7/11/10

Finally! Something is happening.

Construction plans have been approved by the city or county or whomever waves the magic wand over plans and says, "Okey dokey."

The contractor and the insurance company still haven't agreed on who is paying for asbestos removal. But the adjuster and his boss have recommended that the insurance company pay. Like everything else in the world it gets kicked upstairs to the powers that be and someone with a rubber stamp makes a decision.

But the asbestos has been removed and the basement has been sandblasted. For the first time a subcontractor worked on a Saturday. So the charred pillars look better. Next they seal the basement to contain the odor of the fire.

Summer has come to Portland. As usual it came with a bang. Cold, damp weather lingered until last week. Then it was 95 degrees. For those of you who live in weather than is normally this hot, let me point out that Portland isn't air conditioned. We have about two weeks a years (usually not together) of over 90 degree weather. Hardly worth the cost of A/C.

Today, it is only supposed to get to about 85 degrees. In a move that was unusually clever for us, my husband and I managed to spend most of the hot week at the coast where it was overcast and 65 degrees. PB & J had their first road trip.

The Oregon coast is different from any other coast. The trees march down to the water. To travel through a state park like Ecola (near Canyon Beach, OR) you drive through a primeval forest practically chanting 'lions and tigers and bears, oh, my'. Then there is a clearing and suddenly the ocean is front of you.

There are no private beaches, but getting to many of them requires scaling a precarious rocky descent. The deserted sand makes the climb both up and down worth while. Don't bother with a swim suit. The gray water is always too cold to swim.

My favorite time at the beach is winter. Before we had so much family in town, we would spend Christmas at the coast, bundled up, walking on the sand and drinking hot chocolate.

The day you marry you believe you could never be happier, yet after twenty years or so, you can't imagine life without your spouse and what you remember are cold Christmas mornings drinking hot chocolate and thinking the world is just about perfect.