Solstice: Part Six

(This is Part Six of a series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  Part Three is here.  Part Four is here.  Part Five is here.)

Diary of a Small Contractor: Postscript

June 20, 2012 (Summer Solstice)
Daylight: 14 hours, 47 minutes

The sun has cycled through 25 and 1/2 more years, 51 more solstices.  

I never saw the carpenters Oshay or Junior again.  They weren't from around here.

Jerry retired from tile-setting.  He had a heart attack a few years ago in the middle of the night.  His son Greg drove him to the hospital at breakneck speed while Jerry in the cab of the truck, clutching his chest, said, "Greg, whatever our differences have been, I want you to know you've been a good son and I'll be smiling down on you from wherever I go," and Greg was shouting "DAMN IT POP DON'T DIE!"  Jerry didn't die.  He's still a good friend of mine and Greg, as everybody knows, still has his problems.

Sheba's living somewhere in the flatlands of the Silicon Valley.  I hear she had five children.  Her husband was the accountant for an internet company that crashed and burned.  I hear they made millions, anyway.  The baby that was just a "b" in her belly would now be almost 25 years old.

My shoulder still hurts in bad weather when the daylight is brief.  I never told Peter or Judy of my ill-fated drilling. 

They're divorced.  Peter lives with a lovely lady in Oakland.  The kids have grown up and moved on.

Judy lives alone in the big house in La Honda with dozens of cats.  In all that time, the structure has never had an electrical problem.  I made sure of that.

A couple years ago, Judy called me to look at possibly remodeling a bathroom in the old part of the house.  She had to cancel as the economy collapsed, but not before I explored the project.  To understand the plumbing, I ventured into the crawlspace.

Under the house, the beam of my headlamp caught a mass of dusty spiderweb.  There it hung: sawdust.  Like the wispy threads of an old legend.  The same sawdust, preserved.  Suspended by cobwebs beneath holes I had drilled, so painfully, for that job long ago.

Spiders, too, build to last.



Note: That's the end of this solstice sequence, though another adventure occurred during this same timeline.  I've already recounted that story separately in Sweat Test.  Maybe it should be interwoven with this tale.  Not wanting to repeat myself, I'll leave it alone for now.

Diary of a Small Contractor is a series of posts relating to the autumn of 1986, a time when I kept an extremely detailed diary of my work — like a blog.  For the record, here are links to the complete series:
The Zen of Aluminum Windows
Head First
Cheerfully Picking
Poison
Lifetime Guarantee
Mucking with Clients
We all need a bit of nursery…
Crawlspace
Gunther's Vent
Afterwards, It's Still There
Banker, Retired
Deep Woodside
Good Craftsmanship is the Lack of Botch
Stealing Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams in Suburbia
Peace and Love and Wall Thermostats
Poly-euw
Sweat Test
Working for Friends
Alphabet Courtship
A House of Many Stories
Money Among Friends
Quail Eggs and Pomegranates
Postscript

Solstice, Part Five

(This is Part Five of a series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  Part Three is here.  Part Four is here.)

Diary of a Small Contractor: Quail Eggs and Pomegranates

Saturday, December 20, 1986
Daylight: 9 hours, 33 minutes, 43 seconds

I light a pilot light for my neighbors Jake and Mindy.  They've just returned after investing every last penny for plane tickets to New York accompanied by a crate full of hand-sewn sheepskin jackets.  "How'd it go?" I ask them.

"I'm in the wrong state," Mindy says.  She's been selling her handcrafted sheepskin jackets at California craft fairs for years.  "In New York they don't just admire what I make, they can justify it.  The weather's cold and there's a ton of rich people."

I tell them there's no charge for lighting the pilot, but Jake stuffs a twenty into my hand.  These folks have been poor, scuffling, just getting by.  Today they feel good.

At Peter's house, I wire a wall heater.  Almost finished there. 

We pile into the family van — Rose, 3 kids, me — drive to a tree ranch near San Gregorio and cut down a 12-foot pine, paying with the crinkled twenty dollar bill.  Back home, setting up, the entire house smells of sweet sap.

Sunday, December 21, 1986
Daylight: 9 hours, 33 minutes, 38 seconds

From friends, we have a puppy.  Got him earlier this week.  The kids have named him Oak — or Oakie, still under debate — because his color matches our hardwood floor.  I would name him Chew or Chewie because he attacks shoes and ankles and whisk brooms.

