House Hunting

We looked at another house today. It's on a half-acre lot in a neighborhood where I could retire Ace to the back yard. The house has been remodeled, and it does look nice with a big open floor plan down the center, separating the master bedroom from the other three bedrooms, but it just didn't excite either one of us.

We are settling into our own house, and the problems I now have with places that are not substantially larger than ours include:

I don't want to give up having a pantry (we both love this new feature) so any new place is going to need to have a walk-in pantry.

I like the laundry/storage room we've got(the place we saw today has a closet for stacking washer & dryer, but no place for the other stuff you need for laundry.)

I don't want to give up the sparkling refurbished pool with the ducks.

I'm getting attached to the cute little office/guestroom with a DOOR that I'm decorating in a little-horse-crazy-girl motif.

I don't want to have to pack again, and we've still got over 500 boxes at the place in Glendale which took our stuff after the fire. (Thank goodness my sister was here to help me unpack 100 boxes for the kitchen and 6 wardrobe/linen boxes last week. I don't know what I'm going to do about the rest.)

The house we made an offer on in December, which sits in pre-foreclosure hell with a seller and an agent who both appear to be wacko, had the space we needed both inside and out. Five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, soaring ceilings in the living room (and room for my dining room table that seats 16), a fire place, a media room which would be good for our 73" tv, an eat-in kitchen, a covered patio, a two-car garage, a view of the valley, and a huge back yard for Dexter. And less than the maximum amount of mortgage for which we've been pre-approved.

Sadly, I don't think it's going to happen. Nothing I've seen since has made me go yaha-at least nothing in my price range. (There's a fabulous place below the Boulevard in Tarzana that takes my breath away, but we'd need another big Lucius Fox check in our hands for that to happen--and we're not expecting one until the next Bat-film.) But, we've got a place for now and as long as interest rates or house prices don't start rising like rockets, we'll probably find something.

Happy Birthday, Ace

Today is my Arabian Prince's 13th birthday. It is the 11th birthday of his baby sister, Phaedra, who still lives in New Mexico and is (as far as I know) a brood mare. I'd buy her if I could.

Ace was born on a night with a visible comet. Combined with the shape of his star, his registration name was chosen: Auspicious Comet. My son once asked me if anyone uses the word "auspicious" and now makes a note of it every time he hears it on the radio or television (the answer is, obviously, yes.)

I got a phone call from Melinda soon after he was born, and she often updated me about his antics after that. I met him in the flesh when he was a good-sized yearling and he attempted to take a piece out of my shoulder when Melinda and I stood nearby ignoring him. That was the last time he tried doing something like that. Melinda slugged him so fast, he looked like he saw stars. We made fast friends after that.

I hadn't started taking riding lessons in 1997, but by the time I saw Ace in 2001, Melinda and I had been joking that I would eventually own the Prince. Especially after Melinda got the bay filly she'd been trying to breed for 20 years--Ace's full sister--it was an on-going discussion. Even though he was young, and Arabs are advanced horses, not beginner horses, I had fallen in love and he became my 50th birthday present to myself. I do not regret this.

I haven't been able to spend much time with him for the past three months, but that will soon change. He's been doing amazingly well under Ashley's riding and I hope we'll be showing him again really soon. Now that his Schleese has been properly fitted, he's floating across the arena. And he's still having a lot of fun jumping.

His new digs agree with him: he sticks his nose out of the feed window and watches everyone go by. I hear him call when I drive into the ranch. He's got lots of turnout buddies and he loves trimming the pepper trees near the arena. There's even a bit of grass to be trimmed and he's happy to oblige. He's returned to his fastidious house keeping: urine goes outside, poop along only one wall inside so he can curl up in a clean corner.

I'll take apples, carrots and his favorite cookies with peppermint candies on top when I see him tomorrow. Eventually, there will be a new western saddle in his life. Arabs are so damned hard to fit and his once-perfect 7-D is no longer a fit in the shoulders. Anyone seen a used Vincent saddle made for an Arab anywhere?

