I have news on the desk saga - but maybe I should say desk “developments” because as I sit down to write, things with the desk are not yet fully resolved.
Perhaps I need to explain how all this works. Fair warning: this will run long.
George is a stickler for details. But the details he likes are his details. With connections only he would ever make, in his brain, often explored in tiny, tiny drawings in his leather binder or on a very detailed spreadsheet with many, many tabs and columns and formulas. George would say his details have been thoroughly researched. And while they most certainly have been, George sometimes goes down rabbit holes and gets lost in the details. He might miss the forest for the trees. He might be penny wise but pound foolish. There might even be gaps in his logic. This likely is why George keeps most details to himself.
George also has a bit of an adventurous streak, which usually involves doing things “on the fly” and disappearing to parts unknown. If George does make plans, they are plans for no one to know about but him – even if they involve other people. If an adventure has been planned, there will be no compromise, weather or mood or driving distance be damned. You might get a tease like, “Anyone feel like a good tamale?” And if you shrug your shoulders and say, “Sure…,” WATCH OUT. An adventure with George might be one hour or it could last four. You may have just lost your day. It’s a real crapshoot. You never know.
George likes to “just go” and “check things out” and “see what happens.” And while in concept, that sounds great and freewheeling - one thing leading to another and so on - it can also be nerve-wracking. With George behind the wheel, the driving is fast and the destination can shift. He can be in the mood for one thing and then mid-way, change his mind. “I don’t really feel like biscuits anymore.”
And if George gets a call? Well, that’s a reason for further delay.
George keeps his cell phone ringer on. He likes to hear his phone ring when he gets texts, notifications, or calls. He is someone who will always pick up the phone -- to read those texts, absorb those notifications, or answer those calls. Unless he is already on the phone. Calls-in-progress do not get interrupted. They get put on speaker so George can multitask and read his incoming texts and emails but stay on the phone.
Calls with George go long. Because, again, he likes to get into the details. Whether it’s an old friend or a new friend or a telemarketer or a desk refinisher or a credit card company or an insurance adjuster or one of his three sisters, George likes to talk on the phone. He likes to answer the phone whether we are in family therapy or on a road trip or in a restaurant or on a walk in the woods or eating dinner and watching MSNBC. There is virtually no time George will not pick up his phone - unless, of course, he is out of range or on another call.
Sometimes, George is impatient that I am not like that. I have my ringer turned off. I leave my phone in my car, or upstairs when I am downstairs, or downstairs when I am upstairs. Lately, our chihuahua Sparky is mostly in my care and there is only so much I can carry. I’ve got Sparky in one hand and coffee or a pile of laundry in the other. The sweatpants I evacuated in - the Williams College sweatpants which are still my favorite – have no pockets. So it’s not like I can hold Sparky, a pile of laundry or a cup of coffee, and the phone. I’ve tried it but something is going to spill or drop.
George knows this about me. I can be reclusive, anti-social. I don’t like the phone. When my phone rings, I always use caller ID. If my phone says it’s Spam, I will never, ever answer. If my phone says it’s someone I know, I still likely will not answer and hope they leave a message so I can email or call back. There are only certain places and certain times I will answer my phone. I don’t actually like talking on the phone, mostly ever. Unless it is a scheduled call and I’ve worked up to it. Especially now, in this current limbo, liminal space, I am allowing myself to be a little MIA.
George and I have stayed married nearly thirty years because we have learned to embrace our differences. We will not change each other. We are able to keep the peace by “dividing and conquering.” We do not often collaborate. If George gets a call while we are in the middle of doing much of anything, I have learned to simply walk away. If George wants to break down the menu with a waiter, ingredient by ingredient, I mostly just sit back and try to enjoy my drink.
I remember when George bought a 1985 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ60. At some point, it was just too much of a gas guzzler and was always breaking down. In order to sell it at the best price, he had to replace some parts and fix some things. We took many trips in two cars to body shops in parts of LA I’d never heard of. I’d wait in my car outside in various alleys and I’d wait and wait and wait. And every time, George would come out shaking his head. No LA shop ever had exactly the right part or exactly the right attitude or expertise. We’d drive home in our two cars.
Eventually, George found a body shop he liked in Arizona. So, one weekend day back in 2022, George asked if anyone wanted to drive with him. Not me. Road trips with George can be harrowing. Usually the driving is very, very fast and there is the requisite brake-slamming from time to time. It’s never a smooth ride. My mother has a name for it, “jackrabbit driving.” It also means hearing that every other driver on the road is an idiot even when George does not feel that turn signals are required, even when he has just slammed on the brakes or cut someone off at an exit.