Late in the day, alone, I walk a couple miles from my house into the La Honda watershed.  There's a ridge up there with a view I love.  The fog flows into the valleys while I stand above it all in the red glow of sunset.  Sounds rise to my ears.  A half mile downhill, children are playing, shouting from houses just at the edge of the fog.  From the opposite side of the ridge I hear the rush of Mindego Creek in a deep canyon.  From shadows in the weeds nearby, coyotes are yapping like clowns.

It's fully dark — and foggy — by the time I return to my house.  There on the landing outside the kitchen door are two dark-haired puppies.  Seeing me, they run up and bounce against my legs.

La Honda is a dumping ground for abandoned pets, and they always seem to end up at my door.  I think it's posted on fire hydrants, spreading the rumor that I'm a soft touch.

Well, I'm not.  In fact I'm so hard-hearted that I won't even allow them into the house.  Instead, I set out a bowl of kibble and a bucket of water, then find a cardboard box and line it with a blanket so they can curl up together and keep warm on the porch.

Monday, December 22, 1986
Daylight: 9 hours, 33 minutes, 37 seconds
 
The puppies are still on the porch, which also serves as a mudroom.  They've eviscerated a pair of my boots.

Before breakfast I run along Pescadero Road in the rain with my wife Rose.  When we return, the roof is leaking.  Our beanbag chair is soaking up water.  In a downpour I go up the ladder and jam metal flashing under broken shingles.  Fixed — until I can do better.  Now breakfast, and let's light the logs in the fireplace.

Oakie the indoor puppy chews on a rawhide bone.  The two porch puppies chase each other in circles and overturn their bucket of water.   The kids prepare and put on a puppet show.  Rose bakes cookies and her incredible homemade granola — every year, we pass out holiday food baskets to neighbors and friends.  Jesse, my older son, age 10, helps me build a shelf for my growing collection of poetry and computer books.

It's your basic rainy day at home.  The solstice passes, unseen behind clouds.

Tuesday, December 23, 1986
Daylight: 9 hours, 33 minutes, 40 seconds
 
At Peter's house I clean up some final details, replace a faulty 4-way switch.  I'm done!  Already finished are the carpenters Oshay and Junior, the tile setters Greg and his father Jerry — each worker a subplot, gone but a part of this dwelling where we have embedded our sweat, blood, and pencil marks.  Our stories.  Our spirits, too.

Sheba is housecleaning today.  She's like a serialized saga, new episode every Tuesday.  In the past month she's gotten married — not to Greg — and visibly has become a lower case "b," not necessarily by the groom.  It's a credit to the effectiveness of birth control that she wasn't knocked up any earlier in the last 6 years.  In late-December she's wearing a halter and soccer shorts.  Oddly, she never had a super body.  Something about her, though, has always exuded sexiness.  In 3 years she'll be old enough to buy alcohol.  She says her dad is out of prison and is repairing cars instead of stealing them.

There's a Christmas tree surrounded by brightly-wrapped packages.  Judy is a Catholic but mostly she's a Christmas junkie.  "When it comes to the holidays, I believe in wretched excess," she says as she hands 3 gifts to Sheba, one to me.

I write an invoice for Peter.

Peter writes a big fat check.  

Last nail driven,
sawdust swept.
In each house,
many stories.
Building shelter,
making children,
we construct
our cluttered lives.

The pagan festival of light.  It must be the passing of the solstice that makes me so happy.  That, and a fat check.  Tomorrow I'll buy pomegranates — and maybe quail eggs if I can find them.



(Continued here...)

Solstice, Part Four

(This is Part Four of a series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  Part Three is here.)

Diary of a Small Contractor: Money Among Friends

Saturday, November 15, 1986
Daylight: 10 hours, 9 minutes
 
No longer wearing a sling, I go back to work.  At Peter's house I run more cable, clean up some ratty knob-and-tube in the original structure, start testing my wiring — and detect a short.  I may have to replace a cable.  Before I can track it down, Peter comes home. 

We talk about money.  Sticking with my decision, I don't tell him about the shoulder injury.  I do tell him we're over budget.  I'm giving him every break but it's still going to cost over $4,000. 

Peter says, "How much did I allow?  Three K?"

"Two and a half or three."

"Oh."  He seems unperturbed.

"We could save about five hundred if you keep the old service entrance instead of replacing it."

"No."

That's all.  Apparently, we're fine. 