Oscar Fail

I finished watching the Oscar (TM) ceremony last night, probably because I've got a streak of masochism but mostly because I could finish unpacking the kitchen and use it as background noise.

Normally, I think the writers of the Oscars are pretty sharp people, and I've even met a few of the listed writers about whose intelligence I have no doubt. So I've got to ask, what was it with the dumb statements about how horror is the most popular film genre (I doubt that's true in terms of box office where science fiction and fantasy dominate the top ten list) and how it gets no respect because it's been more than 30 years since (I think they cited) The Exorcist got two nominations or won two Oscars.

Excuse me. Anyone ever hear of The Silence of the Lambs? It's one of those rare films that took the big five awards at the Oscars: best film, screenplay, director, actor and actress. That's plenty of respect, guys. And don't try to argue that it is a crime film because there were several clips used in the horror montage.

Did those children from the Twilight films (with its fans who think that The Wolfman rips off their highly derivative source material) ad lib?

Improvements in Small Steps

I am back to 10-fingered typing. The arm still feels like lead, but at least I'm able to keep up with my thoughts and not look at my fingers. I feel like I'm pounding on an old manual typewriter, though, in terms of the finger strength I don't have.

Since I last posted, I've been out of the cast and into a brace. Surgery was avoided. I figure I'm probably another month from getting back on Ace--getting on isn't the problem, but I do need the left arm to get off and I haven't started physical therapy yet. I'm allowed to start weaning myself from the brace by taking it off to sleep, which I've now done for two nights. It makes it easier to jump in the shower in the morning, which does make me happy.

During the day, I'm not willing to give it up because I'm emptying boxes. We finished moving out of the rental house on Sunday night. Instead of going to our traditional Oscar-watching party, I stayed at the house and packed up Len's office. His mistake. I was able to throw away a lot of his junk and junk food (not the marzipan, dear, it's in that rolling bag in your office) while he was at our house with friends. When the Oscars were over, everyone showed up with cars and carted the rest of the boxes back to our house. I did a final cleaning, and I think we left the house in really good shape. Me, not so much.

Our house looks quite nice inside, but it is no larger than before. What's particularly nice is that the front third of the house is open. The kitchen finally has a logical lay-out and a pantry. The cabinets look very nice. I got it cleared up enough to make dinner last night. Pictures will be forthcoming. Biggest complaints: there's never enough counter space and the contractor didn't listen when I said the sink was to be a single tub large sink. He put in a double sink where one side is larger and deeper than the other, but not large enough for a turkey roaster to be put for soaking. I waited 15 years to get that sink in our renovated kitchen and I had the use of it for less than two years. Someday when I get to build my real dream kitchen, I'll have one.

There is now a breakfast counter. It is not exactly what I had in mind and it also means there's no place to put my round table when it comes back from storage. I knew there would not be room for my great-grandmother's Hoosier kitchen base, and that's a shame because every built-in counter in the house is too high for me. I guess the new normal height for a woman is 5'8". My friend Gillian, who is around 6' tall, would be very happy in it. My Hoosier kitchen has a work space that is probably 7-9" lower than my new counters--much easier for chopping & rolling out pie dough.

Photos will be forthcoming. Maybe even of the mallard couple who decided that our pool was their private playground after the fire. When Dexter saw them through the bedroom window on Saturday morning, he was very clear that he knew exactly what his purpose in life was. It was hysterical.

Let Freedom Ring

My friend Melinda Snodgrass transcribed the words of Judge William Young who presided at the trial of Richard "Shoe Bomber" Reid. This is what our justice system is about and it is what religious fanatics--no matter where they are--hate most about our way of life. Look at those individuals in this country screaming that the justice system can't possibly work when the Constitution is followed and you will find religious zealots looking to bring on Armageddon. Read what Judge Young says and be glad that some people remember who and what we are:

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before.

There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist.

