The man and I are winding down the day over a fire this evening. He's had a fire laid out since our Kentucky Derby party, but it has taken until now for us to get out and set a match to it. (Excuse me, two matches. The first one didn't take the whole pile of wood, just made a few of Satan's testicles, the sycamore pods, smolder. The man tells me he is a failure for needing the second match.) A few hours ago I might have called today underproductive, but at the wire we capped off two important projects from the punch list to sell the Park. We ripped down the long boards that go on the last 3 1/2 inches of the deck project, and he put them in place, and then while I ran up and down the stairs bringing tools, he put shelves and a real clothes rod in the office closet where a makeshift desk had been since we moved here. I only packed one box of extremely fragile 76 year old dishes, but overall, we made progress today. We earned a quiet night over a fire, with a gorgeous 12 year old scotch (Bunnahabhain, from the isle of Islay) chasing a couple different wines blended to kill off the nearly empty bottles.
My hope for a miracle was quashed today. For two or three days, we had been toying with the idea of taking on the project of a Victorian house that was built in 1910, and completely unloved for the last decade or more. Sometime in the last couple years, its complete lack of a permanent heating system caused pipes to freeze and burst and the property is now condemned by the city. They were asking $110,000 for the whole thing, on the understanding that it was probably a scrape-off. We had been talking about how to bring it back from death row, to save the original home and turn it into a showpiece. Somewhere in the middle of the day we learned that they had so many offers that they are not willing to accept another, even if it's one to save the historic structure. So much for that brilliant yet insane idea. Every other day, I completely lose heart that I will find a house to love when we move. This market is so crazy, and I don't know how to compete. Even when I tell myself that I don't have to buy the forever house, I just need the right now house, I have a hard time convincing myself that one will come available, in our price range, with a seller who likes our offer. This is going to be a rough summer.
My uncle is the quintessential cowboy. He is tall and handsome, with piercing blue eyes. During the times he wasn't actively raising horses and cattle (and sometimes when he was), he spent time as a football coach in Oklahoma and a concrete entrepreneur in Texas. When I was in middle school, he lived in the same town as my grandparents, his in-laws. He had several acres, and among the livestock who lived there and depended on him, he had a Shetland pony named Dusty One-Ear. I think the pony was supposed to be my cousin's pet/mount. I'm not sure he ever managed to ride him successfully. Dusty was the meanest pony I have ever met. I am reasonably certain the reason he only had one ear is some other horse had enough of his shit and bit the other one off. Sometimes, when I look at Murray, with his right ear that stands at attention, and his left ear that flops over one eye, and his blonde and white fur, I am hopelessly reminded of old Dusty One-Ear, and I am eternally grateful that he isn't the crazy mean son-of-a-bitch that Dusty was. Murray was watching me over the fire tonight, with that one-eared silliness. It's almost enough to forget the jerky times when he goes after the other dogs or the cats or the lizards or the shadows from the fire. Almost.
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