Monday, November 17, 1986
Daylight: 10 hours, 5 minutes

At Peter's I test the wiring again, and there is no short.  I'd misread the meter.  I'm always smarter in the morning, the fresh light.

Greg the apprentice tile setter never returned after making letters with Sheba the housecleaner.  Today his father Jerry comes to finish the job.  He says, "I guess everybody knows my son has a problem."

Carpenters are banging and sawing and shouting.  I'm drilling holes for cables (holding with both hands).  Judy is in bed all day with a migraine — with soft rock and TV talk. 

The lead carpenter is named Oshay — that's his entire name, as far as anyone knows.  He's a white Okie with high self-esteem.  He never shuts up, commenting lovingly on his own work:  "It orta fit; it sure orta…" (Setting a board in place.)  "Yes, look at that!  Tight as a twat, my boy, and purty as your sister.  A perfect fit…"  Oshay's assistant is a dour latino named Junior who follows Oshay around saying "Eet look like sheet, mon."

For seven hours I twist wires and wire nuts until my fingers are raw.  Every half hour the radio plays "If Ever You're In My Arms Again," which constitutes working under hardship conditions.  Oshay and Junior set bolts and hang insulation.   

At the end of the day Ed Snow, the building inspector, shows up wearing a bright brass belt buckle in the shape of a pig.  I like Ed — and his self-deprecating belt buckle — even though he informs me that the subpanel I've installed is illegal.  Nowadays, you can't have a subpanel in a closet. 

It was Peter's design, but it was my job to know the updated code.  Imbecile. 

Fortunately, I can simply rotate the panel 180 degrees so it opens into the bedroom, not the closet.  It will be an hour's work — if it's okay with Peter to have a subpanel facing into the master bedroom.  If not, I'll be starting over.

Judy emerges from her cocoon of pop and soaps holding a wash cloth to her forehead.  She asks, "Did I miss anything?"  Beside her bed lie piles of celebrity magazines and murder mysteries.  Here's the answer to what Judy does all day: absolutely NOTHING.

I explain the problem with the subpanel, and Judy says, "Oh, Peter won't mind.  He'd only worry that it might bother me, and I don't bother about anything.  As you can tell from my housekeeping."

She rinses the washcloth with cold water, wrings it, then wraps a few ice cubes within.  Again holding washcloth to forehead, she winces and says, "Don't worry about Peter."

I think it's not really a migraine.  I think Judy is seriously depressed.

Monday, December 1, 1986
Daylight: 9 hours, 45 minutes

Motormouth Oshay and dour Junior spent all last week hanging and taping drywall.  Then Oshay spent the weekend in Reno and lost two week's pay in one night.  A week of drywalling will do that to you.

Today they are skip-troweling, applying texture.  Oshay is talking and singing gospel to himself, making less sense than usual.  Again, drywall will do that to you.  About every 15 minutes Oshay interrupts his monologue to ask Junior, "You wanna loan me a hundred?  Just until payday?"

Junior says, "Sheet, mon."

"How about twenty?"

"Sheet, mon."

When I'm within range, Oshay chats at me: "You know, I had a vasectomy, and it hurt for a year.  The doctor's scalpel slipped.  He said I had slippery tubes, maybe everybody does.  It scraped me.  Felt like a kick in the balls, man.  We are blessed by God.  You wanna talk about God?"

"No."

"I hear ya.  Children are a blessing.  But I had to do it.   Child support is killin' me.  Got a court date on Thursday.  She gonna crush my balls.  Don't you wanna talk about God, man?"

"No."

"Christmas is for children.  You know Christmas is named for Christ?" 

By the end of the morning I could kill him.  Which might be what he wants: gambling two week's pay just before a nonsupport court hearing is tantamount to some kind of a death wish.

What's amazing is that Junior hasn't already throttled his partner.  Maybe I misjudge them.  At lunch hour, when Junior could go anywhere, he fetches his lunchbox from Oshay's clunky old Chevy pickup, then sits himself down on a bucket of joint compound right next to Oshay.  Junior chews silently, staring out the window at the blowing mist.  Oshay tries again to ask for a loan and then talks about how he used to work as a rodeo cowboy, a time in Salinas when a bull ate his boots.

The shoulder still hurts. 

Wednesday, December 3, 1986
Daylight: 9 hours, 43 minutes

At Peter's today I install switches and outlets.  This will be my last day for a couple of weeks, then I'll return.

Oshay and Junior are working their last day as well, cleaning up details.  Desperately now, Oshay asks Junior for a loan.  Court date tomorrow.  Junior says, "I buy your truck."