You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist.

To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first you were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal.

You're no big deal...

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea.

It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's seek that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We care about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.

Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.

The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will.

Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.

Update

My arm is still in a cast, but I may be lucky enough to avoid surgery. On Thursday, this cast is coming off so the surgeon can see a better x-ray. I'm terrified that things will hurt when I try to move the elbow. I want to be able to take a shower and wash my hair without a whole production going on.

Moving the horses got delayed for a month. Ride-on's new facilities weren't ready because of the rain,so we're still at the old place, which is up for sale. If I could convince Len to move to Chatsworth, I'd consider buying it.

The place we made an offer on is in limbo because it turns out the seller's agent has contacted neither the first nor the second mortgage holder to work out a deal and the seller may decide to take the house off the market. I don't claim to know much about real property, but I know a little about contracts, and that smells to high heaven. Unfortunately, we haven't seen anything that works as well for us. So far. At least now we've got a letter saying we've been approved for a loan, so we can jump on something we like. If we find something.

Our old house is moving toward completion. We're meeting with a landscape person on Thursday so we can get the outside tidied up. It looks nice, but it is just too small.

Equine Affaire is this weekend in Pomona. I'm not sure I am going to get out to it because I need someone to drive me. Ashley, who has been riding Ace, is going to compete in the extreme cowboy challenge on her Welsh pony. I'd love to see it.

Speaking of Ace, he is royally pissed at me. I got up to the ranch to pay board last Saturday and he wouldn't come over to see me. When Ashley rode him over, he turned his head away. I wanted to cry. His saddle came back from Schleese, but it is shifting side-to-side. The fitter may be able to come out on Sunday, but Ashley can't be there to ride him and I can't climb into the saddle either. It will be interesting.

The Human Target

While Len and I feel we are slowly moving human targets these day, "The Human Target" is actually a television series which premiers on Sunday night at 8 p.m. (7 Central) on your local Fox (not Fox News) channel. I've seen the pilot, and it is great fun with terrific casting. I may be prejudiced, but the critics and test audiences agree.

The Len Wein (with artist Carmine Infantino) character debuted in DC Comics back in 1972--it was Len's very first new character creation--and had a 7-episode TV series almost 20 years ago starring Rick Springfield with great production design by comic book artist great Michael Kaluta. (I remember we had a party the night it premiered, and the sewer backed up. Was that a night to remember.)

The new series stars Mark Valley, Chi McBride, and Jackie Earle Haley. We had a great time when we met them at Comic-con last summer (Len's between Jackie and Mark in the photo above), and Len's 6-part comic book mini-series which ties into the show starts coming out at the beginning of February. While we, the walking wounded, thought we'd throw a viewing party, we've been invited to the official cast and crew party on Sunday evening. I'm thinking about bringing along a Sharpie, getting the cast to autograph my cast, and auctioning it for the Hero Initiative (which benefits older comics creators) when it comes off. It seems appropriate, or at least a fun idea.

Please do tune in. It will help pay for a new house if it succeeds. The second episode runs on Wednesday following American Idol, and its regular spot will precede American Idol on Wednesday.

Thanks to everyone for your good wishes. My doctor decided to wait another two weeks before making a decision about surgery. While I'd rather not have surgery, if it will speed up the process of getting better, I'll deal with it. It's rough having both of us function at less than full capacity at the same time.

Falling

I'm still here, but not quite whole.

The old year ended and the new one began badly. I have a cast from the middle of my upper left arm to my fingers. On the Monday after Christmas, I tripped on a sprinkler head and went face first into an asphalt driveway. I tried to keep my arm safe, but it didn't work--the ulna broke close to the elbow and the radius cracked there. The x-ray technician said it probably would not have broken but for the metal in my arm from when I broke the ulna 8 years ago.

