My kingdom for a Plumber

The other side of the bathroom cartoon wall (see previous post) was drawn by another New Yorker cartoonist, Charles Saxon.  Time is of the essence.  This point was driven home earlier this summer when looking for a someone to install a dishwasher.  As I may have mentioned (ad nauseam), it is difficult to get a repair person to come to our little  island which is off of a bigger island.  Long line-ups for short ferry rides make our destination unattractive.  I had begun to believe installers were mythical creatures.  We finally snagged one.  I thanked him heartily and gazed adoringly for the 75 minutes he was in our kitchen.   I felt good about humanity that day.  I offered to pay him on the spot.  He demurred.  Weeks later I understood why.  The bill arrived for $485.  (The dishwasher itself only cost $475.)  We were charged $90 an hour, for labor and travel time. He was there one and a quarter hours.  Three hundred plus was for travel time.
Had I known a regular plumber could have done the job, I would have called the man who has worked on the pipes forever. 
He has the good grace to hide travel time within his bill.  Last week he fixed the leaking bathtub behind the cartoon wall.  I don't know if the kitchen ceiling is collapsing.   Best not to ask.

Summer House Blues

The above is painting done by the New Yorker cartoonist Whitney Darrow.  It has a place of honor outside a "new" , circa 1970's, bathroom that was added to the old Victorian home on Martha's Vineyard.  My father hoped the second full bath might improve rental opportunities.  (Hard to believe people weren't flocking to rent a seven bedroom house with one-and-a half bathrooms and an outdoor shower.)
 We rent out the house in the summer to cover expenses.  There is a sign directing tenants: "If all else fails, call Cindy"
This summer has been particularly fraught with house woes.   There was the explosion of the mouse population between rentals.  (We had an empty week) The house cleaner sent expressive emails with photos of the 'mouse pup'. The mice revisited while we had new tenants.  They (the tenants) apparently found this unsettling.   I don't know if the mice were bothered.
  Then, a lightning storm blew up the wireless transformer for the house.
  Then, the propane tank for the kitchen stove ran empty as the gas company neglected to fill it in May.
   My phone was ringing every other day.  Not so, the house phone on the Vineyard which did not work at all.  Most people bring cellphones.  They work pretty well at the house, as long as you hang yourself outside a second floor window in the northeast corner of the house.  Some tenants have resorted to calling from a ladder.
   Which brings me to today's woe.  The plumbing for the 'new' bathroom, which hides behind the "It's/ creature" door is leaking.  And apparently dripping with menace through the floor to the ceiling of the pantry.  The tenants who reported this have rented the house before and are not alarmed by legions of mice, mosquitoes and the occasional skunk.  But they did think we would want to know the kitchen ceiling might collapse.  They were wrong.  I don't want to know these things. 

Stymied

I've been quiet for a while.  When I was a writer, I forced myself to write everyday, just for the discipline.  For the first time in years, I'm not painting everyday.  And it's making me nervous.  I can't settle on what to paint.  I have many options.  Perhaps, too many options.  I shift through the photos, hoping something will  compel me to paint.  So far, just a chorus of wannabes.  I sketch and sketch and wallow.  My muse is clearly on vacation.  She'd best be back soon!

Memory Loss

Sometimes, I picture my brain as a primitive machine: clunky, soldered and bent.  Personal memory loss is bad enough but recently I've suffered the added insult of memory chip loss.  I took dozens of photos of Gay Head (Aquinnah, for the politically correct) that never made it to a file on my computer.  I probably formatted over them thinking I'd already transferred the images.  What I don't understand is the oddly selective power of a Sony Memory Chip. Using a recovery program from internet, I was able to restore images from Africa in 2006, and Provence in 2007. But none from Gay Head last week. I used a different program and the same images from Africa and France appeared, but none from last week.  Are the programs making value judgements about what is worthy, or is it the chip itself?

home again, home again, jiggedy jig...

Virginia has many advantages over Martha's Vineyard.  Just don't expect me to enumerate them.  This is the view from our front porch on the Vineyard.  It's my favorite spot to have breakfast, lunch and cocktails. I thank my lucky stars that my parents had the foresight to buy this house in 1953.  (It's now jointly owned by my brothers, their spouses, me and my long-suffering husband.  We rent it out in the summer or we'd never be able to afford its upkeep). The weather was so lovely I was even willing to scrape the Sisyphus stairs and porches but this year's work detail was mostly inside.  I didn't paint a lick of art but did a lot of cooking for a rotating cast of friends and family. 

I've come to share my elder brother Vance's view: there has to be some impetus to leave the Vineyard.  For us, it is the kitchen equipment.  It seems to have a life of its own.  Sometimes it vanishes, sometimes it multiplies.  How else to explain a kitchen with only one cake pan, but four instant read thermometers.  A cuisinart with four identical slicing blades but no shredding blades. I clearly remember buying a mixer recently but the only one there was the sad, vintage Black and Decker with mismatched beaters. I get very cranky cooking in this kitchen.  I know I bought cake pans last year, but one of them did a 'runner'. I had to bake my daughter's cake in pie plates.  Cake does not rise in a pie plate.
   So, if I had to give Virginia the advantage, it would be that my utensils stay put.

Father's Day

My father was an original, but doesn't every little girl think that.  The above image was taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt for People Magazine.  When it was published, in the seventies, I was surprised.  Apparently, so was my father.  Eisenstaedt had followed him for a 'day in the life'. It was my father's habit to swim in the buff.  Something I did not know, but now all of America knew.
Looking at the image now, I'm left wishing I had inherited his calves.

Dozer

This is a portrait of Dozer Packard, a dear dog who died unexpectedly last week.  No doubt, he is romping with all the good boys who go to doggie heaven.  Safe Home, Dozer....