Road trips also usually involve seeing how far George can go on a tank of gas, like it’s a Peloton class: “One more exit! We can do it!” Over the years, I have pointed out that seeing how far his car can go on a tank of gas isn’t an endurance test for him. It doesn’t mean he is a better driver, if he can drive his car on fumes. It’s not like his car can build up stamina “to go farther” when he does this, like the car and he are symbiotically increasing some kind of muscle mass.
Our older daughter, Catherine, has a spicy relationship with her father. A bit of a love/hate thing. Catherine loves adventure but she doesn't love doing things “on the cheap” and she does require stopping for food. Catherine also has an issue with George’s driving and, unlike the rest of us who just white-knuckle it, Catherine doesn’t have an issue telling him to slow down or to stop at a red light, or that he needs to wait because her grandmother is still climbing into the back seat: “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? STOP RIGHT NOW!”
Still, Catherine went with George on the Arizona adventure to get the perfect replacement part for the 1985 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ60. That is a story within a story. George rented a car for the drive on the cheap: a Prius because it had better gas mileage. While the Prius did make it to Arizona where George and Catherine did procure a replacement door panel for the Land Cruiser, on their way back to LA, the Prius blew a tire. There was no spare tire in the Prius trunk. George and Catherine were stranded in the desert, without water or food, for many hours, waiting for a tow truck. George talked on the phone a lot and picked up rocks and sticks, as Catherine remembers it. And possibly, revisiting the photos, he also tried to climb a fence.
The rental car was actually not a real rental car as it turns out. It was not from a national rental agency – or even a rental car place at all, where George might’ve been able to return the rental car and get a replacement rental car and receive some kind of roadside assistance. Catherine reminds me that George had bartered for the use of the car. “It was just a guy on the internet.” A sort of one-on-one app where you get linked up – a guy who has a car connects with a guy who needs a car. It was a cheap thing, negotiated person to person, like how George arranged for his Greek desk to be driven to California from Texas.
In any event, George and Catherine eventually got towed to an Arizona shopping mall where Catherine remembers she had boba and they waited for George to reach the guy who owned the car, who had to agree to pay to get his tire replaced while George and Catherine waited. Looking back now, Catherine says it was kind of fun.
Pre-fire, we took a vacation trip to France. We rented a house from George’s high school friend. George arranged all the details. You might think, “That’s incredible!” And mostly it was. However, there was another side to it. We couldn’t walk to anything. There was one car. Mostly, George had the car keys. The closest town was swanky, expensive, and touristy and George refused to let us have a meal there. George arranged where we were to have dinner every night. Could we see an itinerary? Basically no. We would drive for hours, jackrabbit driving, many, many nauseating roundabouts, only to end up at a small restaurant down a windy street. After having driven for so long, some of us would be sick. Some of us would be asleep. We would never know where to park. Often the meals were excellent and would make up for the mystery and inconvenience. George’s adventure would pay off!
One night, however, we showed up at a restaurant at the end of a dirt road, after having driven for two plus hours, and it was the wrong night. They were very apologetic, but they didn’t have a table and we’d have to drive two hours back without eating. One night we were in a town with a riot underway and we had to reverse course.
It’s not like there were any breaks planned. Every night was meant to be an adventure, i.e. a long, long drive. We pleaded that maybe we could mix things up - one day a car trip, one day we could stay local. Our bodies were simply sore from so much sitting. We would lie in bed at night and still feel the torque of those roundabouts. Some of us wanted some time OUT OF THE CAR. We just wanted a break. Sure, sometimes it was fun. But sometimes, it was also very UNFUN. George would not compromise. We either had to be all in or all out. We could stay in France or we could go home. So, we’d pile into our tiny European rental car, exchanging tired, knowing, looks of solidarity. And off we’d go.
George’s adventures are rarely “blah.” There are often highs and lows. Stories to tell. And to be fair, it is also kind of fun to remember and recount them here. These adventures are almost better in the remembering than they were in the moment when you are, say, stranded in the desert or on a road trip that feels like it will never end. Perhaps it’s because in remembering, you know these adventures WILL end. They DID end. We are safe now.