It was ugly when I tried to get up, but I realized I was in trouble right away, so I sent my niece to get wood and Ace's leg-wraps and we made a splint and headed home. The girls kept asking "Don't you want an ambulance? Don't you want to go to the hospital?" Been there, done that. No thanks if I can avoid it. We managed to figure out the name of the surgeon who took care of me last time, and Len and I headed to his office/clinic where I was x-rayed and put into a cast. On Monday, we'll see if I'm going to avoid surgery. Keep your fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, as we got the house ready for what was supposed to be our holiday party last weekend, Len had a bit of a scare that saw a four-night stay at Cedars Sinai. We were lucky that friends were at the house, since I can't drive very well with the cast, and that we were able to bypass most of the people in the Cedars wait room to get into the ER. The treatment stopped the acute problem, but our personal doctor came in and outlined a series of things which would need to be done before Len got released, so he was admitted. He looked great and sounded chipper throughout, you'd never know anything was wrong except for the huge bandage on his neck.

We are grateful for friends who dug through the ruins of our house and who have provided transportation services over the past week. We've got a good support system. Special thanks to Bob, Becky, Kerry, Bob, Lisa Jane, Karen, Chase, and the much appreciated Dr. Michael for helping us through this round of trouble.

So my 11 days off from work wasn't quite as much fun or as productive as I planned. My horse won't remember me when next I see him. We are moving everybody to a new barn at the end of the month, and I feel I will be unable to help. And I do miss my pretty boy right now. I'm glad I got his Christmas cookies to him before this happened.

Where Has the Year Gone?

Tomorrow is the last day of work before the holidays. I'll be off until January 4. I love being able to use only two days of vacation to get 11 straight days off. If the furloughs had gone through, we would have been off for three weeks. I'm a little sorry that didn't happen, but I realize it would have been an economic hardship for a lot of people around here.

We picked out our tree on Saturday and it stands unadorned in the dining area of the rental. We tried the living room, but it was just a little too tall and scraped the ceiling. Because of the way renovations were done to the house, part of the dining area has a very low ceiling and part of it is higher than any place else in the house except for a peculiar aspect of the master bedroom bath where there's about a 4' x 4' cathedral height area. I figured we couldn't really open presents in the bathroom, no matter how big it is (the size of a bedroom, actually.)

Our Hallmark ornaments were living with a friend since the fire, so I picked them up a couple of weeks ago along with my Lenox Holiday china. On Sunday, my son and I headed over to our house to get the rest of the decorations and lights from the garage. I'm sure I'll get the tree decorated by Friday.













The house rebuild continues along. We've picked out tile, carpet, counter tops and cabinet doors for the kitchen. The drywall has gone up, so there are rooms again and not just bones. The first picture of the house shows the view from the kitchen through to the living room. The mantle above the fireplace was put in after the 1994 earthquake and it was pretty much the only internal wall left standing after everything was stripped out after the fire. The windows and door to the right of that, which look out onto our eastern yard used to be a pair of French doors. Now it will be a single door with windows on either side, which you can see a little better in the second photograph.














No more floor to ceiling windows anywhere in the house, which is just fine with me and the fire marshal. Also a concession to the fire marshal is a solid sheer wall to protect against the shaking we got in the 1994 earthquake. That's the solid wall on the right of the picture. It has been moved to take over space that was a narrow extension of the garage which was pretty much worthless to us for storage. It jutted out from the front of the house and did little more than collect a lot of leaves from the tree or serve as a vantage for cats who would climb up there and look into the windows which extended in a huge triangle from side to side in the front of the house from about the 8' wall level. We'll have less light streaming into the living room this way, but we've gained about 3' of length to the living room.














