.  Tuition for me.  Lesson learned.  

The glaze was the hottest mess I've ever seen, ragged and soft and crooked.  But he said, "That's the job of the painters.  They will use razors to smooth it out when it hardens."

I wasn't at home the day of the window painting.  Another lesson learned--but too late.  They painted over the glazing in a dark charcoal color without smoothing it out--which only exaggerated the ugliness.  To this day, two months later, the material he used is soft as Silly Putty.  You can pull hunks of it out by hand. 

Enter Fabian.

Fabian is amazing.  He can do masonry, carpentry, and painting--and he is a perfectionist.  He could have fixed Ramiro's mess, but he suggested I consider installing new windows.

It's not that I hadn't thought of it before, but every worker I've ever asked said it would be impossible to cut into all these concrete walls and install new windows.  It would cost a fortune, they said, IF I could find anyone to do it.

So today, Windows 3 and 4 have been removed and replaced!  It's a noisy project, but the new windows are openable and they change the entire look of the house.  The stucco still needs to be repaired, inside and out, and a few other things, but by the end of next week, it should all be done.

I keep asking myself why I waited so long!  The answer is that I'd believed dozens of prospective window installers, that it was impossible.

"Nothing is impossible," Fabian says.  "Hard, but not impossible.  Trust me."

When he drove to Houston in sheets of rain to pick up my new dining table from David Marsh, the builder of hundreds of thousands of colorful tables like mine, the table  arrived wrapped in four layers of plastic.  (David said not to worry if it did get wet--he's had furniture survive flood waters.)

What happened that I didn't get to see firsthand: David (my age) and Fabian (40 yesterday)--to say "hit it off" doesn't come close--spent  hours together in David's studio.  Fabian was so inspired by David and his work that he offered to drive to Houston once a month to "push a broom"-- to learn from him.  

David has called me twice to express his fondness for Fabian.  It's rare, he said, to find a young man with such character, integrity and skill. He's willing to teach Fabian some of his proprietary techniques.  

I love bringing like-minded people together, and this is one of my best matches!  AND "I can see clearly now" through new windows that actually open. 

(My feet and I agreed: going to Virginia for the graduation party wasn't the best idea--especially since I'm going to go there in June.  The upside of missing the party is getting to watch Fabian, with a bit of help from his friend, Sam, knock out filmy old windows and install new ones.)

Other People's Houses

My Chattanooga cousin was already named Linda Jean, but my parents had already picked Linda, so they named me Linda Gayle--though nobody ever called me Linda Gayle except my daddy and the  Tennessee relatives.

Five of us cousins were born in '47 and '48. four girls and one boy.  We saw each other once or twice a year, starting at the house of our grandparents, then spreading out to the aunts'  houses since Mama Jim didn't have room for us all.  Truth was, Mama Jim wasn't effusively interested in us. Maybe she'd used up all her grandmotherly attention on the batch of older cousins. 

Tutti's house was a messy house in a downtrodden neighborhood.  Walking once, we were followed by a man in a car who slowed down and called out something and we ran back to her house through an alley.  Another time we came home from Trick-or-Treating asking the parents the meaning of a word spray-painted on a wall, a simple four letter word that started with F.  They were mortified to hear such a word spoken by their good Christian daughters. 

Tutti had Golden Books in her room, which I loved because back home we didn't have book stores or Golden Books, though we did have Bible story books and bags of books from the library. 

One of Tutti's Golden Books taught us how to cook, and I wanted that book.  She said I could have it to keep, but she forgot.  My last memory of her room--because we didn't stay there often--is being chastised for putting a book on top of the Bible. 

"Never put anything on top of the Bible," she said.  

Tutti's daddy called Tutti's mother "Mama," and vice versa. She was the mousiest aunt. She always deferred to "Daddy" even in what she might like to eat.

Linda Jean's bedroom had a cardboard box of doll house furniture. No doll house, but that was fine--I never tired arranging sinks, tables, beds and chairs all over the floor.

At breakfast one morning, her mother said, "Linda Jean and Linda Gayle, your hair turns my stomach!" I'd never heard that phrase before, but I made a mental note to say that to somebody sometime as a joke. 

Linda Jean told me Eisenhower was president and she knew how babies got made. Her older sister, a nurse, had a book that showed it all.  We looked at diagrams of uteruses, but we couldn't make heads or tails of it. Linda Jean said boys had something to do with it, but she wasn't quite sure what, so we ended our foray into nursing books. 

Dianne lived in Nashville.  Her mama, a glamorous and mischievous preacher's wife, sold cosmetics at J.C. Penney's.   She dressed fashionably, unlike the Chattanooga aunts, and had--in her words--"enough shoes to last til Jesus comes."  

Visiting the houses of other people was like reading different books. After a page or two, you caught on to the language spoken and the emotional geography there.  

 

My oldest grandson, Jackson, having had his high school graduation curtailed due to COVID, got to walk the stage for the first time today, as he walked the stage, got his diploma, and tossed his cap in the air as bunches of yellow and black balloons floated above his class.  He is now a full-fledged college graduate of VCU with a degree in economics.

Bob and Jocelyn had already planned this visit and bought tickets to a Luke Combs concert at the Alamodome last night, long before I knew the date of the graduation, so I didn't attend the ceremony. I'm heading to Virginia later this week for his graduation party.  

We had a wonderful week together, even though--due to my feet and Bob's back--we decided last minute not to attend the concert.  We both cringed at the prospect of climbing 17 flights of stairs, maneuvering enormous crowds (could have been 70 thousand fans), and possibly waiting for hours in a parking lot to get back home.  Jocelyn--ever flexible--didn't mind.  A week ago, they attended a Morgan Wallen concert in Nashville, and they both agreed that was the one not to miss.  

Bonnie and Elena rocking to the Cumbia beat of Selena's music. 

Jocelyn and Luci cuddling on the couch

Bob and Jocelyn at The Pullman at The Pearl

Meanwhile, in Richmond:

The graduate with his brother, Marcus--who just completed his first year at VCU

Jackson Leary, Class of 2024

May in Muggy Texas

Bob and Jocelyn's visit is passing too fast--we only have two more days.  It's been a wonderful week-- going out to eat twice with Will, Veronica, and Elena, finally getting my long-awaited David Marsh dining table (delivered by Fabian and unloaded by Jan and Fabian and Jocelyn), having an hour-long conversation with David Marsh on the phone...and lots more.