"That baby's worth five grand," Oshay says.

"That truck is sheet, mon.  I give you five hon-dred."

All day, Oshay enumerates the valuable features he's added to the truck.  A spotlight.  Oversize mirrors.  And what about those dancing go-go girl mudflaps?  Junior just shakes his head.

At nightfall, they settle at $525.  Junior pulls a roll of bills from his back pocket and peels them off.  Junior had arrived as a passenger.  When they leave, Junior is at the wheel, starting the engine in a cloud of blue smoke that belches from the rusty tailpipe. 

Junior adjusts the mirror.  Oshay, for once, is silent.



(Continued here...)

Solstice, Part Three

(This is Part Three of a series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.)

Diary of a Small Contractor: A House of Many Stories

Thursday, November 13, 1986
Daylight: 10 hours, 12 minutes
 
Fortunately I have health insurance through my wife's job.  My arm is in a sling.  I ice the shoulder constantly.

I tell Peter I've got a bug and need a few days at home.  For some reason I don't tell him that I injured myself alone in his house.  Maybe I'm embarrassed.  One-handed drilling with a 3/4 inch bit was idiotic.

My daughter, age 8, wants quail eggs and pomegranates packed in her lunch bag.  Her best friend gets them, along with roast beef sandwiches.  I explain to my daughter that we can't afford roast beef, much less quail eggs.  Pomegranates, maybe.

"Daddy, why can't we afford them?"

"Because I'm not working and we don't have enough money."

"When we have enough money, can I have quail eggs?"

"Yes.  Absolutely.  What did you do in school today?"

"I made up a poem."  She's seen me write poetry.  Now she shows me a scrawl that looks like Chaucerian English:

me hed aeks.
my stomik aeks.
my thort aeks just the same…

At her school, they emphasize creativity, not spelling.  In modern English, her poem goes:

My head aches.
My stomach aches.
My throat aches just the same.

I feel like I will yell.
My mom tries to make me well.

My head stops hurting.
My throat stops hurting
but my stomach hurts more than ever
and whoops!
I throw up.

"So you're sick?" I ask.

"No.  This was a long time ago."

It seems like a weird subject for a poem.  Is she sending me some kind of a message?  So I ask, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Daddy," she explains as if I'm an ignorant rube, "it's what I remember.  It's a story."

My shoulder, alas, could be another weird poem.  The pain is deep, and mine alone.

Though only two days have passed since the accident, I suspect the ache will linger in some form for the rest of my life.  And how long is a life?  Perhaps 160 solstices, start to finish. 

I don't think my life would qualify as a weird epic saga — or theatrical tragedy — but it might be an operetta.  That would be 160 operatic acts.  On this day in 1986 we are in Act 79 — and let's play it as a wince-inducing comedy, with pratfalls.  Which, I now realize, is the spirit of what my daughter wrote.  Instinctively she knows it's better to laugh at your fate.

and whoops!
I crack my shoulder.

I make up my mind: I will never tell Judy or Peter what happened.  We each dwell in a house of many stories.  This one they shouldn't hear.  Already the noise of their home is an attempt to drown ghosts of the past.  Why add another?  My injury wasn't their fault.  Nor should it be their burden.



(Continued here...)

Solstice, Part Two

(This is Part Two of a series.  Part One is here.)

 Diary of a Small Contractor: Alphabet Courtship

Tuesday, November 11, 1986
Daylight: 10 hours, 16 minutes

At 8 a.m. I drive the truck to Peter and Judy's house, a one minute commute.  Nobody is there.  The TV and radio are both on, and I let them continue to blare. 

Maybe the noise is for the menagerie of cats.  Or maybe to ward off some curse placed upon this house.  A curse of loneliness.  Because I sense it: Something is missing in this family, and no amount of construction can fill it. 

The son dwells in a fantasy world of video games; the daughter, in rock and roll.  Both children are outcasts, the son a victim of bullies, the daughter an angry rebel who shreds the social fabric of middle school. 

Peter and Judy invite neighbors for nights of Trivial Pursuit.  They are masters at the game, especially Judy who thinks out loud and is a marvel to witness as her brain circles around an answer, spiraling, until she's got it.  She has loud, raucous laughter and loves a good joke.  She smokes.  Sometimes she drinks a little too much.

