Week Six concluded with our red tag. Monday afternoon, Leisa and I met Mark on site at lunch, where he was waiting for the inspector. The plumber had completed the necessary changes, and Mark had added the rebar the inspector wanted. Mark had the concrete scheduled for that afternoon. They would be pouring twelve yards of concrete for the basement slab. Just as Leisa and I were about to leave, the inspector arrived. He looked at everything again, approved it, and concrete was poured.
I didn't get back with the camera while the cement truck was there, so I don't have any dramatic action photos of concrete being poured. We had some much-needed rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, so it wasn't until Thursday that I wandered over to the site to get these dramatic photos of concrete hardening.
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| As you can probably tell by the
surface of the concrete, it rained quite a bit, and washed a bunch of mud
down onto the concrete.
I took these photos Thursday morning, which dawned foggy. The fog was so bad that Sky Harbor Airport was redirecting incoming flights and holding outgoing air traffic. The morning rush hour was affected. The fog did provide a nice, diffuse light source for these photographs, however. Taking the photographs was another matter. The rain from the past two days transformed the site into a muddy mess, which subsequently made a mess of my shoes. I almost have a Lit degree for a reason, and that's so I can call poetry of timeless beauty instantly to mind when I need it. (Google helps, too.) Here's one called Fog, by Carl Sandburg. The fog comes (Do you see this one driving up Interstate 10 at a high rate of speed, yet?) The subject of the photograph at the right is my $15 Costco shoe, and the mud caked on it. A close inspection of the sand 'neath my foot reveals something else, though. The "little cat feet" of the fog actually exist! They left prints. And something else.
That moist, light brown lump in the middle of the light brown sand is, indeed, cat poop. The fog did, indeed, come in on its little cat feet, but it didn't just sit looking at the city. It sat doing something else before it moved on. |
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Roberta was gone when I was there today, so I took the opportunity to take some photos of her backyard, which are posted on the Cats area of the site. I still haven't heard from my councilman, so I'll be sending him some photos of her yard with my next letter. |
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| We dropped by the site on Friday so Leisa could see the slab and so I could pick up my mail. We ran into the architect, Bob, and the structural engineer. Bob said he wanted to show him the "House on the Cliff." They were both impressed with the quality of the dirt, and how well the hole held up after two days' rain. The site was still a mess. Bob got his new shoes muddy; Leisa's shoes were a mess; and I should've known better and worn the same shoes I had on Thursday, but since we had an appointment at the University Club earlier that morning, then an appointment at David's Bridal, I wore a different pair of shoes, which got just as messed up as the pair of shoes I wore on Thursday. |
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| And since no week is complete without news about Justin,
here we go. Justin decided on Wednesday that the
basketball court would be a nice, secluded, quiet place for him and
thirteen of his friends to meet and spark one up for the home team. The
group was promptly apprehended. He was escorted
first to the nurse's office, who tested for use of certain substances,
then to "In School Suspension," pending parental notification.
"The Man" wasn't going to keep Justin down, though, and he
wandered--unauthorized--out of ISS and headed home, where he later told us
that everyone at school was "trippin'" about "stuff."
He's now on a nine day, off campus suspension.
Leisa and I met with the "Dean of Discipline" at Alhambra High School on Friday afternoon, who informed us that Justin will probably not be allowed to return to Alhambra. Instead, he'll probably be going to one of the alternative schools in the Phoenix Union High School District, such as Bostrum, Desiderata, or Suns/Diamondbacks Academy. "We can't stop here! This is bat country!" - HST Selah. |
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