These days, post-fire, nearly thirty years into our marriage, I’m not really up for one of George’s adventures unless I’ve already walked the dogs, showered, checked off most of my to-do’s, and have the rest of the day to lose. While I am undoubtedly the more right-brain person in the relationship, I do like plans. Shared plans. I also care about timing and time-management. Also, I don’t really like long drives with George behind the wheel. I have learned to set boundaries.
Back to the desk saga. I have really, really buried the lede here.
A week ago, there was a failed attempt to pick up the Greek desk with the impressive drawers that pull ALL-THE-WAY-OUT. On a whim, George left at dawn to drive to Santa Maria without an appointment. The person who had refinished George’s desk did not answer the phone. George sent pictures from the storage facility and waited as long as he could before he turned around and did the hour plus drive back to our rented house in Santa Barbara. (I still can’t call it “home.”)
When George returned around 10 am, the chaos of the day was already underway. Blaze was screaming from her downstairs basement, “Leave me alone!” There were plumbers here to fix some kind of a leak outside. There was a scheduled Zoom for which George was late. The dogs were barking. I wanted to fill George in on the “state of play” but his phone rang so, of course, he picked up.
It was the desk refinisher who was calling him back. George was able to schedule a visit for this past Thursday. He’d have to drive the hour plus to Santa Maria and the hour plus back on a day he was scheduled to do Blaze drop-off no less. But yes! At last, he’d have the desk.
The desk is VERY, VERY heavy. It is apparently more than 200 lbs. He scheduled it for Thursday because our landlady has gardeners come on Thursdays and George was hopeful he could enlist their help getting the desk off his truck and into the bedroom where he now works.
George had considered having some kind of beveled glass top created for the desk, to protect it. But then, upon more research, he is worried about how glass might feel against his forearms as he works. Instead, George found a purveyor of leather pads on Etsy. It’s “much cheaper than where you bought yours,” he informs me. Yes, George, I think to myself, but my pad was a one-and-done thing. I’ve been using it for weeks. And it works. And I get to think about other things on my to-do list besides what to put on the top of my desk.
But time and price are considerations that exist in different planes. Should I call them axes? For George, it does not matter how long it takes. Convenience is beside the point. Life is meant to be lived in pursuit of, not in receipt of. Price is the most important consideration always – the best price.
So, unlike me who went to a store and bought my leather pad “pre-made,” George had a leather pad cut in the dimensions of his desk. Except that when the leather pad arrived in the mail and George rolled it out on the kitchen counter, he discovered he hadn’t measured correctly, or they hadn’t cut it correctly, and it would have to be returned.
Have I mentioned that nothing is simple with George? He loves details. The back and forth doesn’t bother him. Even if it’s endless. George is detail-oriented, like no one I have ever known. If there were a spreadsheet-detail contest, George would win again and again.
What George would NOT win, however, is the “being on time” contest or the “budgeting your time” contest or the “getting to the airport with plenty of time to spare so that everyone can relax and not freak out contest.” Nope. The “simple and fast” contest? “Doing things the easy way?” These are all losing games for people, like George, who like adventure.
With the help of the gardeners here at our rental house, George did manage to get the 200 pound Greek desk inside the house on Thursday! Then the problem was that he can’t get it through the door of the room where he is working. It won’t fit. He would need to take the door off its hinges but he has no tools. He’ll have to find the right tools. Dare I say, the perfect tools for the job? Tools that will be found on an online auction? Perhaps imported? Or picked up from a great custom welder in Bakersfield? Or maybe all three?
Losing all his tools, accumulated over a lifetime, was a big hit for George.
George will do what George will do when it comes to the desk and I’ll keep writing about developments here. There is a reason for my writing about it. A real point in my going into all these George details. When someone asks, “So are you going to rebuild?” I can’t really begin to answer. It’s a process. And it will never be A to B to C.
It does worry me a little that George might get lost in the details of the design of and building of, and procurement of materials, supplies, appliances, windows, doors, switch plates, etc. for our new house. Apparently, the process has already hit a few snags.
Recently, George shared a video on our family group chat, prefaced by - “Excuse my French here - but this is really fucking amazing!”
Of course, George would love that. It reminds me of his water cannon idea. Catherine responded with a terse: “Have we had our lot cleared yet?”
She didn’t get an answer. But I will answer you here, Catherine. The answer is “no.”