Both Peter and Judy grew up in military families, constantly uprooted.  They each had, um, difficult parents who they refuse to talk about.  Finding stability with each other and now planted in La Honda, Peter has turned down a promotion that would have sent him to Japan.  Judy volunteers at the school.  Peter serves without pay in the town governance.  They are expanding their two-bedroom house, determined to build a lasting home in this tiny town, on this quiet mountain.

Around 9 a.m. a tile setter named Greg arrives and starts laying a base for the shower.  Greg is an apprentice with a drug problem.  He seems okay today. 

At noon a teenage housecleaner named Sheba shows up.  Sheba lives in a trailer outside town.  Her father is in jail.  She likes to wear almost nothing as she vacuums.  When she leans over to pick up a trash can, my heart stops.  I think it's even harder (literally) for Greg.

After a few hours, Greg is done for the day.  So is Sheba.  For a long time they talk in the driveway, leaning on their separate junker cars.  The body language tells it all.  At first Sheba and Greg stand as opposite sides of an upper case letter "V," arms folded across chests, heads bowed, studying toes which are nearly touching.  Later they are a lower case letter "m," squatting side by side on the curb.  Then they drive away, one car following at the bumper of the other, for I presume an episode of "Y." 

I'm alone in the late afternoon with the radio and 3 televisions and the cats.  Maybe it's because of the racket, or maybe it's because the sun is sinking so early, or maybe — honestly — I'm just temporarily stupid, but I'm drilling one-handed with a 3/4 inch bit.  The bit binds in the hole.  When the bit binds, the body of the powerful Makita drill must spin.  My hand, holding the drill body, must spin.  The hand twists the forearm.  The forearm twists the elbow and on up to the shoulder, where something gives with a CRACK — and the drill wrenches out of my grip.  The spin of my shoulder socket has exceeded the manufacturer's recommended rotation. 

I drop to my knees.

Closing my eyes, I see stars.



(Continued here...)

Solstice, Part One

Diary of a Small Contractor: Working for Friends

Saturday, November 8, 1986
Daylight: 10 hours, 22 minutes
 
Peter and Judy are expanding their house — doubling the square feet.  I'm their neighbor, their friend — and also their electrician.  This is a big job coming at the right time of year for me.  I always try to stay busy as the nights grow long. 

Peter promised to help me pull wire from the garage to the addition, a distance of 50 feet.  But Peter's not here.  You need one person at each end of the conduit — one feeding, one pulling.  For various stupid reasons (bends in the conduit, lack of elbow room, lack of proper equipment on my part) this will be a difficult task.  Here are the steps:

Lubricate the first couple feet of wire, straighten twists or kinks. 
Climb under house. 
Creep and crawl among piers and heat ducts. 
Pull on fish tape for about two feet. 
Creep and crawl and climb back out.
Lubricate and straighten the next couple feet of wire.
Climb under house.
Creep and crawl...

After an hour I've ripped my shirt on a nail and saturated my clothes with dust.  I've never been so delighted to see the end of a fish tape.  With 2 people, it would have taken 10 minutes.

Just as I finish, Peter shows up.

"Where were you?" I demand.

"Had to go to the office," Peter says.  "Sorry.  I'll pay you for the time."

Of course he will.  But can he pay for the disrespect? 

Monday, November 10, 1986
Daylight: 10 hours, 18 minutes
 
All day I run cable and install junction boxes.  

Peter's wife Judy is somewhere inside the house while her children are at school.  I rarely see her, but I hear the radio playing mainstream pop from various wall speakers scattered throughout the house.  Simultaneously with the radio, 3 televisions in 3 separate rooms are tuned to a succession of soap operas and talk shows.  Judy never sits in front of any of them.  She has no garden; she takes no walks.  She hates dogs, mushrooms, and owls.  Though she lives on this mountain, Judy is not a mountain girl. 

The sun goes down.  Back at home Rose, my wife, is baking homemade pizza.  She asks, "So now that you've worked at their house, tell me, what does Judy do all day?"

"It involves soft rock and talk TV."

"But what does she do?"

"I have no idea."



(Continued here...)

Picnic Table

Sunday, June 10, 2012

For several years now I've been buying outdoor deck furniture from a strong young woman who sells from the back of her pickup truck, usually accompanied by her mother riding shotgun in the cab. 