The third photograph of the house looks back toward the kitchen area and you can see the open front door on the left and the door out to my kitchen garden. There's a lot of change going on here. There used to be a wall blocking most of this view. When we did work on the kitchen three years ago, we added a pass-through window, added a range with a big oven near where the window is (in addition to the wall oven that used to be just to the right of where the door is going to the garden), and had pull-out shelves in the bottom cabinets under the sink. In the new version of the kitchen, the sink will be under that window, the range with oven will be perpendicular and to this side of where the sink will go, the placement for the refrigerator is blocked by the wall on the right (behind which on the far side will be a pantry and on the near side with be a closet with the washer and dryer), and jutting out from that same wall will be a base cabinet with counter top to serve as a lunch counter and work space. The chairs will tuck in facing toward the kitchen. It is so much more open. And there will be a lot more storage space in the kitchen because of it.

For comparison, you might want to take a look at the blogs I wrote in 2007 when we were renovating the kitchen--something that never quite got finished. Here's a link to what the view from the kitchen through to the living room used to be before/during the make-over. That wall will be gone, replaced partially by a base-counter about 4' long. If you look to the upper right of the picture, you can see the windows that used to be in the upper part of the front wall above the door area. Here's the old back of the kitchen area where the refrigerator will now be in about the center of the wall surrounded by cabinets. The wall oven on the left is gone and the washer and dryer will be moved to their closet in the hall toward the bedrooms. And this lovely area of clutter will soon be the pantry. We only used the laundry sink to empty the washer's water and that will now have proper plumbing. I think things will be much easier to organize and put away with a proper pantry.














In the fourth photograph of the house is the space that used to be my office. It has had quite a bit of rearranging. When we tore up the carpet, we saw the artifacts of a wall that did make the room a fourth bedroom. When Len bought the place, those walls had been removed and the room was open to the hallway and used as a den or dining room. We used it as both at different times, but mostly it was my office. I used filing cabinets to take the place of a wall. It was crowded, but it was mine.

The room had a large closet along the left side of this picture which is no longer there. We took that, and what had been the linen closet in the hall and rearranged the support walls t enlarge the master bedroom's bath. I told Len that I would no longer live in a house where I did not have a separate vanity and storage area in the bathroom from his. While I think the bathroom in the rental is larger than necessary, I do appreciate the two sinks and vanities and I can draw a line down the center to keep his crap from invading my side. It is heavenly. The bath in our house will not be any deeper than it was, but it will be much wider, and we've shifted location and orientation of everything in it to make it a nicer space than it was.

Now the office has a closet (right) and a window-seat (left) for storage, and it still has a nice big window to look out on the side yard. I imagine some little girl sitting on the window seat with a favorite book taking her off to some imaginary land. That's what I'd do there.

We are told the house will be done in February. We'll see.

Schleese Comes to Chatsworth

It's really cold in L.A. Not cold as many of you would recognize, but cold for L.A. It happens every once in a while. There's snow on the far mountains and I had to scrape my car windows yesterday morning.

We're between promised rain storm right now and I've got fingers and everything else crossed that the next one holds off until Friday afternoon. I finally got an appointment to get my dressage saddle adjusted and Jochen Schleese himself is going to accompany the local fitter. I have no idea how much it will cost--I have a rough idea it's around the cost of tuning up my car. I keep telling myself I'm a four-time Jeopardy! champion, so I can actually afford it. Too bad the money doesn't get here for another three months.

I bought the saddle when I had an unexpected windfall from a personal injury case I had referred to another lawyer four years ago. It was quite a luxury to have a saddle custom made and it felt just grand. The last time I rode in it was two years ago when I lost my seat and really slammed my hip on the ground--I never had the wind knocked out of me before and it was frightening. Ace hasn't been able to wear it for a while, because his body has changed shape (for the better) but he's asymmetrical in the withers/shoulders (I know, most horses are) and he lost enough weight that it just doesn't fit right. He's entitled to a saddle that fits, and Ashley, who does ride him in an English saddle, should be able to use his saddle on him, not her pony's saddle.

The fitting consists of static and dynamic phases. If it rains, we won't be able to do the dynamic part this time around. The local fitter can come back, but Jochen won't be here, and I'd like the saddle maker to oversee it all. I'm not likely to haul Ace out to Pomona for Equine Affaire in February.

I'll try to take pictures.