That really is the first snag. Step one. George is negotiating with a debris removal company but will then decide what is removed and what will stay. George is back to working on the insurance-claim spreadsheet with the help of the memory jogger from our public insurance adjuster. George has had multiple in-person meetings, Zooms, and calls with the architect, Cory. They have emailed designs back and forth. George told me he has shared with Cory that he has two speeds. “I told him I have two speeds,” George recounted to me the other day, as we passed in the kitchen. (We have been on a restaurant hiatus since Catherine left town. There was so much eating over Spring Break, it is a relief to eat at home, mostly while watching MSNBC.)
“Speed one: I decide things real fast. I know immediately if I like it or not. And I’ll just say it like it is.” I’m thinking to myself, yes, yes you will, and perhaps you should have added that you can be kinda harsh? Like more blunt than perhaps any client ever before? George said, “Speed two: I’m gonna take a while. I’m gonna need to think it over.”
Dear Lord! Poor Cory! Cory has NO IDEA! (Unless he is reading this and, come to think of it, maybe I should suggest that George share this with him just to get Cory primed and in the right headspace?)
In the fullness of time, I’m thinking Cory could respond to George’s two speeds in very different ways. Once he realizes how hard it can get, Cory could think George is the WORST client ever, and fire him (us). Or Cory could think he has found “his person,” a fellow architect-mind and he could enjoy the constant noodling over where things go and how everything has to change as a result.
I have not met Cory. I don’t have a read on the situation. When can I meet Cory? TBD. I have asked. George has had many calls with Cory behind closed doors. He is intentionally keeping me away until they are closer. George has said, “We are not there yet,” in terms of bringing me into the conversation. “There is nothing to even talk about yet.”
Sure, I think. We gotta clear the lot. I also think, maybe it’s okay. George’s love of detail and design is laudable. Reasonable people have suggested that if one is taking a reasonable amount of time, this rebuilding effort will take 3-5 years. I’ve established here that George is not necessarily a reasonable, every-day kind of guy when it comes to these things. Or anything really. So let’s just add a year? Maybe two?
I’m estimating we’re looking at 2031 as the earliest for our move-back year. Even then, I still expect we won’t really be “done, done.” I have seen all this play out before: Barry’s tools in our bedroom; plywood kitchen countertops we cooked off of for years (let me tell you, those really do NOT feel great on your forearms); piles and piles of rocks; shirts with zippers; door panels from Arizona; a Greek desk from Texas via Santa Maria. A structure will be just the beginning. To be safe, let’s just say 2033 is our move-back year, when we will have walls and doors and toilets that flush.
Sure, with all that is being destroyed and dismantled in the world today, 2033 may seem like a long way off. Honestly, maybe that’s not a bad thing? The noise of construction will be a thing of the past. The stock market will have settled. Trump will be out of the White House (even if he finagles a third term). The war in Ukraine will be over. I know with absolute certainty, I can bet BIG money on the fact that if the world does not end in a big ball of fire before then, we will be the VERY last people to move back to our neighborhood in the Palisades. Our neighbors’ plants and trees will have grown back lush and full. The electric wires will have been long buried. It won’t even look like a place where there’s been new construction. Maybe even, it will feel like home.
BUT WAIT.
There is a late-breaking development. And even resolution. A conclusion to the desk saga.
While I went down the rabbit hole writing this, George received a regular run of the mill screwdriver, delivered by Amazon in a normal amount of time. George was able to unscrew the wooden top of the Greek desk from its metal legs.
When the plumber showed up to work on the outside plumbing leak, George and the plumber carried the desk, in two parts, into George’s room. Or they gently dragged them really, on a moving blanket, as it is now estimated the desk weighs between 200 and 300 lbs. It is not the refinished wooden top that weighs much of anything at all - it’s the metal legs.
Apparently it was easy to unscrew, and then to screw the wooden top and metal legs back together.
“I should have thought of that sooner,” George says. “I could have just driven the top of the desk to the refinisher. It would have been so much easier to move around.” (You think?)
George is working at his new Greek desk now - the designer is Nicos Zographos. He is 94! I have asked George to give you a brief tour:
Maybe there is hope for our rebuilding effort yet.
I just asked Chris why he was climbing the fence in Arizona. He says he had it in his mind that it'd be a good place to find meteorites. And since they had time, why not look?
Chris, the desk is FANTASTIC! Totally worth all the effort! (Sorry Tracy) I’m now taking a deep dive into Nicos’s work. I’ve never heard of him and am now of course obsessed.