She makes chairs and side tables using the kind of redwood that would be rejected by most self-respecting furniture makers: full of sapwood, wanes, knots and voids.  The design is somewhat chunky and the workmanship is less than thorough.  I'll be lucky if they last ten years through our soggy winters. 

finished with clear linseed oil

And yet I like them.  They have a simple honesty.  They use lumber that would otherwise go to waste.  They're inexpensive.  They're local.  I like buying directly from the craftsperson.  The young woman has a simple honesty, just like the chairs.  Most important, she has a vulnerability that brings out my protective instinct.

So I asked her if she built picnic tables, and she said yes.  I ordered a round one, five feet in diameter, plus four rounded benches.  I needed them in one week.

A week later, she delivered. 

The table was massive.  Immediately I saw that it was too tall, which seemed to surprise her.  "How high should they be?" she asked.  We measured two old picnic tables on my deck, which are 30" high.  Hers was 32". 

She agreed to cut the legs down, so I got my power saw.  "Is that a hand saw?" she asked.

Clearly she had no idea how to use the worm gear Makita, and also she seemed puzzled as to how to mark the angled legs to remove two inches.  So I measured and cut the legs myself while she watched, learning.

After she left, I whacked a few nails that she'd left sticking out.  The table still looked kind of crappy, and upon study I realized that it was the massive edge that made it look like the work of an amateur.  Running my half inch rounding router bit along the edge created a much more pleasing effect.  Later, I stained it with Superdeck Red Cedar so it will shed water, at least for a while.

I bet it's the first large round table she ever made.  I bet she had to rush to meet my deadline.

She charged me about one fifth what it would have cost in a store.

I love it.

finished with oil-based stain

I spent my career hiring beginners, often teenagers, and training them.  This woman is no teen and not exactly a beginner, but I feel like I've just done it again.  Her next table will be better — and probably built in less of a rush.

Was I too soft on her?  Not by my values.  I remember when I was starting out, taking jobs I'd never tried.  How else can you grow?  Sometimes I failed.  My customers were usually kind to me even in failure.  The ones who were unkind hurt me badly.  A few more of them, and I would have quit.  Fortunately if you're straight with people, usually they're forgiving, as long as you do your best to make up for the mistakes.  In this case, the price made up for the problems.  I enjoyed my part in the process, helping to fix it up. 

Deck furniture can come with good karma.  I'll be buying more from this woman.

How to be a Fly in the Milk

An Evening in May

I'm a dinner guest among about a dozen people at a home in Palo Alto.  A house down the street is owned by, let's just say, a world-famous billionaire.  It's that kind of neighborhood. 

My hosts have lived in this home for less than a year.  It's a comfy old place with high-end conveniences tucked into a relaxed decor.  Knowing my interest in houses, the husband gives me a tour before we sit down to dinner.

I scarcely know these people, though I like them instantly.  I'm a guest because of relationships, though we're not related — it's complicated — and the hosts are gracious enough to include me as part of the package.  Among this small group are a Federal judge, two attorneys, and a Superior Court judge.

During dessert served with an exquisite French tea, the hostess notices that I'm staring at the ceiling of the dining room.  She follows my eyes.  There's a circular wave in the surface, about twelve inches in diameter, like a ripple on a pond.  It's subtle.  There's no discoloration, no crack.

I should have looked elsewhere.  I can't help it, though.  I notice these things.  And I know how to read drywall.

"What is it?" she asks. "Do you think the roof has a leak?  Do you think the ceiling is wet?"

Standing on a (lovely) chair, touching it with a finger, I say, "It's wet.  Isn't there a bathroom directly above?"

A minute later, the hostess is watching as I crawl into a space behind the shower and bath.  Parting some insulation, I place my hand between joists — and my fingers feel a puddle.  "Uh-oh," I say.

It's a huge bathroom with two sinks, a steambath/shower, and a separate Jacuzzi, all encased in elaborate marble slabs.  "Best case," I say, "it just needs recaulking."  I point to some areas of peeling sealant.  "Worst case, you need to repair or replace the Jacuzzi, which would require pulling out all this marble."

"Who do I call?" she asks.

This is exactly the kind of job that used to be my specialty: too small to interest the big contractors but too complicated for a handyman.  With my bad back, I just can't do it anymore.  Unfortunately, the only tradesmen I'm familiar with are people who lack the plumbing skills or else lack the, uh, social delicacy to work for such high-end clients.

"Well, thanks for looking," she says.

Back at the dining table, all eyes keep checking the ring on the ceiling.  "I wonder if it will collapse on me," says the Federal judge sitting directly underneath.

I whisper to my wife: "I don't think they'll ever invite me again."